Professorship of Accounting & Innovation
We explore the impact of accounting and controlling mechanisms on resilience and innovation as well as complex phenomena such as digitalization, talent development, equity, sustainability, and related global challenges.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Klein
Head of the Professorship of Accounting & Innovation
E-Mail: aleksandra.klein (at) uni-sustainability.at
Aleksandra Klein is Professor of Accounting & Innovation at the University of Sustainability – Charlotte Fresenius Private University. She is also a Research Fellow/Affiliate at Vlerick Business School, KU Leuven, and Arizona State University. Before joining the University of Sustainability, she was Assistant Professor of Management Accounting at Vlerick Business School, where she co-directed the Center for Financial Leadership and Digital Transformation. She completed her doctoral studies and habilitation at the Institute of Strategy & Managerial Accounting at WU Vienna (with a research stay at IESE Barcelona and a temporary research and teaching position at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga). Prior to her academic career, Dr. Klein worked as a consultant at Deutsche Bank Inhouse Consulting and The Grameen Creative Lab, where she gained important practical experience that she now brings to her research and teaching.
In her research, she investigates the performative effects of accounting and control practices, particularly with regard to their relationship to (financial) resilience and innovation. She applies her expertise to complex and emerging phenomena facing modern organizations, such as digitalization, talent development, equity and sustainability, and related global challenges. Dr. Klein is interested in studying unconventional settings such as creative and innovative contexts, emerging growth companies, family businesses and research projects.
Her work has been published in several prestigious academic journals, including The Accounting Review, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and Journal of Business Research, and professional media outlets, such as Harvard Business Review. In her research projects, she collaborates with several well-known research institutions and organizations worldwide. She has taught at various European business schools and has won several teaching and research awards.
Selected Publications
- Team structural control and team resilience: An empirical study of creative project-based teams. Klein, A. (2025). Journal of Business Research, 186, 115002.
- Managing the trade-off between autonomy and task interdependence in creative teams: The role of organizational-level cultural control. Grabner, I., Klein, A., & Speckbacher, G. (2022). Accounting, Organizations and Society, 101, 101347.
- Does using accounting data in performance evaluations spoil team creativity? The role of leadership behavior. Klein, A., & Speckbacher, G. (2020). The Accounting Review, 95(4), 313-330.
Research
Our research focuses on design and implementation of accounting and control mechanisms and their performative effects in the context of modern organizations and related environmental, societal and technological challenges.
In our theory-based empirical research, we mainly apply quantitative methods. We draw on a variety of data sources, ranging from primary survey-based approaches to conventional publicly available and company-internal archival data to textual data gathered through modern data collection approaches. In our projects, we work together with internationally renowned research institutions as well as with partners from practice.
The topics of our research projects include:
- The role of accounting and control tools in creative and innovative contexts
- Performance management systems for fair and inclusive workplace conditions
- Design and implementation of management control systems and control mechanisms in teams
- Digitalization of the finance function in organizations
