International Teaching Award for Leuphana Professors

2020-11-16 How can companies prosper despite the pandemic? How must organizational forms be adapted so that lockdowns can be overcome economically? For the online course "Organizing in Times of Crisis: The case of COVID 19", Professor Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich and Professor Thomas Gegenhuber were awarded the Aspen Institute's prestigious "Ideas Worth Teaching" prize. Together with other colleagues, the two professors of business administration helped develop the course. The course will be offered again in the 2021 summer semester.

"The students on the course should understand," explains Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich, "how companies reacted to the corona pandemic and what worked well and what didn't." To this end, the course provides the theoretical foundations, in the form of management and organizational theories, which could then be applied using concrete examples. A special role was played by the students' own initiative, which they were asked to develop. For example, some students conducted interviews with entrepreneurs*. "The interviews provided exciting practical insights, for example that entrepreneurs behave exactly as the theories predict and develop creative and often digital business models," says Thomas Gegenhuber.

The course will again be offered by Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich in the 2021 summer semester. "Many companies are currently facing even greater challenges than at the beginning of the pandemic due to the ongoing crisis situation. We want to investigate how this long-term burden affects organizing," explains Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich.

The Aspen Institute is a think tank that supports initiatives for transatlantic cooperation and a free and open society. "This course shows what fast, distant collaboration can really look like.  The course, which was co-authored by lecturers from various universities, is completely digital and open source and designed to be adapted and taught at multiple universities," the think tank said in explaining its award.

Organizing in times of crisis

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