Research Activities at the Faculty
Management Science
Of central importance for research in Management Science are the two focuses Accounting and Taxation and Service Management.
The research focus Accounting is primarily served by the Institute of Accounting and Taxation that enfolds the subjects Financial and Management Accounting, Auditing, Controlling and Taxation. It is further supplemented by the professorship of Corporate Finance. Besides, honorary professorships of International Management and Tax Legislation are included.
Furthermore objects of research within the subject Management Accounting and Controlling cover a wide area of topics from accounting for regulated industries and economics of coordination about aspects of behavioural accounting or performance measurement under incomplete information up to semi-subjective enterprise valuation. In Taxation a variety of economic analyses regarding the impact of tax rules has been continued and partly published. Further publications in Financial Accounting and Auditing pertain to economic analyses of IFRS reporting aspects, the regulation of financial reporting within the EU and new approaches in auditing regulation. The paper on the regulation of financial reporting within the EU should trigger off an EU founded research project that is intended to be applied for in 2007. The subject Auditing further focuses on research projects within the following areas: compliance-management, corporate governance and the protection of minorities in business combinations.
The research focus Service Management studies the common and different features of service enterprises, in particular the management instruments used for directing such enterprises. The institution-oriented professorships of Banking, Distribution, Insurance Company Management and Financial Accounting and Auditing but also the professorships of Controlling, Finance, Real Estate Management, Marketing, Human Resource Management and Taxation as far as they deal with internal service, contribute to this research focus. The faculty further strengthened the research focus through the advancement of the founded professorships Administration Management/New Public Management. Economics
Research in economics covers both the macro and the micro level, theory and policy as well as specific branches of economics such as public finance, money and currency, foreign trade and economic integration, empirical economic research and statistics. From this range the following topics are investigated at present:
The project “Economic integration” examines crucial questions of economic interaction within the EU-15 and EU-25 or the EMU. Among others the optimal institutional profile of the Central Bank’s governing council within a monetary union is studied as well as consequences of the political and economic integration of the ten EU acceding countries from Middle and Eastern Europe. Two other important fields of research are linked to the problem of economic integration. Firstly, the Institute of Economic Policy and the Institute of Theoretical Economics study the development and competition of economic systems and regularly discuss them, apart from regular lectures of internal and external scientists and politicians, also on the Zermatt Symposium, an international and interdisciplinary forum. Secondly, the European debate on convergence and joint economic policy reveals the necessity of further research in regional economics and promotion of regional sustainable development. These projects are carried out by the professorship of statistics at the Institute of Empirical Economic Research.
A new – more methodological – field of research is the development of complex regression models particularly for space time data. In a number of international collaborations the developed models are applied to questions in development economics, marketing research, labour market research.
Problems of analysis and forecasting of macroeconomic developments and the conduct of macroeconomic development are followed by several institutes. The Institute of Empirical Economic Research develops and examines macroeconomic models, macroeconomic forecasting and as a DFG (German Research Foundation)-project the nature of business cycles and their changes. The Institute of Economic Policy and the professorships of Money and Currency and Public Finance also study, empirically too, the conduct and performance of German economic policy. A particular field of interest at the professorship of Public Finance are questions of fiscal equalization. Microeconomic research is concentrated on the areas of cooperative game theory and of network effects and switching costs.
Business Information Systems
The focus of research of the professorship of Information Management comprises areas of service-oriented applications (grid services), enterprise application integration and content management, semantic web technologies, XML databases and software system families. The professorship is currently involved in many third-party funded projects including the BMBF project ‘PESOA – Process Family Engineering in Service-Oriented Applications’, the FP6 EU project ‘ASG – Adaptive Services Grid’, the Saxony-funded project ‘Semi-automated Implementation of ERP systems in Small and Medium Enterprises’. The professorship’s education activities encompass specializations in management and integration of extensive software systems, object-oriented middleware, XML technologies as well as semantic web approaches. The professorship of Software Development for Business and Administration addresses research activities to the increasing automation of software development in particular with focus on customer-specific configurations. Directly connected with this are the fields of generative and model-driven software development, software system families and domain-specific languages, generations and components. These topics are investigated complementary and in tight cooperation with the professorships of Information Management and Application Systems in Business and Administration. In addition, courses and lectures are offered via E-Learning; either as the solely teaching mode or in combination with presence-mandatory participation. Research activities of the professorship of Application Systems in Business and Administration encompass ERP systems in business and public administration in particular the development of modular, service-oriented ERP system architectures. Based on the increasing relevance of inter-organizational information systems integration the research topic ‘Inter-organizational process management’ concentrates on possibilities of operational, tactical and strategic management support by IT systems. The professorship's goal is to foster expertise in bridging business processes with information systems design by making use of integrated modelling and evaluation mechanisms. The fourth cornerstone of the Institute of Business Information Systems is the operation of the Computer Centre of the Faculty. It provides a state-of-the-art research and teaching hard- and software infrastructure. The Institute´s IT services wing provides modern information technology for professors, staff, students and for educating IT specialists.
Business Education and Management Training
The professorship of Business Education and Management Training moved from the Faculty of Educational Science to the Faculty of Business Sciences in the summer term 2006. The research work of the professorship of Business Education and Management Training emphasises different subjects. One focus is put on learning and teaching with digital media. That includes the development of complex multi-media learning environments, the qualification of teletutors as well as the evaluation, quality management and certification of media-based teaching-learning-processes and learning arrangements. These research activities are carried out within the scope of a cooperation agreement with RWE Systems AG among other things and sponsored by the Federal Armed Forces and the Saxon State Ministry of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Another research subject is knowledge management in companies. The professorship of Business Education and Management Training investigates how to design communication, cooperation and learning processes in order to secure an effective dealing with data, information and knowledge. Especially, decision-making processes in executive committees and the design of necessary documents (management summary, protocols) are considered. The research work was carried out on the basis of a cooperation agreement with BMW AG for the BMW plant Leipzig.
The third focus is put on the analysis of qualification and education requirements, the development of curricula and the didactic-methodic design of education and training processes. The main emphasis lies on the energy and water sector at the moment. In cooperation with the National Association of the German Gas and Water Works (Bundesverband der deutschen Gas- und Wasserwirtschaft e.V.), data of future qualifycation requirements on business people were collected in that branch. Furthermore, a curriculum for an additional qualification “clerk in the energy and water industry” was completed, verified by the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Deutschen Industrie- und Handelskammertag) and recommended to the chambers of commerce and industry throughout Germany for implementation.
Civil Engineering / Industrial Engineering and Management
The Institute of Building Design and Management integrates the research fields of the former professorship for Structural Design and Detailing with the new orientation on build typological questions, questions of sustainable building renewal, strategies for brownfield areas and derelict buildings, management and monitoring tasks. Another focus is the interdisciplinary research and description of structural, economic and build cultural aspects of building. In research, the Institute of Infrastructure and Resources Management focuses on integrated approaches for land use and water resources management on different geographical and institutional levels as well as on planning, operating and managing infrastructure systems in a sustainable manner. In June 2006 the newly-founded Research Center for Municipal Energy Management joined the Institute.
The Institute of Structural Concrete and Building Materials works in different research fields. Partners for the various research projects are public institutions (DGF, AiF) as well as private companies. The emphasis of the institute is the development and application of high strength concrete, novel hybrid structures, which are improving the sustainability of buildings as well as modelling of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. Following recent economic and social developments the research activities of the Institute of Urban Development and Construction Industry are characterised by three focal points ‘urban management’, ‘process management and virtual planning’ and ‘development and building within existing structures’. These three exploratory focuses under the particular direction of Professor Johannes Ringel, Professor Dr.-techn. Karl-Heinz Bruhnke as well as Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Bohn and Professor Dr.-Ing. Willfred Vedder provide an interdisciplinary research platform which will generate scientific synergy effects. The studied research projects are marked by a high application-oriented approach. They are either publicly funded as e.g. the development of an early warning and control system to facilitate flexible urban planning or by private enterprises, e.g. virtual planning of a motorway approach road.
The Institute of Statics and Dynamics of Structures is working in the field of analysis of structures subjected to static and dynamic loading. The realistic characterization of phenomena and the constitutive description of materials on different length scales is an important research area for the design process of products. The formulations are embedded in simulation approaches of a virtual description which results in further work fields like the improvement of numerical methods and especially the finite element technology. Basic research at the institute is supported by the German Research Foundation. Furthermore, co-operations exist with companies like Continental and DaimlerChrysler. Activities within the network with European research institutions are funded by the European Union. Additionally, research projects have been acquired from industry partners in the USA and India.
Compaction and effectiveness of different drum rollers have been investigated and rated in the field of soil mechanics by the professorship Geotechnics, Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering. The survey of specific aspects of concrete and placing technology in the application of self compacting concrete is still covered by the Geotechnics section. The pre- and post-processing of hydrological data as well as the monitoring requirements are in the focus of hydraulic research.
The research fields of the professorship Structural Steel and Timber Engineering focus on the extended field of structural steel such as the service strength, steel composite construction and glass structure. For example, new combinations of concrete and steel materials are to provide more efficient applications with optimized geometric structures in steel composite construction.
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