THI Business School
This learning innovation is an engaging technique to help students learn abstract concepts such as entrepreneurship theory, mindsets, and methods in a playful and exciting way. We explore how current AI tools can be used by entrepreneurship educators to enhance their course materials by creating memorable images and story-based, highly visual comic book content (“graphic novels”). We implemented these enhancements in an interactive learning platform based on Articulate Storyline and tested them in an introductory entrepreneurship course with over 2000 students per year on building an entrepreneurial mindset. In this article, we include sample copies of the images and graphic novel comics and highlight key methods, lessons, results, and design artifacts created during the course of our learning journey. Educators may add these free Open Educational Resource (OER) assets to their own courses by linking to the online version. We believe this approach to entrepreneurship education enhances students’ engagement, memory retention, and the ability to identify and name underlying concepts and entrepreneurship theories. We hope to spark the interest of other entrepreneurship educators to use similar approaches at their universities.
Angesichts der dynamischen Fortschritte in der KI-Technologie und den damit einhergehenden neuen Möglichkeiten in der Kreativwirtschaft, strebt diese Arbeit danach, zu erforschen, wie der Ideenfindungsprozess von Marketingagenturen zwischen KI und menschlicher Kreativität mit Hinblick auf die spezifischen Kreativitätsanforderungen verschiedener Teilprozesse gestaltet werden kann.
Die methodologische Herangehensweise kombiniert theoretische Forschung, die sich insbesondere auf die Analyse etablierter Modelle fokussiert, mit qualitativen Experteninterviews. Dabei wurde ein Schwerpunkt auf die Analyse von Best- Practice-Modellen gelegt, um bestehende Praktiken und das Potenzial der KI- Integration zu untersuchen. Im Rahmen dieser Studie wurden verschiedene Phasen des Ideenfindungsprozesses und die spezifischen Kreativitätsanforderungen an diese Phasen identifiziert, sowie die effektive Integration von KI in diese Prozesse evaluiert.
Die zentralen Erkenntnisse zeigen, dass KI insbesondere in den frühen Stadien des Ideenfindungsprozesses effektiv zur Generierung ergänzender Impulse und zur Unterstützung menschlicher Kreativität eingesetzt werden kann. Ihre Fähigkeiten in fortgeschrittenen Kreativitätsstufen, vor allem in den Bereichen der assoziativen, transformationellen Kreativität, sind jedoch begrenzt. Es wurde deutlich, dass die tiefgreifende kognitive Verarbeitung und emotionale Bewertung, die in den späteren Phasen der Kreation erforderlich sind, sowie eine sorgfältige Abstimmung und menschliche Überwachung während des gesamten Prozesses entscheidend von menschlichen Fähigkeiten abhängen.
Die Arbeit entwickelt ein Rahmenwerk, das darlegt, wie KI systematisch in den kreativen Prozess integriert werden kann, um sowohl die Effizienz als auch die kreative Qualität zu verbessern, ohne dabei die wesentliche Rolle menschlicher Intuition und emotionaler Intelligenz zu schmälern.
The Search for Meaning at Work: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Cognitive Crafting Intervention
(2026)
Many employees struggle to experience a sense of meaning in their work, posing a challenge to workplace flourishing. Cognitive crafting—the process of reframing how one interprets their work—can enhance meaningful work and well-being. However, strategies to effectively promote it remain unclear. Building on positive psychology interventions, self-determination theory, and job crafting theory, we developed a brief online intervention using meaning-based reflection and cognitive reframing. Its effectiveness was evaluated in a pre-registered randomized controlled trial ( N = 260) with an active control group, assessing outcomes post-intervention and at one-month follow-up. Compared to the control group, the intervention group reported significantly higher levels of meaningful work, work engagement, and job satisfaction. However, these differences were driven by lower scores in the control group compared to baseline, while the intervention group remained stable. These findings highlight the complexity of designing effective cognitive crafting interventions and underscore the need for further theory-driven research to identify strategies that reliably enhance positive work evaluations and work-related well-being.
Impact Investing provides a promising way to fund sustainable development while balancing financial, social, and environmental goals. This study compares the performance of Impact, Conventional, and ESG Portfolios in the European stock market over more than 10 years, using Markowitz Optimization and Naive Diversification. The findings show that Impact Portfolios yield the highest returns, without sacrificing financial performance when integrating sustainability criteria that go beyond the classical ESG investing.
This open access book presents an overview and step-by-step explanation of process management. It starts with the individual participants’ perspectives on their work in a process and its structuring and harmonization, and then moves on to its specification in a model and how it is embedded in the organizational and IT environment of the company. Lastly, the book examines the joint processing of instances in the resulting socio-technical systems. A corresponding illustration, which expands with the overview, enables readers to gain a comprehensive understanding of business process management.
The book presents various facets of business process management from the perspective of the participants, and introduces a selection of models that have proved useful in practice. The design of such models supports the transition from a more-or-less unstructured or unsatisfactory way of working to a structured process that corresponds to the ideas of the company and its customers. For this second edition, several new sections dealing with the integration of IoT processes, artificial intelligence, and social behavior patterns in process mining, a whole chapter on implementation and operation, and three new case studies were added.
The book is intended for professionals in industry as well as students in the field of business information systems who are looking for guidelines on how to discover, create and implement real-world processes.
Innovative Arbeitsmodelle: Eine Bewertung moderner Organisationsformen im Kontext von New Work
(2025)
Supply-Chain-Stability-Index: Bewertung von Lieferketten am Beispiel der Handelsroute Taiwan – EU
(2025)
Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung im deutschen Mittelstand: Herausforderungen und Empfehlungen
(2025)
Pay-per-X and Equipment as a Service – Chances and Risks for Family-led Engineering Companies
(2025)
Using In-Store Analytics to Bridge the Purchase Intention and Behavior Gap at the Point of Sale
(2023)
Purpose
This paper addresses challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary teamwork in innovation management, focusing on how team mental models (TMMs) can foster more effective collaboration among team members from diverse backgrounds. The research examines the relationship between TMM similarity and team performance in interdisciplinary innovation teams.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory study was conducted with 55 participants across 15 teams. TMM similarity was measured by analyzing team interactions using a web-based interface that facilitated contrasted comparison ratings. These ratings were first processed into individual graphs via a shortest-node-finding pathfinder algorithm, then compared. Subject matter experts evaluated team performance.
Findings
The results reveal a significant positive correlation between TMM similarity and team performance in interdisciplinary innovation teams, suggesting that greater alignment in team members' mental models enhances overall innovation project performance.
Research limitations/implications
Although the academic programs sampled replicate the environment, challenges and various other aspects of innovation projects, they can only be considered proxies for innovation projects within real organizations. Further research within professional environments, using a larger sample, is recommended.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the value of assessing and fostering TMM similarity to improve teamwork and performance in interdisciplinary innovation projects. The interface and code used are publicly available to encourage their implementation in organizations.
Originality/value
This research provides novel insights into the application of TMMs within interdisciplinary innovation teams, extending the concept beyond its traditional use in unidisciplinary and structured task settings.