Jan Pfister

Areas of expertise * Performance measurement and management * Accounting practice in its social and organizational context * Creativity and innovation * Digitalization * Methodology

Biography Jan Pfister is an Adjunct Professor in Management Accounting and Control and a tenured Senior Lecturer at the Department of Accounting and Finance at Turku School of Economics. He is an Affiliated Researcher at the House of Innovation (HOI) as well as the Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum) at Stockholm School of Economics, and an active participant at the Berkeley Innovation Forum (BIF).

His current research focuses on a range of topics related to management control systems design and practice, and how efficiency pressures affect employee motivation, innovativeness, and performance. He is also interested in broader societal changes based on the emergence of innovative technologies, including digital platforms and ecosystems. He has been teaching at the bachelor, master, PhD, and executive levels, and supervising several PhD students.

Before joining the University of Turku, he worked at Lancaster University Management School and the University of Zurich. He has been a visiting researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Lancaster University, and at Stockholm School of Economics, holds a Docentship at the University of Jyväskylä, and obtained a Doctorate from the University of Zurich. His dissertation was published as a book by Springer, entailed a paper that won a Best Paper Award at the Research Ethics Symposium of the American Accounting Association, and received recognition by Financial Executives International, that disseminated a summary as Issue Alert to its worldwide members (link to book).

Teaching Accounting and control (cases, bachelor level); Lectures on qualitative research methods (master level); Exercises on qualitative research methods (master level); Advanced strategic management accounting (master level); Advanced management control systems (master level); Future studies of professions (group, master level); Executive training programs; Supervision of M.Sc. and PhD theses

Research Involved in research projects and international collaborations in the following areas: Management control systems; Performance measurement and management; Creativity and innovation; Digitalization, platforms, and ecosystems; Qualitative methodology; Field research in large innovation-driven companies