In October last year, the Ruhr University (RUB) was admitted to the Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) Affiliate Network at Harvard Business School. After attending the annual MOC workshop in Boston last December, Prof Matthias Kiese and Julian Kahl offered the MOC course developed by leading management professor Michael E. Porter for the first time this summer semester. Twelve participants registered for the first edition of this innovative course at RUB.
"We could not expect to be overrun right from the start, but we are proud of our international and interdisciplinary mix of participants", says Prof Kiese. After all, the group represents eight different nationalities and four programmes. Besides Master students in Geography, Economics and Transformation of Urban Landscapes, the course is also attended by PhD students from the International Development Studies programme. "This diversity enriches our discussions enormously", rejoices Prof. Kiese, as the course is built around case studies on the competitiveness of countries, regions and firms, as well as their spatial concentration in so-called clusters.
Students complete the course with group projects, with each group analysing the competitiveness of a cluster of their own choice. When choosing their case studies, the three groups showed remarkable creativity. Further to the microelectronics industry in and around Dresden ("Silicon Saxony"), their research focuses the Afghan carpet cluster and the film industry cluster in Hong Kong. Additional motivation is provided by a World Cup-style global contest. The best case study from Bochum will enter a competition with more than 100 universities world-wide, which are part of the MOC network. The winner will be honoured at the next MOC workshop in Boston in December. In 2013, a student team from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland claimed the trophy with a case study on the Irish cleantech cluster in Dublin. On their first participation, the newcomers from Bochum are highly motivated to challenge the incumbents.
While the first MOC class at RUB is busy working on group projects, preparations for the second class in the Winter Term of 2014/2015 have already begun. Once again, the course will be offered on a weekly basis every Monday afternoon from 14-17 hours. Until 31 August, 2014, Master-level and PhD students from all programmes are invited to register with julian.kahl@rub.de. Further information about MOC can be found here: http://www.isc.hbs.edu/resources/courses/moc-course-at-harvard/Pages/default.aspx
Bochum, 09 July 2014 Prof. Dr. Matthias Kiese
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. Further information about MOC can be found here: 