Benno Hoffmann

Title
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Email
Department
Department of Management
College
College of Business

Dr. Benno Hoffmann is an adjunct assistant professor at the Worldwide Campus in the Department of Business Administration. Dr. Hoffmann holds a Ph.D. in Management and Decision Sciences from Walden University and a J.D. in German Law from the University of Hamburg. Prior to his academic career, he worked as an airport executive with Hamburg Airport. 

Dr. Hoffmann specializes in restructuring airport organizations. His expertise focuses on converting state-owned, corporatized companies into private businesses. Before joining the  Embry-Riddle Worldwide Campus in 2012, he worked on various topics, including airport planning and management, organizational leadership and aviation and business law. In his dissertation, Dr. Hoffmann analyzed the effectiveness of strategies for communicating sustainable corporate responsibility at Hamburg Airport. His most notable finding was that anger about pollution, especially noise pollution, decreased substantially when the airport manager personally addressed neighbors' concerns. Additionally, Dr. Hoffmann found that neighbors’ antagonism toward the airport decreased when airport representatives demonstrated genuine authenticity. He also published a piece on Hamburg Airport’s transition from a fully state-owned company to a partly privatized organization, emphasizing its focus on competition and social cushioning of the transformation.

Dr. Hoffmann has delivered over 100 speeches on topics including airport privatization, restructuring, effectiveness, efficiency, IT strategies and HR issues at both national and international conferences. In addition to his academic role at Embry-Riddle, Dr. Hoffmann practices law as an attorney, licensed with the Regional Supreme Court in his hometown of Hamburg. 

  • Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Management and Decision Science: Leadership and Organizational Change, Walden University
  • J.D. - Juris Doctor (Doctor of Jurisprudence) in German Law, Universitat Hamburg
  • ASCI 254: Aviation Legislation
  • BUSW 390: Business Law
From 1979 to 2007, I was working for Hamburg Airport LLC, which operates Germany's fifth biggest commercial airport, measured in passnger volume. During that epoch, I held a variety of responsibilities with the airport-operating company and affiliated entities. In the first decade of my career, I was deputy director of legal services and, from 1987 to 1995, its director. From 1995 to my retirement in 2007, I served the airport company as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of two subsidiary companies (Secuserve Hamburg LLC and German Airport Consulting).