Girls' Day at the Department of Management at the Free University Berlin

Workshop "The way of a T-shirt - from planning to sales. First insights into business administration."

"What happens before a T-shirt is hanging in the store and can be sold?" And "What does this have to do with business administration?" These and others questions were raised and discussed by 25 pupils from Berlin-based schools, ranging from grades 8 to 10, at the Girls' Day at the Department of Management. The Girls Day offers young students the opportunity to get to know everyday-life at a university and to gain an insight into different areas of study. In our workshops we examined the question of how the apparel industry functions: Where production takes place and under what conditions the T-shirts we wear are produced. Discussing these questions, the pupils did not only gain insights into the management of global supply chains but did also learn what studying management could look like. Questions that were of particular interest to the students were, inter alia, "Where is the cotton for my shirt grown?", "How are garment retailers able to sell T-shirts for less than 5 Euros?" And "How much do the seamstresses in Bangladesh or Pakistan earn for a shirt?"

The workshop was planned and conducted by Nora Lohmeyer (post-Doc in the Global Garment Supply Chain Project), Julia Bartosch (research assistant at the Chair of Prof. Gregory Jackson), Carolin Auschra (research assistant at the Chair of Prof. Jörg Sydow), and Milena Schmiedhoff (master student at the Management Department and student assistant at the Chair of Prof. Jörg Sydow).