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Institute for Economic and Legal Research Frankfurt (IWRF)

Profile of the institute

We are a research institution of Faculty 3: Business and Law and perform applied research and development in close cooperation with partners from business, politics, and administration. This gives us an optimal connection to the practical world. The focus of our research activities lies on projects that are of special significance in Frankfurt am Main and the Rhine-Main region. Our research projects strive to put results-oriented changes into practice and to transfer knowledge to the interested public. The integration of our students also allows us to ensure high-quality training.

Our declared goal is to support our members in their research projects and offer them an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary platform. We will also gladly help our members by

  • giving them advice when they apply for third-party funding,
  • supporting them in developing networks and cooperation negotiations,
  • and disclosing their research results to the media, at regular events, and publishing them in our newsletter.

Our cooperation partners from the professional world – be it business, politics, or administration – will gladly help you with advice for specific topics in economics or law research. We are always grateful for any new suggestions that come from outside the organization, and we attempt to network the right researchers with the professional world.

Contact

Managing Director

Prof. Dr.
Jörg Kupjetz
Wirtschaftsprivatrecht
Building 4, Room 522

Opportunities for guest researchers

The IWRF offers the possibility of temporary stays for researchers in law and economics from all over the world. 

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Flyer

Download our flyer (German only).

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Operator

Institute for Economic and Legal Research Frankfurt (IWRF)
c/o Faculty 3: Business and Law
Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Building 4, 2nd floor
Nibelungenplatz 1; 60318 Frankfurt am Main

Go to the legal notice of the website

Statutes

You can read the statutes of the IWRF here (German only).

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Current and broad research fields

We offer application-oriented and interdisciplinary research expertise in the area of economics and law with the key issues:

  • Transportation and Logistics
  • Finance and Accounting
  • Gender Topics, Diversity, and Demographic Change
  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation Dynamics
  • Contract Law and Contract Design
  • Corporate Governance and Regulatory Law
  • Health Law and Health Management
  • Business Information Systems

Taking knowledge transfer seriously

In regular – but very different – events, we ensure a knowledge transfer for our research projects, as can be seen in these examples: The brown-bag seminar is a relaxed meeting that combines the “good” with the “useful”! It is “good” because topical news from research projects (work-in-progress) or research results are presented and discussed every month during the lecture periods. It is “useful” because the brown-bag seminar simultaneously represents a well-earned lunch break for the participants, where they can eat the lunch they brought in little brown bags. Brown-bag seminars are very popular and attract many visitors. In our regular research symposium, “Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges," we present current research topics from the disciplines of law and economics. It serves to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and offers attendees opportunities to exchange information and develop cooperation. Detailed information on dates, lectures, and lecturers can be seen in advance on our website. If you are interested in participating in an academic event or holding your own event, we will gladly provide you with assistance.

Publications

The exchange of information between research and practice is decisive for profitable and sustained success. The Institute for Business and Law (IWRF) at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences presents the current research activities of its members from the disciplines of law and economic sciences in these conference volumes. The articles are based on lectures held during the symposia on "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges.” The lectures reflect the special significance of the Rhine-Main region as an important economic and financial center, transportation and logistics hub, and as a region of cultural and scientific significance. The selection of projects provides a good impression of the broad range, the high quality, the interdisciplinary approach, and the application-oriented philosophy of research at the faculty for Business and Law.

The objective of the Working Paper series is to quickly publish new research results. The Working Papers series contain preliminary reports intended for publication in specialized journals and serves as basis for academic debate and conferences.

Working Paper 24 (02/2022)

The world is increasingly characterized by global and national disasters and crises. To cope with these, social cohesion is indispensable—and this in turn requires that young people are taught how to become responsible citizens. Strengthening students’ personal development and social commitment are therefore key responsibilities of universities. Service-learning is one possibility to integrate these into teaching and learning, however studies on the effectiveness of service-learning in Europe—and especially in Germany—are rare. This paper examines the effects of service-learning, whereby three different study groups are compared. The study includes n=132 bachelor and master students, and shows that the groups’ outcomes hardly differ from one another. It can tentatively be said that there are only minor differences between the formats and that service-learning is equal to more traditional teaching-learning formats, but again is not superior with regard to the variables investigated.

Working Paper 23 (01/2022)

Urban area tessellation is a crucial aspect in many spatial analyses. While regular tessellation methods, like square-grid or hexagon-grid, are suitable for addressing pure geometry problems, they cannot take the unique characteristics of different subareas into account. Irregular tessellation methods allow the border between the subareas to be defined more realistically based on the urban features like road network or POI data. This paper studies and compares five different tessellation methods: Squares, hexagons, adaptive squares, Voronoi diagrams, and city blocks. We explain how (open-source) POI data can be integrated into the tessellation process to build what we call “Local Geo-graphic Units” (POI-based tiles). These units are flexible and adaptable to the structure of the studied area and underlying data and could improve the performance of further analyses. The results of the various tessellation methods are demonstrated for the city of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. A simple clustering of Local Geographic Units for the studied city indicates that city blocks perform better than the other methods in the city segmentation in terms of reflecting the structure of this city.

Working Paper 22 (01/2022)

Empirical evidence suggests that international ownership of local firms supports firm performance and growth through various channels such as financing, technology transfer, and improved access to international markets. This is particularly true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that otherwise may lack access to a variety of vital resources. At the same time small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) formation may promote economic development. The relationship between firm performance and international ownership has been well explored for firms in developed economies but this is not the case for firms – including SMEs – in Africa and the Middle East. Largely due to lack of relevant cross-country financial data, existing literature on African and Middle-Eastern firms has presented survey-based evidence on firm performance while evidence based on detailed financial information remains lacking. The present paper aims at filling this research gap. We identify African and Middle-Eastern SMEs operating in the formal sector and examine the impact of ownership structure on firm performance. We use cross-sectional financial data covering about 25,500 companies – including about 30% SMEs – in 69 African and Middle-Eastern countries for the years 2006 to 2015. Our results indicate that international ownership has significant positive association with firm performance. For internationally-owned SMEs this appears to be true despite lower levels of equity and debt capital, implying that internationally-owned firms use international resources – other than capital – more efficiently!

Working Paper 21 (11/2021) (German only)

Meat substitutes are on the rise. How does the naming of meat substitute products influence their acceptance? In a quantitative omnibus survey, six product names for meat substitute products are evaluated in terms of purchase preference. Respondents are asked about their preferred product names. A distinction is made according to the dietary form of the subjects. The product names are differentiated by the strength of the association with meat products. In addition, the extent to which consumers accept names, typically associated with meat-legged products, for naming meat substitutes was tested. Results showed no preference of product names as a function of the subjects' dietary form. The assumption that products with names reminiscent of meat products lead to lower acceptance among followers of meatless, could not be confirmed dietary forms. The acceptance of name additions such as "sausage" or "schnitzel" was constant for all dietary forms. Moreover, no differences in preference can be found with regard to gender. For companies in the industry, this means that when naming meat substitutes, the association with meat-containing products has little influence on their acceptance.

Working Paper 18 (04/2021)

The aim of this paper, which is positioned within the research domain of logistics and supply chain management, is to present a holistic perspective on the development of an innovative halal air cargo supply chain.
To the best of our knowledge, a fully integrated halal supply chain “from farm to fork” represents a complete novelty, especially in the context of a non-Muslim-dominant country such as Germany. As a matter of fact, although some major European seaports have been certified according to halal standards (i.e. Rotterdam in 2007, and Zeebrugge and Marseille in 2012), they are still unable to guarantee the integrity of halal products across the entire supply chain.

Working Paper 17 (12/2020)

B2C e-commerce is still one of the fastest growing marketing channels in almost all product categories yielding to less bundled direct-to-consumer deliveries. Last mile deliveries cause costs and emissions especially in urban areas with a high density of e-customers. Therefore, stakeholders in the context of last mile parcel deliveries are interested in implementing efficient, innovative and ecological last mile concepts. In our customer-driven central last mile micro depot (CMD) project a potential analysis was carried out for the implementation of a CMD with the aim of environmentally-friendly and bundled last mile delivery. Our paper tries to close a research gap by examining acceptance and willingness-to-pay for an alternative last mile delivery concept from the perspective of the customer. Our empirical results based on a survey among German major city residents indicate that city residential areas are potentially more suitable for the realization of a CMD-project than other areas. Furthermore, younger and employed inhabitants are most willing to use the CMD. Based on our statistical model we are able to predict values for the willingness to pay per parcel for a specific population of urban inhabitants.

Working Paper 16 (12/2020) (German only)

Leadership is changing due to many digital influences. Digitization requires new leadership skills and will increasingly produce automated decisions. Such “management by systems” and more independence of the employees leads to agile forms of organizations. Both managers and employees will use artificial intelligence and bots to interact with one another. The article shows that agility requires more leadership and “cyber leadership” requires more artificial intelligence.

Working Paper 15 (11/2020) (German only)

The current study explores the working conditions of lesbian women in Germany. It compares lesbian women's experiences to those of heterosexual women and examines the level of discrimination during job-application for women who enter professional life. The results of an experimental setting indicate that lesbian women do face discrimination when applying for jobs, as they are less often invited for job interviews. Another important result, based on survey among lesbian and heterosexual women shows that lesbian women experience stronger discrimination on the job due to their gender than their sexual orientation.

Working Paper 14 (10/2018) (German only)

Between 2006 and 2009, the authors studied the role of gender-specific negotiation skills of women for their advancement and obtained salary (Ruppert/Voigt 2009). In 2017, a follow-up study with the same methodological design examined to what extent the results found at that time are still applicable. We see that ten years after the implementation of the original study things are (mostly) as they were: men generally have a much more positive attitude towards negotiation and women are more frequently nervous and fearful in salary negotiations. Neither gender invests a lot of time in preparing for negotiations. And in the end we can note again: men achieve significantly better results.

Working Paper 13 (5/2018)

Today we live in a post-truth and highly digitalized era characterized by the flow of (mis-)information around the world. Identifying the impact of this information on stock markets and, moreover, forecasting stock returns and volatilities has become a much more difficult, and perhaps an almost impossible, task purpose. This paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic factors on the German main stock index, the DAX30, for the time period from 1991 to 2016. There are no comparable investigations for the DAX regarding this time period and the GARCH approach in the literature. Using a dataset about 23 variables and over a timeframe of about 25 years, we find evidence that the growth rates of money supply M1 have a strong impact on the stock returns. The results illustrate that in the post-crisis period more macroeconomic factors have a significant impact on the German stock market compared to the pre-crisis period. This implies that in the post-crisis period a macro-driven market is prevailing. In the post-crisis period, however, increasing saving rates, M2 and M3 lead to shrinking stocks values due to higher risk aversion.

Working Paper 12 (03/2018)

Economic theory implies that research and development (R&D) efforts increase firm productivity and ultimately profits. In particular, R&D expenses lead to the development of intellectual property (IP) and IP commands a return that increases overall profits of the firm. This hypothesis is investigated for the North American automotive supplier industry by analyzing a panel of 5000 firms for the years 1950 to 2011. Results indicate that R&D expenses in fact increase profitability at the firm level. In particular, increases in the R&D expense to sales ratio lead to increases in the profit contribution of intangible assets relative to sales. This indicates that more R&D intensive IP should command higher royalty rates per sales when licensed to third parties and within multinational enterprises alike.

Autor: Stefan Lutz

What assessment and expectations do students have?

Working Paper 11 (10/2016) (German only)

In 2015, the authors already presented the results of a study on the influence of the selected negotiation strategy and the gender of the negotiating person, and they examined the interaction that these two variables have on the negotiation success of executives in salary negotiations (see Ruppert/Voigt 2015b). This study showed that executives rate negotiation tactics that are part of a fact-oriented, cooperative negotiation strategy as better in terms of the chances of success in salary negotiations than negotiation tactics that are used in the context of an assertion-oriented, hard negotiation strategy. In the survey experiment they performed in this study, the fact-oriented, cooperative negotiation strategy proved to be more successful (even if only minimally) than the assertion-oriented, hard strategy (see Ruppert/Voigt 2015b). In parallel to this research project with executives, they also performed a study with students using the same methodological tools and compared the results of the two studies. We see that the assessments and expectations of the students clearly differed from those of the executives. These differences have implications for teaching at universities, in particular in terms of teaching key skills that need to be discussed further.

Authors: Andrea Ruppert and Martina Voigt

for Recipients of Disability Insurance Benefits in Switzerland

Working Paper 10 (03/2016)

This paper evaluates a placement coaching program implemented in Zurich during 2009–2013 that focused on the reemployment of persons drawing disability insurance (DI) benefits. A private company was commissioned to implement the program. Kernel-based matching and radius matching with bias adjustment estimators combined with difference-in-differences are applied to administrative panel data. The estimates point to a successful project in terms of a reduction in DI benefits and an increase in income even in the medium-run. A simple cost–benefit analysis suggests that the project was a profitable investment for the social security system. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are robust to confounders and further specification issues. An interesting policy implication is that it seems possible to enhance the employment prospects of disabled persons with a relatively inexpensive intervention which does not include any explicit investments in human capital.  

Published in: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation 28: 1–19.
Author: Tobias Hagen

Working Paper 09 (11/2015) (German only)

Women in management positions in Germany are still underrepresented. it appears that the measures used for changing the situation have not been sufficient to date. Numerous studies already deal with the barriers that women encounter and how to diminish / prevent them. However, it is apparent that the previous tools and measures are not sufficient to help more women accede to management positions and be accepted. This study looks at the observed behaviors that are a sign of acceptance of executives. We assume that acceptance can have a significant impact on a career. Initial results indicate that, in the perception of the respondents, particularly acceptance from executives and colleagues has an impact on professional success. Furthermore, different indicators can be identified depending on the gender of the executive.  

Authors: Caprice Weissenrieder und Anastassja Spura

Working Paper 08 (8/2015)

Sustainability has been defined by the Brundtland Commission (Brundtland, 1987) as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

In times of increasing expectations of customers, shareholders, employees, and communities as well as the general public about corporations’ contributions to sustainability (WBCSD - World Business Council for Sustainable Development), the latter are severely and continuously criticized for actions that contradict their glossy sustainability reports (Holliday, 2010). However, it is often the case that such criticism is rooted in a lack of awareness of the complexity of relationships and the role that sustainability plays within the context of a firm’s operations, particularly SMEs, which cannot dedicate major resources to cope with the issues. Therefore, the question arises of what universities can do to build awareness and understanding among students in order to prepare them to cope with sustainability aspects in their future careers (Starik et al., 2010). This paper presents findings based on quantitative and qualitative data from five consecutive cross functional courses in sustainability for students in business, law, architecture, health management and engineering, and evaluates the extent to which their attitude and awareness changed over the course. Recommendations are given for institutions in higher education as well as for companies to follow up with further training initiatives for junior managers. 

Author: Erika Graf

of women

Working Paper 07 (7/2015) (German only)

The topic of gender-specific differences in terms of career opportunities is controversial. Different studies show that compared to other European countries, the potential of women in Germany, in particular well-educated women, has not been fully exhausted. This study intends to show to what extent the company culture, i.e. values, standards, attitudes, convictions, behaviors, and processes prevalent in the companies,  has a beneficial or detrimental effect on the career perspectives of women. 

Authors: Caprice Weissenrieder, Regine Graml, Tobias Hagen, Yvonne Ziegler

Published in revised form as: Weissenrieder, C., Graml, R., Hagen, T. und Ziegler, Y. (2017): Ist die gläserne Decke noch aktuell? Untersuchung wahrgenommener Aspekte der Unternehmenskultur und der geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiede in Karrierechancen (German only). In: GENDER Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft, Volume 1/17, pp. 115–132.

Working Paper No. 6 (12/2014) (German only)

The study investigates the gender-differentiated success chances of an assertion-oriented, hard and fact-oriented, cooperative negotiation strategy as well as individual negotiation tactics during a salary negotiation.

Authors: Andrea Ruppert und Martina Voigt

How Important Are the Different Dimensions of Distance?

Working Paper No. 4 (06/2014) (German only)

Author: Andre Jungmittag    

Consumption on the Mortality Rate of Prostate and Ovarian Cancer

Working Paper No. 3 (06/2014) (German only)

Published in the American Journal of Medical Research 2(2), 2015, 7–41

Authors: Tobias Hagen und Stefanie Waldeck

and Fiscal Performance After the 2007 Financial Shock – Econometric Analyses Based on Cross-Country Data

Working Paper No. 2 (03/2013)

(Published in: Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Vol. 7, 2013-33).

Author: Tobias Hagen

Study on the Composition of German Boards of Supervisors

Working Paper No. 1 (11/2012)

Authors: Christian Rieck/Helena Bendig/Julius Hünnemeyer/Lisa Nitzsche

Specifications

  •     Apart from the usual scientific standards, there are no format requirements. The text must be submitted as an open Word document and will be placed in the layout of the series.
  •     Please include both a German and an English abstract of 100 to 150 words at the beginning.
  •     If the paper is relatively technical, it is useful for any non-scientific readers to preface it with a one-page "Non-Technical Summary" in the language of the manuscript.

Procedure

  1. The manuscript is submitted to the editors. After the editors have reviewed the manuscript, the authors will be given any comments they may have. In addition, an internal review process is carried out.
  2. After approval by the authors, the revised manuscript is published in the layout and under the ISSN number of the Fb3 working papers. It receives a unique permanent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and is made available for free download.

    In addition, all working papers are published via the university's Scientific Publication Server (WIPS). The full-text server offers all university members the opportunity to publish their publications online. Once published, the full texts are available worldwide on the internet and can be accessed via library catalogues and search engines. The visibility of a publication can be greatly increased in this way. The declaration of consent for WIPS is required for this: WIPS (Scientific Publication Servers (German only).

    Other repositories and Open Access servers that can access the working papers are EconStor (German National Library of Economics / Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW)), German National Library, BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) and search engines such as Google and Google Scholar.

    The copyright remains with the authors.
     
  3. Working Papers of the Department of Business and Law of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences serve to disseminate research results from ongoing work in advance of later publication. They are intended to promote the exchange of ideas and academic debate. Making research results accessible in a departmental working paper is not the same as their final publication and expressly does not preclude their publication elsewhere and in another form. Working Papers published by the Department of Business and Law reflect the views of the respective author(s) and not those of the entire institution of the Department of Business and Law or the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.

Events

The Institute for Economic and Legal Research Frankfurt regularly carries out academic events. These include a monthly brown-bag seminar taking place during the lecture period, with the goal of presenting research projects / topics and discussing them with the participants at the end. This is to help the researchers at our faculty get to know each other better and promote research networks and it also enables researchers to present their research theses or results.

Brown-bag seminars are events that take place in a relaxed setting during lunch. The term "brown bag" refers to the lunch bags the participants will often bring along with them to the event. In these seminars, research projects (work-in-progress) / research topics are introduced and discussed. These events are intended to help the researchers at our faculty get to know each other better and promote research networks, they also enable researchers to present their research theses or results.

The brown-bag seminars take place once a month on Tuesdays during the lecture period from 11:45 - 12:15.

Date

Assistant

Topic

Location

November 6, 2018

Silke Höhl and Prof. Dr. Oliver Schocke

Low-emission commercial transportation FrankfurtRhein

4/105

December 4, 2018

Prof. Dr. Claus-Peter Ernst

The influence of emoticons on the perception of professional e-mails

4/105

1/15/2019

Prof. Dr. Cord Siemon

Entrepreneurship and failure: On the relevance of volition and resilience in establishing a sustainable business model

4/105

Another occasion for combining practice and theory are academic interdisciplinary conferences. The subject of the conferences are academic and application-related lectures held by academics and business representatives on current topics and issues. The conferences are directed at partners and representatives from business, science, and politics.

Academic interdisciplinary conferences provide another opportunity to connect practice and theory. The single and multi-day conferences have the advantage that current topics and questions can be explained and discussed in detail. The application-related lectures are supplemented by an extensive supporting program. The conferences are directed at partners and representatives from business, science, and politics.

1st conference (German only) on logistics "Air cargo supply chain" on & September 15-16, 2016

Furthermore, we organize scientific  symposia that present the expertise and research activities of the faculty. During these symposia, current research topics of the faculty are presented from law and economics.

Our regular symposia create a bridge to the practical world. We present and discuss current research topics from the disciplines of law and economics. The symposium serves the transfer of knowledge between science and application and provides an opportunity to communicate and develop cooperation. The subject-related  profile of the faculty and institute is reflected in the different introductory lectures.  The lectures reflect the special significance of the Rhine-Main region as an important economic and financial center, transportation and logistics hub, and as a region of cultural and scientific significance.

5th symposium "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges" on April 20, 2018

4th symposium "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges" on Friday, May 5, 2017

3rd symposium "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges" on Friday, April 22, 2016

2nd symposium  "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges" on February 6, 2015

1st symposium  "Academia and professional practice exchanging ideas on current challenges" on Friday, February 7, 2014

If you are interested in implementing or participating in a scientific event, please feel free to contact us.

Directorate

Managing Director

Prof. Dr.
Jörg Kupjetz
Wirtschaftsprivatrecht
Building 4, Room 522

Deputy

Prof. Dr.
Matthias Schabel
Head of degree course: Business Administration (B. A)
Building 4, Room 501
Fax : +49 69 1533-2949
Prof. Dr.
Isabella Anders-Rudes, LL.M.
Head of degree course Negotiating and Designing Contracts (LL.M.)
Building 4, Room 509
Prof. Dr.
Ralf Banning
Head of degree course and Head of examination board: International Business Information Systems (Wirtschaftsinformatik B.Sc.)
Building 4, Room 511
Fax : +49 69 1533-63864
Prof. Dr.
Erika Graf
Director of Internationalisation Strategy
Building 4, Room 518
Prof. Dr.
Markus Grüne
Head of degree course: Tourism Management (B. A.)
Building 4, Room 403
Prof. Dr.
Axel Jäger
Professor für Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftsrecht
Building 4, Room 521
Dr.
Christoph Kornek
Building BCN (City Gate), Room 410
Prof. Dr.
Peter Müssig
Prof. Dr.
Christian Rieck
Head of degree course: International Finance
Building 4, Room 503
Prof. Dr.
Matthias Schabel
Head of degree course: Business Administration (B. A)
Building 4, Room 501
Fax : +49 69 1533-2949
Dr.
Maren Schlegler
Geschäftsführerin School of Personal Development and Education
Building BCN (City Gate), Room 1017
Prof. Dr.
Swen Schneider
Head of degree course: Strategic Information Management
Building 4, Room 502
Prof. Dr.
Kai-Oliver Schocke
President
Building 2, Room 512-516
Fax : +49 69 1533-2903
Prof. Dr.
Christiane Siemes
Head of degree course: Business Law (LL.B.)
Building 4, Room 404
Erhan Turan
Fax : +49 69 1533-2903
Prof. Dr.
Martina Voigt
Soziale und kommunikative Schlüsselqualifikation
Building 4, Room 515
Prof. Dr.
Domenik Wendt
Professor für Bürgerliches Recht, Europäisches Wirtschaftsrecht und Europarecht
Building HoST, Room B 03 312
Prof. Dr.
Angelika Wiltinger
Building 4, Room 512
Fax : +49 69 1533-2903
Prof. Dr.
Yvonne Ziegler
Professorin für Betriebswirtschaftslehre mit besonderem Schwerpunkt Internationales Luftverkehrsmanagement
Building BCN, Room 226

Professors and scientific staff of Faculty 3 may become members in the IWRF if they can demonstrate active research or teaching work in law and economic sciences. Other interested parties may apply to become associate members of the Institute. The membership is free.

If interested, please send a completed membership application to:

Managing Director

Prof. Dr.
Jörg Kupjetz
Wirtschaftsprivatrecht
Building 4, Room 522
Web team Faculty 3ID: 3049