This research programme is dedicated to the question of the processes and structures of the development of moral or ethical thinking. It thus relates to the ontogenesis of the individual, but also to developments in the field of philosophical ethics.

The focus is on a further development of the structural-genetic moral development theory sensu Kohlberg and Piaget. The result of this research is, for example, a 9-stage neo-Kohlbergian developmental theory with three sub-stages each. This also includes (in the sense of later extensions of Kohlberg's theory, e.g. by Habermas) current approaches from the field of philosophical ethics and business ethics.

Apart from the explication, hierarchical arrangement and development of moral principles of judgement, the research interest also focuses on their actual-genetic or situational activation (especially in economically relevant situations). From a pragmatic point of view, this involves the clarification and differentiated consideration of business ethics competences and their implications for regulatory ethics and business education.

Following on from the findings of behavioural economics, experimental economics, political economy and neuroeconomics, a discussion has also arisen in business and corporate ethics about the necessity of new economic behavioural models and the relevance of ethics to economic science. Against this background, the research unit integrates emotional, psychological, cognitive and social factors into the classic range of topics in business and business ethics.

Theories of corporate social responsibility often lack a stringent theoretical foundation and an integrative embedding in economic concepts. To remedy this lack, the Center for Business Ethics systematically links the question of ethically desirable entrepreneurial action with the question of good corporate governance. In this way, economic and corporate ethical problems are addressed with recourse to the theoretical foundations of transaction cost economics and agency theory.

A large part of the economic literature gives systematic priority to the question of efficient production and allocation of scarce resources over the question of distributive justice. Based on these considerations, the results of economic activity - which are often socially classified as "productive but unjust" - are contrasted with a necessary social compensation that seems suitable for resolving these social grievances. Accordingly, social policy is generally understood as a compensatory measure against the market.

From an economic ethics perspective, it is important to examine, in view of these findings, which objectives are in the interest of the citizens concerned and to what extent such an understanding of social policy measures can contribute to solving modern economic and regulatory problems in a structural and sustainable way.

Cultural economic approaches offer many possibilities for linking with normative and business ethics issues. Such a research programme is understood as an integrative social science approach that deals with the systematic analysis of social rules, their emergence and the question of the possibilities for shaping social framework conditions, drawing equally on insights from economics, sociology, psychology, etc. The research programme is also concerned with the question of how cultural economics can contribute to a better understanding of the tension between ideas of justice and economic ethics. Accordingly, the study asks what contribution cultural economics can make to a better understanding of the tension between ideas of justice and economic efficiency.

Since the importance of political competition and the role of cultural ties are also used to explain institutional change, this field of research has close links to modern institutional economics and constitutional economics.

In the aftermath of a serious banking and financial crisis, the question of the necessary framework for the financial system arises on the one hand, and on the other hand, the question of the extent to which banks themselves need a new sense of responsibility and can implement it in a way that meets the requirements. For both questions, however, it is first necessary to consider the extent to which a concept of responsibility can be developed or justified for banks and financial institutions. One possible approach is based on the peculiarity of the financial market. Its function of enabling the economy can be characterised as quasi-sovereign and thus tied back to a responsible obligation to fulfil its tasks. This approach invalidates the erroneous conclusion of the past to regard the financial market as a competitive market like any other, in which the sanction mechanism inherent in competition leads to the optimal state of risk distribution. On the contrary, banks and financial companies have a special responsible position. This responsibility becomes all the more evident when the economy-enabling systems fail. This special role tied to responsibility manifests itself in the term systemic relevance.

Thus, the concept of the bank is necessarily linked to that of trust and responsibility via functional awareness. The question must now be answered in far-reaching studies and implementation strategies as to how this claim can be realised on the one hand through corresponding elements of a possible framework order and on the other hand how an action-guiding sense of responsibility can be created among the decision-makers in the banks.

In the face of global processes, the nation-state focus of economic and business ethics is increasingly coming up against limits, firstly when it comes to the production and distribution of scarce goods and resources as a result of cross-border capitalism, secondly when the law-making function or regulating power of the state is shifted to the international level and thirdly when individuals and individual social groups increasingly compare their social position not only in the national context, but now also in the transnational and global framework.

Accordingly, the question of the design of the world economic order as well as the universalisability of rules is increasingly becoming the focus of research in business ethics.