Prof. Dr. Anja Schmitz

Vita

Prof. Dr. Anja Schmitz has been a professor of Human Resource Management and Organization at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences since 2025. Prior to that, she was a professor of Personnel Management and Human Resource Management at Pforzheim University (2016 to 2025). In addition to her academic work, she is committed to fostering the transfer of knowledge between research and practice. She is the founder and moderator of the “Learning & Development” think tank at Zukunft Personal, serves on academic and practice-oriented advisory boards, and contributes her research to the professional discourse on learning, leadership, AI in HR, and organizational

In 2025, Anja Schmitz was recognized by *Personalmagazin* as one of the “40 Leading Figures in HR.”

Anja Schmitz studied industrial and organizational psychology at Heidelberg University and Louisiana State University, US. She started her academic career at Heidelberg University Hospital, where she conducted research on teaching and learning processes, error culture, and human factors in simulation-based work environments, and was also involved in continuing education in higher education. In her doctoral dissertation, she examined the effectiveness of teaching and learning settings in anesthesia simulation.

After completing her doctorate, she worked as a management consultant specializing in human resources and organizational development, potential analysis, and executive selection. She then moved into the pharmaceutical industry, where she held various positions in HR Learning and Organizational Development and was responsible for organizational development across multiple locations. She is a trained systemic organizational consultant.

Teaching

• Human Resource Management & AI in HR
• Learning & Talent Development
• Leadership 
• Organizational Behavior
• Organizational Development, Design & Transformation
• International Human Resource Management & Managing International Organizations

Research

Research Focus: Transformation Processes in the World of Work
Learning and leadership capabilities as the foundation of organizational capacity for action and adaptability in the age of artificial intelligence

Anja Schmitz conducts research in the field of Human Resource Management, focusing on how individuals and organizations can remain capable of learning, acting, and adapting in a dynamic and increasingly technology-driven world of work. Her research centers on individual and organizational learning, leadership, and organizational transformation.

Her research focuses on the conditions that enable and support learning and development in organizations. She examines organizational learning ecosystems, New Learning, learning culture, and Learning Empowerment, as well as how learning can be connected to organizational development and strategic objectives. Leadership in transformation processes plays a particularly important role in this context. Anja Schmitz investigates how leadership is changing under evolving organizational and technological conditions and how leaders can foster the learning and adaptability of employees, teams, and organizations.

These questions are becoming particularly relevant with the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence. As a general-purpose technology, AI is transforming multiple organizational processes simultaneously, including work and collaboration, decision-making, learning, and competence development. Anja Schmitz examines the opportunities and risks this creates for HR, individual and organizational learning and how organizations can shape the use of AI in ways that preserve human judgment, learning, and agency while enabling new forms of organizational learning and adaptability.

Publications

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Interests

Transfer activities

Anja Schmitz brings research-based insights on learning, leadership, human resource management, and organizational transformation into exchange with companies, professional communities, and academic networks. She is particularly interested in how current research can inform the design of concrete transformation processes and which new research questions emerge from organizational practice.

This exchange takes place through keynotes, professional events, think tanks, advisory boards, and collaborations with organizations. As founder and moderator of the Learning & Development Think Tank at Zukunft Personal, a member of the Global Advisory Board of OEB, and a member of the LEARNTEC Program Committee, Anja Schmitz has been contributing to the dialogue on the future of learning and work in organizations for several years. A current focus of her transfer activities is on the impact of artificial intelligence on work, learning, leadership, and human resource management.