The research in Faculty of Management Technology covers major accounting & financial control, business informatics economics, finance, human resources & organizational behaviour, innovation management, international business, marketing, management information systems, operations, and strategic management. 

The research profile of the Faculty of Management Technology is based on forming six research clusters. Each cluster has its own research tracks. The members of each cluster can cooperate with other researchers either in Egypt or abroad (priority for Germany).

FMT Research Clusters

The GUC Faculty of Management Technology is committed to strategic objectives related to research such as promoting high quality basic and applied research and establishing a research base capable of contributing effectively to the development of the Egyptian economy and enriching human knowledge. To that end, the faculty has started to develop a research agenda for the upcoming years.

Beyond the usual outlets for academic research, the faculty also maintains its own IDEAS Working Paper series at http://ideas.repec.org/s/guc/wpaper.html from which the faculty publications enjoy an average of more than 400 downloads per months.

In the following, the cross-departmental research clusters are specified along with their demands for postgraduate research and possible collaboration partners, especially in Germany. 

Cross-departmental research clusters

The faculty strongly encourages individual and group collaboration for research in selected interdisciplinary areas with the aim of making use of synergy effects for achieving excellence in research output. Such collaboration is tagged “research cluster” which means that these groups engage in cross-departmental research, define their own specific agenda, and seek collaboration with other research groups and stakeholders on national and international level. As of now, research clusters for “Microfinance”, “Business and Society”, “Innovation”, and “Business Intelligence” have started to operate and contribute to the faculty research output, all of which are briefly introduced below.

Research cluster “Ecological Sustainability”

The research cluster “Ecological Sustainability” has been established by the departments of Economics, Finance, and Marketing. The focus is mainly, but not exclusively, on understanding how to foster research on climate change in Egypt and the rest of the world. Climate Change experienced recently wider public attention through the actions of activist groups such as extinction rebellion and the Fridays for Future movement. It seems an increasing number of people around the world is aware of climate change and its associated problems. Apart from participating in above activities, a question arises regarding what drives people to show a willingness to mitigate the effects of climate change. In this cluster we investigate potential determinants for the intention to adapt to climate change and to adopt a pro-environmental behaviour. We use advanced quantitative and qualitative methods to analyse the impact of climate change and sociological challenges to climate change.

The agenda for mainly empirical research of the “Ecological Sustainability” research cluster includes the following projects:

1. The impact of climate change in Egypt: Climate change as economic as well as sociological consequences. On the basis of surveys this project examines the willingness of people to mitigate climate change effects using advanced qualitative methods.
2. The ecological impact of climate change: The cluster also investigates the impact of climate change on agricultural production, for example. Climate change causes strains on irrigation systems worldwide as well as loss of farming land. Both have consequences for the economy of any country. Questions arise on how to mitigate the negative economic effects of climate change on the economy.
3. The urbanization and population growth and its environmental impact on an economy: Developing and emerging economies in particular experience sometimes exponential population growth with increasing urbanization. This development causes tremendous stress not only on urban infrastructure but also the economy as a whole. For example, continuous population growth requires economic growth the prevent large scale poverty. Economic growth on the other requires physical infrastructure which in turn is a challenge for urbanisation.  There is surprisingly little material available that explores the implications of urbanisation and the implications on climate with respect to a sustainable development.

Research cluster “Business and Society”

The research cluster “Business and Society” has been established by the departments of Strategic Management, Marketing, Innovation & Technology Management and International Business. The focus is mainly, but not exclusively, on the areas of business ethics, marketing ethics, sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), social entrepreneurship, critical management and organization studies as well as societal and environmental issues seen from a business perspective. The main objectives of the Business and Society research cluster are:

1. Interdisciplinary and critical analysis of the multi-dimensional responsibilities of businesses and other organizations within their local and wider social and natural environment as well as with regard to their external and internal stakeholders;
2. (Further) development of theoretical frameworks as well as practice-oriented and applicable concepts for identifying, measuring and managing core values and key principles of sustainable business practices and other organizational activities with social, societal and environmental impact;
3. Close collaboration with business organizations, governmental and non-governmental as well as not-for-profit organizations in the areas of research, implementation and conduct of sustainable and ethical business concepts.

Furthermore, based on the further development of research activities and in order to pursue even more international cooperation, it is planned to formally establish at GUC an interdisciplinary and cross-faculty ‘Centre for Research in Business and Society (CRBS)’.

Research cluster “Innovation”

The research cluster “Innovation” has been established by the departments of Innovation & Technology Management, Operation Management, and Strategic Management. Innovation is identified as the corner stone of the developments of nations, and is even receiving more attention since the global financial crisis as the only way out of its detrimental consequences. Therefore, the focus here is mainly on building the Egyptian innovation system and capabilities. The topics of the “Innovation” research cluster include:

1. Innovation as process: models of new product and new service development processes, generation and evaluation of ideas, innovation process capabilities
2. Entrepreneur or the implementer of the innovation: effect of culture on entrepreneurial activities, role of education in building the entrepreneurial character, cross cultural differences in the entrepreneurial process
3. National innovation system: policy changes required to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship, enhancing the performance of innovative SME's in Egypt, the (missing) role of the financial service industry in promoting entrepreneurship and innovation

Being a relatively new field in Egypt, the cluster is focusing on international cooperation and cross-country analysis. This will be mainly conducted through joint research projects and PhD/M.Sc. student exchange programs with prominent universities and research institutes in the innovation/ entrepreneurship field.

Research cluster “Digital Transformation”

The research cluster “Digital Transformation” is established by the department of Business Informatics and Operations Management and conducts its research in cooperation with the Faculty of Media Engineering and Technology as well as with leading multinational industry partners. The main objective is to engage in quality research that has the potentials to solve industry & society problems, delivering value to academic and business communities, and shape the future of Business. The topics of the “Digital Transformation” research cluster include:

1. Digital Transformation in organizations: investigate how organizations adopt distributive technologies (e.g. data analytics, business intelligence,…) to enhance its business and the issues raised to align business with the new technologies.
2. Integration of Enterprise systems: to investigate a technical and a process lens how enterprise systems are integrated and what kind of value this integration brings to the organizations.
3. Cloud computing potentials in BI/ERP: with the many expectations that cloud computing will be a leading technology in the next 5-10 years of course it is very important to study its impact on both BI/ERP in terms of opportunities it brings and challenges it imposes and this is what the project is trying to investigate.

Research cluster “Corporate Governance”

The corporate governance research cluster has a wide portfolio of research in the corporate governance area, in an international, regional and local context. Topics covered by the group include international corporate governance developments; corporate governance in the Middle East; the relationship between boards of directors and institutional investors; trends in voting; directors' remuneration; compliance with corporate governance codes by both large and small companies; and the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. The cluster has the following aims:

• To conduct and encourage high quality research in corporate governance;
• To engage in interdisciplinary and cross-border research through collaboration with contacts in Germany, UK and worldwide.
• To disseminate the research of the cluster as widely as possible through published research, presentations at conferences and seminars.
• To consult with professional bodies, corporations and other groups, on corporate governance issues;

Research Cluster “Public Sector Accounting and Budgeting”

The research cluster “Public Sector Accounting and Budgeting” has been established by the department of Accounting and Finance. The focus is mainly, but not exclusively, on the areas of Public sector accounting and budgeting reform, government finance statistics, conceptual framework and financial accounting concepts in the public sector, public sector accountability and governance, public sector audit, accounting and reporting for public sector assets, performance management, performance measurement and information, government business enterprises issues and fiscal sustainability in the public sector. The cluster aims to encourage high quality public sector accounting and budgeting research in the developing countries (especially  there is a total lack of addressing the aforementioned areas in Egypt and Arab countries), provide opportunity for  the developing countries to better management their public sector assets, encourage research collaboration between German university in Cairo and CIGAR Scholars Network and sharing of expertise, provide opportunities for discussion of emerging issues and generation of research ideas and finally assist in conducting post-graduate and PhD research. The public sector reform primarily aims to provide information for better decisions so that governmental entities improve the use of their resources to achieve their objectives and to put emphasis on what governmental entities produce rather than on what they have available to spend. Accordingly, the research agenda includes:

• Public sector accounting reform - in all levels of government (central and local) and other organizations providing public services.
• Public sector budgeting reform.
• Financial accounting and reporting - Whole-Government- Financial Reporting.
• Public sector auditing (including performance auditing).
• Public sector accountability and governance.
• Performance management, performance measurement and information.
• Fiscal Sustainability in the public sector.
• Good government governance.
• Accounting for Heritage Assets.
• Relationship between New Public Management (NPM) and public sector accounting and budgeting.