The course is designed to enhance students understanding of organizations and offers a hands-on overview by using actual European business and management examples and cases. It aims to provide essential and best practice business and management guidelines.
It focuses on fundamental management concepts, functions and skills of management and provides insights into operations in a range of industries as well as international organizations. Students have the opportunity to apply theory to practical European business and management situations in planning, organizing, leading and controlling of business activities. Multinational companies highly value Austria as a headquarters location. Given Austria with its birthplace of Peter Drucker, inventor of modern management and most widely influential management thinker, the first business school and currently more than 300 international headquarters and holdings as well as a number of international organizations headquartered in Austria (OPEC; United Nations with UNIDO, UNDOC and IAEA; OSCE, Sustainable Energy for All, etc.) students are encouraged to put management concepts and skills into practice.
Selected European Fortune 500 corporations, Platts Top 250 and Top Trend Companies as well as special sources are used for case research including actual company information. These success cases of European and Austrian leading companies such as Volkswagen, OMV, Magna, Voest Alpine, etc, are used in order to enhance the understanding of successful management of behavior in organzations and the quest and search for sustainability.
The course is also aimed to increase the students´ awareness and understanding of industries in Europe in comparison to US- and Asian business locations by using cases of successful Business and Investment Agencies. Factors outside the business sphere, such as cultural competence, can have a decisive influence on the success and sustainability in the face of global competition. Students will be invited to actively participate in short workshops in connection to the annual "Sommerdiskurs" held in Strobl.
Requirements and form of assessment: Class participation and discussions (20%). Projects in class including analysis and report (35%). With instructor guidance, students select cases and collect additional actual company information including annual and sustainability reports. Students will report and present their findings in class. Final exam, based on lectures and complementary reading (45%). Answers in short essay form.
