BUSINESS PROJECT:

This time, the IfU Business Project will be held in collaboration with KURIER (one of the major media/publishing players in Austria) and focus on the topic of “Business model innovation in the media/publishing sector: Digital way or no way?" Specifically, the project will include an in-depth analysis of the industry, an evaluation of sustainable revenue models suitable for the project partner, and a benchmark study of media companies and other relevant organizations.

This is a real-life consulting course that blends research and practice. This award-winning (WU Excellence in Teaching, Ars Docendi State Prize) course is unique, as participants will be both WU’s SIMC master and IfU bachelor students. The master students will act as team leaders.

In a collaborative project with our partner, students are asked, inter alia, to:

• conduct an in-depth analysis of the industry, including the key drivers of change and prevailing trends,
• investigate the affinity of KURIER towards digital transformation
• evaluate sustainable (business) revenue models suitable for KURIER,
• and perform an empirical investigation, incl. a benchmark study of the media companies and other relevant organizations and a (potential) consumer survey.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS:

• Students interested in digital transformation and business model innovation will be part of a research-focused consulting project and learn how to do a practically relevant research study. Students will get unique real-world insights into the media industry and will have the opportunity to learn empirical research methods, incl. expert interviews and survey study.
• Students will be able to develop and train their team-working and leadership skills. According to the “IfU Business Project Approach“ which has been awarded the Austrian State Prize for teaching (Ars Docendi) in 2016, five Master Students will take the role of team leaders and lead small teams of Bachelor students. The experienced challenges of leadership will be discussed in class and all students (Bachelor and Master students) will have the opportunity to get invaluable „learning by doing“ leadership experience for their future career.

Application for this course is compulsory and comprises a cover letter and CV. Application details with further information on the project and deadline will be sent via email in due course. Sole registration through the LPIS-System hence does not guarantee a spot.

After completing this class students will be able to:

• describe and discuss possibilities of digital transformation and possible business model innovation in the media/publishing industry
• conduct systematic literature reviews
• critically read and make sense of research articles
• structure complex business problems
• design and implement practice-oriented research projects

Apart from that, completing this course will contribute to students' abilities to:

• organize and manage a large-scale project in the field of strategic management and management accounting
• pursue the project management (PM) activities and master the use of various PM tools
• structure complex and ill-defined problems
• apply theoretical knowledge from different fields to find creative hands-on solutions to real-life business problems.

• Coachings
• Group discussions about research papers
• Group assignments
• Individual (in-group) assignments
• Practitioner feedback
• Peer coaching

The course grading system is based on:

• Workshop presentation, incl. peer evaluation: 15% 
• Mid-term presentation, incl. peer review: 30%
• Interim workshop with the project partner, incl. evaluation by the project partner: 15% 
• Final presentation, incl. peer review: 30%
• Participation: 10%

Application for this course is compulsory and comprises a short cover letter and CV. Application details with further information on the project and deadline will be sent via email. Sole registration through the LPIS-System hence does not guarantee a spot.

Aleksandra Klein & Konstantin Grün & Isabella Grabner

The kickoff session (01.03.2021), workshops (15.03.2021 and 17.05.2021) and midterm (26.04.2021) and final presentations (14.06.2021) are compulsory! More information will follow at the first meeting.