Academic Departments


Courtyard behind the main building

The faculty resources at NHH are grouped into five departments, with each actively involved in research and teaching within a number of fields and disciplines. The school also co-operates closely with SNF (Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration) and AFF (Administrative Research Institute at the Norwegian School of Economics). In addition there are a number of research centres that draw resources from across the NHH group. Together, NHH and its associated foundations constitute a major academic and organisational entity with 474 employees and a budget of over 250 million NOK.

Department of Auditing, Accounting and Law

Financial and cost accounting were important educational and research areas at NHH right from its establishment in 1936. The Department of Accounting and Auditing was established as a separate department in 1984, and was then merged with the Department of Law in 1997. Department members are involved in research in areas such as: Financial Accounting, Management Accounting, Non-business Accounting, Auditing and Law. In addition, the History of Business Administration is an important research topic at the Department. The applied research done by the Department's staff is often channelled through SNF.

Find out more about the Department of Auditing, Accounting and Law

Department of Finance and Management Science

The Department of Finance and Management Science was established in 1984, when it became independent from the former Department of Business Administration. The main areas covered by the department are finance, accounting and operation research, financial economics, managerial economics, business strategy and mathematical and statistical methods. The late professors Karl H. Borch and Jan Mossin were among the founders of the economics of uncertainty and they made important contributions to the theory of finance and other areas of business administration. Research at the department has been particularly strong in theoretical and analytical work at the international research frontiers, contributing to the school�s nickname "The Norwegian School of Uncertainty". More recently, the research profile has become more diverse, as applied research has gained importance and additional research areas have been included. Current research topics include the valuation and optimal exercise of financial options, company valuation, reinsurance markets and equilibrium pricing, game theory, and capital budgeting applications.

Find out more about the Department of Finance and Management

Department of Economics

The first chairs in economics were created at NHH at its foundation in 1936, but the Department itself was not established until 1951. The research fields included industrial economics in general and specifically fisheries and shipping. Since the late 1960s, members of the Department have been active contributors to international economics journals. Many of them have also taken a strong interest in matters of economic policy, sometimes as members or experts on government committees, and sometimes as contributors to public debate about current economic issues. The department also includes the Nobel Prize winner Professor Finn E. Kydland. Areas of research include Development Economics, Fisheries and Natural Resources, Industrial Organisation, Labour Economics and International Economics. The department also has sections focusing on Economic History and Economic Geography.

Find out more about the Department of Economics

Department of Strategy and Management

Subjects in the fields of Organisational Sciences, Strategy and Marketing have been taught at NHH since the founding of the school. The Department of Marketing became formally established in the late 1950's and this was merged with the later established departments of Organisation Sciences and Information Systems Research in 1998 to form the Department of Strategy and Management. The department now covers four main areas of research and teaching: Organisational Sciences, Strategy, Marketing and Information Management. Within these areas research and teaching is actively pursued within a diversity of fields and disciplines. Current research topics include Organisation Theory, Organisation Behaviour, Organisation Psychology, Business Management, Change Management, Human Resource Management, Business Ethics, Business Strategy, Corporate Strategy, Inter-organisational Relations, Knowledge Management, Information Management, Information Systems, Electronic Commerce, Supply Chain Management, Marketing, Brand Management, and Consumer Behaviour.

Find out more about the Department of Strategy and Management

Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication

Modern European languages for business purposes have been studied and taught at NHH since its beginnings in 1936, and since 1985 they have been organised as a separate Department of Languages (since June 2003 as the Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication) comprising sections for English, French, German and Spanish, with basic Japanese added more recently. The principal activity of the Department is research and teaching related to special domain languages for economics and business administration, as dictated primarily by the need for specific communication competence among students in NHH's BSc and MSc programmes. On behalf of the Ministry of Education the Department executes NHH's formal and practical responsibility for the national translators' exam. One staff member is specially assigned to the supervision and organisation of the exam, assisted by an executive board. The research profile of the Department clearly reflects the specialised context in which language is taught and practised, i.e. economics, business, organisation, management, law and related fields

Find out more about the Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication

Centre for Ethics and Economy

The Centre for Ethics and Economy is a junction for researchers working with ethics in the different departments at NHH. The Centre�s most important tasks are to organise and develop the teaching of ethics at the school. This happens in part through the organisation of ethics courses by the Centre and in part by contributing to the integration of ethics in the other subjects. At the same time the Centre is a resource for students who wish to orientate themselves in this field of research.

Find out more about the Centre for Ethics and Economy (in Norwegian)

SNF (Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration)

With a basis in the leading universities in Norway, the Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration is a national institution for applied research in economics and business administration, with strong connections to other research institutions in Norway and abroad. The Norwegian name of the institution is "Samfunns- og n�ringslivsforskning AS", abbreviated SNF, which is the acronym also being used in English. The research topics currently being examined by SNF are Industrial Development, Energy and Environmental Economics, the Economics of Fisheries and Sea Farming, International Economics and Shipping, ICT and Telecommunications, Strategy and Management, Evaluation Studies, Health Economics, Labour Markets and the Economics of Public Services.

SNF has organised its research activities in five research centres. These are:

Centre for International Economics and Shipping
Centre for Industrial Organisation and Economic Policy
Centre for Fisheries Economics
Centre for Strategy and Management
Centre for Financial Economics

Find out more about SNF

AFF (Administrative Research Institute)

Established in 1952, AFF is one of the oldest institutions in Europe within the field of leadership development. In the beginning, the ambition was to establish an annual high quality leadership development programme. After some time it was named The Solstrand Programme due to its location at the Solstrand Fjord Hotel outside Bergen. The programme was very well received both by the business community and the public sector. In 1957 the Yale professor E. Wight Bakke conducted a thorough evaluation of the programme. He called it �One of the few outstanding examples of executive development programmes in the world�. The Solstrand Programme has now been completed every year since 1952 and is today the best known leadership development programme in Norway. AFF now has three additional open enrolment programmes; one for young leaders, one for senior executives and a Mentoring programme. The main source of growth, however, is within the areas of corporate leadership development programmes and consulting. Other important activities are management tools, e-learning, publishing and the AFF Leadership Forum; a membership organisation for 120 companies and government agencies.

Find out more about AFF