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Exchange students can choose their classes from the list below listed by subjects. Please read the descriptions of the classes very carefully and make sure that you meet the pre-requisites. Browse through our subjects and classes to find out more. The subjects serve as a filter for the classes, thus helping you to find the classes more easily. The online catalog is dynamically updated and will reflect ongoing curriculum approvals for classes. Classes offered at Geislingen Campus are open for exchange students, too. They are listed in the different subject areas. However, please note that it takes about an hour to travel from one campus to the other, which is important to know when planning a time schedule for a semester.

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101-118-IO-02 Sustainability Performance Management & Reporting

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 3 ECTS Credits (75 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

This course cannot be taken together with the following courses: 204-035-IO-01 Sustainability Management and 101-115-IO Marketing and Sustainability

offered in spring/summer

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel

This class deals with the following topics:
Chapter 1 Introduction: Companies & Sustainability
(Sustainability drivers, business impact, value chain perspective)
Chapter 2 Sustainability Reporting
(GRI Standard, Credibility of Reports / Greenwashing, Materiality)
Chapter 3 Sustainability Performance Management
(Corporate Sustainability, Software Tools, Supply Chain Sustainability)

Assessment: Written exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

101-120-IO-01 Innovation Management

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 4,5 ECTS Credits (112,5 hours per semester), 3 hours per week (35 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel

The students understand the relevance and the challenges of innovation management. They learn basic approaches and methods that are typically applied, and are enabled to apply some of the concepts in smaller exercises. The students see how companies implement innovation management in practice, and further understand methods and approaches to develop more sustainable products and process technologies, including a broad number of examples and case studies. This course deals with the following topics:
-    Defintions and some key statistics
-   Influence of strategy and culture
-   Life cycles and innovation management models
-   Innovation management process
-   Sustainable innovation

Assessment: written exam, coursework project (presenation, paper)
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

101-120-IO-03 Product Sustainability

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 1,5 ECTS Credits (37,5 hours per semester), 1 hour per week (15 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Matthias Schulz

This course deals with the following topics:
1. Sustainability – the bigger picture: Overview of current environmental issues; Sustainability: what does it mean and essential perspectives; Economic growth and sustainable development – an irresolvable conflict? Transformation steps to a postgrowth economy
2. and 3. Measurement and communication of products‘ environmental performance: Life cycle thinking and life cycle management, Introduction to life cycle assessment (the methodology and a case study), Communicating the environmental performance of products with the help of eco-labels

Assessment: written exam

Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

102-040-IO-01 Entrepreneurship

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 3 ECTS Credits (75 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Wolfgang Schroter

Students will become familiar with various tasks involved in founding a company. They know how to deal with the respective complexity. They are able to comprehend the stages of a growing company. Students learn how to deal with critical situations. They can understand Sustainable Management as an important corporate goal. The development of a company is illustrated with a concrete example:
*Tasks and challenges during the foundation phase
*Orientation towards corporate goals
*Ensuring healthy growth
*Internationalization and competition
*Dealing with internal and external crisis
*Responsibility for company and employees
This course is held in form of a case study with discussions and group work.

Assessment: Oral exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

102-040-IO-02 Innovation Management

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 3 ECTS Credits (75 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel

The students understand the importance of innovations for companies and know how and in which framework innovations can be promoted. They know how innovation managers work and they have gained a deeper insight into practical implementation. Relevant methods can be applied by the students. This course deals with the following topics:
-   Tasks, significance and objectives of innovation management
-   Types of innovations and innovation processes
-   Networks, Open Innovation and Crowd Sourcing
-   Practice of innovation management
-   Innovations for sustainable products and processes

Assessment: Oral exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

102-041-IO Business Creation - Start-up

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 4 hours per week (45 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Erskin Blunck, Prof. Dr. Christian Arndt

Learn - Create - Change: Create and develop startup-ready concepts - from innovative ideas to a sustainable Business Model Canvas.
Develop - Test - Implement: Be inspired by the opportunity to take action for sustainable development with future-oriented startups. Contribute effective innovations and transform existing products and services. You will learn to create and develop your own ideas into a feasible and sustainable business model. By actively going through the business creation process you will apply key techniques and develop the necessary skills to create a sucessful and sustainable business. The focus is thereby on critical and creative thinking techniques, customer discovery and rapid evaluation of business potential of technologies and ideas. Finally, the business model canvas will be formulated and presented to a professional audience at a final pitch event. Benefit from professional mentoring by our experts, individual feedback and hands-on activities. In this module, teams will learn and work in small and diverse startup groups with students from all faculties. Zukunft.Gründen is a new startup supporting project of HfWU and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy under the scheme of EXIST, and collaborates with Contact-AS and G-INNO. Contents:
• Problem definition: need for transformation, SDGs
• Idea creation: creativity techniques
• Startup Know-How: Entrepreneurship, Design Thinking, Foresight thinking, Risk Management
• Idea validation: market potential, customer discovery, financing strategies, Business Model Canvas

Assessment: Business model prototype, presentations, final pitch
Prerequisite: Background in Business / Economics, Management (intermediate level), willingness to co-create and interact with other purpose-driven participants
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

102-042-IO Business Concept

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 4 hours per week (45 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Graf, Alan Riefert, Lukas Adams

The module Business Concept includes aspects of sustainable entrepreneurship and deals with the following topics:
Sources of early stage financing: Individuals / Founders, retained earnings, bank borrowing, government sources, stock market (methods of new issues, types of underwriting), Venture Capital (VC), crowdfunding, innovation financing
Forms of venture capital: Business angels, venture capital funds, corporate venturing, incubators: key considerations in choosing a venture capitalist, evaluation activities carried out by venture capitalists
Financing Process: Process steps, obstacles
Evaluation Process: Business and company evaluation.
In addition to the classroom lecture experts and practitioners from industry present real life cases and best practices. Different industries, tasks and financing volumes shall help to prepare for the own case. Furthermore, students are expected to bring their own business idea forward and prepare for financing options.

Assessment: Presentation
Prerequisites: Intermediate level in Business/Finance/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

102-043-IO Financial Business Planning

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 4 hours per week (45 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Andreas Schittenhelm/Prof. Dr. Mario Nicoliello

Students in this class are able to develop a financial business plan in Excel and are able to judge the profitability of an own venture. This course includes aspects of sustainable entrepreneurship and deals with the following topics: Business Planning, Financial Planning, Cash Flows, Profitability, Risk Management.

Assessment: Paper
Prerequisites: Intermediate level in Business/Finance/Economics, Excel
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

Elective Module Program: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management

Academic Level: 400

5 Lectures, 24 ECTS Credits (600 hours per semester), 16 hours per week (180 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturers: Dr. Wolfgang Schroter, Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel, Prof. Dr. Andreas Schittenhelm, Prof. Dr. Serge Ragotzky, Prof. Dr. Graf, Süleyman Torasan, M.Sc.

This program covers the following parts: 102-040-IO-01 Entrepreneurship, 102-040-IO-02 Innovation Management, 102-041 Business Creation-Start-up, 102-042 Business Concept, 102-043 Financial Business Planning. Students become familiar with the various tasks involved in starting a business. They know how to deal with the respective complexity and are able to comprehend the phases of a growing company. The students learn how to deal with critical situations. They are able to understand sustainable management as an important corporate goal. Upon successful completion of all 5 graded parts, students will receive a participation certificate at the end.

Assessment: Oral exams, coursework project, presentation, paper
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

308-013-OC Landscape, Democracy and the European Union

Academic Level: 500

Seminar, 5 ECTS Credits (125 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

This course is also open to Business and Economics students!

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Dr. Ellen Fetzer, Prof. Dr. Michael Roth

The webinar ‘Landscape, democracy in the European Union’ aims to bridge knowledge gaps between the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, relevant EU policies, programmes and instruments in the fields of environment and regional development. This module is funded by the Jean-Monnet-Programme of the European Union. After successful completion of the course, learners are expected to have developed: a holistic understanding of the EU’s overall vision and strategic goals, knowledge of how EU environmental policies are made, knowledge of how the EU’s environmental policy links to related but equally relevant policy fields, in particular agriculture and rural development, regional and urban policy and climate action, knowledge of how EU policy is related to and complementing with other international/European policy actors in the field of environment/landscape and sustainable development, knowledge of European instruments and funding schemes for sustainable development, competence to link a local landscape context to the EU’s policy framework and to conceive sustainable solutions that make constructive use of EU instruments and funding schemes (such as Life+ and Interreg projects, Natural Capital Financing Facility, Green direct payments for farmers).

Assessment: Seminar paper
Prerequisite: a good level of English is required
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

900-004 Digital Transformation

Academic Level: 400

Seminar, 8 ECTS Credits (200 hours per semester), 6 hours per week (70 hours per semester)
7 “face-to-face” sessions and active participation in weekly online activities/sessions and self-directed project work

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Sebastian H.D. Fiedler

Our main interest is a range of methods and concepts from “User Experience Design” (UX). The field of User Experience Design is a conceptual design discipline. It focuses on the interaction between human users/actors, machines & devices, (user-)interfaces, and the contextual environments of particular activities. With the proliferation of computers and networked devices in work and life, user experience has become an increasingly significant concern for the design of products, services, (user) interfaces, and so forth. User Experience Design is a multi-disciplinary field and includes elements of interaction design, information architecture, user research, applied psychology, and other disciplines. It is thus accessible for students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds.Contents: contemporary and emerging phenomena of digital transformation in work and learning, What is user experience design (UX)? Cultural-Historical Activity Theory and other strands of applied psychology in UX, selected methods and tools for User Experience Design and User Research, the role of User Experience Design for business innovation.

Assessment: Presentations, project report
Prerequisite: English as working language (oral & written)
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

308-013-OC Social Innovation

Academic Level: 500

Online lecture + Community Project, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 4 hours per week (45 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer

Lecturer: Dr. Ellen Fetzer

Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a programme offered by a 4-University Consortium in cooperation with relevant NGOs. The goal is to empower future changemakers through an interdisciplinary, problem-based learning environment that enhances the innovative competencies needed for addressing social, cultural and environmental challenges. A social entrepreneur applies business tools for solving social and environmental problems. Success in social entrepreneurship is primarily measured by degree of social impact, not only monetary profit. Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship includes live sessions on the internet available to the wider global community, as well as interdisciplinary and international group work with students from Romania, Estonia, the Netherlands and other European countries. The programme offers students the possibility to receive an attractive travel grant to attend 10-day workshops in Romania or Estonia. The online module consists of twelve 90-minute sessions of lectures, reading materials, collaborative group work and other diverse active and passive learning tools. The thematic elements of the course are designed to give students core knowledge for developing community-based social innovation. The online course will built up theoretical knowledge around community-based innovation, social entrepreneurship, and its European and global context. In parallel, the Nürtingen students will follow a collaboration process with citizens and stakeholders. Together with the Nürtingen community, we will build social business ideas in response to local challenges and needs. Registration link and further information: http://www.localchange.eu

Assessment: Coursework project (paper + presentation)
Prerequisite: a good level of English is required
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

203-056-IO Applied Project Management

Academic Level: 300

Lecture, 4 ECTS Credits (100 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Friedemann Baisch/Jürgen Raizner

Project based work is becoming increasingly important at any future work place of the students. The seminar Applied Project Management is designed for students, who would like to get a clear understanding of the major processes in managing projects. The applied process model is based on the internationally recognized IPMA Standard (German standard DIN 69901). Challenge is, to learn project management by working on a real project. Thematic subjects are changing from semester to semester. Objectives and scope of the student’s work will be discussed and agreed at the beginning of the seminar. Participating students learn target oriented thinking and working. Executing the project will be done by working groups who receive an intensive coaching by the lecturer. The lecturers are changing from Semester to Semester: Jürgen Raizner is a consultant, scientist and director of steinbeis-transfer-center East Europe. He is an experienced lecturer in the field of project management at HfWU. Prof. Dr. Friedemann Baisch has a call for General Management at HfWU and has a focus in Business Process Management, Project Management and Change Management.

Assessment: Coursework project (paper)
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

204-002-IO Concepts General Management

Academic Level: 500

Seminar, 2 ECTS Credits (50 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Erskin Blunck

The students will get an introduction to Business Administration and get an overview about selected management theories and concepts. The course will introduce to the Business Environment, Business Ownership and Entrepreneurship as well as Management and Organization. Basic principles of Human Resources and Marketing and will be put into the context of General Management. The course will enable the students to set-up strategic plan with its specific components. Participants will understand the opportunities and limitations of planning and management techniques. Students will be able to apply management techniques. They learn how to express a well-founded and independent opinion regarding general management issues. Students will develop an answer for the corporate responsibility for society and environment.Students will understand the interdependencies between various functions of a company, e.g. marketing, sales, controlling and finance. This leads to a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of a company as a whole.The course aims at a comprehensive understanding of management on company level and general principles of business administration. Concept General Management has a focus on key concepts of business administration with respect to general management.

Assessment: Written exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business / Economics
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

204-003-IO Organization and Information Management

Academic Level: 500

Lecture, 2 ECTS Credits (50 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Sebastian H.D. Fiedler

This lecture provides basic knowledge on Organizational Theories and structures, Information Management and Human Resource Management. It enables the students to manage changes in organizations. Broad overview on the impact of IT.

Assessment: Written exam
Prerequisite: Management (intermediate level)
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

204-003-IO Project Management

Academic Level: 500

Lecture, 3 ECTS Credits (75 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Friedemann Baisch

This course offers training in project management skills. Students will receive training of project management methods, following the IPMA-Model (methods for initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing projects). In a second step the course focuses on the training of their soft skills (personal vision, motivation, communication) and leadership.

Assessment: Coursework project (presentation)
Prerequisite: Background in Business / Economics, Management (intermediate level)
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

204-005-IO Supply Chain Management and Purchasing

Academic Level: 500

Seminar, 2 ECTS Credits (50 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Uwe Jankowiak

The course provides a structured and comprehensive approach to the fundamental principles and practice of Supply Chain Management and Purchasing: Students will know the challenges leading to the integrated approach of SCM, Information systems and technology in SCM. They learn the models and methods of Supply Chain Management. They get familiar with the managing processes and the role of Purchasing in Supply Chains.

Assessment: Written exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business / Economics, Introductory class in Management
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

900-009 Innovation for Sustainability-IFS

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 38 hours per week - blocked in 2 intensive weeks 5, on-site visits of companies and government bodies in the southwest of Germany

Registration deadline is in April. You must be prepared to travel and pay for transportation, accommodation, and other costs.

offered in fall/winter, in the month of September

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christian Arndt

IfS is a two weeks study tour that deals with challenges such as demographic change, social inequality, scarcity of commodities combined with global warming. The following subject areas will be covered by the lecture: Solutions to challenges from demographic change, social inequality, scarcity of commodities and global warming, Intercultural communication and management, Sustainability, innovation. The students will learn to: apply techniques for attaining new knowledge in a research-led way, understand the basic theoretical concepts of sustainability from different cultural perspectives, identify economic, social and environmental challenges of today and know how to devise innovative solutions, describe and evaluate strategies that market leaders are applying today, recognize and cope with cultural differences in problem solving, interact and collaborate with students from other countries and cultural backgrounds.

Assessment: Coursework project (Presentation + paper)
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics, Intermediate class in Economics and Management, Academic/Business Writing
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

204-027-IO Strategy Cases

Academic Level: 500

Lecture, 5 ECTS Credits (125 hours per semester), 3 hours per week (35 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Erskin Blunck

This course offers the students a detailed definition of „Strategic Direction, Business Transformation“. This term includes aspects like “Strategy Process”, “Strategy Content” and “Strategy Context” that are carefully distinguished in the lecture. To expand the theoretical frame the course explores the issues of “Organizational Purpose” and “Strategic change management”. The students will analyze certain case studies in which the constituent parts of the lecture will be applied. Case Studies from the current business environment complete the coursework. Based on short original readings, the students will present opposing views about the mentioned strategy perspectives and discuss in class room.

Assessment: Written exam, presentation
Prerequisite: Background in Business / Economics, Management (intermediate level)
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

204-035-IO-01 Sustainability Management

Academic Level: 500

Lecture, 6 ECTS Credits (150 hours per semester), 4 hours per week (45 hours per semester)

This module consists of two courses: 1. Sustainable Business Management and 2. Business Ethics and Sustainability Structures

This course cannot be taken together with the following courses: 101-115-IO Marketing and Sustainability and 101-118-IO-01 Sustainability Performance Management & Reporting

offered in fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Robert Gabriel, Matthias Kerr

Sustainable Business Management: The course offers a broad overview of all aspects that relate to sustainable business management, from a very practice-oriented perspective. Starting with sustainability drivers and sustainability leaderhip, the students learn about stakeholder dialogue and apply a method to identify the most material sustainability aspects for the sustainability strategy of an organisation. This section concludes with the question how sustainability can create value for businesses. In further classes, the students learn how sustainability must always look at a corporation’s value chain, and how the value chain can be broken down in three perspectives, in order to operationalize sustainability for the different corporate functions: product view, corporate view and supply chain view. The students learn about the different tools and methods typically applied for these perspectives, and see a number of case studies and practical examples for a deeper learning experience. The last part of the course deals with sustainability reporting – objective, standards and critical review of its importance – and with sustainability ratings, used by investors to select the most sustainable assets for the investement portfolio.
Business Ethics and Sustainability Structures: coming soon.

Assessment: Written exam, presentation
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics
Undergraduate students with special permission (number of Undergraduates is limited to 6), Graduate students

Strategic Management (Geislingen campus)

Academic Level: 400

Lecture, 2 ECTS Credits (75 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Horst Blumenstock

This course deals with the following topics: Introduction in strategy and strategic management, Corporate values and goals, Internal analysis: core competencies and business flexibility, External analysis: the competitive environment, Competitive advantage: generic strategy and strategy directions, Strategic implementation and management, International and global strategies

Assessment: Written exam, presentations, paper
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics, Introductory class in Management
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

Sustainable Development Governance (online)

Academic Level: 400

Interactive lecture, inverted classroom with an online teaching module and guest lectures
8 ECTS Credits (200 hours per semester), 6 hours per week (70 hours per semester)

HFWU reserves the right to cancel this course if it has not enrolled enough students before the beginning of the course's instruction.

offered in spring/summer

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Marc Ringel

Students will obtain a profound understanding of international sustainability and climate change policies. They acquire lobbying methods and learn how to strategically interact with decision makers. They actively participate in ongoing debates and exchanges on energy and climate issues and have a thorough understanding of European decision-making structures. The students become familiar with the institutions of the European Union as well as its political processes and are able to take on roles with associations and non-governmental organizations at the international level and work effectively in a multicultural environment. This course deals with the following topics:
Sustainable Development Governance Management (lecture):
• Understanding SDGs
• Clean energy
• Sustainable mobilities
• Changing production & consumption
• SDG strategies
Working with the EU (lecture):
• Understanding Europe
• Lobbying
• Institutions and processes
• Getting an international job
Climate Change Policies (online learning module and seminar):
• Climate basics
• Policies: Kyoto to Paris
• Emission trading
• Seminar case studies

Assessment: Written exam, presentation
Prerequisite: Economics (intermediate level)
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

Development Management (Geislingen campus)

Academic Level: 500

Lecture, 3 ECTS Credits (62,5 hours per semester), 2 hours per week (25 hours per semester)

offered in spring/summer, fall/winter

Lecturer: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Reinhold Bopp M.S.

This course is offered within the Master Degree Program “Automotive Management”. The following subject areas will be covered by the lecture: Framework of Product Development in the Automotive Industry, Innovation and R&D-Management, Creativity and Knowledge Management, Project Management, Product Development Organization, Vehicle Development and Product Evolution Process, Phases of the Product Evolution Process, Virtual Car Process, Integration Processes, Target Management, Release and Change Management, Quality Management, Primary and Secondary Complete Vehicle Characteristics, Integration of Partners and Suppliers, Development Controlling, Lean Development

Assessment: Written exam
Prerequisite: Background in Business/Economics, Marketing, Management, Finance and Accounting (all intermediate level)
Undergraduate students, Graduate students

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