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A stimulator of business psychology

We bid farewell to Prof. Dr. em. Günter Wiswede.

Schwarzweißportätfoto von Prof. Dr. em. Günter Wiswede in schwarzen Pullover

The WiSo Faculty mourns the death of Professor em. Günter Wiswede. For 17 years, Professor Wiswede headed the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology of the WiSo Faculty and strongly influenced the focus on business psychology.

His intellectual independence was always important to him, even to the point of not accepting professional offices. Nevertheless, we have always experienced him as an open-minded and approachable colleague, demanding and goal-oriented in the best sense of the word. Also demanding towards arguments in personal conversations, he always showed himself open-minded towards them. The students in the elective subject "Economic and Social Psychology", which was strongly shaped by Günter Wiswede's personality, also always benefited from this demand, which was always linked to the requirement to think for oneself. Numerous professors at renowned universities still benefit today.

Thinking in a generalist way and with a broad economic and social interest, Professor Wiswede, on the basis of an abstracting and generalising perspective, has made great contributions to the consolidation of economic psychology as an academic discipline. In his writings and textbooks, many of which have become standard works (such as the sociology of deviant behaviour), a great curiosity and closeness to human beings is also explicated.

As only recently became known, Günter Wiswede passed away on 4 December at the age of 82. We will remember him as an always humorous and communicative colleague, boss and teacher. Our condolences are with his relatives.