Isabell Stamm

Isabell Stamm is a sociologist and Group Leader in the Research Group on Wealth and Inequality at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. She has simultaneously served as head of the 'Entrepreneurial Group Dynamics' research group at Technische Universität Berlin since 2017, demonstrating her dual institutional commitment to advancing sociological research on economic structures.

Her research program develops a sociology of entrepreneurship that examines entrepreneurial action within its institutional context, challenging notions of heroic individual entrepreneurs while highlighting the social embeddedness of business ownership. Stamm's work specifically focuses on entrepreneurial families, collective engagement in entrepreneurship, and trajectories of entrepreneurial groups, situated at the intersection of organizational sociology, economic sociology, and studies of social inequality.

Through numerous studies, she has investigated the family embedding of firms in Germany, the relationship between groups and organizations, norms and practices of transgenerational wealth transmission, and normative shifts regarding business exit in German Mittelstand companies. Her recent work analyzes how wealthy families function as actors within German family capitalism, examining ownership transfer patterns using income tax data from the German Taxpayer Panel.

Stamm's scholarly output demonstrates consistent focus on the sociological dimensions of business ownership, with particular attention to how entrepreneurial action both shapes and is shaped by social groups and institutions. Her research reveals how wealth histories create embedded responsibilities and obligations that influence contemporary business practices and ownership structures in capitalist societies.

As an educator, she teaches courses on organizational theory, economic sociology, social inequality and wealth, family business and entrepreneurship, qualitative methods, and academic writing at BA, MA, Executive MBA, and PhD levels in both English and German. While currently unavailable as an advisor for new IMPRS doctoral students in 2025, she has previously supervised doctoral candidates through the International Max Planck Research School.

Stamm actively engages with academic and public audiences through conference presentations, public lectures, and media appearances, including a featured podcast through the MPIfG lecture series where she discusses ownership transfer in German Mittelstand businesses.