Teaching and Research at HdWM

Shaping the Management of Tomorrow

At HdWM, we are conducting continuously research and developing projects in all kind of areas. Research at HdWM is application oriented and well-integrated into the study courses. Key areas of research include topics in economics, business administration and management. Our research focusses on the academic content of our interdisciplinary degree programmes, but also on the interests of the businesses and the demands of the labour market – regional and international. By working in third-party funded projects, our professors contribute to shaping the managing world of tomorrow.
The research results of HdWM do not just contribute to science, the practical reference to problems in business practice also allows our partner companies to profit from the outcome of this research. This gives both parties the chance to improve their quality and continue a successful development.

These are the main research areas at HdWM:

  • Management research
  • Digital education
  • Trends in Human Resource Management
  • Healthy management and leadership
  • Sales strategies
  • Smart Cities

Further information is provided in our current Research Report (German).

Institute for Digital Education at HdWM

Digital technologies offer new and versatile possibilities of teaching and learning at HdWM. Founded in November 2019, the HdWM Institute for Digital Education develops new concepts for the educational appliance of digital methods and tools. It is supervised by Prof. Birgit Schmitz, PhD.
Thanks to its groundwork, HdWM managed a fast and through transition from in-class teaching to online learning in the summer semester 2020 during the Corona pandemic. Although this will not be a permanent teaching model at HdWM, a well-balanced mix of in-class and online modules is going to enrich our lectures.

In close cooperation with our teaching staff, educational concepts for the use of digital methods and tools are identified, selected, and refined. The main task of the Institute for Digital Education is to increase the portion of digital teaching and learning elements. Also, it supports the teaching staff in developing the necessary digital.

competences. Therefore, its members pursue an interdisciplinary collaboration with the lecturers of the different degree programmes and consults them in the didactical utilisation of blended learning concepts.

With a mix of in-class and online teaching, our students are well prepared for the requirements of the working world. Furthermore, it suits their quickly changing consumption of public media.

In the further education division of HdWM, the development of online formats will supplement inhouse seminars, -certificates or -trainings. Among others, the focus lies on the development of digital competences of specialists and managers.

In addition, the Institute for Digital Education conducts research in the field of digital transformation, continuing existing projects and initiating new research in this area.

German-Turkish Institute for Work and Education e.V. (DTI)

The German-Turkish Institute for Work and Education e.V. (DTI) was founded in 2012. The main task of the institute is to foster encounters and communication between Germans and Turks living in Germany, especially in work-, science-, and research settings.

Among others, the DTI conducts the following measures:

  • Foster economic and scientific relations between Germany and Turkey
  • Finding specialists and managers from Germany and Turkey
  • Realising and supporting projects and measures with the aim to support pupils, teenagers, and young adults in gaining schooling or further education in Germany
  • Opening the German educational system for Turkey
  • Student exchange and exchange of teaching staff between Turkish partner universities and HdWM
  • Facilitating the access of educationally disadvantaged families with Turkish background into the German educational system
  • Processing current economic and political issues under guidance of specialised experts
  • Realising educational journeys to Turkey and to Germany. The participants get the chance to gain insight into the school-, university-, or economic life of the host country, while getting to know the culture and creativity of Turkey during trips and excursions.
     

DevOps – Competences for Smart Cities Run-time from 2019 to 2021

Developing smart cities requires special competences. The aim: to constantly improve citizens’ quality of life as efficiently and sustainably as possible. The innovators and operators of this development need to engage with this change process, adopt new behavioural patterns, and internalise an innovative set of competences. The project supports people in the smart city sector (planner, IT manager, ICT project managers, programmers, technical journalists, web designers, system administrators, technicians) in their professional development. To achieve this, it teaches them to apply DevOps, an approach that combines the “development” and “operation” phases. This will improve the quality of e-services and help cities in becoming IT-sustainable. 
The project aims at:

  • Identifying competences and job profiles of smart city DevOps professionals.
  • Developing a professional curriculum that combines digital and transferable skills, including MOOCs, open education resources (OERs), e-learning, and in-class training.
  • Initiating the education in Germany, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and evaluating the experiences.
  • Develop and foster networks, in which specialists, trainers, and employers can collaborate to improve the smart city sector.
  • Referring to European and national qualification frameworks and the European credit transfer system for vocational and further education to facilitate mobility and recognition of qualifications.
  • Using recognised frameworks such as EQAVET and e-CF to ensure quality and transferability. 

Partners are: HdWM – University of Applied Management Studies Mannheim, EVWB- European Association of Professional Educational Institutions, BBB – Federal Association of Professional Education Providers, All Digital – Enhancing Digital Skills Across Europe, Centro Studi Citta di Foligno, Associazione Stati Generali de’ll Innovazione, K-Digitale SRL – Digital Transformation Insight, University of Thessaly – Project Leader, Hellenic Open University, Hellenic Organisation for Standardisation, CitiesNet, EDEX – Educational Excellence Organisation, and ANEL Nicosia Development Agency.
 

Promoting a Culture of Prevention: The Role of Company Management in SMBs Run-time from 2020 to 2023

Managers take a central role for the execution of safety and health measures at the workplace. 

Within the prevention campaign „KommitMensch”, the DGUV (German State Compensation Insurance) instructed HdWM with the research project to examine the role of company managers in small and middle-sized businesses (SMBs). Co-operation partners of this three-year study are three occupation cooperatives (BG Bau, BG ETEM, and BGW). The research tackles the so-called “management commitment”, i.e. the willingness of a company to invest in short-term non-productive measures to reduce long-term security- and health costs. The study aims at identifying possibilities to exert positive influence on managers. This is in turn used by the occupation cooperatives in their company support services.

The research project is divided in the following four work packages:

  1. Qualitative pilot study about the management commitment in SMBs
  2. Field study to identify influence factors and outcomes of the management commitment 
  3. Deduction of motivation strategies for small businesses
  4. Scientific evaluation of the strategies in selected businesses

QUAPI - Academic Further Education without Limits Run-time from 2016 to 2021

The project QUAPI is a subsidised by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the state of Baden-Wurttemberg for the development and expansion of academic further education by universities in the federal state.

The over-arching project goal is to meet the specific demands of professionally experienced people in the workforce with respect to their needs and desires for professional qualifications. This will help to cover the demand for specialised personnel in Baden-Wurttemberg.

The aim of QUAPI is to equally master the problems of social and economic policies. Therefore, it specifically focuses on the yet relatively untapped potential of professional and experienced professional people with migration background. Also, it wants to assist the recently immigrated and those who are likely to immigrate from the Middle and Near East during the next years to come.

Among others, the content of measures of the project are:

  • Development of flexible study programmes
  • Development of special curricula and methods for the quaternary education, respectively the adaptation of existing curricula for the target group
  • Support of work and study as a joint and consistent process in the sense of a workplace related and project oriented further education using an innovative browser-based learning environment (presenter)
  • Conveying of German skills (academic German)

    QUAPI is funded by the Ministry for Social Affairs and Integration Baden-Wurttemberg from funds by the European Social Fund (ESF) as well as the Ministry of Science, Research and Art Baden-Wurttemberg.

REACT - cREation of A CollaboraTive Environment in e-classrooms Run-time from 2021 to 2023

The Covid pandemic changed many traditional learning settings to digital learning settings overnight. This posed many challenges to institutions of learning as well as to students, for which not everyone was equally prepared. Apart from a lack of technical skills on both sides, many users were overburdened with the usage of the available tools. This often leads to neglect of aspects such as inclusion, participation, and collaboration in the design and realisation of learning sequences.

Within the project REACT:
•    Digital material, tools, and techniques are evaluated and developed to support a digital classroom that is more aligned towards cooperation, integration, and cultural understanding
•    Lecturers, teachers, and pedagogues are enabled to independently develop and use digital materials so that collaborative learning is incorporated better in digital learning contexts
•    The access to OER materials is made possible or improved.

The basis for the content within REACT is the DigiComp Framework (DigiComp2). By this, trans-national institutions of education (e.g. universities of applied sciences or institutions for vocational education) are supported in their work. 

Project coordinator: University of Applied Management Studies (HdWM)
Project Partner: AKMIAE AKMI EDUCATIONAL ORGANISATIONSA (Greece), BK-CON (Germany), EVBB (Germany), HumaCapiAct (Italy), Nordic Horizon Institute AB (Sweden), Opinion & Action Services Ltd (Cyprus

Project 3EEE

Project 3EEE: Getting to know the flipped-classroom approach as an innovative e-learning tool

The main aim of the training is to present the flipped-classroom approach, good practice examples of implementation in HE programs and using innovative e-learning tools. The training will showcase the transformative potential of these methods, as well as the challenges and pitfalls of the presented methods and concepts and will equip the participants with the knowledge and tools to start implementing the FCA method in their HE courses.

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