From Entertainment in Las Vegas to Bavarian Aerospace:
– 25. November 2019
In October 2013, the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) was admitted to the Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) Affiliate Network at Harvard Business School. Six years later, Prof Matthias Kiese offers the MOC course developed by leading management professor Michael E. Porter for the ninth time this semester.
12 participants registered for this innovative course offered by the Institute of Geography at RUB, once again representing a diverse mix of four nationalities and five different programmes. With 10 out of 12, the majority of students once again represent master programmes in Economics, Management and Economics, and Management. One student is from the host faculty's M.Sc. programme in Geography, while another student commutes from the University of Duisburg-Essen's M.Sc. programme Sustainable Urban Development every week.
Needless to say that class discussions once again benefit from the international and interdisciplinary mix of participants. "This diversity of backgrounds and experiences 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. MOC comprises 11 case studies this semester, including classics such as the Japanese fax industry and the Californian wine cluster, but also modern favourites like the Dutch flower cluster or Mayor Bloomberg's economic development strategy for New York City. For the first time, this semester also includes a case on Creating Share Value, focusing on the corporate role in economic development. As in previous semesters, former RUB MOC instructor Dr Christian Hundt appeared as a guest instructor for his favourite case on Estonia in Transition.
Students complete the course with group projects, each group analysing the competitiveness of a cluster of their own choice. When choosing their case studies, the groups showed great creativity. While one group started its research into the Las Vegas entertainment cluster, another group chose the Bavarian aerospace and navigation cluster. The third group picked Berlin's information and communication (ICT) cluster as topic for their research.
Additional motivation comes from a World Cup-style 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 annual MOC affiliate workshop in Boston. In 2016, a RUB student team managed to claim the prestigious trophy with a case study on Frankfurt's financial services cluster.
While the ninth MOC class at RUB has just started working on their group projects, preparations for the tenth class in the Summer Term of 2020 are already under way. Once again, the course will be offered on a weekly basis every Monday afternoon from 14-17 hours – Monday is MOC day! Until 30 March 2020, students from all Master-level and PhD programmes across the University Alliance Ruhr (UAR) are invited to register with matthias.kiese@rub.de stating name, programme and matriculation number. Places will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.
Further information about MOC can be found here:
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