Matthias Mahlendorf

Matthias D. Mahlendorf is a Professor of Managerial Accounting. His research focuses on innovative aspects of performance management. These include the link between sustainability and economic performance, the use of novel data sources in management control, and the management accounting of AI agents. He regularly publishes in academic journals as well as in journals aimed at executives in corporate practice. A ranking on the relevance of accounting research placed him at #1 in the category of managerial accounting. His recent work on managing AI agents received a Best Paper Award presented by AICPA & CIMA in 2026. He was a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School, a visiting professor at the University of Chicago (Booth School of Business) as well as an adjunct professor at INSEAD.

Prof. Mahlendorf is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Management Accounting Research. He has published in journals such as Journal of Accounting Research, Management Science, and The Accounting Review. He is a member of the editorial board of The Accounting Review and serves as a reviewer for Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Production and Operations Management, and other journals.

Prof. Mahlendorf serves as the academic director of the Centre for Performance Management & Controlling. He founded the part-time Master of Science programme Corporate Performance & Restructuring. In the Master of Finance, he teaches the course "Restructuring & Strategic Management Control", in the Master in AI and Data Science the course "Strategy and Performance Management", and in the PhD programme the course "Performance Measurement and Incentives". He has received multiple "Best Teaching Awards".

He has designed and taught seminars for executives of major international corporations such as SAP, Bayer, Panasonic, and Henkel. In addition, he conducts collaborative research with companies, including field experiments on performance measurement and employee motivation. He regularly gives talks and keynotes on current trends in management accounting and control, most recently in particular on the opportunities and risks of AI agents.

Matthias D. Mahlendorf studied Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technical University of Dresden, the London School of Economics, and Queen Mary's University London. He received his Ph.D. from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, where he was supervised by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Weber. His dissertation on the escalation of commitment in failing projects received the Péter Horváth Management Accounting Award 2009 and the Austrian Management Accounting Award. From 2009 to 2014, he worked as an assistant professor at the Institute of Management Accounting and Control at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.