Matta’s plans for the research program at his chair at KU include innovation processes on organizations. Furthermore, his research explores the field of consumer well-being in multiple ways: „We would like to gain a better understanding of consumer decisions which are related to consumers’ physical and financial health and thus influence their overall well-being“, explains Shashi Matta. Amongst other topics, he would like to investigate why certain consumers exhibit impulsive behavior more than others or how people can be nudged into making healthier consumer decisions which have a positive effect on their personal well-being. In the area of innovation and creativity, Shashi Matta wants to explore research questions investigating why some organizations, teams and individuals are more innovative than others. He investigates how companies can foster innovation among their employee teams and which factors maximize creativity in problem-solving.
Before joining the KU, Shashi Matta spent seventeen years in the USA, twelve years of which he spent at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University (OSU) as professor for marketing. At OSU, he was responsible for the two largest Master‘s degree programs specializing in Business Administration. Matta grew up in India and obtained his Bachelor‘s degree of Engineering at Osmania University in Hyderabad. He then successfully completed a Master‘s degree program in Business Administration at XLRI Jamshedpur, a business school founded by the Jesuits. He has worked for multiple multi-national companies in India in the areas of advertising, brand management and marketing before he moved to the USA in 2001 to pursue his doctoral studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. During his time as a professor in the United States, he provided expert advice as a consultant to many companies and non-profit organizations in the areas of strategic growth, branding, and innovation. Matta received several teaching awards for his university classes and seminars and for executive education programs.
Shashi Matta visited the KU and WFI - Ingolstadt School of Management several times in the last six years. He regularly held lectures as visiting professor at the WFI every summer semester since 2012, including as an Audi Guest Professor for two years. He has also been collaborating on research with Prof. Dr. Jens Hogreve‘s Chair for Service Management at the KU.