Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Horst Steinmann, born 17 July 1934 in Bad Salzuflen, Lippe, graduated in 1962 at the TU Clausthal where he also habilitated five years later. Moreover, he obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration with highest distinction at the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in 1965. In 1968, he became Chair of Operations Research at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 1970, he left for the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg where he took over the Chair of Management.
During his time at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, he received several offerings from various universities (Paderborn, Darmstadt, Freie Universität Berlin) but turned down all of them. Furthermore, he was conferred honorary doctorates by the Department of Economics at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 1996 and the Robert Schumann University in Strasbourg, France, in 1999 for his widely noticed work in the field of Management and particularly in the field of Business Ethics. A large number of his graduate students, doctoral students, and post-doctoral students have become renowned researchers or practitioners.
Besides his appointment as university professor, he founded the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) in 1986 and the German Business Ethics Network (DNWE) in 1993, whose president he was until 2000. Furthermore, he is a member of the US-based Academy of Management and Society for Business Ethics as well as of the German Academic Association for Business Research. He also officiated as deputy chairman for the latter from 1979 to 1980.
His research focus lies on the fields of Operations Research, Corporate Governance, Human Resource Management, Strategic Planning and Control, Organizational Theory, Business Ethics and Economic Theory. He continues to hold lectures and write articles. He published 300 papers and 25 books as a (co-)author or (co-)editor, respectively, many of which have been translated into Polish, Czech, Japanese, and Chinese.
Prof. Steinmann was honored with the Medal of Honor of the School of Business, Economics and Society.