A "Right" Sucess: Master Thesis Wins Europe Award

Management and Law graduates impress at the higher education award of the Tiroler Sparkasse in the main prize category and the Europe Award respectively.

At the Graf Chotek Hochschulpreis 2019, Philipp Weinkogl, Cornelia Praschberger, Hannes Rieser, Matthias Pirs and Susanne Schwarzl were nominated for the main prize (Praschberger, Rieser) and the special-prize Europe category (Pirs, Schwarzl, Weinkogl) for excellent scientific research in their master theses.

In the Bürgersaal of the historic Town Hall of Innsbruck, Philipp Weinkogl led by example with his thesis, which was rated very highly in the European category by the jury members of the University of Innsbruck, UMIT and MCI. In total, the MCI Department of Management and Law submitted five of the 13 nominated theses and won one of the four prizes awarded by the Sparkasse. This represents a major accomplishment for our Master's graduates, who typically position their focus of research at the interface of management and law.

In the main-prize category, the MCI nominees did not have to take a back seat to the undisputedly outstanding work of Julia Katharina Kraus (University of Innsbruck). Like Kraus, Cornelia Praschberger's work at MCI and Edinburgh Napier University, as part of a Double Degree Program, dealt with a financial topic (The effect of R&D investments on stock returns).

In his thesis, supervised by M&A expert Prof. Dr. Florian Bauer, Hannes Rieser examines experiences with and approaches to M&A-projects with regard to their effects on performance-relevant variables.

In the special-prize Europe category, which carries a € 1000 reward, winner Philipp Weinkogl dealt with the principle of direct effect i.e. the influence of EU law in national contexts. The horizontal direct effect that he discussed determines the legal relations between EU citizens.

Matthias Pirs diligently discusses the role that philosophical schools of thought play in the EGE (European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies), and how they potentially influence EU decisions.

Susanne Schwarzl examines how the moral concepts of member states are taken into account in EU decision-making processes.

Head of Department and Studies FH-Prof. Dr. Ralf Geymayer was delighted with the success of his former Master students and congratulated them on their remarkable performances. This validates the excellent work done by students of the master program “International Business & Law”.