Marcel Maurer, research associate at the Department of Management/ Organization, received an award for his master's thesis from the gfo - Gesellschaft für Organisation e.V. Together with its sister organizations the Swiss Society for Organization (SGO) and the Austrian Association for Organization (ÖVO), the gfo sees itself as the leading expert network of academics and practitioners in the field of organization and process management in German-speaking countries.
In his master's thesis, Mr. Maurer investigated the possibilities of breaking down hierarchical and disciplinary barriers within organizations using a data set on mail communication before and after reorganization measures collected in cooperation with a medium-sized company. With the help of a social network analysis, Mr. Maurer was able to show that, for example, the introduction of self-management in teams does not automatically lead to the dismantling of hierarchy.
The thesis, which was both theoretically and methodologically challenging, was nominated as one of the ten best theses by an eleven-member jury of professors from various German universities, and Mr. Maurer was invited to the final round of the gfo student award at the gfo Management Congress in Düsseldorf. In the final evaluation by the congress participants - in particular board members, managing directors, senior managers as well as consultants and university professors from the fields of organization, management and human resources - Marcel Maurer came in a very good 2nd place with his presentation.
The award was presented by Prof. Thomas Russack, board member of the gfo - Gesellschaft für Organisation e.V. The work was done at the FG Unternehmensführung/ Organisation under the supervision of Prof. Bach. and Dr. Simon Oertel.
We as a department are very proud of Mr. Maurer and congratulate him on this great achievement!