The Institute for Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship is the leading Austrian university educational centre for the SME sector with a focus on dynamic SMEs. Therefore, in the specialisation program (SBWL) SME-Management, we aim to train generalists, in the management of SMEs – whether as entrepreneurs, as successors, as general managers or as actors in advisory professions – who are able to shape these dynamic development processes.

We transmit to the future leadership of the SME sector, expertise in entrepreneurial management, such as entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurial marketing and corporate entrepreneurship. In our teaching methods, we strive to find a balance between case studies with an analytical and a decision focus and theory-based reflections. As a result, our graduates are enabled to recognise business opportunities and to develop, evaluate, and to break new ground in the course of their implementation.

Our Graduates

• understand what an SME is,

• recognise the importance of SMEs for an economy,

• recognise the challenges the establishment and management of SMEs bring,

• know the instruments in order to respond appropriately to these challenges, and can successfully apply them,

• are sensitised to interactions between inner world and the external environment, as well as life cycle stages and management requirements and

• understand how theory and practice are intertwined.

The Austrian economy is (like most economies) dominated by SMEs - and is a rich field of activity for our graduates.