Horst Albach (6th July 1931 – 25th December 2021) was a German economist.

Life

Son of the business editor Karl Albach, he attended the Carl-Humann-Gymnasium in Essen-Steele. He then studied business administration, economics, law and mathematics in Cologne, Bonn and the USA. After working as a representative in Graz and at the University of Kiel, he took over the professorship of business administration at the University of Bonn in 1961. There he was also dean for a time. In 1990 he moved to the Free University of Berlin. From 1994 to 1999 he taught at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He was an honorary professor at the Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany.

Career

From 1987 to 1990, Albach was the President of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin and from 1991 to 1999 he was the Director of the Market Dynamics Department at the Social Science Research Center Berlin. Since 1967 he was been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board to the Federal Minister of Economics and from 1978 to 1983 a member of the German Council of Economic Experts. He was also a member of the World Management Council in New York City. From 1989 to 1990 he was the President of the International Federation of Scholarly Association of Management (IFSAM). He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and, since 1999, of the Finnish Academy of Sciences.

The private University of Management in Vallendar, where he was Director of the Center for International Management, the University Business Seminar in Erftstadt-Liblar and the Institute for SME Research in Bonn were founded with his significant contribution. He was also a co-founder of the World Association of Professors of Business Administration and Management and the German-Russian Management University in Moscow and has been a visiting professor in Johannesburg, Kabul and Uppsala. He was also a member of scientific institutes in Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden and Spain. He holds honorary doctorates from the universities of Bielefeld, Cottbus, Graz, Helsinki, Kiel, Madrid, Stockholm and at the Japanese private Waseda University.

He also participated in start-ups during the Internet bubble and sat on the supervisory boards of Econia, Ecapella and Venture Park.

In 2000 he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. In 2001, he received the Grand Federal Cross of Merit with Star from the Minister of State for Culture, Julian Nida-Rümelin. He was an honorary member of the Betriebswirtschaftliche Vereinigung Bonn. In 2016, he became an honorary senator of the Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

Albach was editor of the Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft (Journal of Business Administration) and himself published over 600 writings in almost all subfields of business administration.

Horst Albach’s doctoral students at universities in Bonn, Berlin and Vallendar include the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP politician Andreas Pinkwart and the Bonn-based management consultant Hermann Simon.

Works

• Wirtschaftlichkeitsrechnung bei unsicheren Erwartungen (Economic efficiency calculation with uncertain expectations) Westdeutscher Verlag, Köln 1959.
• Investition und Liquidität : die Planung des optimalen Investitionsbudgets (Investment and liquidity : planning the optimal investment budget). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1962.
• Theorien der einzelwirtschaftlichen und des gesamtwirtschaftlichen Wachstums (Theories of microeconomic and macroeconomic growth). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1965.
• with O.M. Ungers: Optimale Wohngebietsplanung (Optimal residential planning).Gabler, Wiesbaden 1969.
• Steuersystem und unternehmerische Investitionspolitik (Tax system and entrepreneurial investment policy). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1970.
• Beiträge zur Unternehmensplanung (Contributions to corporate planning). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1971.
• with Thomas Gabelin: Mitarbeiterführung : Text und Fälle.Gabler, Wiesbaden 1977.
• Finanzkraft und Marktbeherrschung (Employee management : text and cases. Gabler, Wiesbaden 1977. Financial Power and Market Dominance). Mohr, Tübingen 1981.
• with Renate Albach: Betriebswirtschaftliche Institutionen. Auflage (Business management institutions. 4th edition). Fernuniversität, Hagen1987.
• Japanischer Geist und internationaler Wettbewerb.(= Marburger Universitätsreden. A 14). Hitzeroth, Marburg 1990.
• Unternehmen im Wettbewerb : Investitions-, Wettbewerbs- und Wachstumstheorie als Einheit ; den Freunden in Wissenschaft und Praxis (Firms in competition : investment, competition, and growth theory as a unit ; the friends in science and practice.). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1991.
• Deregulierung des Handwerks (Deregulation of the trade). Gabler, Wiesbaden 1992.
• with Günter Knieps: Kosten und Preise in wettbewerblichen Ortsnetzen (Costs and prices in competitive local networks).Nomos, Baden-Baden 1997.
• Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre : Einführung. 3 (General business administration : introduction. 3), überarbeitete Auflage. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2001.

Literature

• Dieter Sadowski (ed.): Entrepreneurial Spirits. Horst Albach on his 70th birthday. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2001.