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Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics

Managing People and Education

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Innovation, growth, and economic development in modern economies heavily depend on human resources, particularly in times of shrinking and aging workforces. The effective and efficient management of people and their education is thus crucial for a nation’s wealth and competitiveness.

Human resource management in firms and the management of educational careers and educational institutions have to become a strong part in future business schools, and each student should have a solid foundation in how to manage human resources, training, and education in an effective, sustainable manner.

By providing excellent research and integrating research results on all levels of education, Managing People and Education contributes to ensuring future specialists for research, teaching, practice, and politics for one of the most important challenges in modern economies.

Research Projects

Exemplary project: Effect of Workforce Age on Quantitative and Qualitative Organizational Performance (U. Backes-Gellner, M. Schneider, S. Veen)

Using a panel study among judges in labor courts, we investigate whether productivity decreases with an aging workforce as often argued. Unlike in previous studies, we distinguish between quantitative and qualitative performance, i.e., the number of court cases completed and the accuracy of cases (decisions not rejected by higher authorities). We find that quantitative performance indeed decreases with aging, while qualitative performance increases. This result indicates in general that negative quantitative effects are often outweighed by the positive qualitative effects of aging in demanding professional jobs, and that while older professionals may on average be slower, they have higher accuracy and reliability accruing from their richer experience and wisdom.

Selected research projects and centers

Connections to courses

Our topic addresses students interested in Human Resources and Education Management and who aim at a position particularly in HR departments, in educational institutions like schools or universities, in public administration or in educational policy making. Contents of Managing People and Education are taught in the Business Administration core elective area 3 and in the Management and Economics specialization on Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral level. The following list provides examples of courses particularly related to our topic.

List of courses

More detailed information on each module can be found by copying the 8-digit code into the search field of the University’s course catalogue.

Course catalogue

Bachelor's level

Principles in Human Resource Management BOEC0243
Team Leadership and Team Organization - Applied Project Management BOEC0294
Management of Family Business BOEC0303
The Economics of Gender BOEC0314
Negotiations and Conflict Resolution: Theory and Role Playing BOEC0014
Seminar Management Processes in HRM BOEC0126
Organisation and Management BOEC0131
Change Management BOEC0289
Designing Effective Organizations BOEC0132

Master's level

Seminar Human Resource Management Practices MOEC0363
ME Seminar Personnel Economics and Empirical Analysis, Part 1+2 MOEC0052
MOEC0066
Human Resource Management Practices MOEC0364
Human Resource Management Research MOEC0356
Strategic Human Resource Management MOEC0381
Organization Theories MOEC0306
ME1: Personnel Economics MOEC0249
Leadership MOEC0217
International Business in Chinese Enterprises MOEC0383
The Practice of Strategy MOEC0384

Doctoral Students will find a variety of core and elective courses in the field of “Managing Human Resources and Education” and can take advantage of the structured Course Program for Doctoral Students in Economics of Education of the Swiss Leading House on Economics of Education, Firm Behavior and Training Policies.

Faculty members involved

The following Faculty members research and/or teach in Managing People and Education.

Department of Business Administration (IBW)

Prof. Dr. Uschi Backes-Gellner (main contact for topic)
Prof. Dr. Agnes Bäker
Prof. Dr. Andreas G. Scherer
Prof. Dr. Karl Schmedders
Prof. Dr. Carmit Segal
Prof. David Seidl, PhD

Department of Finance (IFF)

Prof. Dr. Carmen Tanner

Department of Economics (IVW)

Prof. Dr. Rainer Winkelmann