Christina Raasch

Prof. Dr. Christina Raasch is Professor of Digital Economy at Kühne Logistics University (KLU) and holds a joint appointment with the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). Since 2017 she has led research and teaching on how digitalization reshapes innovation processes, enterprise crowdfunding, and customer-driven disruptive innovation.

Education

• Habilitation (Dr. habil.) in Business Administration, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), 2012
• PhD in Management, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 2006
• MSc (lic. oec.) in Economics & Management, University of St. Gallen (HSG), 2002
• Visiting Researcher, MIT Sloan School of Management, 2010-2012

Research Interests

Prof. Raasch’s work centers on digital transformation of innovation. She investigates how firms leverage digital technologies—ranging from AI to crowdfunding platforms—to enhance idea generation, evaluation, and implementation. Core themes include:

• Open & User Innovation: understanding when and how users become valuable innovators inside and outside firms.
• Disruptive Innovation Dynamics: analyzing whether disruptive ideas stem from users or producers under varying environmental conditions.
• Enterprise Crowdfunding: designing decentralized decision-making systems that mitigate hierarchy-induced biases.

Publication Trends

Her 70+ publications reveal a systematic exploration of demand-side innovation. Early work modeled welfare impacts of user innovation; recent studies use large-scale field data from Siemens and other multinationals to uncover cognitive and social biases in idea evaluation. A consistent thread is bridging micro-level behavioral insights with macro-level policy and strategy implications.

Scientific Awards & Honors

• Fellow of the Open and User Innovation (OUI) Society
• Host of the 2023 OUI Conference at KLU

Research Funding & Industry Collaboration

Current grants exceed €2 million and include:

• FabCity-Citizen Extension (2025-2026) – decentralized urban innovation funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
• EvaluationShirking (2024-2026) – idea evaluation biases in collaboration with a global industrial manufacturer.
• Idea Evaluation in Democratized Innovation (2019-2023) – DFG-funded project on enterprise crowdfunding design.

Labs, Teams & Knowledge Transfer

Prof. Raasch leads the Open & User Innovation Research Group at KLU, supervising doctoral researchers and managing industry partnerships with firms in automotive, high-tech, and logistics sectors. She regularly contributes to policy panels and media outlets such as Harvard Business Manager and Springer Professional.