Associate Professor
University of Innsbruck - School of Management
Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism -
Marketing Group
A-6020 Innsbruck
Austria / Europe
E-Mail: andrea.hemetsberger@uibk.ac.at
I got my first degree as a teacher in home economics at the Institute for Pedagogical Studies in Innsbruck before I engaged in my studies in Business Management at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck. After a two-year project for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce I started working part-time and lecturing at the former Department of Marketing and Retailing. Since 1993 I am Assistant Professor and finished my doctorate in 1997. In 2000 I was granted a Marie-Curie fellowship from the European Commission and spent one year at the department of Marketing at Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands. After finishing my Habilitation thesis in 2006 I was visiting researcher at the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto, Kanada. In Spring 2007 I held a position as a visiting professor at the Ecole Supérieur des Economiques et Commerciales, Paris, France.
Research Focus
My research revolves around the Free Software and the Open Source movement, their motivational basis, their modes of social exchange, and the ideological core of their resisting culture. I am also interested in their knowledge sharing and creation culture, and in what way their engagement in the Free and Open Source movement contributes to their individuation process in a Jungian sense. My most recent project investigates their common creative practices and how these are dramatically altering our understanding of production, consumption, and innovation in the postindustrial economy.
One of my main research interests is in consumer devotion, passion, and fandom, and how this all relates to consumption behavior, evangelism, innovation, and ritual practices.
I am also deeply involved in research on branding and in brands as complex social phenomena, in particular.
Every once and a while I love doing quantitative studies and experiments in rather different areas, such as brand community and advertising research.