EYE LEVEL With Christian Hendriksen at the Department of Operations Management.

CHRISTIAN HENDRIKSEN HAS SPENT his entire professional life at Copenhagen Business School. First as a bachelor’s student, then as a master’s student and PhD, and now as an Associate Professor at the Department of Operations Management. CBS is a place he knows inside out – and a place he has helped shape for new generations of students.

“What drives me as a teacher is to help students question things they didn’t know they needed to question. Whether it’s economics or the philosophy of science, I try to find ways to help them to question what they take for granted,” he says.

And when it works, it fuels him. “It’s a very special moment when a student says: ‘I actually recognize this from my own company’ or ‘I didn’t know you could see it this way.’ That’s when teaching makes sense.”

Sending Students to the world

What does he hope his students take with them, beyond exams and grades?

“There are two things I always hope for. One is that when our students go out into the world and become contributors to society, they bring with them the ability to see things from another perspective. That they spot possibilities others might not see, or that they ask the questions others wouldn’t have asked,” he says.

That ambition is the same no matter which level he teaches at. “Whether it’s a diploma course or a master’s program, there’s always room in teaching at CBS to support that journey. That’s a privilege.”

When a course becomes life-changing

He especially points to his philosophy of science courses as moments when teaching has made a lasting difference.

“I’ve had students who came back after the exam and told me they entered the course with low expectations. But through the work and discussions, they discovered a new way of seeing society that changed how they thought about it,” he says.

Many of these students he later meets again when supervising their master’s thesis. “There’s a clear line from those first discussions to the way they approach the world later on. It’s a huge validation for me, but also a testament to the capacity of our students at CBS. If you give them a few slides and some ideas, and help guide them, they can begin to see things that others simply don’t.”

Finding joy in teaching.  

Christian Hendriksen’s passion for teaching started early, when he was still a student helping co-teach classes.

“It was so rewarding to see someone wrestle with something difficult, and then suddenly they understood: ‘Okay, now I get this calculation,’ or ‘now I know what a supply-demand curve is.’ That feeling grew into a realization that we could actually push the boundaries of what’s possible in teaching.”

The same motivation drives him now, as new technologies like artificial intelligence make their way into the classroom.

“Many of the conversations I have with students about AI remind me of when I first started teaching. It’s this big unknown that we don’t quite know what to do with, and CBS students are at the forefront of figuring it out. It’s  amazing to see them suddenly do things I couldn’t even do myself.”

Creating curiosity in the classroom

A central principle in Christian Hendriksen’s teaching is linking theory to practice.

“For many students, it’s crucial to see a clear connection between what’s in the textbook or on the slides, and what they encounter in real life. When they suddenly realize: ‘This thing my boss told me last week is exactly what’s in the book – I just hadn’t made the connection’ – that’s when something clicks,” he explains.

For him, it’s not enough to leave students to figure it out on their own. “We can’t just teach Foucault and then expect them to connect it to business practice by themselves. It’s much more rewarding, and productive, to guide them. To create cases, interactive discussions, and small exercises that gradually build up to a real understanding of how theory and practice are linked.”

Those are the moments that make teaching meaningful: “Seeing a student go from struggling with abstract theory to suddenly being able to use it in a real-world situation, that’s what makes it all worthwhile.”