Prof. Dr. Josua Oll

Prof. Dr. Josua Oll heads the Sustainability Management Research Group at the University of Kassel since April 2026. His research focuses on sustainable strategies and business models, the management of the sustainability transformation, and sustainability reporting. Specifically, Prof. Oll’s research addresses three fundamental questions: (1) How do discontinuities in the business environment (e.g., climate change, digitalization, and the growing importance of ESG factors) affect sustainable strategies and business models? (2) Which internal factors facilitate or hinder the sustainability transformation of businesses? (3) How can sustainability reporting contribute to the internal and external steering of businesses toward sustainability objectives? Prof. Oll empirically investigates these questions with a particular focus on the financial and energy sectors as well as the IT industry, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Prof. Oll's research has been published in leading academic journals – such as Business & Society, Organization & Environment, and Organizational Research Methods – and has received multiple awards. For example, his submissions to the Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meeting in 2020 and 2023 were judged among the best papers in the program by the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) and the Strategic Management (STR) Divisions, respectively. At the AoM Annual Meetings in 2020 and 2024, he was also selected as one of the ONE Division’s best reviewers. His doctoral dissertation on “Sustainable Investment Decisions” was awarded the Dr. Walter Kapaun Study Prize in 2020.

As part of his research projects, Prof. Oll undertook research stays at the Markets, Organization, and Behavior Research Group at the University of Southern Denmark and the Group for Sustainability and Technology at ETH Zurich. Prior to his appointment at the University of Kassel, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Management Research Group at the University of Oldenburg. Previously, he was a research associate at the Chair of Capital Markets and Management at the University of Hamburg, where he completed his PhD with honors (summa cum laude) in 2019. Prof. Oll earned an MA in Sustainability Management and Economics from the University of Kassel, an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of St Andrews, and a BSc in Economics from Maastricht University. He also gained practical experience at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy and in Commerzbank’s Corporate Responsibility department.