040088 UE Empirical Methods I (MA) (2025S)

This course is an introductory class on empirical methods and data analysis. The goal is for students to learn fundamental techniques and acquire basic skills essential for empirical research. The theory-oriented sessions will cover key stages and tools involved in conducting empirical projects, including research design, measurement types, methods of data collection, and basic descriptive statistics. Special emphasis will be placed on developing a theoretical framework and the pre-evaluation stage of empirical work. The practice-oriented sessions will introduce students to statistical programming and computing using Stata. Additionally, students will engage with scientific literature by reading and presenting articles from top-tier management journals, with a particular focus on strategy research. The knowledge and competencies gained in this course will be applied in a group project, where students will actively undertake the necessary steps to design and conduct their own empirical research. As part of this process, students will be required to obtain real-world (secondary) data to perform descriptive statistics in Empirical Methods I and conduct hypothesis testing in Empirical Methods II.

The course is highly interactive and built around the idea of a laboratory setup as is typical for social sciences. The setup necessitates certain software and IT equipment. To provide every student the same opportunity to successfully participate in the course, the majority of sessions will be in one of the PC-labs at the OMP. However, two additional sessions held via Zoom, in which case students are required to ensure stable Internet connection and be able to join using their web cameras. The exact format of individual sessions will be announced in the course syllabus.

This course is an introductory class on empirical methods and data analysis which precedes the follow-up class “Empirical Methods II”. The goal of this introductory course is for students to learn the fundamental techniques and obtain the basic skills required in empirical research. Our theoretical sessions will cover tools and stages required for running empirical projects (e.g. research design, measurement types, methods of data collection, basic descriptive statistics) with a special focus on the pre-evaluation stage of an empirical work. Our applied sessions will introduce the students to basic STATA skills, allowing them to prepare their data for analysis using statistical programming software. Students will participate by reading and presenting scientific articles in some of the highest ranked strategy journals. Knowledge gained in this course is also applied during a project where students actively develop the necessary steps for conducting their own empirical research projects. In this spirit, students are required to obtain real-world data for their basic descriptives in Empirical Methods I and the subsequent proposition testing in Empirical Methods II.
This course is interactive and built around the idea of a laboratory setup as is typical for social sciences. The setup necessitates certain software and IT equipment. To provide every student the same opportunity to successfully participate in the course, it is partly held in one of the PC-labs at the OMP. The class is hence held in-person with selected (non-theory, individual meetings) sessions held via Zoom. For those online meetings, students are required to ensure stable Internet connection and be able to join using their web cameras as well. Hence, not only an audio connection, also a video connection is required. The majority of all sessions, as well as the exams, will be held in person. The exact format of individual sessions will be announced during Session 1.