Teaching

As part of the Strategic Marketing module, students will be given a unique opportunity to get some real practice experience by carrying out a semester project as part of the curriculum. The semester projects aim to answer practical questions raised by external partners in the areas of innovation management, business model generation, strategic marketing, business development. The projects are often conducted in cooperation with a regional partner (e.g. firms, non-profit organizations) and are run in conjunction with the lectures of the module. The aim is to allow students to apply their theoretical knowledge and skills gained in the courses to solve practical challenges in the real world. At the end of the semester, the results are presented by the students to delegates of the partnering company or organization on site.

Each semester there will be at least one Science-to-Society Semester Project conducted for a non-profit organization to address questions relevant to society and thereby contribute to society. 

Students will:

• make business knowledge applicable in a social context
• learn how to critically analyze and solve marketing strategy and innovation-related problems
• develop analytical skills in the formulation and implementation of an integrated marketing concept
• develop practical, decision-making and project management experience
• develop interpersonal, intercultural and teamwork skills through group project activities

This course provides students with a foundation of innovation and business models in the context of digitalization. Digitization is one of the key drivers of economic and social growth and dynamics. In addition to optimizing existing processes and value chains and opening up new sales and communication channels, digitization opens up a variety of possibilities for a fundamental change in traditional business models. The professional world of tomorrow, therefore, needs managers and entrepreneurs who understand digital change and its impact.

Hence, the course aims to develop entrepreneurial thinking personalities, who are not only prepared for the changed requirements of digitization in daily work but drive these developments actively.

Innovations provide economic success and secure a competitive position. This course gives shape to the abstract term 'innovation' and educates you on how to build the fundaments for innovation in an organization, especially in SMEs, and how to innovate a specific product, service, process or, business model. Each lecture is matched by a practical session where the latest innovation techniques, methods, and tools are used to provide you with the fundaments to strategically plan and execute innovation.

Students will:

• Develop an entrepreneurial acting and innovative thinking mind-set
• Prepare students for the changing job requirements
• Application of innovative techniques and methods
• Provide the economy with innovators
• Empower participants to identify and to develop innovations

The Research Seminar consists of a one-week block seminar in which students learn how to plan and implement an empirical scientific study. After the block seminar the students conduct their own study in small groups. By collecting and evaluating data, they try to answer a previously self-generated research question on the basis of a scientific theory. The seminar prepares the master students for their master thesis, as the students learn how to plan and carry out a scientific study and then write down this process.