Research


Raised Third-Party Project Funds and Scientific Surveys

Research Areas
  • Cooperation and its effect on economic development
  • Rural Development, Economic structure and demographic change
  • Reform processes, Decentralization and Cooperatives
  • Driving forces of change in cooperative structures
  • The role of self-organisation and cooperative structures in rural areas

Main Subjects
  • Gains from cooperation, vertical integration vs. network, collective entrepreneurship
  • Self-organization, Self-help, Member-ownership
  • Stability, Principles of democratic organization
  • Civil society, Honorary office, Social economy
  • Support economy, Help economy, Non-profit-orientation
  • Governance, Participation and Empowerment

Linkage with teaching and research to divions of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences and with the partners of the Berlin Institute for Cooperative Studies
  • Ownership of the firm, Joint and several liability, Risk Management
  • Organization Sociology, Transaction Cost Economics, Contract Theory
  • Supply-sale-systems, Supply Chain Management, Quality Management
  • Resource Management, Commons, Institutional analysis
  • Development, Gender Studies, Micro(-credit, -health, communication, -savings) approaches
  • Corporate Governance, Business Ethics
  • Corporate law, Civil Code

The division of Cooperative Sciences offers consultation hours for students on every Thursday between 1 pm and 5 pm. The supervision of graduation works is based on "Training and Supervision" agreements. Every third Thursday in a month there is the Cooperative Sciences Colloquium. Usually, students will present and discuss results with their supervisors and other students. The Colloquium is public. Additionally, students are asked to participate in the Master Colloquium of the Division of Resource Economics. The Graduate School of Agricultural Economics complements the program.