University of Mannheim
– Master in Management -
 

MAN 770 Research Seminar: Strategic Leadership and Family Firms
Course Program for Spring Semester 2023

Course Outline: This quantitative research seminar covers current research at the intersection of strategic leadership and family firms. Guided by recent scientific findings, students will reflect upon how organizational leaders and their needs, values, and dispositions, their biases, blinders, egos, aptitudes, experiences, and fatigue affect firm outcomes, upon the idiosyncrasies of founder and family firms, and upon how these idiosyncrasies, in turn, affect (and are affected by) firms’ strategic leadership. This is an advanced quantitative course to be taken towards the master’s end in preparation for the master thesis. It demands a high level of involvement and contribution. Please, do read the syllabus and all articles very carefully before the beginning of the course.

Objectives: The goal of the course is twofold. First, it is designed to help participants gain access to the main topics and theories in strategic leadership and family firm research. We will read and discuss 14 seminal articles and simulate an academic conference in class. This familiarizes participants with the state-of-the-art research, its designs & methods, and the respective current academic debate & practice.

The second goal of the course is to familiarize students with the core techniques of quantitative scientific work in business studies. This includes developing a research idea, evaluating its contribution, obtaining data, performing analyses using STATA, and reporting results in article and presentation format. Students will learn to use statistical software.

Overall, the course prepares students for writing a master’s thesis at our chair.

For further course information, please download the syllabus and refer to the university's student portal.

Application: Registration via the student portal (Portal2.uni-mannheim.de) is mandatory. Additionally, apply to marc.kowalzick uni-mannheim.de by sending your student ID, transcript of grades, and CV (1 page).

1) Student applications must be submitted by January 31st, 2023
2) Announcement of the participants on February 4th, 2023
3) Binding acceptance or rejection of the students on February 6th, 2023

Non-MMM students, e.g. law, computer science, languages, sociology, psychology, MKW, MMBR, MaKuWi, etc., as well as incoming students are welcome and our chair supports interdisciplinary and cross-faculty master theses.