Martin Wiernsperger

Biography

Martin Wiernsperger is an assistant professor of accounting at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. His research primarily focuses on the design and use of management control systems.

Within this field, Wiernsperger has a keen interest in two main themes: compensation contract design and performance evaluation. His research explores how various combinations of financial and non-financial incentives affect decision-making, employee effort, and creativity. To investigate these questions, Wiernsperger employs experimental methods. His main expertise lies in the design of interactive laboratory experiments that draw on the methods and traditions of experimental economics. He also conducts scenario-based experiments and field experiments.

Education

PhD WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2024
MBA University of Technology Sydney, 2020
MS WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2019
BS WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, 2018

Research

• Chan, Eric; Feinberg, Kenzie; Wiernsperger, Martin. "When is it Fairer to Allocate Resources for Training to Lower-Performing versus Higher-Performing Employees?"Journal of Accounting Research. (forthcoming).
• Feichter, Christoph; Wiernsperger, Martin. "Voluntary managerial pay cuts and employee effort"Accounting, Organizations and Society. 116 (2026): e 101626
• Greiner, Ben; Grünwald, Philipp; Lindner, Thomas; Lintner, Georg; Wiernsperger, Martin. "Incentives, Framing, and Reliance on Algorithmic Advice: An Experimental Study"Management Science. 72.1 (2026): 302-322
• Wiernsperger, Martin. "Firm Investments in Employee-led Entrepreneurial Ventures"Contemporary Accounting Research. (forthcoming).
• Speckbacher, Gerhard; Wiernsperger, Martin. "Peer evaluations in diverse teams: How external validation of team performance influences ingroup favoritism"Accounting, Organizations and Society. 114 (2025): e101595

Awards

• Stephan Koren Award (2025) Council of Full Professors at the Vienna University of Economics and Business
• Outstanding Reviewer Award (2025) American Accounting Association
• Outstanding Reviewer Award, MAS Midyear Meeting (2023) American Accounting Association - Management Accounting Section