heiGOS – Heidelberg Research Group for Organization Studies

Organizational sociology is a subfield of sociology characterized by its theoretical and empirical focus on the forms, structures and internal processes of organizations as well as their interactions with society.

The heiGOS team conducts international research in economic, organizational and industrial sociology, making use of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodological designs. The group's research approach is marked by both Structure and Action Theory and strongly influenced by Institutional Analysis.

Current research projects

Misconduct in sports organisations: How can the willingness of top athletes to report doping be increased? (since 2025)
The current project is being carried out in close cooperation with sports partners. The focus is on the investigation of organisational misconduct in sports organisations. The focus is on the topic of doping, which has become a constant dark companion of modern sport.

ESG in companies Global best practices and awareness training (since 2024)
The protection of human rights and environmental protection are key concerns of ESG regulations. But how do companies in different countries and industries deal with these requirements? In any case, companies today need to have their ESG metrics under control. The longer the global value chains are, the greater the challenges here.

Flight and displacement: The reception and integration of refugees in Germany (since 2024)
The research seminar deals with the question of how the reception and integration of refugees has developed in Germany in recent years and how organisations from the state and civil society are shaping this process.

Sustainable knowledge transfer - the sustainable creation of new knowledge and the digitalization of cultural participation (since 2023)
The project aims to develop innovative approaches for the sustainable transfer of knowledge of cultural heritage in the school context and to exploit the potential of digital media and digitised material.

Compliance in Romania: How to increase the willingness of staff to report? (since 2022)
In cooperation with a large company in Romania, we are using vignette surveys and experiments to investigate the factors that influence the willingness of employees to report rule-breaking in the company.

Misconduct in organisations: How to improve speak-up cultures? (2022-2025)
Using factorial surveys and design tests, we evaluate, based on evidence, which misconduct is tolerated in organisations and which contexts and measures can increase the willingness to report deviations from the rules.

❯ all research projects

Interdisciplinary Workshop: Sustainable Knowledge Transfer
June 27, 2025
Max Weber Institute of Sociology

D. Dauner: Verantwortungslose Ausfuhrverantwortliche? Wie Sig Sauers Pistolen illegal nach Kolumbien gelangten
M. Pohlmann: Lucky Strike – Zigaretten für den Diktator
D. Dauner: Erschlichene Genehmigung oder genehmigte Erschleichung? Heckler & Kochs Rüstungsexporte nach Mexiko
M. Bancsina & M. Pohlmann: „Geisterhafte” Korruption – Der Kahlschlag in den Karpaten
M. Pohlmann & K. Höly: When the Church Fails – Sexual Abuse and Organizational Failure in the Archdiocese of Cologne
L. Hauck: Wenn guter Rat teuer ist – Purdue, McKinsey und die Opioid-Krise in den USA

D. Dauner: Verantwortungslose Ausfuhrverantwortliche? Wie Sig Sauers Pistolen illegal nach Kolumbien gelangten
M. Pohlmann: Lucky Strike – Zigaretten für den Diktator
D. Dauner: Erschlichene Genehmigung oder genehmigte Erschleichung? Heckler & Kochs Rüstungsexporte nach Mexiko
M. Bancsina & M. Pohlmann: „Geisterhafte” Korruption – Der Kahlschlag in den Karpaten
M. Pohlmann & K. Höly: When the Church Fails – Sexual Abuse and Organizational Failure in the Archdiocese of Cologne
L. Hauck: Wenn guter Rat teuer ist – Purdue, McKinsey und die Opioid-Krise in den USA

❯ all blog posts

Organizational Crime Studies

Interdisciplinary cooperation of sociologists, criminologists, law scholars, political scientists and economists, as well as medical scientists and sinologists is at the heart of the research program “Organizational Crime Studies”. It utilizes a cross-sectoral and cross-cultural comparative approach in order to explore why and how organizations “stray off legal paths” and how they can get back on track. In addition to analyzing societal and institutional factors to explain organizational wrongdoing, we also examine its legal implications, in order to offer insights from an organizational sociology perspective that are useful for criminology, criminal law and international corruption studies. Specifically, the rather new concept of “organizational deviance” can serve as a starting point to explain a certain under-researched form of crime which is determined by the aims of the organization, while personal gain plays a minor role.

Management Organization Careers

This research program focuses on the impact of globalization on corporations, and especially on industrial companies. According to a common thread in mainstream globalization literature, the number of transnational corporations is increasing, which in trun drives the emergence of a managerial “world class” or “global elites”. Allegedly, these elites push forward the neoliberal transformation of the world economy. This hypothesis culminates in the idea of a “new spirit of capitalism”. The Management Organization Careers research program puts the thesis of a global economic elite to the test, by examining the empirical career patterns and action orientations of top managers, who lead the big industrial corporations of the world’s largest economies today.

Medical Organizations Studies

Research within this program analyzes the field of medical organizations, such as hospitals, which has been undergoing substantial changes in recent decades. In addition to a focus on Germany, the research projects inlcude an international comparative perspective. How do these processes of organizational change affect the organizations, the medical profession, the medical staff including their working conditions and career paths, and the provision of care to patients? The research program, which builds upon the insights of heiGOS' organizational and management studies, has evolved from its precursor “Hospital Management Studies”, which concucted comparative research covering Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Asia (Japan, South Korea) and South America (Brazil).

heiGOS – Heidelberg Research Group for Organization Studies

Current research projects

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Blog „Organizational Crime Stories“

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Research programs

Organizational Crime Studies

Management Organization Careers

Medical Organizations Studies