Research

"Big Data," "Digital Transformation," "Industry 4.0" are terms commonly used in business, science, and politics to describe the fundamental changes that integrated information processing brings to our lives and society. Two aspects are characteristics for this development: On the one hand, the amount of data that is accessible for machine processing in digital form increases considerably. Based on this, the development and application of methods of automated data analysis allow more accurate predictions and better decisions, as well as analyzes with a high degree of customization, which, for example, enable the development of highly personalized products and services. On the other hand, the technical integration of processes allows more complex, faster and more closely interlinked processes between many participants in value chains and a greater spatial distribution of the actors. In general, digitization will influence companies, their business models and value-adding processes as well as the working world as a whole. These are complex interactions between technical, economic and social aspects that can only be understood by considering these three spheres simultaneously.

With the research focus "Digitization and Business Analytics", the Department of Economics and Management picks up on these developments and contributes to the described changes in an analytical as well as a formative way. On the one hand theories, concepts and methods are developed and applied to better understand and support the digital transformation of organizations and to design integrated business processes based on digital services. On the other hand the new possibilities resulting from digitization are taken into account by developing and applying concepts and methods for intelligent data analysis and decision support across all business functional areas.

An effective and efficient fulfillment of public tasks such as energy supply, waste management, health, education is essential for our society. Ongoing and current challenges such as the financial constraints of public budgets, the demographic change caused by migration and  aging population, digitization and last but not least the social, ecological and economic sustainability pose new challenges for the management of public tasks.

The research focus "Management of Public Tasks" therefore deals intensively with the framework conditions, peculiarities and current (management) challenges of organizations entrusted with public tasks. Which includes:

• Public organizations (public administrations and public companies)
• Nonprofit organizations (e.g. Caritas, Greenpeace, Unicef)

• Cross-sector cooperation (between public organizations and private-business enterprises, non-profit organizations and civil society).

Depending on the functional orientation of the participating professorships, current management challenges in the fields of procurement, controlling, personnel management, motivation and leadership, organization as well as process and knowledge management are the focus of conceptual or theory-based empirical and practice-relevant research. In addition, professorships in the fields of economics and public law deal with issues that are relevant to the management of public tasks.

Business decisions are made under uncertainty. Therefore, from an economic perspective, recognizing, controlling of risks is a prime task for actors in institutions such as companies or supervisory authorities. From a company perspective, risks occur in all links of the value chain. The usual categorization of risks is the distinction between exogenous and endogenous risks or the differentiation according to price and volume risks for input and output factors and risks that are relevant in the context of the transformation process. Exogenous risks are for example market price risks such as currency or interest rates and political risks. Risk management covers many subtasks, such as the identification, measurement, handling and control of risks. A whole range of members of the Department of Economics and Management directly or indirectly deal with the topic of risk. The research focuses on processes and instruments of risk management, the reaction of individuals and organizations to risk, methods of risk management or decision-making under uncertainty.