Departments

Business, Employment and Social Security Law

Chair: Franz Marhold

Research profile

The Department covers all areas of private business law. Research focuses mainly on Austrian civil law; private business law; especially EU corporate and capital market law; European information and intellectual property law; Austrian and EU labor law; social security, and comparative law.

Selected Projects

  • Migration and social security
  • Legal aspects of the organization of family businesses
  • European and Austrian capital market law
  • Changes in patent law

Economics

Chair: Ingrid Kubin

Research profile

WU’s Department of Economics sees itself as an internationally renowned contributor to research in applied economics. This combines the application of theory, econometrics, empirical methods, and policy advice in both micro and macroeconomic subject areas of public relevance.

Selected projects

  • Promoting gender equality through gender responsive budgeting and mainstreaming
  • Experimental investigations of labor markets
  • Welfare, wealth and work for Europe
  • Interaction of credit and housing markets and distribution in an input/output model
  • Growing together? Projecting income growth in Europe at the regional level

Finance, Accounting and Statistics

Chair: Stefan Bogner

Research profile

The main aim of WU’s Department of Finance, Accounting and Statistics is to strengthen its presence in international research and be a key institution both in the areas of basic and applied research.

Selected projects

  • Secondary market liquidity and security design: Theory and evidence from ABS markets
  • Practitioner’s views on BEPS: a Cross-jurisdictional analysis
  • International taxation and business finance
  • Predicting long-term employment biographies in Austria
  • Sovereign bond risk premia

Foreign Language Business Communication

Chair: Wolfgang Obenaus

Research profile

The researchers at the Department of Foreign Language Business Communication concentrate primarily on the analysis and optimization of language use (particularly in foreign languages) in different business contexts.

Selected projects

  • Handbook of Business Communication: Linguistic approaches
  • German-Spanish business terminology
  • Communication in the lower-skilled workplace
  • The language of consolidated statements (French)

Global Business and Trade

Chair: Jan Hendrik Fisch

Research profile

The Department of Global Business and Trade’s research addresses the drivers behind and effects of globalization and internationalization from a variety of perspectives.

Selected projects

  • Financial perspectives in international business
  • SME internationalization
  • Strategies in emerging markets
  • Responsible global leadership
  • Supply chain management across countries

Information Systems and Operations

Chair: Edward Bernroider

Research profile

Integrating the fields of information systems and operations management, the Department investigates digitally supported business processes. Current research areas include adaptive, inter-business workflows, sustainable supply chain management, efficient data management, technology-supported teaching, and the evaluation and evolution of business information systems.

Selected projects

  • GET Service: Efficient Transportation Planning and Execution
  • ROLE: Responsive Open Learning Environments
  • SERAMIS: Sensor-Enabled Real-World Awareness for Management Information Systems
  • SHAPE: Safety-critical Human- and dAta-centric Process management in Engineering projects
  • ADEQUATe Open Data: Analytics & Data Enrichment to improve the QUAliTy of Open Data

Management

Chair: Wolfgang Mayrhofer

Research profile

The Department of Management’s research is oriented towards a school of humanities and social sciences-based business administration which includes more than traditional business and economic perspectives. It takes variety of epistemological, theoretical, and methodological approaches and focuses explicitly on the contextual relativity of individual and collective actions.

Selected projects

  • The role of material artefacts and visual representations
  • An international comparison of career success factors
  • Gender Cage revisited
  • Green HRM
  • Institutional imprinting
  • Learning hub
  • Economics education
  • PERCEIVE: Regional identities and European cohesion
  • Students’ community service: Self-selection and the effects of participation

Marketing

Chair: Peter Schnedlitz

Research profile

Research at the Department of Marketing contributes to bridging the gap between academic theory and practical relevance. Dialog with the business community is very important. Current, relevant marketing phenomena are investigated using empirical, i.e. practice-oriented research methods. The findings generated are published in top international journals.

Selected projects

  • Sensory aspects of marketing
  • Global marketing strategies
  • Psychological ownership and consumer behavior
  • Customer empowerment
  • Customer relationship Management
  • Food banks in Europe
  • Performance measurement in retailing

Public Law and Tax Law

Chair: Michael Holoubek

Research profile

The Department of Public Law and Tax Law at WU focuses on all economically relevant areas of public law, especially Austrian, European, and international public law, tax law, and business criminal law.

Selected projects

  • Legal theory and interpretation
  • Functional self-administration in public business law
  • The intertemporal law system
  • Financial criminal law, general part
  • Qualification of foreign entities in tax law

Socioeconomics

Chair: Ulrike Schneider

Research profile

Researchers at the Department of Socioeconomics use many different perspectives and take a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches to help document, understand, and explain today’s social, economic, political, and ecological developments. Current research projects focus on sustainable resource use, the challenges of migration and an aging society, the future of employment, income distribution and social mobility, health care, differentiated regional development, and responsible innovation. Key areas include (multi-level) governance in the respective political contexts and the changes in values and culture that need to accompany sustainable development.

Selected projects

Strategy and Innovation

Chair: Gerhard Speckbacher

Research profile

Research at WU’s Department of Strategy and Innovation focuses mainly on business model innovation, i.e. on new strategy-based architectures and organizational designs to help companies generate value for stakeholders.

Selected projects

  • Vienna User Innovation Research Initiative
  • SAPM research project
  • Bringing Wikinomics inside the established firm
  • Open innovation research initiative