Research profile

Organizational Design & New Work

The work of individual employees in value creation based on the division of labor results from the chosen form of specialization (organizational design) and the coordination of task execution through organizational regulations (governance). The object of investigation can be industries, value creation networks, companies, subdivisions of a company. Drivers of new forms of both competition (e.g. platforms, ecosystems) and work (e.g. new work) are usually changes in the institutional environment or technological developments. As theoretical approaches we use both efficiency-oriented theories (e.g. transaction cost theory) and non-economic approaches (e.g. sociological neoinstitutionalism).

Strategic management of innovation ecosystems

Starting from work on business models for value networks (Bach et al., 2003), we are concerned with so-called business ecosystems or innovation ecosystems. Based on modularity theory, our current research investigates theoretical-conceptual issues (Sanchez, Galvin, and Bach, 2013; Bach and Galvin, 2020; Maurer, 2021), the reception of the issues in the literature using bibliometric analyses (Bönning, 2019), and, in a joint research project with Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Buchholz (Münster School of Business), platform-based ecosystems in the B2B sector.

Organizational Change & New Leadership

In our research we deal with new forms of leadership as a counterpart to new forms of work. To the extent that executive employees assume responsibility and decision-making tasks, the role of leadership changes. Open research questions particularly concern leaders at middle levels of the organizational hierarchy. As a theoretical basis we use approaches from organizational psychology (e.g. sensemaking) and sociology (e.g. role theory). In terms of methodology, we work both theoretically-conceptually and empirically.

Projects

BMBF project "Working Worlds of the Future"

Among the 45 submissions, our application "InnoFARM" was selected for funding by the BMBF in the program "Working Worlds of the Future". A total of approximately 1.4 million EUR in funding can be called up, with a start date of June 1, 2021.

DFG-Project: The Construction of Organizational Identity and the Influence of History

The current DFG project with the topic "The Construction of Organizational Identity and the Influence of History" is led by Dr. Simon Oertel and Dr. Kirsten Thommes. Here you can view the official project description.

BMBF-Project: EXIST Research Transfer "Lorentz Force Anemometer".

The aim of the EXIST project funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) is to further develop the Lorentz force anemometer to market maturity as well as to develop an exploitation strategy for the product in order to transfer the invention into the economy.

Further research projects