Faculty of Economics and Business

In today’s business landscape, corporate environmental performance transcends mere metrics; it is a strategic imperative. The question then arises: How can organizations prepare themselves to approach environmental challenges, embedding sustainability into the core of business strategies? A recent study by Professors Asad, Hennig and Oehmichen shows reconfiguring boardrooms to include environmental expertise is one solution.

Demographic developments are at the heart of major transition processes facing countries worldwide. The recent negotiations for a new cabinet in the Netherlands also testified to this. Limiting asylum migration seems to have been at the heart of these negotiations. Recently, two interesting reports on demographic trends were published. Major demographic changes are taking place on a global scale, but these reports and further current discussions on migration and demography, on the other hand, have a strong national focus, argue Professor Steven Brakman (UG), Associate Professor Tristan Kohl (UG) and Professor Charles van Marrewijk (Utrecht University).

How can you entice supermarket customers to make healthier and more sustainable choices? This is what researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) of the University of Groningen (UG) have been researching for the past five years, in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Among other things, they discovered that supermarket customers are quite willing to make healthier choices, but shy away if they feel they are being patronized.

Professor Milena Nikolova’s research project, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Open Competition XS grant, provides the first evidence that work orientations – the deeply-rooted beliefs that people have about the importance of work in their lives – explain labor market behaviors and attitudes towards effort and job search in the post-pandemic econom

Jutta Bolt, Robert Inklaar, Bart Los and Gaaitzen de Vries are the leading experts of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC). Their focus is on the measurement and analysis of global economic welfare. The GGDC hosts a range of comprehensive open access databases. Since 2010, Google Analytics has recorded more than 3.4 million visits to the GGDC project websites.

Oreo cookies and stroopwafels: Amber Werkman was working on a very tempting research topic these past years. The PhD student at the Faculty of Economics and Business went in search of a solution to overconsumption and food waste. Her conclusion: consumers snack and waste less when they are free to choose their total portion based on smaller units.

Nonmarket political strategy refers to the actions undertaken by firms to improve their organisational performance by managing the political context in which they operate. This includes a wide variety of activities such as campaign donations, lobbying, and hiring managers with political backgrounds. Such activities can be useful in gaining legitimacy and trust from a variety of stakeholders. As political actors have the ability to influence and change the regulatory arena, they play a vital role in the results and longevity of firms, especially for multinationals. Google, Vodafone, Embraer and Toyota Motors are only a few examples of multinationals that engage in nonmarket political strategy. But why do firms engage in nonmarket political strategy and why are some more politically active than others? In a recent research paper in the European Business Review, Assistant Professor Cirana Gambirage delves into these questions together with a team of co-authors

In the summer of 2023, Stefan Berger received a Veni grant of € 280,000 from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The assistant professor at FEB’s research programme Organizational Behavior was awarded the grant for his project about the employee experience of dynamic team membership. He talked to FEB Research about studying human collaboration in team settings, the foundations of his VENI research, and what he plans to do with the funding from NWO.

In the face of societal and environmental challenges, organizations need to do more than just make symbolic gestures or resort to greenwashing. The real change-makers are often found within the organizations themselves. They are the insider social change agents. These individuals are driving change and have the potential to significantly impact societal transformations. However, their efforts need to extend beyond isolated wins within their organizations.In a recent review in the Academy of Management Annals, Assistant Professor Katrin Heucher, along with a team of international co-authors, delves into how these individual efforts can aggregate and lead to broader, more impactful change.

As a researcher and Professor of Service Marketing, Jenny van Doorn strives to be on the forefront of new developments and is passionate about discovering consumers’ reactions to societal transitions. One of the next frontiers of societal transitions is the use of social service robots, something she is fascinated by and has already spent some years studying. Having recently received a grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), she can continue to do so.