Capstone Module Abroad

The overarching theme of the CMA will be “Crisis Management”, which we believe is a highly relevant topic that is seldom studied in normal times. Organizational crisis that extend beyond the walls of the organization and into the public domain can have significant long-term negative impact on the reputation and viability of an enterprise (De Wolf & Mejri, 2013). As such, crises will have far-reaching consequences that should be studied from a variety of perspectives, including organizational reputation, leadership, governance, public relations, risk management, employee relationships, and many more. In the short period following the outbreak of the corona crisis, both practioners and academicians have started to (re-)think about the optimality of company- and institutional-level responses to crisis situations (e.g., Nohria, 2020; McKinsey, 2020a and 2020b; see also other references at the end of this document).

We expect CMA participants to work in three groups on one or related topics given below:

1) Crisis Management & Management and Leadership

2) Crisis Management in the Financial Industry

3) Crisis Management: Consequences on Start-ups and Innovative Companies

The goal of the group work will be to think, analyze and make suggestions on optimal approaches that prepare organizations to crisis situations and on how to deal with such situations. We would especially welcome take-aways and lessons that can be drawn from this analysis for the WHU.

The deliverable is a power point presentation that groups can supplement with additional material if they believe that this is necessary.

Since it is not going to be meaningful to have a full week of online interaction with companies, we have to achieve the expected learning outcomes with an alternative strategy. Hence, we have decided to redesign the Capstone Module Abroad with the following elements and the overarching theme of the CMA will be “Crisis Management”.