Cases such as Enron or BP show that making the right decisions concerning ethical issues can be critical for the financial success or even the survival of a company. Similarly negotiations and contracts are strongly influenced by ethical aspects. The objective of the Business Ethics course is to provide the theoretical basis and to develop the skills to successfully address such issues. It will give an introduction to the main ideas of a modern conception of business ethics, which is based on the idea that ethics and economics are not necessarily in conflict. The concepts provided will form the basis for the analysis and discussion of typical ethical problems confronted by management. By using the case study method, different issues such as trust, corruption, environmental protection, child labor, relevance of values, human rights and other problems in the process of globalization will be discussed.

Students participating in this course will learn the concepts and tools necessary for analyzing typical ethical problems from a management perspective. As a result, participants will develop an analytical competence in resolving ethical problems and improve their competence in effectively communicating about these issues.

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The course provides participants with a theoretical background on entrepreneurship, gives practical advice and knowledge on the topic, and discusses the preparation of business plans. The focus of the course lies on the entrepreneurial process and the decisions to be taken at each phase of the start-ups development.

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The primary function of marketing is to facilitate exchange of value in the market place. For this purpose managers need to understand, both, how to create a value proposition and how to deliver it most profitably to the customers. A solid understanding of the needs of the customers, capabilities of the competitors, motivations of the intermediaries, and finally the competencies of one's own organization is fundamental for successful marketing plans. This course introduces basic concepts, tools, and frameworks in marketing combined with practical examples. A broad range of marketing issues in a variety of consumer, industrial, and service environments is covered. Topics include buying behaviour, marketing research, strategic aspects of marketing and marketing mix.

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Microeconomic theory aims to explain the decision-making of individuals in a world of scarce resources. It derives implications which help understand the functioning of markets and the development of social organizations such as firms and governmental institutions. In the first part we introduce the basic analytical tools and theories of microeconomics. The second part analyzes market structures and the nature of competition.

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In its first section, the course discusses the principles of a social market economy and clarifies the theoretical foundations of business administration. The second section investigates the principles of management and leadership as well as their practical implications for management in the context of the life cycle of a company. Specific topics to be analyzed are decision making, organization management and corporate governance. The third section deals with important business functions. Specific areas to be covered are marketing, finance as well as innovation management.

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Real-world markets depart in many ways from the textbook ideal of perfect competition. Industrial economics is thus devoted to the theoretical and empirical analysis of imperfectly competitive markets. As such, it provides the economic underpinnings for competition law and policy. The course develops the framework and provides the tools for the economic analysis of antitrust cases. Topics are strategic interaction, collusion, horizontal and vertical restrictions of competition, abuse of dominance, and mergers.

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The aim is to give an introduction to international tax planning and to show how international investment and financing decisions are affected by taxes. The course takes corporate taxation and personal income taxation into account. The course intensifies and builds on the topics taught in the course "International Tax Law". National and international tax law knowledge will be used to discuss practical problems and to train business decisions by solving case studies.

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The course “International Trade and Investment” begins by looking at why globalization has taken place and what the business implications are with a specific focus on international trade and investment are. Then, the course examines the rationale of international trade and some of the political disputes about its effects. Subsequently, the reasons for trade policy and efforts to liberalize international trade are discussed. The last part of the course deals with foreign direct investment. This part investigates reasons for and problems of such activities as well as government policies in this area.

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The purpose of the course Introduction to Strategic Management is to equip students with the core concepts, frameworks, and techniques of strategic management. To achieve this, the course follows an analytical approach. If strategic management is about managing the organization in order to achieve superior performance, then the essential tasks of strategy are to identify the sources of profit available to the business, to formulate and to implement a strategy that exploits these sources of profit. Thus, the course at first lays the foundation of strategic management and defines what strategy is, what types of strategies exist and how competitive advantage can be obtained. Following a market-based approach, the course then explores the interrelationship between strategy and the environment. Therefore, the course describes how companies can forecast their environments and analyze their industry. Finally, the course takes a resource-based view of the company and shows how organizations can create advantage by developing unique resources. Throughout the course, exercises and case studies are used to enable students to apply the concepts, frameworks, and techniques learned within the course.

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