Entrepreneurial innovation and international growth are two preconditions to sustained competitive advantage. Especially in small and medium economies like Austria, companies must expand beyond their national borders at a very early stage. Leveraging your competitive advantage in foreign markets requires in depth knowledge about these markets and a financial strategy that accounts for the additional risks in cross-border business. In an ever accelerating, globalizing world, companies must sustain their entrepreneurial initiatives through supportive internationalization and financial strategies. This course uses a real life example of an entrepreneurial corporate partner company to teach how to apply international strategic management in an entrepreneurial environment. Students will develop recommendations for strategic product innovation, international expansion and financing strategies. The corporate partner company will be Varta Energy Storage, a global leader in energy storage solutions, which seeks to expand its product line and internationalize into new foreign markets.

During the course, students

• Study academic theories on International Entrepreneurship, International Business and International Finance
• Apply these theories to a real-life case company
• Learn to work on interdisciplinary tasks and business cases
• Work in teams to develop business cases for the case company
• Develop their analytical capabilities using real-company data
• Pitch their entrepreneurial and financial concepts to company representatives

Students must attend all sessions of the seminar and the required group work.

The course combines theory on international entrepreneurship and strategy with a real-life consulting project. Teaching is in hybrid form with both presence and online elements, as-well as synchronous and asynchronous components. Students work in groups on competitive business cases. Groups receive several coaching sessions with academic supervisors Prof. Puck and Dr. Müllner and/or company representatives. The consulting project involves two deliverables

• Mid-term presentation           (group):                      40 %
• Touchdown presentation       (group):                      45 %
• Mini Case                              (individual)                15 %
• Participation                          (individual)                10 % (bonus points curve-graded)

Please log in with your WU account to use all functionalities of read!t. For off-campus access to our licensed electronic resources, remember to activate your VPN connection connection. In case you encounter any technical problems or have questions regarding read!t, please feel free to contact the library at readinglists@wu.ac.at.

Anytime via forum. Response times via e-mail can be longer. For personal meetings please arrange an apointment.