The research focus of the RG “Markets, Organization, and Behavior” is on consumer and business behavior based on microeconomics and other theories from social sciences. The group analyzes (1) the business enterprise and its markets, i.e. its interactions with customers and competitors, and (2) organizational and management aspects of the enterprise. The groups’ research approach is based on theoretically founded empirical analyses of economic behavior of individuals, households, or business enterprises.
The research is focused on (a) the energy sector and (b) the experience sector (sports, event, media, tourism), whereby it embraces the subfields marketing, management, and economics. The variety of subfield perspectives combined with the clear focus on only a few specific sectors offers a nationally and internationally unique and highly competitive combination, which provides ground for leading-edge and high-quality research.
The analysis of the behavior of consumers and businesses is typically based in microeconomic demand theory, theories of buyer behavior, institutional and behavioral theories, and innovation theory. The analysis of organizational aspects is typically approached from an industrial organization background.
The RG’s strategy aims at ambitious research goals with respect to quality and academic impact and is targeted at publishing in (a) high-ranked peer-reviewed general interest journals and (b) relevant and highly regarded peer-reviewed field journals.
Research methods
The RG “Markets, Organization, and Behavior” strongly focusses on theoretically founded empirical analyses. Although the group’s members enjoy absolute academic liberty in the choice of the appropriate method, the quantitative analysis of individual-level data (microdata) on the economic behavior of individuals, groups, or business enterprises constitutes the core research method of the research group.
The microdata used in the research group’s quantitative research are typically collected using cross-section and panel surveys, censuses, transaction data, or social experiments and can include both revealed and stated preferences. Additionally, the research group uses further innovative, state-of-the-art methods to collect microdata such as eye-tracking.
The analysis of microdata is thereby subject to problems of complex survey methodology, departures from simple random sampling assumptions, problems of sample selection, measurement errors, and incomplete and/or missing data. Dealing with such issues in a way that can support valid inferences from the estimated quantitative models requires the use of advanced designs and (statistical) methods. Hence, the research groups’ empirical research draws, for example, on microeconometric choice modeling, experimental studies, quasi-experimental research designs, and register research. Occasionally, also qualitative methods or mixed methods designs are employed.