Final Master exam (applicable from Winter Semester 2018/19)

You can find some preliminary information here.

For students who wrote their MA thesis at the Strategic Management subject area:

If you have handed in your MA thesis and wish to organise your MA exam, as a first step please contact our office with an approximate time-frame. We will get back to you with a date that is possible for your supervisor.  (Please note that dates of availability published by potential second examiners are not binding for your supervisor from Strategic Management. The starting point for your master exam planning is your supervisor's availability, as they HAVE to be present for your master exam.)

In general each student is responsible for organising their own exam, including choosing an appropriate second examiner. However, we will try and coordinate with respective secretaries to find a suitable date for both supervisor and second examiner - so you do need to let us know which second examiner/second specialisation you would like to choose, when you start organising your thesis! If you are not sure who may act as second examiner, please inquire at the respective offices. 

Please contact our office (approx. 5 weeks before the exam date), so there is also enough time to look for the head of the committee. Once the entire committee is found, you may register the exam with the SSC. Fill in the necessary forms and hand them in at the SSC.

Format: 20-30 minutes; presentation (PPT)/defense of thesis and questions on surrounding field of research.

For students who want Strategic Management as secondary specialisation in the MA exam:

Once you have obtained your first examiner’s confirmed availability for the proposed exam date, please contact our office (approx. 4 weeks before the exam), unless the other office will contact us. While we do our best to accommodate students, availability of our examiners (according to the first examiner’s schedule) cannot be guaranteed because of other commitments.

Regarding literature for the exam, please note that, generally speaking, ALL literature and all the material discussed during the courses, pertaining to ALL minor classes you attended, is relevant for the Strategic Management part of the exam. The master exam is your final exam, so you are meant to showcase a good general understanding of your second specialisation, not simply the contents of one or two courses. Consider the practical applicability of what you learned in the courses. You can find a more specific list of literature here.

Format: 20-30 minute oral exam

Attention IBWL-students! The alternative Strategic Management Minor (i.e. "Variante 2") is not offered by this subject area. We have no insight in the respective course design or content. If your second examiner is from our subject area, the contents of the exam pertain to the courses offered by us (e.g. Business Strategy, Empirical Methods, Economic Psychology).

Brief explanation of the two different examiners present at the master exam:

First examiner: your supervisor; you will be asked to defend your thesis and answer questions relating to research areas relevant to your thesis

Second examiner: a professor of the second subject area you specialised in during your studies; you will be asked questions about that subject area - for relevant literature look at the websites of the SSC and the respective subject area, or inquire at the offices if the information is unavailable online.