After the introduction of the 2017 curriculum, which is a complete revision of the curriculum 2009 of the Betriebsökonomie and International Management degree programmes, the FHNW is already discussing what will be needed in five to ten years. Hence, in order to be able to evaluate the new curricula 2017 as well as to identify possible needs for potential future changes or revisions, the FHNW is in need of data. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to shed light on how the degree programs prepare the students for the working world.

The methodological approach for this thesis was quantitative research, more specifically, descriptive research. The data collection was conducted through structured online surveys. The questions for the surveys were chosen by the authors according to inputs received from the client and the supervisor as well as past surveys. The participants were International Management or Betriebsökonomie graduates from the FHNW campuses Olten and Brugg-Windisch, full-time or part-time, who graduated between the years 2012 and 2018. The surveys were sent out via e-mail and in two languages; English for the IM graduates and German for the BÖK graduates. Once as much data as possible, given the time frame of the thesis, was collected, the data analysis was conducted. The tools provided by the platform umfrageonline.ch, with which the survey was conducted, were mostly used for the analysis. Additionally, Excel was used, mainly for the merging of data sets, calculations, and layout modifications of graphs as well as displaying information.

The data suggests that the professional environment and level of responsibility within the workplace of the graduates of the BÖK and IM degree programmes are highly similar. Moreover, the acquired skills in the respective courses of the respective degree programmes were overall perceived as relevant for the participants’ current job-related tasks or postgraduate studies. The results indicate, however, a relation between the IM degree programme and internationalisation. Significantly more IM graduates work for international corporations, and significantly less BÖK students stated to have experienced international exposure. Furthermore, the authors were able to identify a few missing topics/competence fields stated by the graduates that were not or only to a certain extent covered in the curriculum 2017. Therefore, the authors recommend incorporating the missing topics in already existing courses or to offer context modules focused on specific topics. Additionally, an overall more practical orientation could be achieved through the introduction of a Simulation Game over all semesters of the respective study programmes, where classes or groups of students could interact as companies, applying the theoretical knowledge acquired during their studies. Nevertheless, the aim of the thesis was to evaluate how well the degree programmes International Management and Betriebsökonomie, full-time and part-time, prepare the students for the working world and based on the results of the analysis it can be concluded that there are no significant gaps between the education provided by the FHNW and the needed skills in daily work life. The FHNW graduates are well prepared for the working world.