• Interaction/interplay of management theory - as institutionalized in research and education organizations - and management practice (in general: the relationship between science and practice)
• History of thought in the theory of business administration; general theories of business administration (integration of partial approaches of explanation; consistent systems of description, explanation, and advice)
• Methodology of social sciences, esp.: interpretative approaches to social sciences; pluralism and incommensurability in theoretical approaches; possibilities/conditions of dialogues between theories/paradigms that are incommensurable in principle; learning from positions that are incompatible and irreconcilable
• Evaluation of teaching/learning concepts and correspondig didactics in business administration (development and use of evaluation techniques; quality improvement of university education)

2

Human Resource Management

• New developments in/theoretical approaches to human resource management, (a) in general: resource based view, micro-economics (personnel economics), institutional theory; (b) in particular: approaches to human resource management that stress and concentrate on economic outcomes (developments in different kinds of theory that drive more economic orientation into the field of human resource management)
• Participation in the context of new forms of employment and new models of work design/structuring; economic and social outcomes of legal participation (codetermination law) as well as its developments under the conditions of globalization
• Human resource management in the context of firm crises that are threatening (strategies to prevent from and to overcome firm crises through the development of human potential/capital)
• Knowledge management and organizational learning as a request of intercultural management in the multi-national firm: Comparative/cross-cultural management research in development and implementation of a common knowledge base; international human resource development that enhence accessibility, comprehensibility, and communication of organizational knowledge for employees from different cultures

3

Organization Theory

• Stakeholder theory of the firm - as opposed to shareholder theory of the firm - and (international comparisons of) corporate governance systems; the connections between corporate social performance and firm financial performance
• Culture and history as specific social contexts that exert influence on the changing and development of economic institutions; paths of development of business systems (configurations of hierarchy-market relations that become institutionalized in different market economies in different ways as the result of variations in dominant institutions)
• Hierarchy, authority, power, and control in/of organizations: aspects of domination in/of organizations; outcomes of inequality concerning individual and organizational learning and development
• The individual, individuality and personality in organizations; i.e. the disappearance of the individual in organization studies and (niches of) theorizing on individuality and personality in organizations
• Corruption in organizations (conditions and consequences of deviant behavior in organizations): theoretical perspectives of the contextual conditions of organizations (e.g. structures, rules, incentives) that facilitate and encourage acts of corruption of individuals, groups and networks in and around organizations; mainly: structures and procedures that enhance corruption in organizations; characteristics of individuals, groups, and networks (for example such as traits, group dynamics, power, and dependency cultures that respond to such conditions); processes in which concrete corruption relationships develop