Business Administration

A total of 12 courses are offered as part of the specialisation "Financial Economics", which are grouped into three modules. These modules are:

4th semester: Fundamentals of Finance

5th semester: Theory of Finance

6th semester: Applications and current issues

The students in the specialisation are thus led from the forms of corporate financing, including financial controlling, through essential areas of investment and financing theory to questions of corporate valuation, portfolio management and current questions from the world of finance. They are offered a balanced mix of classical financing (corporate finance) and capital market financing through to portfolio management and the basics of banking management.

Particular emphasis is placed on recognising and making use of interrelationships, even beyond pure finance. Combinations with the focus on accounting and controlling are therefore possible, but many other connections are also conceivable.

Those who choose this focus should not be afraid of numbers and should also be interested in strategic issues in the company. Later career opportunities are diverse and range from finance departments in companies to external and internal accounting to jobs in credit institutions and financial service providers. Later self-employed activities in the consulting sector are also not uncommon.

Lecturers:

Prof. Dr. Martin Bösch

Prof. Dr. Marion Brandtner

Marketing or market-oriented corporate management is necessarily applied in every company - this applies to all economic sectors (consumer goods, durable goods, investment and agricultural industries as well as trade, crafts, service companies and non-profit organisations/institutions.

Professional competence: Marketing is a particularly exciting and lively business discipline. Market research, for example, ranges from research into central customer needs to intensive comparisons with competitors and advertising effectiveness research. The development of innovative products or service offers is just as much an essential core as professional sales management. Precise communication can be tested in our own usability laboratory with modern eye-tracking technology. International marketing and online marketing in its many forms are also integral parts of this field.

Methodological competence: Marketing is a mixture of analysis and creativity. Consequently, methods of information procurement, processing, evaluation, interpretation and presentation in the analysis, planning and controlling of tasks in marketing and sales are a focus of the training. Creativity plays a major role not only in the field of innovation, but also in communication, sales and corporate and marketing strategy. The relevant instruments for this are taught to the students through practical cases, exercises and projects. An essential part of the training is a comprehensive market research project for internal or external partners and companies. Project management and teamwork are elementary components of these projects.

Special features of the training: The Marketing concentration has a combined market research, multimedia and usability laboratory in which numerous practical projects are completed by the students. In addition to group and project work, presentations, excursions, guest lectures by external speakers and creative projects are typical components of the marketing studies. Selected elearning modules support students in the formation, examination or consolidation of knowledge.

Lecturers:

Prof. Dr. Günter Buerke

Prof. Dr. Alexander Magerhans

"Professional competence, methodological competence, social competence".

For human resource managers, this triad is part of the basic vocabulary. In the training of our students in the "Human Resources Management" specialisation, we also feel committed to the goal of a balanced mix between these three areas of competence.  The high number of hours in the specialisation training (24 semester hours per week) allows intensive coverage of all the important subject areas of modern human resource management (e.g. human resource planning, recruitment, development, compensation management, employee leadership, labour law) and also offers scope for selective in-depth study of current issues.

Important profile lines of the specialisation are:

High proportion of legal studies: 25% of the courses are devoted to labour law issues and wage tax and social security law.
Practice-oriented theory: The selection of theory taught is very much oriented towards the criterion of "practicability in practice". Therefore, models and methods are always discussed with regard to their application prerequisites and limits.
Overall entrepreneurial thinking: Operational HR work is seen as a functional field that is to be measured by its contributions to the achievement of the goals of the company as a whole.
 Freedom for personal development: Many course elements (e.g. student lectures, group work) aim to promote personal initiative, independence and social competence. Particularly noteworthy here is a major project work in the 5th/6th semester, in which students develop, document and present a concrete problem solution for a project partner from corporate practice.
Lecturers:

Prof. Dr. Heike Kraußlach

Prof. Dr. Klaus Watzka

Events in basic training
- Accounting
- Annual accounts
- Cost and performance accounting 

Courses in the advanced training

Module 1: Controlling (Module responsibility: Prof. Dr. Klaus)
- Basics of controlling
- Operational and strategic controlling
- Corporate management

Module 2: Corporate Accounting (Module responsibility: Prof. Dr. Klaus)
- Balance sheet analysis and balance sheet policy
- Seminar on corporate accounting
- Selected aspects of accounting

Module 3: Accounting of the Group (Module responsibility: Prof. Dr. Klaus)
- Group accounting under commercial law 
- International accounting

Lecturer:
Prof. Dr. Hans Klaus

Information technology has become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. The daily use of the internet, dealing with smartphones and mobile applications, online shopping and social media have become a matter of course. In addition to the realisation of new digital offers, information and communication technology contributes to decisive cost savings in companies. An effective IT infrastructure and efficient information management have become essential success factors. Concepts such as Smart Home, Internet of Things, Smart Contracts, autonomous driving as well as digital voice assistants prove that digitalisation in our society is advancing more and more. This is the environment of business informatics.

Viewed soberly, business informatics is a so-called interface science between computer science and business administration. In addition, aspects of economics and law play a role. This rather matter-of-fact definition should not obscure the fact that in practice there is a very wide range of exciting professional fields that require precisely such a combination of knowledge. Basically, business informatics deals with all aspects of the application of information and communication systems in companies and the marketing of digital goods. Business informatics is also commonly referred to as applied informatics, as the focus is not on theoretical aspects but on concrete, practical IT applications.

A complete listing or classification of concrete occupational fields is simply not possible. A search on job exchanges for the term "business informatics" reveals the following job prospects on the first pages: Data Scientist, IT Security Expert, IT Consultant, Social Media Manager, Software Developer, Web Developer and Web Designer, SAP Consultant, IT Architect, Application Support Manager, Risk Manager, E-Commerce Strategist, Business Analyst and Online Shop Manager. The examples show the diversity of business informatics, because both technology-related and economic tasks are performed by business informatics specialists.

The curriculum of the Business Informatics specialisation in the Business Administration degree programme at the University of Applied Sciences Jena is geared towards the requirements of practice. With a total of 24 SWS, the specialisation programme is broadly based and graduates acquire sound specialist knowledge in both the technical, application-oriented and business management subject areas. Students of the Business Informatics specialisation are therefore well prepared for the above-mentioned professional fields. With its numerous companies, Jena is an important IT location, especially in the field of e-commerce. Especially due to the very close networking of the Ernst Abbe University with companies from the "IT-Valley" Jena, graduates of the Business Informatics major can expect excellent career opportunities with high salary prospects.

Lecturers of the specialisation:

Dr. T. Wöhner
Prof. A. Werner

In the classic business administration disciplines, there are numerous overlaps with legal matters, for example in corporate, competition and labour law. Therefore, our students have the opportunity to build on the basis of the basic studies with a total of 8 semester hours of law and choose a specialisation that never loses sight of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The main focus is on intellectual property law (including competition law, cartel law, trademark law, etc.), corporate law (law of partnerships and corporations), labour law (employment contract, protection against dismissal, collective agreement, works agreement, etc.) and business administration law (including constitutional law, European law, trade law, subsidy law).

Special orientations :

As employee(s) :

• Legal department, human resources department, accounting, tax and/or finance department.
• As self-employed person(s) : tax advisor, auditor, insolvency administrator, guardian, broker.
• Specialisation: integrated study abroad (DAAD) "Common law" USA
• Concrete fields of activity in the company:
• All classical departments of companies such as central management, purchasing, sales, marketing.

Lecturer:
Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Görg

Prof. Dr. Michael Saller

Taxes are part of economic life. Contrary to widespread opinion, the subject is an exciting and varied field that also offers excellent career prospects.

As part of the basic training, the basics of income tax, tax balance sheets and tax procedural law are covered in three courses. Students who discover their interest in tax topics in the process can choose between three modules with three courses each as part of the in-depth training:

4th semester: Turnover tax

5th semester: Corporate Taxation

Semester 6: International Tax Law

The modules "Value Added Tax" and "Corporate Taxation" can be taken independently of the other modules. For the module "International Tax Law" - the supreme discipline of tax law - knowledge from the module "Corporate Taxation" is assumed.

Lecturers:

Prof. Dr. Weronika Cichorek

Monika Seiffert, M.A.