In May 2020, ZuWi II program at WU initiated an award category for the best thesis on social and/or environmental sustainability issues, written by WU’s undergraduate students. The award ceremony was originally scheduled for the WU Annual SDG-Day; however, because of the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, handing out of the awards took place virtually.

The award promotes the visibility of excellent Bachelor’s theses in the module Sustainable Economics and Business II. It is intended to motivate students from the fields of Business Administration, International Business Administration and Information Systems to explore how economic activities are embedded in social and ecological contexts.  

This year’s jury – Florian Findler at the Institute for Managing Sustainability, and STaR Faculty Members Karl-Michael Brunner and Johanna Hofbauer – selected the work of Sümeyye Cekic and Denise Waglechner. The two theses explore different sides of an issue that is highly relevant to today’s Austrian society: Sümeyye examined the flexibilization of working hours based on the recently created 12-hour workday, and Denise looked at the opportunities and risks of a reduction in working hours. More detailed descriptions of their findings, as well as their motivation for writing on this timely topic, can be found on the Bachelor Thesis in ZuWi1 and ZuWi2 website [in German] and/or STaR Theses Writing for Impact [in English].

We congratulate Sümeyye and Denise and look forward to future nominations!