If you become a scientist, then your daily work consists not only of laboratory work, research, surveys and the like - not only of research. It also involves standing in front of a large number of students in the lecture hall and inspiring them with enthusiasm for one's own field of science. The ideal case is clear: research and teaching should be intertwined, but is that the case? One of our lecturers who seems to succeed in this is Prof. Schlägel. The economist is one of the 2022 teaching award winners. He was honored, among other things, for his research- and practice-oriented teaching. In the podcast, he talks about how research and teaching are compatible, what good teaching must have and what motivates him.

Today‘s guest

Prof. Christopher Schlägel is Professor of Behavioral International Management, but the focus of his research is not only on International Management and International Business. He also deals with International Entrepreneurship or International Marketing. As a lecturer, he holds lectures, gives seminars and also supervises scientific projects, i.e. scientific projects in which students deal with current research questions. He received the 2022 Teaching Award for his research- and practice-oriented teaching.

*the audio file is only available in German

The Podcast to read

Intro voice: Listening in on University. The podcast on the world of work, at OVGU.

Lisa Baaske: Buy coffee on campus or brew it yourself?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Both. But the coffee at both Christian's coffee bar and Primo tastes much better, of course. At least than the one I brew.

Lisa Baaske: The early bird catches the worm or ask me from 12:00?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Something in between. I think in the week rather earlier, because then I also create more in the morning, on the weekend also like to sleep a little longer, but rather at nine than at twelve.

Lisa Baaske: My first order of business after work....

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Turn the music up really loud in the car.

Lisa Baaske: And then what do you hear?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Mixed.

Lisa Baaske: When you become a scientist, your everyday work is not just laboratory work or research, surveys and the like. It also involves standing in front of a large number of students in the lecture hall and getting them excited about one's own field of science. So the ideal case is clear: research and teaching should be intertwined. But is that the case? One of our lecturers who seems to succeed in this is Professor Schlägel. The economist is one of the 2022 award winners and was honored, among other things, for his research- and practice-oriented teaching.

My name is Lisa Baaske, I work at the university's press office, and today we're going to talk about how research and teaching are compatible, what good teaching must have, and what motivates him.

A warm welcome to you all!

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Yes, thank you very much for the invitation.

Lisa Baaske: Do you have a personal preference? Do you prefer research or teaching?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I think that also alternates a bit over the year, now quite honestly at the end of the semester I'm also quite happy when I can take care of the research projects again. Just as much as I look forward to the new seminars, the new projects and lectures at the beginning of the semester.

I enjoy both very much.

Lisa Baaske: What is the biggest difference between the two areas? So what appeals to you about research and what about teaching?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I think the first moment when I really thought to myself, man, actually working at the university is a cool job, was in one of the first lectures back then here in lecture hall 5 in Magdeburg. I think it was economic accounting with Guido Henkel, who still works in the dean's office in Magdeburg or at the faculty, and where I thought, man, that's actually a pretty cool job, maybe I have a bit of a family background.

My father is a teacher for biology and chemistry and even as a little boy, I often sat in class, even before I went to school myself, and I always found it exciting how he taught the students something, especially in chemistry, with experiments and so on. And I also found this research aspect exciting even as a child.

So for me, the biggest difference in the two areas is that, at least for me personally, I see the results in teaching much faster than in the research area. A research project actually takes at least two or three years from data collection to publication. If you calculate it in pure time units, maybe 8 to 12 months, if you could really work on it full time all day.

And the results, they kind of come in bits and pieces. You set up the study, you conduct it, you look at the data, and in the best case scenario, the data or the results look halfway like what you had formulated in the hypotheses. And then you get excited and then you kind of put it down on paper.

You submit it to a conference, then it sits there for two or three months, then it is accepted, in the best case. Then you get a little bit excited again. Then you submit it to the journal and in the best case it makes it through the first round and the second and the third. And that's so many little things, but they drag on for a very long time.

And when you work with the students, it often becomes apparent, for example, in the seminars or also in the final theses, when you are close to the action, the results show up very, very quickly. And that's a very, very nice feeling, to see these results of your own work more quickly.

Lisa Baaske: I understand. Also very exciting that you yourself were a student here and you discovered the love for the profession yourself, so to speak. I was at a lecture, by the way, where I probably wouldn't have discovered the love for it that way, but very exciting. Do you think that research is more recognized and more popular than teaching?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I probably shouldn't say what I'm about to say, but you really only have to look at how the prize money is endowed when you look at the research and the teaching prize at the university and whether you have speaking time at the award ceremony, for example, or not. And there are already differences. And that's not just the case here, it's generally the case that of course research is much more in the spotlight. Whether that is justified or unjustified is something that everyone has to decide for themselves, or there are of course very different perspectives.

But it is true that teaching often takes a back seat.

Lisa Baaske: What kind of research do you do yourself and what kind of events do you give as a lecturer?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I myself am relatively broadly positioned in research. That means that I am the professor for Behavioral International Management, which is the focus of research, but not only in the area of international management and international business. It also goes into the area of international entrepreneurship, i.e. international business start-ups or international marketing, international strategy. But that also helps me in teaching and, for example, in supervising final theses, simply to be more broadly positioned in terms of the topics, and also to provide more opportunities to discuss them with the students. Where do you see yourself later in your job? That, if possible, you can also set up the thesis in this direction? But of course there are also points or points of contact to the research of the chair. At the moment, a lot of the research revolves around intercultural competence, that is, how do individuals develop intercultural competence? What effect does intercultural competence have? How can intercultural competence be measured and conceptualized at all?

Lisa Baaske: And then what kind of lecture did you give this semester, for example?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: In the lectures, it's also just an alternation between more general lectures, i.e. International Corporate Strategy, i.e. more the strategy area, the company is more in the foreground, whereby I try to actually give the students in almost every lecture. It's not the company that makes the decisions, it's the individuals within the company, the people who make the decisions.

And that is why there is always this behavioral component. That's why we also offer Behavioral International Management. And we offer these lectures in the winter, in the summer it's Crosscultural Management, where the focus is on the individual above all else. The differences and similarities between cultures and the extent to which these influence the management tools that are used on a daily basis to manage the company.

In addition, we have so-called scientific projects at the faculty, i.e. scientific projects in which the students deal with very current research questions. From my point of view, that really is the front line of research. In other words, we are dealing with topics that do not exist in the literature. For the most part, it's an evidence-based approach. That is, students use meta-analytic statistical techniques to summarize existing studies in an area.

Last semester, for example, this was the question of how corporate takeovers affect the employees in the company. But there are 70, 80, 90 quantitative empirical studies, but no such meta-analytical overview study. And then different teams, different variables and different outcomes of these mergers and acquisitions have been investigated. In the final theses, we often use this knowledge. That means that once the students have learned this method of using a meta-analysis, we look together to see in which area you see yourself, in which area you would like to apply, and whether there is perhaps a topic in this area at the moment that is ripe for a meta-analysis, so to speak. Are there enough studies there? Is that an exciting research question to look at? Where do these different effects, the mixed effects that you often see in the literature, actually come from?

Just yesterday, for example, in the International Corporate Strategy lecture, I was able to use the results of a Master's study from the summer, where a student looked at how psychological distance affects the internationalization process, i.e. on the selection of the country, on which form of organization to take, for example whether joint venture or acquisition, on performance, and these results simply do not yet exist or were not yet available in the literature. And so, for example, we were able to use these results from such a master study in a lecture.

Lisa Baaske: It's also nice when you do research on it yourself as a student, become practical yourself, and then what you've done really makes sense. Very, very cool. Did you ever have the feeling that you had to choose between teaching and research? Or do both go equally well?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Quite honestly, I think over all the years that I've been working at a university, which is now, I think, just under 18, 19 years. It's a question that comes up quite often. Because when you make the decision to stay at the university or when you plan to stay at the university and go in the direction of a professorship, that's above all what you're measured against.

First and foremost, the research output. That is, what publications do you have, what third-party funding do you have. And of course, teaching plays a role in this application process, and in many appointment contracts you also have to give a teaching lecture. Teaching evaluations are also important, and a teaching award is always important on a CV. But it is first and foremost the research that is counted, that is weighed, and based on which one is evaluated, whether for example for a junior professorship or also now for a tenure-track professorship.

And then, of course, you're faced with the question: What do I invest the time in? Do I revise the lecture or do I start a new research project? And I have been told more than once over the years, especially during my time in the Netherlands, during the five years I worked in the Netherlands, my supervisor in Maastricht as well as in Groningen often said: "You invest far too much time in the bachelor's and final theses and also in the master's theses or in the seminars. Cut all that down. Don't give so much feedback. Give short feedback by WhatsApp message or something, don't do it in writing anymore, rather write one paper more."

And that is of course also an inner struggle, because especially if you enjoy both or if you see that at the end of the day you are a university lecturer. So teaching is already an essential part of the professorship and therefore it is also important to divide the time well, also from a social perspective, that everything that we see here right now, during these podcast recordings, everything that we use, is at the end of the day, paid by the taxpayer.

And that's why both teaching and research should have a social relevance. And for me and for many others, this also means constantly improving teaching, adapting teaching, adapting courses to changing circumstances, which we have noticed in particular in the last two or three years during the pandemic.

Lisa Baaske: Apparently, the students are very grateful to you for investing your time, of course. After all, they have thanked you with the teaching award and have nominated you. But that also means that the students are very happy with your teaching. So why are you so involved in this area?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Personally, I really enjoy working with the students on a project, especially in the smaller groups or in the supervision of final theses. It's really important for me, even if you sometimes have bad days, maybe you're a little tired, a little groggy or something, but nevertheless, I really enjoy going to these meetings and I'm totally excited: What is the result now?

If someone has just done the data collection and you look at the results after the first statistics, that's totally exciting for me and I then see that perhaps they are more like peers or that it's actually at eye level, because I never really stop learning. I take something with me from every project, both from the supervision of the final theses and now from the Scientific Project, because questions always come up. If I can simply say now, after more than ten years in this area of meta-analyses, I am of the opinion that I know my way around quite well. Questions just keep coming up where I have to say: I'm sorry, I don't know, I'll have to look it up, I can tell you next time or, for example, I'll write it in the forum or share it with you in the next e-mail and learn something new every time.

What I find really fascinating is the development over a longer period of time. For example, I found it totally exciting, especially during my time as a junior professor in Magdeburg, I was able to supervise some students over the five years. Over two seminars in the bachelor's degree, the final thesis in the bachelor's degree, two seminars in the master's degree and the final thesis in the master's degree and what the students put down over time, then in such a final thesis. For me, it was sometimes really breathtaking, and especially sometimes when you didn't expect it to be like that. When a student applies for a seminar, for example, or applies for a thesis, you can see the grades. You also see the grades in the major courses, and even if they are not always excellent or very good or sometimes not even good, you sometimes think a little bit at the beginning: Well, let's see how good it will be. Just to see how the students realize their full potential over several courses and get better and better and better. It's really a great experience and that's what motivates me again and again. So maybe investing more time than maybe putting that time into research.

Lisa Baaske: What does good teaching look like to you?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: When I think about the lecture, for me good teaching is characterized by the fact that, on the one hand, you give the students a certain structure, which means both within the lecture that it is well structured, that, for example, you start with. What are the main questions for today? What do we want to clarify?

What are the learning objectives and learning outcomes? But also that you give the students a relatively clear plan right from the start of the semester and tell them right from the start: So what can you expect in the next 14 weeks? What topics will be covered during these 14 weeks? And that you also show the practical relevance, if possible, every week, because of course there are very theoretical parts of a lecture, in order to first of all make the theoretical basics clear, but then also to show, based on current events in the corporate world, that these theories have a very important practical relevance.

Lisa Baaske: In such a seminar or lecture, many different students come together, with different prerequisites, expectations, and characters. And as an international university, we also have students of different nationalities. How do you manage to create a good course for everyone?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I'm not entirely sure that I always succeed very well. But it's sometimes quite difficult to really get everyone on board. Quite simply because the heterogeneity of the students, at least in the lectures I supervise, is incredibly high. For example, in Crossculture Management there are about 150 students from over 40 countries, and I am then simply limited to a certain extent in the examples that I can give, based on my experience, and I try to cover as many regions of the world as possible in order to pick up as many students as possible from these different countries.

But I do not succeed in every case. For example, I have relatively little experience, for example, when it comes to South America or Africa. Rather more experience when it comes to Asia and therefore many of my personal examples, which I have also experienced myself, then tend to come from these regions and partly at least that is something that shows with the teaching evaluation or now and then shows the comment of students who come from these regions that they do not feel accepted or were a bit neglected.

I try to compensate for this by looking specifically for company examples or in the company news, then in these regions, in order to create a bit of a balance. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work. You can see here in the podcast, for example, that it's not that easy, because with the large number of international students, we would actually have to record the podcast in English as well.

Lisa Baaske: Yes, that is correct. Yes, the topic of internationality and English, that always occupies us a lot, too, in any case. Yes, definitely. But we will have the podcast translated into English at the end of the show, so at least we have that solved there. Yes, as you said at the beginning, you already mentioned that teaching and research should also be intertwined, that you also have projects.

What has been your experience? Is that really the case? Does it work?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I just started last week to think about the bachelor topics for the next semester or even already put them on paper. And there is, for example, one topic area that I am very interested in, but for years, none of the students wanted to deal with it. That is, for example, that the age of the data that is actually used in international management and international business research. Because based on the meta-analyses that I do like that, it's not that the data is only like three, four years old, but in some cases much, much older.

That means 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 years, depending on which area you look at in research. That means that many of the research results, at least in the area of international business/ international management, but I'm pretty sure also in other areas of business administration, are based on relatively old data. And these old data were collected or also these research projects were conducted in times where the environment was very different, where the influencing factors on the companies were different. And therefore it is sometimes questionable to what extent we can draw implications for research and practice from these old data. And in the research for this topic in my field, I did not find any research papers. That's why I find it so exciting. But in medicine, this has been dealt with more and a few studies show that it takes about 7 to 8 years until the research results really find their way into textbooks or teaching.

That's a very, very rough definition, and you can't generalize it in any case. Many chairs will implement this in their teaching much more quickly if they have new research results. But you can see that there is still quite a difference, or apparently there is, and that's why I think it's very, very important to perhaps push it even more strongly so that the latest research results find their way into teaching.

I am sure, or I also see this with very many colleagues with whom I also and perhaps also privately simply talk more or where one is more in contact, that most of them really try. But both in the research itself, that the data are sometimes really a bit older than they should be, as well as the step from research into teaching.

This can probably be done much better and more up to date here and there.

Lisa Baaske: The next question might be a bit tricky. If you were a student here, do you remember any lectures during your time at university that you yourself didn't like at all or that you particularly appreciated in a positive way?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: I thought Karl-Heinz Paqué's lectures on economics were great. I myself come more from the field of business administration. With him, every sentence was to the point, both in terms of content and language. And perhaps because I so often have word-finding problems or the sentence doesn't end as it should, I found that totally admirable, but also in terms of content.

For example, he also gave a lecture with a historical background and how you can learn from this history, so to speak, for current events. And especially in the current environment or macroeconomic environment, that's just very exciting and I found that incredibly motivating, right? So really as a kind of role model, how such a lecture can look like.

But there were also lectures where you had to take a lot of notes. And even if you took notes yourself and your fingers really hurt afterwards, you still had to sit down with three or four people to really put the entire content of the lecture down on paper, so to speak. That was very exhausting at that point.

I'm not quite sure if that wasn't the thing that stuck with me the longest at the end of the day. But those were the most exhausting lectures. I can't remember any lectures that I didn't like at all. That was more at the beginning of my studies. Lectures that didn't scare me off, but where I quickly got into business administration, especially the introduction to business administration. At that time, where the lecturer went so quickly into the subject matter and so deeply into the subject matter that within 14 days I felt left behind. And that was a bit frustrating. I was honestly at the point where I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue my studies.

And it's actually thanks to a very good friend of mine that I'm actually sitting here now, because he had already dropped out of his studies at the time and then said that sometimes you just have to finish things. Yes, and then I just tried to do that as well as I could. By the way, I didn't pass the lecture, so I had to do it again.

Lisa Baaske: But you've obviously made it, and very far indeed. Hand on heart, have you ever fallen asleep during a lecture as a student?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: No, so at the university? No.

So I still belong to the generation, that's how you can tell how old I am and who still had to join the German Armed Forces or where that was the easier way. In the army, I very often fell asleep in the lessons that were given. Because of the lack of sleep and also in any position - standing, sitting. So that, yes.

Lisa Baaske: Have you ever seen someone fall asleep in class with you?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Um, I'm pretty sure that yes, because for many years now the comment has been made in evaluations that I tend to speak in a monotone. That's also really the case that when I have to concentrate more, that I then really speak somewhat monotonously. I'm trying to change that and I'm trying to be a little more euphoric in the bigger courses.

So I think I succeed quite well in the seminars or also in the scientific projects. In the large lectures, I still have to work on myself. I'm pretty sure that someone has fallen asleep there before.

Lisa Baaske: Do you then have the feeling that teaching is changing? We have now experienced some Corona semesters that have required digital solutions, for example, something that is also useful now and can be used?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Just yesterday, or over the entire semester, this is actually a question that's been bothering me a lot, because we're in the big sessions, meaning 100, 150, 200 students are actually registered for the final exam. Honestly, there are 20 to 30 sitting in the lecture hall right now and that's very sobering, you could also say frustrating. And we haven't found a good solution for it yet, even as a department.

Why is that?

That's just the way it is, because we also offer the lecture virtually live as a video via Zoom and we also record it and make the video available afterwards. Apparently, the majority of students take advantage of this. But that was not really the idea behind it. As I said, we have a lot of international students and until now there have been problems for the Chinese students, for example, to be in Magdeburg in a timely manner.

And this year in particular, Pakistani students are having a lot of problems getting visas. That means we also have a relatively large number of students who simply don't make it to Magdeburg in time for the start of the semester. And then, after these two years of experience, it's easy for us to record the video or to put the video live.

But then a lot of students also use it to not come to the lecture hall at all. And that was actually not our idea behind it, but actually our idea behind it is that we actually want to enable every student to learn at his or her own speed and, for example, to watch the video again, to watch certain parts of the video again in order to be able to take notes in peace or to make additions to the notes again.

Or also, as some students have explained to me, that when I talk in such a monotone, then it is totally super that you can set me to 1.25 at the speed and that is then not quite so boring and not quite so monotone when I talk. But that leads to the lecture hall being empty. And that's not good, because I'm trying. And maybe also as a supplement: What makes for good teaching?

Of course, I also try to keep it as interactive as possible, and not just to sound off my audience for 90 minutes and ask questions, interact, or even discuss in the best case scenario. And even yesterday I must have asked questions five or six times to the participants and nothing came back. And that's not fun.

And we're thinking about how we're going to do that in the next few semesters. I don't really want to go back there. I think it's actually a good thing, also with the video recordings. But if the students use it the way they do now, I don't know if we can really do that in the future.

With the students also an essential part is actually lost. In the teaching, to interact with the lecturers in the courses, to ask questions, also to discuss examples, in order to not simply have the theory, but also to be able to offer this theory immediately in the lecture, if possible. Even in these relatively large courses.

Lisa Baaske: Yes, that's nice that you're making that available. But I can also imagine that. I think that would have helped me a lot as a student. But of course it's a shame when you're sitting in front of an empty lecture hall. Perhaps a suitable solution can be found. What has been the best experience of your time as a lecturer so far?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: The most beautiful experiences are really that you still have contact with former students or graduates over many years. And not just through the alumni associations, but also on a personal level or when you can still welcome graduates as guest speakers in lectures, for example, even after many years. Another important component, I think, is to relate teaching to practice through guest lectures. For example, I remember a student whom I supervised in Magdeburg during his master's thesis, both in Magdeburg and in a double degree program. I think that was in Australia. He then went on to many different positions in the field of management consulting or auditing, across several countries and several companies, and repeatedly gave guest lectures both in Magdeburg and then later in the Netherlands.

And I also hope that he'll come by again now and then, and it's just fun to maintain this contact and also to see where people are going, what path they're taking.

And of course also when you sometimes get feedback after several years: "Gee, thanks again for the uncomplicated way you supervised the thesis together with a company or something. That was really my introduction to the company or the working world. And that made it a lot easier."

And those are really nice moments. They are rare, because at some point it just gets lost. But once a year or so, when that happens, it's really something that motivates me for a long time and gives me another push, so to speak.

And where you say to yourself, man, the hours that you invest in the revision of the things are just not in vain, because often the feedback of the students is unfortunately non-existent, so at least with us at the faculty. But this is not a problem of the faculty, I have also seen in the Netherlands, Groningen and Maastricht, that the students unfortunately participate far too little in the evaluations.

And if you have rates of 10, 20, 30 percent of feedback from the students, then that is very little and the students should use it much more. So not only quantitative feedback in the sense of "this is how I rate this lecture now" on a grading scale, but also qualitative feedback, i.e. really using the comment fields to say, this is something that I particularly liked. That's something that can be improved. That is something that made it rather difficult for me.

Especially in the big events, you're not really close to the students. No matter how much you ask during the lecture or at the end of the lecture: How was it? Did you like it? What could be done differently? Very little comes back and the evaluations, because they are anonymous, should be used by many more students to give an impression of what works and what doesn't work so well. And what are maybe ways to make it better?

Lisa Baaske: Maybe we should use this as an appeal.

Dear students, please give feedback, then only the teaching can improve and that is very likely in the interest of many.

But then we have actually already arrived at the last question. Finally, perhaps you would like to give us a little forecast:

What would you like to achieve in research and teaching?

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: This goes hand in hand with what I've been planning for a long time and where it's simply difficult in terms of time. I would like to write a kind of textbook on meta-analyses in the field of management research. There are several excellent textbooks, but they always focus very strongly on the statistical component, but with meta-analysis it already starts with the literature search, the coding of the studies, and in many decisions that are made along the way before you can even calculate the statistics. And sometimes there are pitfalls in places where you wouldn't expect them. And since I have been offering seminars and lectures, theses in this area for more than ten years and through many questions from the students, I have been able to learn an incredible amount over time.

And it is now time for me to think that I would actually like to put this down on paper in book form. And that would be a project where I would be really, really happy if I could do that soon, because artificial intelligence in particular has an incredibly strong influence on this area. It starts with the literature search, so that there are tools that you couldn't even dream of five years ago. They make it so easy or relatively easy, if you use them correctly, to search for the right literature or to find the right studies from the literature that you have identified, which then really fit the subject matter, where your own process, in which you do it by hand, really complements the tools that are now available in artificial intelligence very well.

Lisa Baaske: Okay, then I'll keep my fingers crossed that the textbook will work out soon. It sounds super exciting in any case. That brings us to the end. Thank you very much for being there. Also, thanks to you out there for listening. If you have any suggestions, topics, requests, praise or criticism, always send them to and feel free to listen again next month. That's when we'll be back with a new episode of our science podcast.

Until then, stay healthy.

Prof. Christopher Schlägel: Thank you very much!

Outro voice: Listening in on University. The podcast on the world of work, at OVGU.