Our new master’s degree program “Economics – Responsibility – Institutional Design” teaches students how to conduct business in a way that is beneficial to life and is informed by public spirit. In its innovative educational formats, students work together with practitioners to solve real problems of value-based management and test new economic thinking directly in practice. In this way, new ways of thinking and the courage to take on concrete responsibility in today’s complex world are created.
This course of study characterizes a new form of economic education in that it encompasses value-oriented corporate and organizational management, thus affecting the meso-level of economic change. Specifically, it deals with the establishment of responsibility cultures in companies, non-profit organizations and public services. By promoting personal commitment and social responsibility and combining them with a profound interdisciplinary understanding of today’s complex human problems, essential skills for research, reflection and practice are imparted by means of which the challenges of an economized society and nature are met competently, and a responsible design of companies and organizations is made possible. Through a focus on progressive learning in action, our students think through concrete problems in practice and create innovative solutions for responsible action. Innovative workshop formats, for which our students are responsible, form the core of the course. Experts and practice partners are also engaged in these workshops, so that new economic thinking becomes directly effective.
The academic foundation of the two-year Master Program “Economics-Responsibility-Institutional Design” program enables
- the exploration of real problem and design fields
- the development of a moral compass
- the ability to identify and communicate the respective crises of the present and their causes
- the knowledge and ability to imagine sustainable innovations and help carry them out
The program’s transdisciplinary experiential learning also enables
- taking responsibility in companies and organizations
- allowing new economic thinking become effective in practice
- preserving values and initiating ethical innovations
- balancing economic, social and ecological goals.
The course of study is conducted in German language.
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World and Problem Orientation
The program conveys a broad and critical understanding of the social-ecological challenges of the present and the role of economic processes in them in a transdisciplinary, i.e. problem and reality-based manner. The focus is on a critical understanding of complex and, in principle, unpredictable processes of change in an economized society.
Responsibility and Institution Building
Specifically, our students independently acquire a comprehensive interdisciplinary understanding of institutions and an ethical understanding of responsibility. Using concrete issues and tasks as a starting point of their studies, students subsequently combine scientific, practical and philosophical-ethical knowledge, especially in the context of uncertain and unstable situations, to augment their understanding and skills.
Action-Oriented Learning
Often the talk of responsibility threatens to degenerate into pure rhetoric. The unique selling point of this course is its didactic concept, which relies on innovative learning by experience and action in order to deal with questions of shaping cultures of responsibility, not only in a purely conceptual way, but through a concrete interplay of theory and practice, thinking and acting, scientific and practical knowledge.
Participatory Teaching and Learning
The didactic formats of the program’s central modules encourage students to work together with practitioners to identify and recommend solutions to real problems of value-oriented management and sustainable institutional design. In this way, new economic thinking and responsibility cultures are tested directly in practice and reflected upon in a science-based manner. To this end, students work in teams in which they directly implement and evaluate a culture of responsibility in an exemplary fashion. The corresponding transdisciplinary research methods are taught in a well-founded manner.
Philosophical Social Reflection
We integrate philosophical reflection, including not only social philosophy and ethics, but also epistemology and phenomenology into our examination of processes of social transformation. In this way, questions of responsibility, ethical self-reflection and value orientation are not just a decorative appendage of this program, but an integral part of its contemporary analysis and action orientation.
Personal Development
In the course module studia humanitatis we provide our students with the opportunity to develop independent thought and become reflective personalities, for instance with regard to questions of meaning and community spirit as well as responsibility and creativity.
