International Instructors & Case Studies on Blockchain, Logistics and IT Security

In October 2013, the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) was admitted to the Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) Affiliate Network at Harvard Business School. Seven years later, Prof Matthias Kiese offers the MOC course developed by leading management professor Michael E. Porter for the twelfth time as part of the UNIC Spring School hosted by RUB’s Faculty of Management and Economics. Owing to the current pandemic, the current edition is the third consecutive online MOC class at RUB.

Eleven students participate in this innovative course offered by the Institute of Geography at RUB. Despite its small size, the class once again represents remarkable variety with three different nationalities and five different study programmes. While most students are from RUB’s master programmes in Economics, Management, Management and Economic, and Economic Policy Consulting, there is also one graduate Law student from the University of Zagreb, one of the eight partners of the UNIC network. Instructors in MOC are no less diverse. While RUB instructors Prof Matthias Kiese and Simon Rohde lead most of the case discussions, this special MOC edition boasts three distinguished guest instructors from UNIC partner universities:

• Eleanor Doyle is a Professor of Economics and Vice-Dean for Internationalization and External Engagement at Cork University Business School, Ireland. As a long-standing member of the MOC Affiliate Network at Harvard Business School, she has been inducted to the esteemed MOC Hall of Fame. An expert on small open economies, Prof Doyle led the case discussion on Estonia.

• Representing UNIC lead partner Erasmus University Rotterdam, Prof Fred van Eenenaam is Dean and President of The Decision Institute and Partner at the international strategy and management consultancy XtraAdvice. A long-standing member of the MOC Hall of Fame like Prof Doyle, Prof van Eeenenaam produced the Dutch flower case, giving students the unique opportunity to discuss this popular case with its author on 9 April.

• Dr Edurne Magro represents the UNIC partner Universidad de Deusto and its affiliated Orkestra Basque Institute of Competitiveness, where she works as a Senior Researcher. As a local insider, she is the perfect instructor to lead the discussion of the Basque Country case, offering unique insights into regional renewal and competitiveness.

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 ten case studies in this fast-track course with two sessions per week, 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.

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 came up with a wide scope of highly topical issues across geography and industries, ranging from logistics in Greece (following the Chinese takeover of the port of Piraeus) via blockchain technology in Switzerland’s financial industry (the so-called Crypto Valley in the canton of Zug) to our home IT security in Bochum.

Additional motivation comes from a World Cup-style contest. The best case study from Bochum will enter a competition with 120 universities worldwide, which are part of the MOC network. The winner will be honoured at the annual MOC affiliate workshop in Boston – or once again online like last year. In 2016, a RUB student team managed to claim the prestigious trophy with a case study on Frankfurt’s financial services cluster.

While the special UNIC MOC class at RUB just started to work on their group projects, preparations for the 13^th class in the summer semester of 2021 are already under way. Starting on 12 April 2021, the course will again be offered on a weekly basis via Zoom every Monday afternoon from 14-17 hours – Monday is MOC day! Until 07 April 2021, graduate and PhD-level students from all 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:

http://www.geographie.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/studium/moc

Bochum, 31 March 2021

Prof Dr Matthias Kiese