Dr. Kurt Alexander Ackermann

Work at ZHAW

Position

Head Center for Consumer Behavior, Lecturer & Program Director 'CAS Behavioral Insights for Marketing'

Focus

Behavioral Economics, Psychology, Decision Theory, Game Theory

Teaching

BSc, MSc, CAS & MAS

Experience

• Consultant
  FehrAdvice & Partners
  06 / 2015 - 10 / 2016
• Research Associate
  ETH Zurich
  01 / 2010 - 05 / 2015
• Lecturer
  University of Graz
  10 / 2014 - 10 / 2014
• Intern
  Institute for Work Research and Organizational Consulting (iafob)
  06 / 2008 - 10 / 2008

Education and Continuing education

Education

• Dr. sc. ETH / Decision Theory & Behavioral Game Theory
  Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
  01 / 2010 - 12 / 2014
• MSc UZH / Psychology
  University of Zurich
  01 / 2003 - 12 / 2009

Continuing Education

CAS Higher and Professional Education
ZHAW School of Management and Law
09 / 2018

Network

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1156-3880

Awards

• ACM CHI Honorable Mention Award
  ACM SIGCHI 2020
  04 / 2020
• Best Project Award ZHAW SML
  ZHAW School of Management and Law
  06 / 2019
• ETH medal for outstanding dissertations
  ETH Zurich
  11 / 2015
• Anatol-Rapoport-Preis 2014
  Sektion "Modellbildung und Simulation"​ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie
  10 / 2014

Projects

• Behavioral Design Thinking Workshop / Project leader / ongoing
• The effect of fear appeals on online privacy protection behavior / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Effect and Perception of Green Patterns in the Energy Sector / Team member / completed
• Behavioral Economics Inhouse-Training / Project leader / completed
• Inhouse-Training "Behavioral Economics & Nudging" / Project leader / completed
• Green Patterns / Team member / completed
• Virtualizing sales staff for online shopping: Transferring the offline shopping experience into the digital world / Project leader / completed
• Usable Privacy: Contextual privacy notices for app users / Deputy project leader / completed
• NeuroArcher – Towards the development of an AI-based application for automated customer-specific communication informed by neuromarketing and personality psychology / Project leader / completed
• User-Centric Privacy Policy: A GDPR-Compliant Policy Which Users Understand / Team member / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Ackermann, K. A., Furchheim, P., Bächler, J. R., Heim, N., & Lenggenhager, V. N. (2025). Personality ASPECTS : a novel psychographic model and scale integrating traits, values, and motives for psychological targeting. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 25(1), 212–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.70051
• Altwicker-Hámori, S., Ackermann, K. A., Furchheim, P., Dratva, J., Truninger, D., Müller, S., & Wieber, F. (2024). Risk factors for smoking in adolescence : evidence from a cross-sectional survey in Switzerland. BMC Public Health, 24(1), 1165. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18695-4
• Bernold, E., Gsottbauer, E., Ackermann, K. A., & Murphy, R. O. (2023). Accounting for preferences and beliefs in social framing effects. Frontiers in Behavioral Economics, 2(1147492). https://doi.org/10.3389/frbhe.2023.1147492
• Ebert, N., Ackermann, K. A., & Bearth, A. (2022). When information security depends on font size : how the saliency of warnings affects protection behavior. Journal of Risk Research, 26(3), 233–255. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2022.2142952
• Ackermann, K. A., Burkhalter, L., Mildenberger, T., Frey, M., & Bearth, A. (2021). Willingness to share data : contextual determinants of consumers’ decisions to share private data with companies. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 21(2), 375–386. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.2012
• Fleiß, J., Ackermann, K. A., Fleiß, E., Murphy, R. O., & Posch, A. (2019). Social and environmental preferences : measuring how people make tradeoffs among themselves, others, and collective goods. Central European Journal of Operations Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-019-00619-y
• Ackermann, K. A., & Murphy, R. O. (2019). Explaining cooperative behavior in public goods games : how preferences and beliefs affect contribution levels. Games, 10(1), 15–48. https://doi.org/10.3390/g10010015
• Greiff, M., Ackermann, K., & Murphy, R. (2018). Playing a game or making a decision? : methodological issues in the measurement of distributional preferences. Games, 9(4), 80–104. https://doi.org/10.3390/g9040080
• Nax, H. H., Murphy, R. O., & Ackermann, K. A. (2015). Interactive preferences. Economics Letters, 135, 133–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2015.08.008
• Murphy, R. O., & Ackermann, K. A. (2015). Social preferences, positive expectations, and trust based cooperation. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 67, 45–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2015.06.001
• Ackermann, K. A., Fleiss, J., & Murphy, R. (2014). Reciprocity as an individual difference. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 60(2), 340–367. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002714541854

Books, peer-reviewed

Ackermann, K. A. (2014). Social value orientation : an analysis of measurement, form, predictive power, and malleability of social preferences [Doctoral dissertation, ETH Zürich]. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-a-010273775

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

• Klaas, M., Ackermann, K. A., & Fleiss, J. (2019). Big Data im Marketing. In S. Bergner, J. Fleiss, & A. Gutschelhofer (eds.), Wandel gestalten : Beiträge der Managementforschung zu Herausforderungen der Unternehmensführung (pp. 211–227). Leykam.
• Ackermann, K. A., & Fleiss, J. (2019). Der praktische Einsatz verhaltensökonomischer Massnahmen in der betrieblichen Gesundheitsförderung am Beispiel von Nudging. In S. Bergner, J. Fleiss, & A. Gutschelhofer (eds.), Wandel gestalten : Beiträge der Managementforschung zu Herausforderungen der Unternehmensführung (pp. 265–277). Leykam.
• Ackermann, K. A., & Furchheim, P. (2018). Emotionen und deren Bedeutung für das Marketing : eine Einführung. In B. Rüeger, F. Hannich, R. Fuchs, S. Müller, M. Klaas, & A. Suvada (eds.), Emotionalisierung im digitalen Marketing : erfolgreiche Methoden für die Marketingpraxis (pp. 11–26). Schäffer-Poeschel.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Schaltegger, T., Ambuehl, B., Ackermann, K. A., & Ebert, N. (2024). Re-thinking decision-making in cybersecurity : leveraging cognitive heuristics in situations of uncertainty [Conference paper]. Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 4734–4743. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-30548
• Ebert, N., Scheppler, B., Ackermann, K. A., & Geppert, T. (2023). QButterfly : lightweight survey extension for online user interaction studies for non-tech-savvy researchers [Conference paper]. CHI ’23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 161. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580780
• Werle, R., Tieben, R., Klingel, P., Rothen, A., Fleischli, L., Pyatova, V., West, S., Ackermann, K., & Phillips, R. (2021). A decision-making tool incorporating multiple benefits of motor systems’ retrofits [Conference paper]. In P. Bertoldi (Ed.), Energy Efficiency in Motor Systems : Proceedings of the 11th international Conference EEMODS’19 (pp. 215–229). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69799-0_17
• Ebert, N., Ackermann, K. A., & Scheppler, B. (2021). Bolder is better : raising user awareness through salient and concise privacy notices [Conference paper]. CHI ’21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 67. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445516
• Ebert, N., Ackermann, K. A., & Heinrich, P. (2020). Does context in privacy communication really matter? : a survey on consumer concerns and preferences [Conference paper]. CHI ’20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 448. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376575

Other publications

• Ackermann, K. A., Heim, N., Collenberg, A., Lenggenhager, V. N., Müller, S., & Furchheim, P. (2020). Swiss Behavioral Econmics Studie : der Einsatz von Verhaltensökonomie in Schweizer Unternehmen - Fokus Marketing. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-20571
• Rüeger, B., Gehring, B., Ackermann, K. A., & Miesler, L. (2018). Willing to share? When it comes to data, who will share what and why? Research Features, 125, 98–101. https://cdn2.researchfeatures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Willing-to-share.-When-it-comes-to-data-who-will-share-what-and-why.pdf
• Murphy, R. O., & Ackermann, K. A. (2013). Social value orientation : theoretical and measurement issues in the study of social preferences. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(1), 13–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313501745

Oral conference contributions and abstracts

• Wieber, F., Müller, S., Ackermann, K., Furchheim, P., Zysset, A., Meyer, M., & Dratva, J. (2023). Segmentation analyses as an effective tool to improve tobacco prevention and cessation [Conference presentation]. European Journal of Public Health, 33(Supplement_2), ii582–ii583. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad160.1461
• Wieber, F., Müller, S., Ackermann, K. A., & Furchheim, P. (2023, September 12). One size doesn`t fit all : segmentation and tailoring in health promotion and prevention, the case of Tobacco Prevention. Swiss Public Health Conference, Lausanne, Switzerland, 12.-13. September 2023.

Publications before appointment at the ZHAW

• Ackermann, K.A. (2014). Social Value Orientation: An analysis of measurement, form, predictive power, and malleability of social preferences. Doctoral Dissertation, ETH Zurich.
• Ackermann, K.A., Fleiß, J. & Murphy, R.O. (2016). Reciprocity as an individual difference. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 60(2), 340-367.
• Nax, H.H., Murphy, R.O. &, Ackermann, K.A. (2015). Interactive preferences. Economic Letters, 135, 133-136.
• Murphy, R.O. & Ackermann, K.A. (2015). Social preferences, positive expectations, and trust based cooperation. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 67, 45-50.
• Murphy, R.O. & Ackermann, K.A. (2014). Social value orientation: Theoretical and measurement issues in the study of social preferences. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(1), 13-41.
• Murphy, R.O., Ackermann, K.A. & Handgraaf, M.J.J. (2011). Measuring social value orientation. Judgment and Decision Making, 6(8), 771-781.

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