Bachelor or Master Thesis or Project Study
📌 Key facts
Contents
💡 Background
Companies are shaped by innovation in technologies, politics, and society. New technologies such as mixed reality, genomics, 5G or autonomous driving but also regulatory changes such as the GDPR are widely discussed and present in media. However, the public discussion often only scratches the surface of the possible decelopments and impacts and only considers a short to medium time horizon. Trends can lift companies off the ground like battery technology for Tesla or crush them when they forego them like digital imagery for Kodak.
Thus, it is very important to scientifically analyze current and future developments to predict which companies will be shaped by which trends in the next 10 years and how they need or can respond to them. An analysis of the most cutting edge and impactful trends and their impact on businesses and society is currently missing and you should provide a thorough evaluation.
🦾Who we are
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focussed on doing research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.
🎯 Goals
- Systematically research and identify the most important trends in technology, society and politics that will impact companies.
- Analyze how they will impact businesses and under which conditionds they will shape the commercial landscape
- Prepare: a) thesis/project study report b) Powerpoint slides on the topic of your thesis/project study c) Infograph that contains most important results d) medium article/executive summary to be shared with the public
We would particularly welcome innovative ideas on how to identify trends, e.g. collecting trace data from twitter or other digital sources that talk about trends or search through worldwide VC portfolios, e.g. crunchbase, linkedin, etc.
🎓 Profile
- Reliable and self-driven
- Interest in Business / Economics / Technology / Society / Regulation
- Ability to do sophisticated internet and desk research
- Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact
📚 Further Reading
Technological trends: https://medium.com/predict/the-next-big-thing-in-technology-20-invention-that-will-change-the-world-303e000456e9
Societal trends: https://www.goodrebels.com/five-trends-that-will-define-society-and-business-in-the-next-decade/
Future Today Institute https://futuretodayinstitute.com/
10 years from now by The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/predictions-2020s/605902/
Trends for the next decade by Bank of America: https://www.bofaml.com/en-us/content/preparing-investments-for-2020.html
Schwab, K. (2019). Shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution. DVA.
Diamandis, P. H. & Kotler, S. (2020). The Future is Faster than You Think. Simon & Schuster.
Horx, M. (2020). Die Zukunft nach Corona. Evon Verlag.
Lasch, C. (1996). The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Giridharadas, A. (2019). Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. Vintage.
Zakaria, F. (2020). Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World. W. W. Norton & Company.
Christakis, N. A. (2020). Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live. Little, Brown Spark.
Webb, A. (2019). The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Making Machines Could Warp Humanity. PublicAffairs.
Bhargava, R. (2018). Non-Obvious 2019: How To Predict Trends and Win The Future. Ideapress Publishing.
Bhargava, R. (2019). Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future. Ideapress Publishing
Rosling, H., Rosling, O. & Rosling, A. R. (2019). Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Sceptre.
Reese, B. (2018). The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity. Atria Books.
Tegmark, M. (2018). Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Penguin.
📄 Requirements to any Work
We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:
- Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
- Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
- Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
- 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
- optional: Medium Article - let people outside university know about your research and start your personal brand
📬 How to apply
If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. We would particularly welcome innovative ideas on how to identify trends, e.g. collecting trace data from twitter or other digital sources that talk about trends or search through worldwide VC portfolios, e.g. crunchbase, linkedin, etc.
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!