Long-term research into sustainable business development

The Department of Management Sciences has chosen the topic "Sustainable business development" for its main research focus. This is understood to mean planned, strategic and operative business development which ensures lasting economic success and satisfies people's social needs as well as protecting the ecosystem. It also ensures that present activities do not restrict future opportunities for economic development (economic sustainability) or for social development (social sustainability), or ecological framework conditions (ecological sustainability) for succeeding generations.

Numerous research activities relating to sustainable business development have been initiated and undertaken in recent years. (to mark as quotation) The outlining of the following projects is therefore intended to be representative of other research work which has already been completed or is currently under way.

Prof. Dr. Reiner Clement/Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz W. Peren: "Assessment Tool to Measure and Evaluate the Risk Potential of Gambling Products (ASTERIG)"

As early as 2006, working on behalf of Aktion Mensch (Bonn) and the ARD TV lottery (Hamburg), academics at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences developed the prototype of a measurement tool for evaluating the hazard and addiction potential of lottery products (ASTERIG). Since then, ASTERIG has excelled in global competition and become the leading tool of its kind in the world to date. In 2012 and 2013 it was validated on a global basis in a project led by Columbia University, New York, USA and Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences.

Prof. Dr. Reiner Clement/Prof. Dr. Andreas Gadatsch/Prof. Dr. Dirk Schreiber/Prof. Dr. Volker Wulf: Development and use of barrier-free information systems"

Research is being undertaken into human-computer interactions as part of a cooperative project with the research team under Prof. Dr. Wulf at University of Siegen. This involves the research team from the Department of Management Science at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences providing the technical expertise relating to the subject area of "IT barrier-freedom". In the course of the project, policy recommendations are devised for the OECD with the aim of fostering entrepreneurship among people who have a disability through the use of information and communications technologies.

Prof. Dr. Margit Ernenputsch: "Portfolio Analysis in sustainability controlling of medical aid work in Africa"

There are two crucial determinants of the sustainability of medical aid work in Africa: the structuring of the parameters of the offering by the aid organisation, and the level of acceptance of the aid services that are offered in the recipient country. This has emerged as the result of a research project carried out in Eritrea and Uganda among other places. The measuring and combining of these determining factors as part of a portfolio analysis enable the sustainability of individual aid projects to be ranked, shortcomings in terms of sustainability to be revealed, and improvement strategies to be derived.

Dr. Thomas Krickhahn/Simone Matthaei: "The provision of support for up-and-coming female managers in small and medium-sized companies as a CSR measure"

As part of this project which is funded as a third party funded project by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), quantitative and qualitative methods are used to investigate how small and medium-sized companies view CSR and the extent to which they take CSR measures in order in particular to bring female as well as male specialists and managers into their companies and to retain them over the long term.

Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Schneider/Prof. Dr. Bettina Schneider: "Sustainable business development – the influence of taxation and how it is presented in financial accounting"

The interrelationships between sustainable business development and company taxation are subject to constant change, as is the way in which they are presented in financial accounting. In collaboration with the Fachhochschule Aachen University of Applied Sciences (Prof. Dr. Bettina Schneider), an examination is undertaken of the influence which taxation has on the long-term development of a company. This is supplemented by an analysis of how sustainable business development can be presented in the annual financial statements and the consolidated financial statements, and what the effects of this are on the auditing of the accounts and the analysis of the annual financial statements.

Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Stibbe/Prof. Dr. Michael Voigtländer: "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the real estate industry"

In this research project the relevance of implementing CSR in the real estate industry and the implementation status of it both internationally and in Germany is analysed. The analysis of the macroeconomic relevance of its implementation was undertaken through an analysis of indicators in the fields of resource conservation, climate protection, renewable forms of energy, and the use of land. The microeconomic investigation underlined the importance of CSR as a competitive factor, and it empirically ascertained CSR implementation status in Germany as well as the various degrees of CSR implementation.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Wiesehahn: "Sustainable assessment of economic viability"

The sustainable assessment of economic viability is based on the idea that business decisions consume resources which are internal and external to the business and which must be recorded and evaluated on a holistic basis. Therefore the consumption of external resources, such as air pollution, which are not recorded in conventional accounting are incorporated into the assessment. This is done by ascribing a monetary value to the economic, ecological and social consequences of decisions. Initial validations for logistics companies, e.g. in the transportation and logistics working group of the International Controllers Association reveal that firms are very interested in this application-oriented approach.