The project explores the role of private business schools in Germany, with a focus on their position in both the national and international environments and their competition with state universities. It is led by Anna Kosmützky and Hanna Hottenrott from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Research Area Innovation Economics, and Business Dynamics (ZEW).

In the last 30 years, business schools and MBA programs have grown significantly worldwide and have become firmly integrated into the higher education systems of many countries. The US-American business school model with MBA degrees in Germany has complemented the traditional European model. Management education includes a variety of programs, such as full-time, part-time, and distance learning, as well as executive education. Private business schools play a particularly significant role in management education in the competitive field, although they play a quantitatively more minor role overall compared to state universities in Germany. However, the competition among private business schools differs from that of state universities, as they compete for students and tuition fees, and, unlike German state universities, accreditations and rankings are crucial for their reputation and income. They compete not only with state universities that offer corresponding management education but also with international business schools and other private and state universities worldwide. This makes them a fascinating subject of study for research on competitive processes in the higher education and science system. The project aims to investigate private business schools in the context of the German higher education landscape and to answer three central research questions:

1. What types of private business schools are present in the German higher education landscape, and what characteristics distinguish them? How have private business schools' presence, positioning, and success developed over time?
2. What networking and cooperation exist between private business schools and the state higher education sector and between private business schools and other organizations? How are private business schools interconnected or in competition? What ownership structures exist, and how do networking, cooperation, and entanglement relate to reputation and economic competition success?
3. What strategies do private business schools pursue regarding reputation and economic competition? What role do their resources play in research and teaching? To what extent do the study programs of state universities and the competitive positioning of private business schools influence each other?

To answer these questions, an inventory of private business schools' content and geographical coverage will be taken, and a typology based on the characteristics (teaching, research, and organization) of the identified schools will be developed. Based on the typology, the schools' positioning in the state-dominated competitive field (geographically and in terms of content) and competitive strategies will be analyzed. Furthermore, publication and website data will be collected, and co-publications, co-affiliations, staff mobility, and website links will be analyzed based on this data.

The project explores the role of private business schools in Germany, with a focus on their position in both the national and international environments and their competition with state universities. It is led by Anna Kosmützky and Hanna Hottenrott from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Research Area Innovation Economics, and Business Dynamics (ZEW).

Project Presentation