Online Course Guide of WHU –
Find all modules and courses of our degree programs.
Please use the filters below to select the term (spring or fall) as well as the respective program (BSc, MSc, MBA, Exchange, Doctoral) of your choice for an overview of all modules offered at WHU. The courses are listed under the modules. Please click on a module to see which courses are part of it. If you would like to find out more about a certain course, click on the name of the course to see detail information. The location of the lecture will be revealed after your course registration on myWHUstudies.
Spring term counts from January - August, fall term counts from September - December.
Important for Exchange Students: As the Full-Time and Part-Time MBA Programs utilize a modular course structure, the dates on which students begin and end the exchange are flexible. Please find here a chronological overview of the preliminary course offering for Fall and Spring.
Individual Decision Making and Motivation
How do individuals interact with each other? How should economic activities be coordinated?
(Please note that exchange students obtain a higher number of credits in the BSc-program at WHU than listed here. For further information please contact directly the International Relations Office.)
Course Content
- First, market coordination where individual activities are coordinated via the price mechanism. Here we follow the basic microeconomic theory and discuss the functioning of market as well as different sorts of market failures.
- Second, interorganizational coordination where individual activities are coordinated by long-term contracts between autonomous partners. Here we follow the transaction cost theory and discuss several factors which determine the usefulness of this coordination mechanism.
- And third, hierarchical coordination where individual activities are coordinated by a central unit and coordination takes place via commands. Here we follow managerial economic theories and integrate the various coordination instruments used within firms into our analysis.
Class Dates
Date
Time
Learning Outcomes
- Learning the influences of psychology and sociology will help you understand why and how people make decisions
- Answering questions regarding the respective last lecture will help you to reconsider the contents discussed in class
- Learning to write a research paper will help you to deal with a new topic and be useful for your BSc-thesis
- Learning to analyse an experimental paper will help you to critically analyse the underlying theories
- Learning how to design an experiment will be useful for identifying differences between theory and practice
- Learning to speak in front of others will be useful for your university and business career
Literature
Learning Methods
Presentation
Experiments
Form of examination
- Experiment & Presentation: 45%
- Paper: 35%
- In-class assignments: 20%
- Participation: Tiebreaker