Dr. Kevin Reuther

Dr. Kevin Reuther is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Webster Vienna Private University. Since 2025, he also serves as an Extraordinary Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University’s Department of Industrial Engineering. His work across both appointments focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation in the context of organizational and societal transformation, with an emphasis on internationally connected, practice-relevant research and teaching.

His research examines how entrepreneurial ecosystems, venture support mechanisms (such as accelerators or incubators), and intrapreneurship shape venture survival, performance, and growth. A core element of this agenda is the study of heterogeneity among entrepreneurs and ventures and activity-based venture development using computational and configurational approaches, including natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI), fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), and network analysis. As co-founder and academic director of the SEAM Research Institute, he co-develops and leads a major longitudinal dataset on entrepreneurial activities, tracking more than 40,000 ventures across over 100 countries via digital non-participant observation.

Reuther earned his PhD at the University of the West of Scotland, where his doctoral work established the foundations of his systems-oriented perspective on innovation and organizational transformation. Immediately after his doctorate, he was appointed as deputy professor (W2) at the West Saxon University Zwickau. He later founded and led the Data-Driven and Impact-Oriented Entrepreneurship Research Group at the interface of Leipzig University and the Fraunhofer Institute for International Management and Knowledge Economy IMW, with responsibility for a team of around ten staff members.