About WU

Research at WU

Outstanding research performance is one of the key elements of a university's international reputation. This Research Report provides insight into the broad spectrum of research conducted at WU. Eleven Departments, 16 Research Institutes, and three Competence Centers will be introduced, with research profiles and brief descriptions of selected projects.

WU's 11 Departments cover a wide spectrum of fields and areas ranging from Finance, Accounting & Statistics, Management, Strategic Management & Innovation, Information Systems & Operations, Global Business & Trade, Marketing, Economics, and Socioeco- nomics to Foreign Language Business Communication, Public Law & Tax Law, and Business, Employment and Social Security Law.

16 Research Institutes have been estab- lished at WU. They are interdisciplinary in nature, focus on certain issues with a strong connection to societal and/or business problems and often include WU faculty from different departments. Topics include Aging, Family Businesses, CEE and EU Law, Sustainability, Capital Markets, Health Care, Human Capital and Development, Liberal Professions, Computational Methods, International Taxation, Regulatory Economics, Real Estate, Supply Chain, and Urban Management.

Additionally, WU is home to 3 Compe- tence Centers. They work as coordination and communication platforms in order to promote certain topics at WU. WU's Competence Centers are run by WU faculty and Administrative Directors. They are very important tools for the transfer of knowledge to the business community and society at large. The three Competence Centers focus on Central and Eastern Europe, Nonprofit Organizations, and Empirical Research Methods.

Some achievements by WU researchers deserve a special mention. For the first time in its history, WU is very proud to have a professor who has received the prestigious Wittgenstein Award. In June of 2010, WU Professor Wolfgang Lutz won the 2010 Wittgenstein Award for his work on demography and its influence on democracy, education and equality of different societies around the globe, the first economic scientist ever to do so. The Wittgenstein Award is Austria's highest and most prestigious distinction for scientific achievement.

Lutz has used the prize money, together with several European Research Council grants, to establish the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital.

Rankings are a further indication of research quality. The German business daily Handelsblatt publishes a periodic ranking of economics departments and business school professors. WU placed at an excellent 5th place in the business administration ranking, and moved up six slots to 14th place in the overall ranking of the 25 best and most productive research institutions in Germany, Austria and the German- speaking regions of Switzerland. In the recently published Economists Ranking 2011, six WU researchers are included among the top 250 researchers in the category Lifetime Achievement.

At WU, top publications receive special awards based on a list of internationally reputable journals mostly in the field of business, management, and economics.

In recent years, WU researchers have been published in many of the world's most renowned journals, including Nature, Science, the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Finance, Management Science, the Academy of Management, Organization Science, the Journal of Marketing, and the Economic Journal, just to name a few.

Research is also measured by success in third-party funding. WU has been very successful in competitively raising funds from the FWF Austrian Science Fund, the Vienna Science Fund, and EU framework programs. Especially in the area of high potential support, two PhD programs have been established at WU with the help of the FWF Austrian Science Fund: the PhD Program in International Business Taxation (headed by Michael Lang), launched in the fall of 2011, with a € 1.25 million FWF grant, and the Vienna Graduate School of Finance (headed by Josef Zechner) with a € 5 million grant.

Last but not least, WU is home to the editors of some renowned journals. The Review of Finance and Long Range Planning — two internationally very prominent journals — are edited by WU professors. The Journal für Betriebs- wirtschaft (JfB) is WU's own research journal with an innovative approach to current state-of-the-art review articles. JfB has established a reputation as one of the leading journals in the German- speaking world, and strives to go beyond that and reach an international audience. WU is the largest business university in the EU, integrating numerous dif- ferent disciplines and fields. It offers a wide array of expertise in research. This Research Report offers an impression of the diversity of WU's research and may possibly raise interest in collaboration.

I hope you enjoy reading about WU's exciting research.

Professor Barbara Sporn
Vice-Rector, Research, International
Affairs and External Relations