Requirements

The project is aimed at Bachelor students who have already attended the one of the GPP modules "Principles of Business Administration (GPP)" or “Principles of Marketing (GPP)”, and the “E-Business (GPP)” module. Interested students who have not yet participated in the “E-Business” module can still enquire about participation. Further details on participation conditions can be found here.

Additional Information

Description of the Project Seminar

This cross-location seminar focuses on entrepreneurship and business models in the “Net Economy”. 

Students from several German and international universities (the Freie Universität Berlin, the Fachhochschule Südwestfalen, the Conneticut State University, the Blekinge Institute of Technology Sweden and the Fachhochschule der Wirtschaft Graz) will work in virtual teams to learn about business model analysis, e-commerce characteristics, and virtual collaboration.

The central coordination platform for this class is a closed social network within which the participants create individual profiles to apply for a team. Every student therefore needs to familiarize himself with the platform, setup a profile and join a team within the first two weeks of the class, called Preparation Phase. In the following Knowledge Development Phase the students will be introduced to some major characteristics of e-commerce and the Web 2.0, to major types of business models on the web, to the business model canvas as a means of analyzing and designing online businesses. Furthermore, topics on block chains and sustainability will be covered. On each of these topics introduced by the instructors via e-lecture, the teams have to complete and submit an assignment on the class platform. The Knowledge Development Phase ends with a multiple choice test on the topics covered. In the following Case Study Phase every team is then asked to apply the new knowledge and develop a business plan for an assigned business model type using the business model canvas. This Case Study Phase includes a peer review process in which each team receives video feedback from at least two other teams. The top rated teams will present their business plan during a final live online meeting, in which all participants will vote the top E-Venture of the class. In the last phase (research phase), each participant works individually on a research topic. The aim is to write an essay in the form of an exposé for a potential thesis. This includes a literature-based motivation explaining the research gap, a research question as well as the methodological approach and the expected output.
Due to the international participants the class is complete taught in English and work needs to be conducted online, with the help of various Web 2.0 applications such as Google Sites, blogs, and wikis.

The project will be conducted in English.

Procedure

The seminar starts on Oct. 15th 2025. We'll be meeting three times for a live video conference with the other locations. 

Date	Agenda
Oct. 15th (Wed) at 2:00 PM	Kick-off meeting
will be announced	Midterm test and case study kick-off
will be announced	Case study closing session

The seminar will take place in class, we meet @Garystr. 21, HS 108

Certificate Acquisition

After active and successful contribution to the seminar and after passing the mid-term-test participants will receive 5 credit points. The grades for both parts of the exam (group project and exam) contribute to half of the module grade. The module exam is passed when the module grade is at least at a standard of “sufficient” (4,0).

 

We are looking forward to your participation and an interesting and successful course of events during the project.