In our research, we pursue a socio-economic approach to personnel economics.

What are the convictions behind this?

People work for companies and with companies, but they are also self-interested. Good institutional arrangements in companies bring about long-term co-operation and prevent short-term egoism.

Work performance is inextricably linked to people. People must therefore never be merely a resource - and if they are treated as such, this also runs counter to the interests of employers and society in the long term.

The balance of power in the company usually favours the employer side. Market forces do not automatically balance this out. Good institutional arrangements create a fair balance that serves the well-being of both employer and employee.

We examine the institutional arrangements that secure human capital, motivation and employee retention in companies - and pay particular attention to the influence of social developments and digitalisation.

Examples of topics are: Digitalisation and the transformation of work tasks, competencies for teamwork and leadership, further training and retention/fluctuation, flexible working models, office architectures, gender gaps in staff appraisal and pay, incentives for learners in precarious labour market situations, varieties of capitalism and the organisation of work.

Our research is often carried out in co-operation with companies and examines complex causality with sometimes small numbers of cases. Therefore, in addition to traditional statistical methods such as regression analysis, innovative methods - in particular Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) - are also used.