For the summer term 2024, please register here.
Topic: Drivers and barriers of digital innovations in SMEs
The Master Seminar focuses on analyzing the drivers and barriers of digital innovations in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs, distinguished by their size based on employee numbers and sales volume, differ from large corporations and are often family-owned, prioritizing long-term strategies over short-term profit maximization. While SMEs benefit from proximity to customers, flexibility, and responsiveness, they face challenges such as limited resources and organizational adaptability to digital transformation. Students in the course explore these issues, examining obstacles to digitalization in SMEs and identifying drivers for digital innovation.
Students receive an introduction to the content of this year's Master's seminar. A series of subject areas will be presented. Students choose one of these subject areas, in which both their group work and their individual work is to be completed. There will also be an introduction to methodological approaches to working on the topics: (i.) literature analysis + meta-study, (ii.) qualitative empirical analysis, (iii.) quantitative empirical analysis, (iv.) other methods.
Students work in groups and individually on well-defined topics in the field of innovation management and innovation economics, demonstrating their capability to argue on theoretically substantiated and empirically verfied basis.
The seminar is held in hybrid form. The introductory session, interim presentation and final session will take place in person.
We start with a kick-off meeting in the second week of April. Accepted participants will receive more detailed information via mail at the end of February.
If you have any problems, please contact maike.becker@uni-hohenheim.de.
