Science & Publications

Research that informs practice

My counselling builds on research I’ve conducted myself. At the Vienna University of Economics and Business, I spent over five years researching and publishing on needs in social systems, vision development and organisational learning. At the University of Vienna, I studied the mechanisms of stress and recovery.

This scientific foundation flows directly into my practice – particularly into vocation coaching and my work on stress and recovery.

Understanding needs and developing visions

How do people recognise what they truly need? And how does this knowledge become a viable vision? These questions were at the centre of my research at WU Vienna. The findings form the scientific foundation of my vocation coaching.

Personality and change

Can people fundamentally change? In this publication, we revisited the concept of triple-loop learning and argued that personality change can be understood as a profound learning process – with implications for coaching and personal development.

Stress and recovery

My master’s thesis in clinical psychology examined the mechanisms of stress and recovery in an experimental setting (Trier Social Stress Test) and the role of personality factors in this process.

Full publication list: Google Scholar · ResearchGate

Publications & talks

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

  • Fahrenbach, F. (2023). How the validation of prior learning can be used to assess entrepreneurial human capital investments and outcomes. European Journal of Training and Development, 47(10), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-09-2019-0168
  • Fahrenbach, F. & Kragulj, F. (2022). The Ever-Changing Personality: Revisiting the Concept of Triple-Loop Learning. The Learning Organization, 29(6), 499–517. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLO-01-2019-0016
  • Fahrenbach, F. & Luomi-Messerer, K. (2022). Adopting a socio-technical perspective to rethink the use of ICT in VNFIL. European Journal of Training and Development, 46(1–2), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-06-2020-0097
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2022). A design science approach to developing and evaluating items for the assessment of transversal professional competences. Education + Training, 64(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-03-2020-0056
  • Fahrenbach, F., Revoredo, K. & Santoro, F. M. (2020). Valuing Prior Learning: Designing an ICT Artifact to Assess Professional Competences Through Text Mining. European Journal of Training and Development, 44(2–3), 209–235. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-05-2019-0070
  • Kragulj, F., Fahrenbach, F., Kaiser, A., Kerschbaum, C. & Baumgartner, L. (2020). Revealing the Purpose of a Stakeholder Organisation: The Case of a Public University Responding to the COVID-19 ‘Corona’ Crisis. Journal of Behavioural Economics and Social Systems, 2(1), 65–80. https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/BESS/article/view/6451

Conference proceedings and book chapters

  • Kaiser, A., Fahrenbach, F. & Martinez, H. (2021). Creating Shared Visions in Organizations – Taking an Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management Perspective. In Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 5186–5195). https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2021.632
  • Fahrenbach, F., Kaiser, A. & Schnider, A. (2020). Introducing an Artifact for the Assessment of Transversal Professional Competences. In Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 4929–4938). https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2020.605
  • Fahrenbach, F., Kaiser, A., Kragulj, F. & Kerschbaum, C. (2019). Designing a Tool to Assess Professional Competences: Theoretical Foundations and Potential Applications. In Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Knowledge Management (pp. 328–335). https://research.wu.ac.at/files/18564128/2019_ECKM_FahrenbachEtAl.pdf
  • Fahrenbach, F., Kaiser, A. & Schnider, A. (2019). A Competency Perspective on the Occupational Network (O*NET). In Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-52) (pp. 5651–5660). https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2019.681
  • Kaiser, A., Kragulj, F., Fahrenbach, F., Grisold, T. & Walser, R. (2018). Using a systems thinking approach to identify needs of an organization in order to enable its transformation. In Cybernetics and Systems. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429486982-85
  • Kaiser, A., Fahrenbach, F., Kragulj, F. & Grisold, T. (2018). Towards a prioritization of needs to support decision making in organizational change processes. In Proceedings of the 51st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-51) (pp. 4390–4399). https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2018.553
  • Kragulj, F., Fahrenbach, F., Grisold, T., Kerschbaum, C. & Kaiser, A. (2018). Teaching Organizational Learning to Undergraduates: Applying Design Thinking in Problem-Based Learning. In Proceedings of the ECKM-2018 (19th European Conference on Knowledge Management) (pp. 414–422). https://research.wu.ac.at/en/publications/teaching-organizational-learning-to-undergraduates-applying-desig-7
  • Human, S., Fahrenbach, F., Kragulj, F. & Savenkov, V. (2017). Ontology for Representing Human Needs. In Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web (KESW 2017) (pp. 195–210). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69548-8_14 Best Paper Award.
  • Kaiser, A., Fahrenbach, F., Kragulj, F. & Grisold, T. (2017). Developing a knowledge-based vision for a city. In Proceedings of the ECKM-2017 (18th European Conference on Knowledge Management).
  • Kragulj, F. & Fahrenbach, F. (2017). From Needs to Satisfiers: How Design Thinking Can Inform Organizational Learning Processes. In Proceedings of the International Conference Theory and Applications in the Knowledge Economy.
  • Kragulj, F. & Fahrenbach, F. (2016). Investigating the Impact of Need Knowledge on Strategy Development in Organizations. In Proceedings of the ECKM-2016 (17th European Conference on Knowledge Management) (pp. 485–493).

Conference presentations

  • Fahrenbach, F. & Kragulj, F. (2020). Bringing Together Sustainable Development and Responsible Innovation: The Pivotal Role of Human Needs. European Group of Organizational Studies 36th Colloquium, Hamburg, Germany, 01.07–03.07.2020.
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2019). Building a bridge between Occupational Information Network and European Qualification Framework: A design science approach to generate and validate items for the assessment of transversal professional competences. Theory and Applications in the Knowledge Economy, Vienna, Austria, 03.07–05.07.2019.
  • Kaiser, A., Kragulj, F., Fahrenbach, F. & Grisold, T. (2017). Towards a prioritization of needs to support decision making in organizational change processes. World Congress of Systems Science and Cybernetics: Science with and for Society: Contributions of Cybernetics and Systems, Rome, Italy, 25.01.–27.01.2017.
  • Kaiser, A., Kragulj, F. & Fahrenbach, F. (2017). Creating a purposeful Organization: Need-driven and Knowledge-based Vision Development Collaborations. Organizational Learning, Knowledge and Capabilities Conference, Valladolid, Spain, 26.04.–28.04.2017.
  • Kragulj, F. & Fahrenbach, F. (2017). From Needs to Satisfiers: How Design Thinking Can Inform Organizational Learning Processes. TAKE 2017 – Theory and Applications in the Knowledge Economy Conference, Zagreb, Croatia, 12.07.–14.07.2017.
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2016). Bewextra Implement: A Method to Prioritize Needs to Facilitate Organizational Learning Processes. MEi:CogSci Conference, Vienna, Austria, 24.06.–25.06.2016.
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2016). How to prioritize need-knowledge in order to inform need-satisfying strategies. International Conference on Knowledge Management, Vienna, Austria, 10.10.–11.10.2016.

Posters

  • Fahrenbach, F. (2019). An institutional perspective on the contribution of the validation of prior learning to human capital formation. European Conference on Knowledge Management, Lisboa, Portugal, 05.09.–06.09.2019.
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2015). Enabling Mental Time Travel in Virtual Environments: an Interdisciplinary Approach! MEi:CogSci Conference, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 18.06.–20.06.2015.

Invited talks

  • Kragulj, F. & Fahrenbach, F. (2016). Reflecting on Repertory Grid Practice Based on the Example of Investigating the Impact of Need Knowledge on Strategy Development in Organizations. GfWM Knowledge Camp, Fachhochschule Burgenland, Eisenstadt, 21.09.2016.

Theses

  • Fahrenbach, F. (2020). Valuing prior learning: designing an artifact to assess professional competences. The case of Austria. Doctoral dissertation, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
  • Fahrenbach, F. (2017). How to prioritize needs in order to guide profound innovation. Master's thesis, University of Vienna.