Master Courses

Qualitative Methods for Business and Management 

The unit introduces and discusses knowledge related to qualitative research design and processes. It will introduce different qualitative methods such as document analysis, participant observation, interviewing, focus groups, case study method, ethnography; modes and means of qualitative data analysis, and qualitative research publication and evaluation. Students will be given the opportunity to develop practical skills in designing and carrying out qualitative research projects and to pursue topics of their own choosing in exercise activities. Examples of qualitative research from a range of management, economics, social sciences disciplines including marketing, sociology, strategy, entrepreneurship, information systems and others, will be provided throughout the course in order to demonstrate unit content from a variety of perspectives. The unit will also cover the history, current status, and future advances of qualitative field research.

Further Information: OpenOlat

Technology and Innovation Management 

Firms find themselves at the crossroads between digital innovation and transformation. New and emergent digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, IoT, blockchain, or microprocessors, offer new opportunities for the creation of new infrastructures, products, processes, business models and organizational forms, and reshape traditional ways of organizing and working. At the same time, digital technologies are also increasingly more affordable and accessible to everyone, embedding themselves into society and altering the ecosystems in which firms operate. This fusion of digital technology within firms’ environments produces ongoing changes in customer expectations, the competitive landscapes, and regulation. Windows of opportunities are created for new ventures and new ways of working. At the same time, the lowering of entry barriers and proliferation of new digital ventures, in some cases involving new platform business logics that have the potential to disrupt existing industries, puts large established firms under significant competitive pressure to transform their legacy systems and reshape their business strategies and processes. It is no longer only startups who innovate digitally and are leveraging the new opportunities provided by digital technologies, new ways of working, and the associated market changes. Large and small incumbents across a great diversity of different industries and geographies are embracing digital innovation activities, and as they scale them, they transform their entire organization. Within and across organizations, digital technologies give rise to new ways of collaboration, leveraging resources, development, and deployment over open standards and shared technologies. Firms are moving from stand-alone organizations to open, collaborative eco-systems in which multi-firms’ networks collaboratively innovate with partners, suppliers, customers, and even competitors.

The unit introduces and discusses knowledge relevant to organizational leaders, directors, and other roles about managing technology-enabled organizing phenomena such as IT-enabled innovation, transformation, strategy, or other change processes.

It will introduce key characteristics of technology in our current so-called digital age.  It will discuss which technology-related resources and capabilities organizations require to maintain or improve their business models. It will explain how digital innovation, transformation, infrastructure, and ecosystem management must be managed.

Further Information: OpenOlat

Advanced Topics in Technology and Innovation Management 

This unit explores advanced topics and emerging scientific knowledge about digital innovation, digital transformation, and digital entrepreneurship as modern forms of technology and innovation management. This knowledge is relevant to organizational leaders, directors, and other roles about managing technology-enabled organizing. The unit pursues three aims:

1. To offer students who completed the basic module “Technology and Innovation Management” an opportunity to explore selected topics in much more detail.
2. To offer students an opportunity to meet, identify, explore, and critically discuss latest world-class faculty research on digital innovation, digital transformation, and digital entrepreneurship.
3. To provide students with additional scientific method competencies and content competencies about digital innovation, digital transformation, and digital entrepreneurship, which they can utilize for their master theses or future scientific or professional careers.

 Further Information: Syllabus

Master Seminar - Digital Innovation, Transformation, and Entrepreneurship

2023 Seminar Topic: ETHICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a core part of the digital infrastructure for many firms. More and more organizations have implemented AI-based technologies in a variety of professional contexts, usually to augment or automate their business processes and operations. AI is also increasingly confronting the private spaces in our society, making suggestions for the next buy or recommending which piece of news to consume next. But AI is unlike any other technology that has come before. In comparison with traditional digital technologies, AI today has greater learning capacity, greater autonomy in decision-making and is also more inscrutable than digital technologies of the past. Moreover, as data is available in unprecedented volume and quality, the application contexts of AI, its performance and impact have changed immensely. All the while, increasing volumes of funding are continued to be invested in AI, driving further development of the technology and its application.

This situation asks the question of how AI effects decision-making processes as well as outcomes on an ethical level, spanning accountability, morality, responsibility and other layers of ethical values. For example, who is responsible for what AI algorithms decide or do autonomously? How can we make sure that AI processes and outcomes are fair and beneficial for our society and environment? How can we prevent AI misuse and ensure that the data collected, stored and processed by AI is ethical, secure, and safe?  

This seminar will explore the ethics of artificial intelligence. Together, we will examine a variety of foundational as well as technology-specific topics related to the ethical and societal implication of the development and use of AI – such as data governance, fairness, bias, explainability, and accountability - and explore which ethical considerations need to be expected in relation to AJ, how ethics of AI can be approached, and which role managers, developers, users and researchers have to assume to ensure ethical development and use of AI.

Further information: Syllabus

Digital Innovation Lab 

In this course, we simulate a project-based digital innovation lab. The objective is to develop a functioning novel digital innovation prototype (containing both hardware and software component) that addresses a chosen sustainable development challenge. With this objective, we have two specific foci.

1. Address a Sustainable Development Challenge
2. Develop a Digital Artifact as a Solution to the Sustainable Development Challenge

Over the course of the semester, student teams will continuously work on developing their digital innovation solution. The course will include a range of accompanying help and assistance formats including lectures, tutorials, and interactive workshops.

 Further Information: Syllabus