Leuphana Center for Organization & Social Transformation (LOST)

The Leuphana Center for Organization & Social Transformation (LOST) is a dynamic research community dedicated to the study of organizational phenomena and their impact on social change. The members of the research center share a special interest in the organization of entrepreneurship, sustainability and digital transformation. We theorize and empirically study the intricacies of organizational phenomena, seeking to understand their fluid and evolving nature, and their impact on social transformation.

What sets the research center apart is its aim to foster contributorship (rather than formal membership) to the LOST community, a community of practice. The center serves as the institutional vessel for this research community that reaches beyond the formal boundaries of Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Through its activities, the center encourages all LOST members to contribute to a collaborative research environment and to shape our understanding of organizing and organizations in society with their unique perspectives, knowledge, and skills. Societal impact is a central concern of the research center, which is reflected, among other things, in numerous collaborations with practitioners such as business enterprises, civil society organizations, as well as arts and cultural institutions. 

The research center aims to continue opening up spaces for collaboration between established and emerging scholars through regular meetings and interactive workshop formats, thus contributing to its excellence. Likewise, it promotes the exchange on teaching formats, aiming at the creation of a dedicated LOST PhD program for young researchers, to further strengthen its profile. Another endeavor is the joint acquisition of third-party funding to support excellent research, such as the DFG package proposal currently in progress, in which six of the associated professors are actively involved. The overarching goal of the center is to raise the profile of the research community and to position its work even more strongly nationally and internationally, for example, by inviting internationally renowned guest scholars. 

The Leuphana Center for Organization & Social Transformation (LOST) is part of the Research Center for Entrepreneurship.