The German Data Service Center for Business and Organizational Data (DSC-BO)

Abstract

Beyond organizational studies there is an increasing awareness in economics and social sciences that the level “organizations” must be included for the explanation of various social and economic phenomena such as labor markets, educational systems, individual life-courses and social inequalities. However, despite its substantive relevance, up to now there has been a lack of in-depth organizational data in research. Data that allow the analysis of emerging questions are needed in those areas that treat organizations as important contexts and actors of economic and social processes. In Germany, there are only a few data sets publicly available for secondary research at the organizational level, such as the “IAB Establishment Panel” from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and various types of official data from the Federal Statistical Office Germany (Liebig, 2009, 6). All of these data sets include a limited amount of information and typically lack information on issues such as business culture or management styles (Liebig, 2009, 7). Moreover in the vast majority of data produced in empirical organizational research projects financed by public or private research funding, the level of “organizations” is usually not available to secondary users at all. These data are generally characterized by comparatively small sample sizes and a strong orientation towards organization-related research topics such as the description and explanation of organizational strategies, internal processes, industrial relations, etc. (Liebig, 2009, 8).