Skills
We introduce our students to current and future challenges in the areas of marketing and global management through practical and research-based teaching and continuing education. In doing so, we use proven, modern teaching methods to help our students see learning as a constructive, lifelong process.
At the heart of our research are questions that aim to create added business value on the one hand, and offer larger-scale societal benefits or counteract social issues on the other. The current research focus areas of the marketing subject-area group are as follows:
Product innovations and technology
We are researching client-side and user-side acceptance of and/or resistance to new technologies (e.g. digital/smart/radical/sustainable innovations), products and business models, so that they are able to deliver the greatest benefit to society. In addition, we are also examining what impact the use of new technologies (e.g. AI-based products and services) has on consumer behaviour.
Customer behaviour in digital contexts
We are investigating how customers make decisions in digital contexts (e.g. e-commerce, social media) and what the implications are for marketing by socially responsible businesses (e.g. branding).
Digital brand management
We are finding out how to manage brands digitally as part of different life cycles, e.g. which platforms should be utilised, what requirements brand ambassadors should meet and what services they should offer, and how the output should be measured. In doing so, we (still?) consider the digital and analogue worlds as a single entity.
Entrepreneurial marketing
We address specific questions relating to marketing newly founded businesses, in particular how product innovations can be marketed effectively at an early stage, e.g. via crowdfunding.
Marketing ethics
Across all of our topics, we take the customer perception of marketing tools into account, for example the influences and effects of the perception of modern marketing tools (decision architecture, dark patterns, etc.) as manipulative or unethical. We are developing guidelines for how to use these tools ethically.
Global Management
Living and working in an interconnected world requires new management approaches to international and global business practices. Yet billions are potentially lost every year because we ignore the expectations of people in foreign cultures, and the way that they do business.
Our team, Global Management, concentrates on developing measures that address the organizational goals when expanding internationally, such as
- Global strategic expansion with live-case companies
- International management
- Developing global mindsets and cultural intelligence
Concerning global competence development, we refer to the OECD definition, which states that globally competent individuals are able to «address local, global, and intercultural issues, understand and appreciate diverse perspectives and worldviews, interact successfully and respectfully with others, and act responsibly with respect to the sustainability of collective well-being.»
Our current research involves:
- Internationalisation of Curricula
- Developing global mindsets
