In the "Sustainability & Energy" focus area, the department carries out research projects that deal with issues of sustainable development and the transformation of the energy system from a business, legal, economic, and business education perspective. Climate change, the exploitation of natural resources, poverty and the exploitation of labor in supply chains are among the most important challenges facing humanity. The transformation of the energy sector (e.g. electricity and gas supply, renewable energies and electromobility) plays an important role in this context. Research at the department therefore focuses on issues such as energy policy, sustainable foundation, sustainable finance and civil and private law in the context of sustainability issues.

In the "Digitalization & Internationalization" focus area, the department conducts research activities that deal with the digital transformation and the special features of cross-border economic and legal relations from a business, legal, economic and business education perspective. The research focuses on the fact that the trends of digitalization and internationalization influence each other in many different ways. For example, new communication technologies are leading to an increasing blurring of boundaries in space and time, which creates potential for conflict and clashes of norms and requires regulation. At the same time, the increasing globalization of supply chains requires the use of information and communication technologies in order to be able to measure and display information and goods flows and to control them in regulatory and organizational terms. Research in the WiRe department therefore focuses on topics such as tax avoidance by large corporations, international trade relations, changing information and decision-making processes on international financial markets, changes in international legal cultures, the use of digital methods in marketing or vocational training and the digitalization of collaboration and knowledge transfer within and between organizations.

In the "Innovation & Learning" focus area, the department carries out research activities that deal with innovation, learning and transformation processes at a macroeconomic, organizational and individual level. At the organizational level, research deals, for example, with the design of innovation and start-up processes (entrepreneurship), the financing of start-ups, the legal basis of intellectual capital or new forms of work and organization ("new work", organizational ecosystems). At the individual level, the focus is on the description, explanation and design of formal and informal teaching-learning and qualification processes in general education (economic education), vocational training, company, external and inter-company and university contexts, as well as research into interpersonal knowledge networks.