Full Professor

WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
Department of Information Systems and Operations Management
Institute for Production Management

Building D2, Entrance C, 3rd Floor
Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria

Email: miriam.wilhelm(at)wu.ac.at
Phone: +43-1-31336/6790
Fax: +43-1-31336/90 6790

office hours: by appointment (e-mail)

Background

Miriam Wilhelm is a full Professor of Sustainable Supply Chain Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna). Prior to joining WU, she was a full Professor of Global Supply Chains at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands (2010-2022). During this time, she played central roles in program design and development, and has been academic director for MSc programmes. At WU, Professor Wilhelm will contribute Sustainability and Purchasing modules to undergraduate and graduate programmes.

Miriam Wilhelm obtained her doctoral degree at the Freie Universität Berlin. She has been a visiting researcher at various institutions around the world, including the University of Tokyo, Meiji University and the University of Melbourne.

Research Interests

In her research, Professor Wilhelm takes a multi-disciplinary approach to investigate how global supply chains could be made more sustainable. Her research is highly phenomenon-driven, yet, theoretically informed, often involving field research and first-hand data collection in different industry and national contexts.

Her current research agenda focuses on three interconnected themes:

The governance of supply chain sustainability: On a more macro level, Professor Wilhelm is interested in the question how sustainability standards can be effectively implemented in supplier operations in countries where regulatory enforcement of environmental and social standards is weak. Next to buyer-driven and multistakeholder initiatives, she studies the growing extra-territorial attempts of states to enforce supply chain due diligence.

Decent work and human rights in supply chains: Often considered the ‘social’ side of sustainability, Professor Wilhelm has a particular interest in understanding why labour rights are seemingly more difficult to establish in global supply chains compared to environmental standards.

Multi-tier supply chains: Supply chains extend over multiple tiers and there is often a lack of oversight over lower-tier suppliers and their (mis)conduct. The sheer complexity of real-world supply chains (and networks) makes a direct engagement with all suppliers unfeasible. In her research, Miriam Wilhelm studies how commercial and non-commercial intermediaries could help bridge this managerial gap.

Her work has been published in journals such as Journal of Operations Management, Organization Science, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, among others. She is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Supply Chain Management, and an editorial board member of Journal of Operations Management.

Lectures at WU

• Current Lectures

Research Database

• PURE (Publications, Projects, Activities)