Prof. Dr. Stefanie Hiß

About me: I have been a university professor of Sociology with a focus on Markets, Organisations and Governance at the University of Jena since 2012. I studied Economics, Political Science, Sociology and Law in Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main, graduating in 2002 with degrees in Economics and Political Science.

From 2001 to 2002, I also gained professional experience as a specialist assistant in the Social and Ecological Standards Programme Office of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ/ GIZ). I then completed my doctorate in Sociology in the interdisciplinary DFG Research Training Group Markets and Social Spaces in Europe at the University of Bamberg, supervised by Richard Münch (Sociology) and Lothar Brock (Political Science/ HSFK, University of Frankfurt a. M.) and awarded the dissertation prize of the University of Bamberg.

From 2005 to 2007, I was a research associate in the research group on Markets at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, before returning to Bamberg as a postdoctoral researcher and academic counsellor from 2007 to 2009. From 2009 to 2012, I was a junior professor of Economic Sociology/ Sociology of Financial Markets at the University of Jena and, as a Schumpeter Fellow, headed the junior research group on Sustainability and Financial Markets - Institutional Arrangements and Patterns of Perception. From 2011 to 2016, I was a member of the Young Academy of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

I have spent several months staying abroad at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) at Harvard University (2012), at Northwestern University (2014), at Uppsala University/Sweden (2015), at the University of Warwick/ England (2004) and at Concordia University in Montreal/Canada (2003).

The focus of my research is the theory-based analysis of transformation processes in contemporary societies; in particular, I try to explain the multi-level transformation of the economy and society in the field of tension between market and democratic institutions towards a sustainable society using the instruments of qualitative social research. In doing so, I pursue the fundamental question of how we can better understand the genesis and transformation of institutions:

How and why do non-financial norms and values enter organisations, markets and the economy? How do divergent logics relate to each other in organisations or at field level? Or how do organisations form their identity in the field of tension between complex environmental expectations?

To answer these and other questions, I pursue an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise primarily from economic and financial sociology, market and organisational sociology, cultural sociology and international political economy, supplemented by law and business administration. My theoretical approach is based on further developments of institutional theories and concepts of institutional change. Thematically, I am particularly concerned with the following topics

• Cultural organisations in institutional change (more information under projects de)
• Sustainability and the financial market, for example the fossil fuel divestment movement or banks,
• Corporate social responsibility,
• the role of rating agencies,
• Underrepresentation of women in management positions,
• Historic gardens in a changing climate

An overview of ongoing and completed research projects can be found here de.

Publications:

You can find an overview of my publications at

Research GateExternal link

Google ScholarExternal link

or under the ORCIDExternal link