Andreas Kaplan

Andreas Marcus Kaplan (born October 5, 1977) is a professor of digital transformation and university administrator. He is president of Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg. Previously, he held academic leadership positions at ESCP, including as rector and dean of its business schools in Berlin and Paris. His research has addressed social media, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and higher education.

Education and career Kaplan was born in Munich, Germany. He studied at LMU Munich, ESCP Business School, and the École nationale d'administration. He completed a doctorate at the University of Cologne and HEC Paris, and obtained his Habilitation at the Sorbonne. At ESCP, he later served as academic director/provost before he became rector in Berlin and later dean in Paris.

Kaplan co-authored the 2010 article "Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media" with Michael Haenlein. A bibliometric review identified it as the most-cited publication in the social-media literature examined by the authors, while another described its classification of social media as a central reference in research on Facebook.

Kaplan has also published on artificial intelligence. His 2019 article "Siri, Siri, in My Hand" proposed a definition and classification of AI and examined its implications for organizations. A 2022 article co-authored with Praveen Kopalle and others examined AI in international marketing at the levels of countries, companies, and consumers.

His work on higher education has addressed competition between universities, online teaching formats, and the effects of digitalization on academic institutions.

Kaplan is on the editorial boards of the California Management Review, The International Journal on Media Management, and the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing. Kaplan was included in a citation-impact database compiled by John P. A. Ioannidis and colleagues, in which his citation metrics fell within the top 2% of scientists worldwide.

European management and higher education Kaplan has written about European management, business education, digitalization, and European integration. In a 2014 article in the European Management Journal, he characterized Europe as having “maximum cultural diversity at minimal geographical distances” and described European management as a cross-cultural and societally oriented approach drawing on interdisciplinary principles. He subsequently edited the four-volume reference work European Business and Management, addressing cultural differences and commonalities, business ethics, interdisciplinary approaches, and management education in Europe. His writing on European higher education has examined digital teaching formats and the effects of technological change on universities. In a 2019 commentary, he argued that higher education could contribute to reducing Europe's relative disadvantage in artificial intelligence, big data, and digitalization. Kaplan has also written about European identity and the communication of EU institutions. In articles for Prospect and The Conversation, he argued that European institutions should communicate their benefits in a less technocratic and more citizen-oriented manner and that education, media, and cultural initiatives could contribute to a shared European identity. In 2025, he contributed the chapter “Für ein vereintes, vertrautes Europa” to an edited volume on the future of Europe by former European Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering.

Publications Papers Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Michael (2010) Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media, Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68

Haenlein Michael, Kaplan Andreas M. (2019) A brief history of artificial intelligence: On the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence, California Management Review, 61 (4), 5-14. Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Michael (2016) Higher education and the digital revolution: About MOOCs, SPOCs, social media, and the Cookie Monster, Business Horizons, Volume 59.

Books

Kaplan Andreas (October 2015) European business and management. Sage Publications Ltd., London. Tuten T., Solomon M., Kaplan A.M. (2019) Marketing des médias sociaux, Pearson, Paris.