Master Meetings

Social Media Management

This course aims at providing students with an understanding of the fundamental concepts, strategies, and best practices that can help individuals and companies to maximize their (business) value on/through social media. Hence, students will have the chance to acquire knowledge on how to research, plan and evaluate the use as well as the management of social media.

Future Thinking

Thinking about the future has left the field of science-fiction. In recent years, many organizations have started to systematically anticipate possible future scenarios. This includes corporations and consultancies establishing strategic foresight departments, governments assessing the impact of new technologies, NGOs initiating participatory future frameworks and a wave future scenarios developed by artists and designers. It seems one can no longer understand the present without its imagined futures. This course is an introduction to theories and methods driving this turn to the future. What are anticipated futures? What is the influence of media in the construction of future scenarios? How do organizations, activists and artists use futures thinking? And how do anticipated futures shape public and private imagination? In our seminar these questions are discussed, and selected methods are tested (e.g. narrative foresight, scenario building, design fiction) to explore futures thinking and its impact on society.

Corporate Social Responsibility

The role of corporations in society has been discussed for many decades. In the light of globalization, corporations are becoming more and more transnational, and the question of their responsibilities has been raised and discussed. In addition, climate change and unethical behavior (even if not against the law), as well as human rights discussions, have influenced the debate. Along with the shift from a mere shareholder point of view to a more integrative stakeholder point of view social and environmental responsibilities and the idea of sustainable development has entered the scene. On the one hand, the rule of thumb is: "Do no harm". On the other hand, corporations are also seen as an answer to the problems by living up to their social and environmental responsibilities.

The course discusses – with a particular focus on communication – latest trends in standardizing and reporting CSR, in implementing CSR, e.g., in supply chains, the role of the consumer and the threat of hypocrisy, and last but not least the philosophical foundations of CSR.