In the winter semester of 2025/26, students of the Master’s program in Organizational and Human Resource Development participated in an extensive practical project with project partner Kununu. The aim of the practical project course in the third semester was to address real-life issues from corporate practice and develop well-founded concepts including concrete implementation recommendations.
The project started on September 26, 2025, and was completed and presented on January 30, 2026. Throughout the semester, the students worked closely with their contacts at KUNUNU, gaining valuable insights into an internationally active company.
Learning as part of Corporate Culture
The practical project focused on the topic of “Kununu on the path to culture-based transformation”. The company strives to be a value-oriented, high-performing, and culturally aware organization in which learning is an integral part of the corporate culture. Managers play a central role in this process and were regarded as cultural ambassadors and role models in the project.
Questions from work situations
The starting point for the joint project was the key question: How must Kununu’s culture evolve so that people can learn together, develop, take responsibility, and deliver top performance within a value-based framework?
To address this question, the students were divided into six thematically focused teams that worked together in a self-organized manner. The content focused on topics ranging from the analysis of the cultural starting point and existing value patterns to the role of leadership and subcultures to the connections between corporate culture, organizational performance, changeability, communication, and participation.
Methodologically, the students relied on a combination of literature and research work, quantitative and qualitative surveys such as questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups.
Implementing transformation
At the end of the project, a holistic picture of Kununu’s culture emerged, bringing together the different perspectives and resulting in coordinated, practical recommendations for action and implementation. These were presented to the project partner during the final presentation on January 30, 2026, and provide a sound basis for the company’s further cultural and strategic development.
“The students approached our questions with a high degree of professionalism and methodological depth. I was particularly impressed by the clearly structured, practical recommendations that can be directly integrated into our transformation work. The collaboration has opened up valuable new perspectives for us,” say Leonard Miesbauer and Leontina Morvay from Kununu, who commissioned the project, expressing their enthusiasm for the presentations.
The practical project illustrates the high value placed on practical teaching at FHWien der WKW: students gain real project experience, while companies benefit from fresh perspectives and scientifically sound analyses. Special thanks go to Kununu and clients Leonard Miesbauer & Leontina Morvay for their valuable collaboration.
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