Dr Bettina Wittneben

Dr Bettina Wittneben

Bettina.Wittneben [at] smithschool.ox.ac.uk

Bettina B.F. Wittneben received her MBA (International Business) from the University of Alberta and the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Grenoble after having been a school teacher for science and languages for several years in Canada and Germany.  In 2005, Bettina completed her PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge on institutional change in the transfer of climate-friendly technology.  For this work she was awarded the Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Prize in the category of Management and Governance.  Bettina has conducted studies for the UN climate treaty secretariat from 2000 until 2003.  After consulting for the German and European governments as Senior Research Fellow at the Wuppertal Institute of Climate, Environment, and Energy from 2004 to 2006, she went on to become Assistant Professor for Business-Society Management at the Rotterdam School of Management.  In 2007, she became Founding Director of the Sustainability and Climate Research (SCR) Centre, Erasmus University, Rotterdam.  At the Smith School, Bettina conducted research into international climate governance. She also taught at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and is a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. Her theoretical research interests include institutional change, new ways of organising, and decision-making processes.  Bettina is a German national but also speaks English, French, and Dutch.

Bettina pursues three often intersecting lines of research.  First, she contributes extensively to work in the area of climate governance and issues related to the carbon market.   Second, Bettina contributes to the building of theory surrounding institutional change.  She writes on the pace of change, institutional entrepreneurship, and the role of field-configuring events in bringing about structural change.  Third, Bettina investigates issues of social equity, justice, and peace.  In this line of work, Bettina looks at what it means to develop, grant, and legitimate the provision of human security within and across countries.  Bettina’s work is inherently international and qualitative in nature.  She usually investigates the evolution of organizational processes through an analysis of interviews, discourses (including newspapers and official documentation), and participant observation.  She is also exploring video ethnography as a research method.  Bettina is interested in uncovering the diverse perspectives and interests of multiple actors in the institutional field and has also produced a short film and written a theatre production on the differing viewpoints on climate change.

Recent publications

Wittneben, B. (2012) “The impact of the Fukushima nuclear accident on European energy policy.” 15:1-3.

Whiteman, G., Dorsey, M. and Wittneben, B. (2010) “Business and Biodiversity: They Would Say That” Nature 466:435.

Wittneben, B and Kiyar, D. (2009) “Climate Change Basics for Managers”Management Decision 47(7): 1122-1132.

Wittneben, B. (2009). “Exxon is right: Let us re-examine our choice for a cap-and-trade system over a carbon tax“ Energy Policy 37, 2462-2464.

Dr Wittneben reported from Copenhagen:

21 December 2009
Copenhagen Accord: the what, how, who and so what?
The Copenhagen Accord is full of good intentions but almost entirely lacking in content

18 December 2009
Obama’s Hopenhagen
Dr Wittneben analyses President Obama’s Copenhagen speech

17 December 2009
Climate victims speaking out
Tuvalu and other countries facing oblitation because of climate change are refusing to be pushed aside at Copenhagen climate talks.

16 December 2009
Climate talks behind closed doors
Dr Wittneben was among thousands denied access to the final days of climate talks in Copenhagen. She says the exclusion of civil society from the meeting reflects the sidelining of poor countries at the negotiations themselves.