Research
The Marketing and E-Business Department’s (formerly Department of Marketing and Channel Management) research focuses on the management of products, services, and solutions that provide long-term value for customers and all business partners involved. Value-generating activities must span the boundaries of single firms and integrate all exchange partners, from initial suppliers through manufactures and retailers to end customers. Therefore, the Department’s research areas encompass organizational and individual buying and use behavior, with a special focus on sustainable and healthy consumption, technology and innovation adoption, the management of multi-channel systems and supply chains, and user behavior in social media. Research efforts also consider firms’ increasing demand for information and communication technologies for optimizing value-adding activities in the digital age.
In order to assist with managerial decision making processes, the Department’s research employs state-of-the-art experimental, econometric, and modeling techniques. Leading international journals consistently acknowledge the importance of the Department’s research, as their results are regularly published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Marketing Letters, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Annals of Tourism Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems, Business & Information Systems Engineering, and Journal of Cleaner Production.
In addition, parties such as the German Research Foundation (DFG), the European Commission, and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research frequently fund research projects of Department members. The Department's research contributions have received numerous awards, including recognition from the Sheth Foundation, the American Marketing Association, the Academy of Management and the Emerald Literati Network. Most Department members serve as editorial or review board members of international journals.
Members of the Department intensively cooperate with leading universities worldwide such as the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA), Northwestern University (USA), University of Maryland (USA), University of Queensland (Australia), and Massey University (New Zealand). In addition, members collaborate with companies from diverse industries in order to ensure the managerial relevance of their research. Each year, the Department hosts a theory-meets-practice lecture series. This allows to exchange ideas with top managers from national and international companies on the most influential marketing topics.