FZI has established joint activities with the Human Resources Competence Center at Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences, which is member of MATURE's associate partner network. Christine Kunzmann and Prof. Fritz Gairing have supervised a project thesis of an engaged team of five students who investigated the topic of motivation and incentives informal learning.

Based on existing studies and models in diverse fields (psychology, human resources management, economics, among others) they have synthesized their own model, which is one of the foundations for MATURE's model on the motivational barriers to knowledge maturing.

They have validated their model and their theoretical findings with the help of semi-structured interviews at a large software company and a large energy company in the southwest of Germany. The full project thesis is available here (in German). The team consists of Volker Braun, David Czech, Benjamin Fletschinger, Silke Kohler, and Verena Lüber, all of them students of human resources management.

Recently, they have received a student award for their excellent work (see also press release of Pforzheim University and of Stadtwerke Pforzheim, in German). Congratulations!