Description:

Are you looking for the practical course which will help you to gain knowledge required in the startup ecosystem? Would you like to test yourself in the digital startup environment? Then Sustainable Digital Entrepreneurship is for you!

The course Sustainable Digital Entrepreneurship introduces students to the basics of digital entrepreneurship and sustainability with a focus on digital ideation and entrepreneurial design. Conducted in a practice-oriented approach, students work in teams on selected problems and develop solutions themselves.

In the course, you develop adequate strategies to find and assess problems of individual and societal significance. Building on methods of design thinking, you are introduced to design-oriented research methodology, where you learn to systematically define relevant solution spaces to solve these problems. Through this approach, you learn to analyze complex requirements under time pressure, systematically develop alternative decisions and reflect on possible options in different contexts. You systematically analyze possible causes of deviations from plans and develop suitable response measures.

Individually or in teams, you prepare written analyses and illustrate their decision-making processes to later on present them appropriately to various target groups. To mirror this methodological approach, you engage in the scenario of an entrepreneurial context that requires you to search (or design) an opportunity through means of effectuation. 

The course consists of individual assignment (40% of the grade) and group case study project that involves methods of design-oriented research (60% of the total grade).

Learning Targets:

After the successful completion of the module, students will be able to After the successful completion of the module, students will be able to 

• Employ methods of design thinking for innovation search (fit of problem and solution space) 
• apply a design-oriented research methodology from information systems and entrepreneurship research  
• explain opportunity design and opportunity search, 
• apply an effectuation approach, 
• differentiate principles of effectuation from the principles of causal logic, 
• decide in which situations it makes sense to act according to effectuation logic, 
• select and apply effectuation tools in a targeted manner 

Outline:

• Sustainability
• Startups;
• Team work;
• Design Thinking;
• Digital Entrepreneurship;
• Innovative Entrepreneurship;
• Business research 

Literature:

• Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., & Chatterjee, S. (2007). A design science research methodology for information systems research. Journal of management information systems, 24(3), 45-77. 
• Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., & Niehaves, B. (2018). Design science research genres: introduction to the special issue on exemplars and criteria for applicable design science research. European Journal of Information Systems, 27(2), 129-139. 
• Sarasvathy, S. D. (2009). Effectuation: Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Edward Elgar Publishing. 
• Seckler, C., Mauer, R., & vom Brocke, J. (2021). Design science in entrepreneurship: conceptual foundations and guiding principles. Journal of Business Venturing Design, 1(1-2). 
• Sein, M. K., Henfridsson, O., Purao, S., Rossi, M., & Lindgren, R. (2011). Action design research. MIS quarterly, 37-56. 
• Venable, J., Pries-Heje, J., & Baskerville, R. (2016). FEDS: a framework for evaluation in design science research. European journal of information systems, 25, 77-89.

• Additional literature is provided in the first session of the class. 

Methods of Assessment:

Portfolio

Formalities:

The course will be provided as a block seminar.

Dates are currently being finalized:

Dec 20: 10:00-16:00,

Jan 16: 10:00-16:00,

Jan 17: 10:00-16:00,

Jan 23: 10:00-16:00,

Jan 24: 10:00-16:00

DESIGN-A-THON on Jan 27-28 with project partner