The aim of the course is to apply and further the knowledge acquired in the other SBWL courses in a full research project that students will be part of from beginning to end. Students will work in teams with each team working on a separate research project. The focus of the research projects will vary, depending on availability of projects and the team’s interest.

Consulting projects involve liaising with an industry partner or public institution, in which case the research project will be carried out as a form of consulting project. Students might directly interact with the company, and, in cooperation with the industry partner/ public institution formulate research question and hypotheses, conduct a literature review and analyze data in a way that addresses the research question to be answered.

Academic projects are research projects where student teams work on research questions that they come up themselves or in co-operation with advisors. Projects should focus on specific strategic situations that are observed in businesses, in markets, in everyday interactions between humans or in economies. Students in academic project teams will formulate research questions and hypotheses and conduct a thorough, extensive review and discussion of the existing academic literature. Students will actively search for available data online to test their hypotheses.

On successful completion of the course, you should be trained in:

• Thinking about situations in businesses, politics and markets from a strategic point of view,
• Formulating a research question and hypotheses,
• Conducting a review of existing projects and literature,
• identifying and obtaining relevant data for problem analysis,
• choosing appropriate methods to analyze the data and derive conclusions,
• critically reflecting the findings,
• presenting and discussing research findings, limitations and conclusions in front of an audience.

We expect students to attend all meetings of this course.

The projects usually start with a kickoff meeting (in which an industry partner may be present). After a definition of research question and scope of project, the teams will work independently, under guidance of advisors. The project work will result in an intermediate presentation of preliminary results, a final project report as well as a project presentation (once again with possible presence of an industry partner).

During the project you will have several meetings with the instructors of this course in order to provide you with timely feedback on the project’s progress. 

The final grade of the course will depend on:

• Participation (15%)
   
• Intermediate presentation: 20%
  Presentation of project’s intermediate results and current progress.
   
• Final presentation: 25%
  Presentation on research question, methods, results, and conclusions.
   
• Project report: 40%
  Written document that covers the whole project work, including research question, data and methods used, findings and conclusions.