Kristina S. Weißmüller is an assistant professor in Public Administration at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam.
Her research centers around three fundamental issues in modern societies worldwide: public sector corruption, bureaucratic rule breaking, and the psychological effects of ‘publicness’ on decision making. These topics are particularly relevant for citizens’ trust in public institutions and significantly affect social cohesion. With her topical focus on the behavioral micro-level foundations of administrative behavior, as well as her proven expertise in quantitative, experimental, and psychometric research methods, Kristina is an expert in behavioral public administration research.
Having received her PhD in 2020 from the University of Hamburg, Kristina S. Weißmüller joined the VU from the University of Bern, where she worked as postdoc researcher and received the Innovative Teaching Prize 2021 for her lecturers in public management. She is the co-initiator and the principal investigator (PI) of the CorPuS project, a multinational consortium of 21 researchers worldwide to research public sector corruption. Kristina is a permanent research fellow of the Research Group for Public Integrity, Università della svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. Before dedicating herself to an academic career, Kristina studied Industrial Engineering and Management in Hamburg, Edinburgh, and Hangzhou (PR China) and worked for various international firms.
As a pioneering international scholar, Kristina S. Weißmüller has secured funding for several research projects, such as the international SNIS-project on Deliberative Quality in International Organizations, the VU-UT Alliance project on Justifying the Unjust?, and her NWO-funded VENI project on Effective Anti-corruption Strategies. She is strongly committed to the international dissemination and valorization of her research as well as scholarship in service of society, as is shown by her various international research collaborations (e.g., with UNODC, WTO, ITC) and invited public talks (e.g. as speaker at Transparency International’s Anti-corruption Practitioner’s Circle), and her appointments to the Amsterdam Young Academy and as Treasurer and Board Member of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM).
Her work has been published in an wide range of international journals including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART), Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Frontiers in Psychology, Public Administration Review (PAR), Public Management Review (PMR), and the Review of Public Personnel Management (RoPPA).
