Embracing Capital: On normative and legal aspects of the capitalization of business ownership (B10*)

• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424638267

From the beginning of the Federal Republic until today, private ownership of businesses has increasingly been organized via corporations. This project examines this fundamental change from the perspective of economic sociology and defines it as “capitalization”. Using a genealogy of corporate law, an analysis of political and public discourses on business ownership, and an analysis of business statistics and shareholder lists, the legal, normative, and de facto aspects of this capitalization and its mechanisms are unveiled.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 294: Strukturwandel des Eigentums
• Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
• Project Head: Dr. Isabell Stamm, since 1/2025