Dorothea Alewell

Professor Dorothea Alewell is a distinguished scholar in Human Resource Management at the University of Hamburg Business School, where she holds the Chair of Business Administration, specifically Personnel Management. She has served as Dean of Studies for the University of Hamburg Business School from December 2022 to November 2025. Previously, she was Professor and Chair of Business Administration, specifically Personnel Management and Organization, at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena from 1997 to 2007.

Her academic journey began with a business administration degree from the University of Hamburg in 1988, followed by a doctoral degree summa cum laude in 1992 with her dissertation "Internal Labor Markets - An Information Economic Analysis." She completed her habilitation in 1997 with the thesis "The Financing of Company Training - Economic and Legal Aspects," for which she received the Wolfgang-Ritter-Price in 2000.

Professor Alewell's research focuses on Human Resource Management, Personnel Economics, Workplace Spirituality, Labor Market Economics, Organizational Behavior, and Work-Life Balance. Her work spans theoretical and empirical investigations into how organizations manage human capital, with particular attention to spiritual and religious dimensions in the workplace, gender dynamics in management careers, and evolving work arrangements in the digital age. She has made significant contributions to understanding how spirituality affects job satisfaction, how gender stereotypes impact career success, and how workplace location arrangements (including remote work) affect cost distribution between employers and employees.

Her research shows a clear evolution toward examining the intersection of spirituality, religion, and workplace dynamics, particularly in the German context. Recent publications increasingly address how spiritual and religious dimensions influence organizational behavior, employee attitudes, and human resource management practices. She has also maintained a strong focus on traditional HRM topics like gender diversity in management and workplace flexibility.

• Wolfgang-Ritter-Preis 2000 for her habilitation thesis

Professor Alewell has mentored numerous doctoral students and has been actively involved in academic administration. She has served as Program Director for the M.Sc. Business Administration program (2008-2019), Examination Board Chair (2009-2019), and member of various faculty councils. She has also contributed extensively to academic journals as an editorial board member for publications including the German Journal of Human Resource Management, Industrielle Beziehungen, and Evidence Based Human Resource Management.

She leads a research team including research assistants Anna Wagner and Elnaz Karamad, and has established the research consortium "Standards Guter Arbeit" (Standards of Good Work), which brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on workplace quality and employee well-being.