IS 703 (IS 7030): Master Seminar „AI, Platforms, and the Digital Economy“

Contents
Contents: The seminar examines frontier research on how artificial intelligence and digital technologies change firms, consumer behavior, and markets. It focuses on highly relevant business questions such as how AI affects employee productivity, decision-making, and innovation; how digital platforms and social media shape competition and consumer behavior; and how new technologies create broader economic and societal effects.This seminar is aimed at business students.Students engage with state-of-the-art research on topics such as whether AI helps employees work faster and better, how platforms such as Amazon, Uber, or app stores influence market competition, how recommendation algorithms and social media platform features affect attention and demand, and how digital technologies can generate externalities such as mis­information, algorithmic bias, and sustainability challenges. The goal of the seminar is to understand the consequences of artificial intelligence and digital technologies for business strategy and markets.Each participant will be assigned a frontier research paper in a topic area of their choice and will analyze it in depth throughout the seminar. Students learn how to identify the paper’s central research question, theoretical foundations, empirical strategy, and main contribution. They also gain experience on how to identify complementary, relevant academic literature. They also learn how to critically assess the paper’s assumptions, research design, methodology, and limitations, and derive a promising research proposal for future research by themselves.To support this process, the seminar opens with a kick-off session on how to search for, read, interpret, and evaluate academic research papers. A list of topics covered in the seminar is available here: https://www.bwl.uni-mannheim.de/foerderer/lehre/lehrangebot/is-703-master-seminar/

Learning outcomes
After completing this course, students..

• ..have developed a rigorous understanding of their assigned frontier research paper, including its research question, theoretical foundations, empirical strategy, and contribution,
• ..can critically evaluate their assigned frontier research paper and identify its strengths, limitations, and opportunities for future work,
• ..can identify research papers closely related to their assigned frontier paper,
• ..can independently develop these insights into a well-structured academic paper,
• ..and can present and defend their analysis in a formal academic presentation and discuss other participants’ papers.

Necessary prerequisites
Successful completion of IS 609 or IS 608 before the seminar kick-off. Concurrent enrollment is not sufficient.

Recommended prerequisites
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Examiner Performing lecturer

Prof. Dr. Jens Förderer Prof. Dr. Jens Förderer