Prof. Dr. Jochen Koch (European University Viadrina)

Target group

PhD students at Viadrina University with an interest in qualitative research methods and/or academic writing and publishing. The course is also open for Master-Students, writing an empirical thesis at the chair for management and organization.

Aim of the module (expected learning outcomes and competencies to be acquired):

• To familiarize students with the epistemological background of (empirical) research
• You will advance your knowledge of qualitative research methods
• To sensitize students to the challenges of qualitative research
• Especially you will learn to assess the methodological quality of qualitative research
• To enable students to evaluate and interpret the quality of qualitative research designs
• You will be enabled to conduct a qualitative case study in line with scientific standards
• To enable students to develop their own research design.
• You will learn how to prepare and write academic papers for peer-review journals

Contents of the module:

• Epistemological foundations
• Case study research
• Developing a research design
• Collecting and analyzing qualitative data

Course Structure / Examination

The objective of the course will be achieved through class meetings and preparation at home. Students will have to work on various assignments and prepare presentations for
the lectures. They will follow the lecture and contribute to the lecture by presentations aswell as during discussions. At the end of the semester, students have to pass an exam.
The final evaluation will consist of two parts: 50% engagement during the class meetings,50% exam (5 credits). Failure in either part cannot be compensated. Please note: Policies
regarding academic integrity must be followed. Any transgressions will be punished. If issues of academic integrity arise in this class, please talk to the instructor.

Prof. Dr. Heinz-Theo Wagner (German Graduate School of Management and Law)

Objectives

This course covers several qualitative research techniques for collecting and evaluating data. As in part 1 of qualitative methods, the main objective of the course is to develop and enhance students’capabilities to conduct qualitative research projects as a reflective and practically skilled researcher.

Examination

Every participant will have the opportunity to present a critical review of a part of the textbooks. At the end of the course students will have to write an essay about a different topic identified during the course. The final evaluation will be: 30% presentations, 70% essay (5 credits).

Prof. Dr. Martin Eisend (European University Viadrina)

Target group

PhD students with an interest in quantitative research methods and/or academic writing and pub-lishing. If you are interested in taking part in particular meetings only (e.g., academic writing and publishing) please contact the instructor.

Aim of the module (expected learning outcomes and competencies to be acquired):

• To familiarize you with the foundations and applications of quantitative research methods that are commonly applied in business research, in particular in management and marketing research.
• To enable you to develop your own research design.
• To enable you to evaluate and interpret research designs and methods that are applied in rele-vant work by peers (i.e., journal publications).
• To learn how to prepare and write academic papers for peer-review journals

Contents of the module:

• Research process and research design
• Surveys, observations, measurement, scaling, sampling
• Experimental research
• Others methods (e.g., meta-analysis)
• Research methods and scientific contribution, research ethics

Course Structure / Examination

The objective of the course will be achieved through class meetings and preparation at home. Stu-dents will have to work on various assignments and prepare presentations for the lectures. They will follow the lecture and contribute to the lecture by presentations as well as during discussions. At the end of the semester, students have to pass an exam. The final evaluation will consist of two parts: 50% assignments/presentations, 50% exam (5 credits). Failure in either part cannot be com-pensated. Please note: Policies regarding academic integrity must be followed. Any transgressions will be punished. If issues of academic integrity arise in this class, please talk to the instructor.

Prof. Dr. Heinz-Theo Wagner (German Graduate School of Management and Law)

Objectives

• To familiarize you with quantitative research methods, which are commonly used in management and marketing research.
• To enable you to develop your own research design.
• To enable you to evaluate and interpret research designs and methods as performed in scholarly research.

Course Structure / Examination

The primary objective of the course will be achieved through class meetings and preparation at home. Students will prepare for the lecture, will follow the lecture and contribute to the lecture by presenting selected articles. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. At the end of the semester, students have to pass an exam. The final evaluation will be: 30% presentations, 70% exam (5 credits).
Please note: Policies regarding academic integrity must be followed. Any transgressions will be punished. If issues of academic integrity arise in this class, please talk to the instructor immediately.

Prof. Dr. Albecht Söllner (European University Viadrina)

Target group

PhD students at Viadrina university with an interest in the research field of dynamic capabilities and relationships. The number of participants is limited.

Aim of the module (expected learning outcomes and competencies to be acquired):

• get to know "storytelling" as a potential means to gain attention for and to create impact with their research
• get to know the theoretic foundations of the field of dynamic capabilities and relationships
• further their skills to develop their own scientific "stories"

Contents of the module:
The course covers classical readings in the field of dynamic capabilities and relationships. Key terms and constructs will be defined and discussed. Different theoretical perspectives on the research object will be evaluated. Participants will be strengthened in their ability to find interesting scientific stories in the research area and to tell them.

Course Structure / Examination

The objective of the course will be achieved through class meetings and preparation at home and during class. Students will have to work on various assignments and prepare presentations for the lectures. They will follow the lecture and contribute to the lecture by presentations as well as during discussions. At the end of the course students can earn 5 ECTS through assignments and presen- tations.

Please note: The course will take place in the Uckermark (www.schloss-wartin.de). Participants need to pay for accommodation and food (about 100,00 Euro), if they are not participating in a study program that is covering their costs.

Prof. Marcus Vodosek (PhD) (German Graduate School of Management and Law)

Course Overview and Objectives
The area we call Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships emerges at the intersection of two bodies of literature: The comparatively recent literature on dynamic capabilities and the vast and varied literature on relationships. Last semester, you started to explore these two literatures in a course with a similar title at the European University Viadrina. In the current course, you will be able to further develop your "mental map" of the area of Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships so that you can make connections, identify knowledge gaps, and evolve your own thinking and writing about the links between dynamic capabilities and relationships.
The objectives of this course are to help you gain broad familiarity with theory and research concerned with either dynamic capabilities or relationships, and to help you develop the analytical skills necessary to critically evaluate and integrate work in this area. I will also encourage you to use the course to hone your own research agenda. In the end, my intent is to prepare you to contribute to the current dialogue in the area.
To accomplish these objectives will require a great deal of reading on your part. It is critical that you read the material before class, as well as spend some time thinking about the implications of the readings. In the schedule that starts on p. 4, there is a set of assigned readings for each class. I suggest that you read them in the order listed. The readings are posted on the eLearning plat-form.

Course Requirements
This is a discussion-based course that requires your active involvement. Accordingly, attendance is required for every class session. Also, please be on time. Because we will be a small group that constitutes an intimate forum for discussion, coming late to class is highly disruptive to everyone. Each week you will be asked to read several articles or book chapters. Our goal each week is to generate a high quality discussion that promotes understanding of some of the central issues, con-cepts and debates in the area of dynamic capabilities and relationships. In class we will aim to cover as many readings as time permits. However, on some occasions we will not be able to dis-cuss each reading in depth. You should not view a failure to cover every reading as a shortcoming of the class discussion.

Evaluation Criteria
Course requirements and evaluation criteria include the following: Class preparation and contribu-tions (60%) and three weekly position papers (40%).

Class preparation and contributions
There are three components of this course requirement, which comprise 60% of your final grade:
First, I expect you to be an active and constructive participant during each session. This requires reading the assigned articles. In general, you should seek a firm understanding of the purpose and logic for a given paper. More importantly, you should strive to reach beyond basic reactions to the readings and instead consider:

• What is good about this paper?
• What is the basic formulation of the theory (constructs and relationships among them), and what drives the theory? What are the theoretical foundations of the research?
• What assumptions do different perspectives make about people? About organizations? How tenable are the assumptions?
• What is the main contribution of this paper? What are the interesting ideas?
• What could have been improved in the paper?
• Do you believe the arguments (about the theory and the conclusions drawn from the data)? What would it take to convince you?
• What are the boundary conditions of the argument? In other words, for whom and under what circumstances does the argument apply and not apply?
• What are the critical differences between this author’s argument and others you have read? Can these differences be resolved through an empirical test? What would that study look like?

Overall, expect to spend long hours dissecting the assigned readings. Go over a reading until you are certain you understand its basic premises and arguments (see “Tips for Reading Academic Journal Articles”) and are comfortable discussing them. This is the level of preparation I expect you to complete each week before coming to class.
To help facilitate our discussion, you will have to submit two questions or comments about the material by 10 pm on the evening before the day of the class. Please post your questions and comments directly on our eLearning platform so that everyone has a chance to examine them before class. Your questions/comments should tap into one or more of the issues listed above. These questions/comments are very important as they will be the stimuli that get our class discussion going.

Second, each course participant is responsible for leading our discussion in one class session. In our first class meeting we will assign the dates on which you will lead our discussion. Your role is not merely to summarize readings but, rather, to prepare discussion questions and observations that highlight the main issues, strengths, weaknesses, controversies, and gaps in the readings for that week. The questions and comments submitted by the other course participants will help you with this task.
Generally speaking, you will be responsible for leading the discussion of the topic—you are not responsible for selecting additional readings (you may, however, find it useful to do some addition´al reading for your own purposes). You may begin by providing your own synopsis of the topic and then presenting what you feel are critical questions, fundamental flaws, or promising new research directions in the area. You should assume that the other course participants have also read the material carefully, so your job is primarily to generate discussion, not to provide a lecture and summary.

Third, each student has to give a research briefing in one of the class sessions (assigned the first week of class). The research briefing has to be scheduled for a week in which you are not the dis-cussion leader. Your job will be to brief the rest of the class on what you see as the emerging re-search trends in the topic area we are covering that week. Preparing for this research briefing will require you to go beyond the assigned readings to find the latest and most interesting papers re-lated to the topic area of that particular week. You may want to search for recent (i.e., last 5 years) publications in A-level journals, in-press articles posted on journal websites, papers presented at major conferences (such as the Academy of Management Meetings), and working papers posted on the web.
To summarize, your class preparation and contributions include:

• Being on time and thoroughly prepared for class, and being an active participant
• Submitting two questions/comments on the eLearning platform the day before each class session
• Serving as a discussion facilitator for one class session
• Giving a research briefing in one class session

Weekly Position Papers
Weekly position papers provide additional opportunities for you to thoughtfully reflect upon key concepts or theories raised by the readings of the week. These papers should NOT be a summary of the main ideas and findings in the readings. Rather, it is your chance to think about the implica-tions of the readings. For example, what do they make you wonder about? What lines of inquiry might they open up? How do the readings relate to each other, to readings from previous weeks, or to the topic of your dissertation? You are responsible for writing three position papers. You can choose any three sessions to write about, beginning with Session 1. Your position paper (maxi-mum 2 double-spaced pages not including references) is due in hard copy at the beginning of the session; no late papers will be accepted. The three papers comprise 40% of your grade.

Prof. Dr. Tomás Bayón (German Graduate School of Management and Law)

Objectives

• To sensitize you for the relevance of theory building in management research.
• To familiarize you with fundamental approaches to theory building in management research.
• To familiarize you with the major theories of management.
• To enable you to critically assess management theories.
• To enable you to apply management theories to practice (explication, forecast, recommend ation)

Organisation

The objectives of the course will be achieved through interactive, workshop style discussion of seminal and review articles.
Pre-Reading of all “required” articles for the respective session is mandatory.

In addition, we will reflect the role of theories in management research, and apply the different theories to a case study context. By intention, only one case study is selected to be able to better compare the commonalities, differences, strengths and weaknesses of the different theories.
The case study will be handed out in the first session.You will earn 5 credits (ETCS) by successfully passing the course. The final grade comprises two components: class contribution
(40%) and written assignment (60%). The assignment will be introduced in the last course session, should be prepared within one month, and should have a word count between 2,000 and 2,500 words.

The length of the assignment excludes appendices, graphs, boxes, tables and bibliography. You are required to submit an electronic copy of the assignment.

Language of instruction is English.