Research excellence at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at Leipzig University has been proven once again last week:
Dr. Jens Hagelstein was awarded the biannual „EUPRERA Excellent PhD Thesis Award" at the 26th Annual Conference of EUPRERA, the European association of scholars in strategic communication and public relations with members from 40 countries. The prize was awarded at Lund University in Sweden.
The doctoral thesis about "Image Transfers in Personalised Organisational Communication: Development and Validation of the Dual Process Model of Image Transfer“ has been supervised by Professor Ansgar Zerfass. It was defended in June 2023. The monograph was published as a book in German by Springer VS. It had already received an award for the best German doctoral thesis in the field of public relations in spring 2024.
The EUPRERA review committee, consisting of 15 professors from across the continent, selected it from 11 competing PhD theses completed across Europe in 2023 and 2024, as it "stands out for its theoretical innovation, methodological rigor, and relevance to both academic and professional communication.“ The thesis has already sparked follow-up studies and wide dissemination across both academic and practitioner communities, reflecting its originality and impact.
Professors Winni Johansen (Denmark) and Wim Elving (Netherlands) stated on behalf of the jury: "The thesis introduces the Dual Process Model of Image Transfer (DPMIT), exploring how individual representatives (e.g., CEOs, employees) influence an organization’s image through personalized communication. Drawing from cognitive psychology, the model is tested through three high-quality experiments involving nearly 1,000 participants, examining affective vs. cognitive, explicit vs. implicit, and controlled vs. automatic image transfers. Hagelstein bridges psychology and public relations in a novel way, offering a robust framework for understanding how image transfer works - and under what conditions. His research reveals actionable insights, showing that personalized communication can effectively shape organizational image, even among inattentive audiences and in cluttered media environments.“
Dr. Jens Hagelstein studied communication and media science at the universities of Tübingen (B.A.) and Leipzig (M.A.) and worked at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Axel Springer and in an advertising agency before joining the research team of Professor Ansgar Zerfass Chair of Strategic Communication, Leipzig University, in 2018. He has been an elected representative of the academic staff at the institute. Hagelstein is currently a Post-Doc in the Corporate Communications Research Group at the University of Vienna, Austria.
