Syllabus
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The core objective of higher education in the field of business communication is to educate students to become capable and reflective decision-makers. While scientific literature has much to say about the management of communication in language, cultural, and organizational contexts, the crucial point of any study program is to provide the transfer between scientific knowledge and practical application. The research project is designed to give participants the opportunity to apply their theoretical insights from previous courses in a practical context. In cooperation with business partners, students have the opportunity to work on a project with real-life implications. Linking academia and practice, the goal is to apply scientific methods of research and problem-solving to real-world problems in all sorts of business communication contexts. Being supervised by faculty and communication professionals, the students will engage in an applied research project at the intersection of research and business to explore how theoretical insights help to solve practical problems.
The course will enable students to do the following things:
- apply theoretical knowledge to practical problems
- use research methods to solve problems in business communication
- engage with the practice of business communication
- design, organize and conduct an applied research project at the intersection between academia and practice
- self-organize as a team
- pitch a concept to business representatives
Attendance is mandatory during all the meetings with the project partners, especially during the kick-off, the project pitch, and the concluding presentation of the results. In between these fixed events, students can miss a maximum of two project sessions with the advisers during the semester. Since this is partly a self-organized seminar, students have to manage their internal meetings together as a group.
This is an applied research project that will progress in four phases:
- The first phase will begin with the project kick-off where students will be introduced to the business partner and the task they are going to work on during the semester. In this initial phase, students are asked to develop a comprehensive understanding of the problem, do research on the matter, and organize themselves as a project team.
- The second stage consists of the development of a research concept which is going to be pitched to the business partner. Students need to apply their insights from stage one to present their thoughts on how to tackle the problem at hand. At the end of this stage, the group will have developed a sustainable concept and research design to work on the project.
- Stage three is the main stage, where students conduct the applied research project and develop a concept to solve the stated task on the basis of their insights from their own research.
- In the final stage, the participants will work on their reporting, i.e. to develop a presentation of their results and the concept they have produced for the practical problem, and a written report.
During all the stages, students will be supervised by the business partners and the faculty to guide them in the application of their research methods towards the practical task they are given. The whole seminar is largely self-organized, apart from fixed counseling sessions provided by the business partners and the faculty.
Assessment will comprise the following elements:
Initial pitch (20%)
Ongoing participation and delivery of final presentation (30%)
Project report (50%)
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