Refine
Document Type
- Journal article (37)
- Book chapter (27)
- Book (25)
- Conference proceeding (13)
- Anthology (3)
- Issue of a journal (2)
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
- Journal (1)
- Report (1)
Language
- English (110) (remove)
Has full text
- no (110) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (110) (remove)
Institute
- ESB Business School (110) (remove)
Publisher
- Elsevier (11)
- Springer (10)
- Erich Schmidt (7)
- LIT (7)
- Routledge (7)
- Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen (6)
- Association for Information Systems (AIS) (4)
- DUZ Medienhaus (4)
- Academy of Management (3)
- Europäische Fernhochschule Hamburg (3)
Learning factories present a promising environment for education, training and research, especially in manufacturing related areas which are a main driver for wealth creation in any nation. While numerous learning factories have been built in industry and academia in the last decades, a comprehensive scientific overview of the topic is still missing. This paper intends to close this gap establishing the state of the art of learning factories. The motivations, historic background, and the didactic foundations of learning factories are outlined. Definitions of the term learning factory and the corresponding morphological model are provided. An overview of existing learning factory approaches in industry and academia is provided, showing the broad range of different applications and varying contents. The state of the art of learning factories curricula design and their use to enhance learning and research as well as potentials and limitations are presented. Conclusions and an outlook on further research priorities are offered.
User innovators follow multiple diffusion and adoption pathways for their self-developed innovations. Users may choose to commercialize their self-developed products on the marketplace by becoming entrepreneurs. Few studies exist that focus on understanding personal and interpersonal factors that affect some user innovators’ entrepreneurial decision-making. Hence, this paper focuses on how user innovators make key decisions relating to opportunity recognition and evaluation and when opportunity evaluation leads to subsequent entrepreneurial action in the entrepreneurial process. We conducted an exploratory study using a multi-grounded theory methodology as the user entrepreneurship phenomenon embodies complex social processes. We collected data through the netnography approach that targeted 18 entrepreneurs with potentially relevant differences through crowdfunding platforms. We integrated self-determination, human capital, and social capital theory to address the phenomena under study. This study’s significant findings posit that users’ motives are dissatisfaction with existing goods, interest in innovation, altruism, social recognition, desire for independence, and economic benefits. Besides, use-related experience, product-related knowledge, product diffusion, and iterative feedback positively impact innovative users’ entrepreneurial decision-making.
Machine learning (ML) techniques are rapidly evolving, both in academia and practice. However, enterprises show different maturity levels in successfully implementing ML techniques. Thus, we review the state of adoption of ML in enterprises. We find that ML technologies are being increasingly adopted in enterprises, but that small and medium-size enterprises (SME) are struggling with the introduction in comparison to larger enterprises. In order to identify enablers and success factors we conduct a qualitative empirical study with 18 companies in different industries. The results show that especially SME fail to apply ML technologies due to insufficient ML knowhow. However, partners and appropriate tools can compensate this lack of resources. We discuss approaches to bridge the gap for SME.
There is no denying that organizations, whether domestic or global, whether educational, governmental, or business, are undergoing rapid transformation. However, what is causing it? Prompted by the need to remain relevant and competitive, organizations constantly try to reinvent themselves. Those that do not, according to the laws of economics, will simply serve no purpose and will eventually cease to exist. Regardless of sector or industry, an organization's success pivots around its human talent. Hence, it is crucial to manage it and cultivate certain traits, knowledge, and skills. In today's global economy, organizations are more interconnected than ever before and thus the challenges they face require that employees possess not only expert knowledge, problem-solving, cross-cultural, and cross-functional teaming skills, but also good communications skills and agile thinking.
Since its early beginnings in the form of correspondence schools, e-learning has generally sought to provide flexibility and high quality education. While these are indeed noble intentions, the reality of today's connected world demands that such programs focus on a different purpose. As the main purpose of e-learning shifts, so must be the design approaches.
Rethinking e-learning requires open-mindedness on the part of academies, designers, cyber educators, legislators, IT and administrators, but also the learners themselves. All who are involved in or impacted by e-learning programs must speak up and finally share their perspectives, but who will be listening? The key to rethinking e-learning lies in the ability of the stakeholders to listen to each other and make decisions which are in the best interest of the learner.
This chapter will propose a new purpose for e-learning and explore promising possibilities for learner-centered design. The future of e-learning can be shaped by the decisions made today, but before any decisions can be made, one must acknowledge e-learning's successes as well as its shortcomings. The purpose of this chapter is to encourage those who are impacted by e-learning to think about the future.
Many researchers have explored the phenomenon of intercultural communication since Edward T. Hall first brought it to light in the late 1950s. Although the literature is quite extensive, the ongoing sociopolitical struggles are evidence that even in the twenty-first century, society has limited intercultural as well as intracultural communication competence. This limited understanding continues to bring about discord in every facet of life, including work.
The modern workforce is expected to possess certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are inherently different from those expected from previous generations. Due to globalization, intercultural competence and highly effective communication skills are at the top of the list - a working knowledge of English as the lingua franca of today's business world can be considered as a first step.
This study analyses the impact of Basel III on the fair pricing of bank guarantee facilities.Guarantees are an important risk mitigation instrument between exporters and importers in international trade and regularly a prerequisite for cross border sales contracts to be closed. Basel III – which shall be introduced from 2013 onwards - is a new regulation stipulating higher capital requirements for banks compared to the predecessor Basel II. It will therefore have an impact on the pricing of guarantee facilities which banks provide to exporting companies, making it also a crucial regulation for the cost of exportation overall. The study compares those contents of Basel III and Basel II which are particularly relevant for guarantees in order to identify and crystallize pricing-relevant changes in the regulations and their respective impact potential. The Basel frameworks are analyzed part by part and reviewed in terms of relevance for guarantees. In case of ambiguity the analysis is verified by complementary expert interviews. References and examples are mainly focusing on the German banking system but the basic conclusions can be generalized for those countries adopting Basel III.1 As the result, a case study expresses the quantitative outcomes of different scenarios and the impact of the different price determining factors on the overall fair pricing of bank guarantee facilities.
Mature economies which are driven mainly by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly becoming dependent on material imports. Global material consumption is ever increasing, mainly driven by population increases. Decoupling of material consumption from economic growth is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. Within this paper available methods for the assessment of material efficiency on different economic scales are investigated and those detected that are particulary suitable for the use in SMEs. Recommendations for further improvements of the selected tools and an outlook concerning planned research activities in the field of material efficiency in enterprises, supply chains and circular economy aspects are given.
In order to decouple economic growth from global material consumption it is necessary to implement material efficiency strategies at the level of single enterprises and their supply chains, and to implement circular economy aspects. Manufacturing firms face multiple implementation challenges like cost limitations, competition, innovation and stakeholder pressure, and supplier and customer relationships, among others
. An extended evaluation of triggers and barriers to improve material efficiency in manufacturing companies, along the supply chain and concerning circular economy considerations is provided. This paper delivers an extended literature review, a critical discussion of the current situation and resulting challenges concerning material efficiency approaches in manufacturing supply chains. Finally, a conclusion and outlook on further research direction is given.
As long as there have been professional sports, there have been relationships on different levels. For example, sponsorship (or patronage as it was called in the early days) was mostly based on personal relations between the local benefactors and their favourite sports club. Regarding media, clubs always maintained special relationships with selected journalists. The bond between fans and their clubs was always a close and mutually beneficial one. All these relationships existed from the start of the sports business. Therefore, relationship marketing is nothing new in the context of sports. Many sporting organisations always knew to value a deep and good relationship with their stakeholders and practised relationship marketing without being aware of it. Successful sports managers, however, take the old wisdom and turn it into a modern relationship marketing approach by structuring the various relationships in order to make them more effective and profitable for the own sporting organisation and the various stakeholders. This chapter ... illustrates the many facets of relationship marketing and the possibilities it offers in the context of the sports business.
This introductory chapter starts with a brief discussion about the differences between the long-standing perspective of sports marketing and more modern sports marketing approach. The discussion leads to the ultimate question whether sports marketing can be seen as a new and independent marketing discipline rather than a normal form of marketing. In addition, a coherent definition of sports marketing will be presented which serves as the underlining definition of this edition volumen. Then the most important characteristics of sports of a marketing perspective will be explained using some real-life examples. The structure as well as the individual chapters of this book will be introduced in the following. This first chapter concludes with the introduction of the German Institute for Sports Marketing which has been founded by the editors of this book.
Although sports is generally defined as motor activity, it has always been much more than that. Since management and sports follow the same objective of achieving highest performance, correlation between these two fields nowadays become increasingly interesting in terms of corporate strategy. This chapter aims to point out how organisations as well as individuals can benefit from the general and psychological values and strategies of sports, by first looking at the general framework of professional sports an futher applying approaches from various types of sports directly to certain business functions like general management, human resource management and marketing management. The chapter concludes with an international case study and brief outlook.
This chapter presents the diverse facets of sports marketing in Western Europe. It showcases the most important types of sports, most significant leagues, bestknown clubs, most popular athletes and the biggest sporting events in Western Europe while elaborating on the relevant aspects of sports marketing. We examine European sportsconsumers, characterise the sports marketing market in Western Europe an explain the current scientific/academic status of sports marketing. Moreover, we illustrate the motives for the internationalisation taking place in sports marketing. In conclusion, this chapter includes an international case study on the entry of the NFL into the European market.
Marketing in sports
(2014)
In this chapter the principals of marketing will be explained an transferred to the contex of sports. Following a brief introduction the principles of marketing will be outlined and explained in further detail. Then the subject of sports marketing will be introduced from different perspectives using various definitions and approaches. Afterwards the focus is on the unique characteristics of sports marketing before a model of sports marketing will be presented. Then it will be shown how professional sporting organisations might market their products an themselves. The chapter concludes with a detailed case study using the example of FC St. Pauli which is one of only few real brands in German sports.
This concluding chapter summarises and discusses the different parts and findings of the anthology on hand. The main statements and conclusions of each chapter are presented. Following up, the editors try to look into the future of the sports business and sports management in general and the future of sports marketing in particular and draw a final conclusion.
Traditional communication of research on climate change fails to encourage individual, corporate, and political leaders to take appropriate action. We argue that this problem is based on an overly simplistic unidirectional model of science communication. Conversely, theory shows that active learning processes are better suited to initiate and mobilize engagement among all stakeholders. Here, we integrate theoretical insights on active learning with empirical evidence from serious gaming: communication should be understood as an integral design feature that relates active learning on climate change to tangible action.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the most frequently adopted management tools and has received much attention in the literature. From a company-wide perspective, CRM is viewed as a complex process requiring interventions in different company areas. Previous research has already highlighted the pitfalls and failures related to a partial and incomplete view of CRM. This study advances research on CRM by investigating the impact of the relative implementation time according to which interventions are implemented in different areas (customer management, CRM technology, organizational alignment, and CRM strategy) on CRM performance. The results of the empirical study reveal that compared to other critical CRM activities, a later implementation of organizational alignment activities has a negative impact on performance. Further, our results show that CRM implementations do not equally address the areas of customer acquisition, growth, and loyalty, since this clearly depends on company objectives and also on geographical differences.
Over the last 50 years, neoclassical financial theory has been dominating our perception of what is happening in financial markets. It has spurred numerous valuable theories and concepts all based on the concept of Homo Economicus, the strictly rational economic man. However, humans do not always act in a strictly rational manner. For students and practitioners alike, our book aims at opening the door to another perspective on financial markets: a behavioral perspective based on a Homo Oeconomicus Humanus. This agent acts with limited rationality when making decisions. He/she uses heuristics and shortcuts and is prone to the influence of emotions. This sounds familiar in real life and can be transferred to what happens in financial markets, too.
Indicators of disruption potentials - analysis of the blockchain technology’s potential impact
(2019)
The goal of this paper was to answer the question whether blockchain has the potential to become a disruption according to Clayton Christensen’s disruption theory. Therefore, the theory and the five characteristics that define the process of disruption were outlined in the first part of the paper. That and the following explanation of the blockchain technology served as the basis for the analysis and evaluation in chapters four to seven. For the analysis, three applications of the DLT, namely payment methods, intermediaries, as well as data storage and transfer, were considered. The fulfillment of the five characteristics of disruption was assessed using an example for each of the three applications.
Additionally, the paper might serve as a basis for future research on the topic, once the technology develops further, since it is generally hard to tell whether the fourth and fifth characteristics are fulfilled by blockchain at this point. Therefore, the results of the paper also back criticism of Christensen’s theory regarding its usefulness for predictions.
This paper suggests that, in the financial services industry, too, the impact of blockchain will be significant. However, given the manifoldness of the services that are part of the industry, it cannot generally be concluded whether the DLT will disrupt the industry. For example, in services related to payment methods, blockchain is unlikely to follow disruptive pattern, despite the recent hype surrounding blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. However, regarding data storage and transfer, the technology might as well follow disruptive pattern in the financial services industry just as the application of blockchain solutions has been doing in the healthcare industry.
The intention of this paper is to show that the statistical approach to risk is not enough to explain the behavior of investors. It furthermore proposes ideas and alternative approaches on how to deal with risk. Psychological findings are of particular interest as they might enhance our understanding of risk perception and assessment. The chapter “From the normal distribution to fat tails” starts with the rejection of the normal distribution as a simplifying basis for risk and return. This rejection is supported by several empirical observations like clustering of volatility and fat tails. This leads to a two-step approach for modeling risk and return based on the distinction of conditional and un-conditional changes. Conditional time series models (ARMA, ARCH, GARCH) and alternative distributions are presented (Stable Paretian, Student’s T, EVT) as a way to improve the art of risk and return modeling beyond the normal distribution assumption. The chapter ends with the conclusion that each model is only a statistical approximation and never encompasses the unpredictability of black swans and the nature of human behavior in the financial markets. After having discussed the limitations of the purely statistical approach to risk and return this paper goes beyond the standard theory of finance for two purposes. Firstly, behavioral finance provides some arguments for the limitation of statistics in assessing risk. Secondly, an alternative approach to risk perception is presented. This alternative is called Prospect Theory, a rather psychology-based approach using preferences to explain investors’ actions by human behavior in decision making processes. Starting point is the utility function and the value function followed by a description of the two phases: framing and evaluation. The value function is then clearly distinguished from the utility function by elaborating certain effects like reference points, loss aversion or the weighting function. In this section the paper enters the arena of human risk perception which is far from being monetarily rational in the sense of the homo oeconomicus. With Cumulative Prospect Theory there exists an extension to multiple outcome scenarios where risk does not necessarily have to be known. In such a situation, besides risk, there also exists immeasurable uncertainty. Current research confirms and rejects parts of (Cumulative) Prospect Theory which is not necessarily a bad sign as human behavior is rarely exactly replicable and the complexity does not really allow generalizations. Therefore, even if the theory is not completely correct it still enhances our understanding of risk perception and human decision making which can be a very valuable input for agent-based models. The next chapter analyses in more detail possible distortions from psychological biases in the assessment of risk. In this context the law of small numbers, overconfidence and feelings/experience are discussed. Knowing these biases complicates the idea of developing a risk model even further. However, this is again another step to better understand the underlying processes and motives of decision making in the context of financial markets. The last chapter is an attempt to link the different aspects to get a holistic view on risk behavior. Two possibilities are discussed: Hedonic psychology, with the distinction between blow up and bleeding strategy, and heuristic-based explanations for real observations like clustering of expectations and trust in experts. This leaves space for further research as we do not have a tool that is based on current findings and can actually help us in explaining and predicting behavior in financial markets. One possibility would be to link all these aspects in the approach of computational finance to develop agent-based models in which market observations, psychological findings and the situational context can be integrated.
In a recent publication Novy-Marx (2013) finds evidence that the variable gross profitability has a strong statistical influence on the common variation of stock returns. He also points out that there is common variation in stock returns related to firm profitability that is not captured by the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993). Thus, this thesis augments the three-factor model by the factor gross profitability and examines whether a profitability-based four-factor model is able to better explain monthly portfolio excess returns on the German stock market compared to the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Based on monthly stock returns of the CDAX over the period July 2008 to June 2014 this thesis documents four main findings. First, a significant positive market risk premium and a significant positive value premium can be identified. No evidence is found for a size or a profitability effect. Second, all included factors have a strong significant effect on monthly portfolio excess returns. Third, the four-factor model clearly outperforms both the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the CAPM in capturing the common variation in monthly portfolio excess returns. The CAPM performs worst. Finally, the results indicate that the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) is somewhat better in explaining the cross-section of portfolio excess returns than the four-factor model. Again, the CAPM performs worst. Nevertheless, the four-factor model is considered to be an improvement over the three-factor model of Fama and French (1993) and the CAPM in determining stock returns on the German stock market.
In a corporation’s financial life “going public” by means of an IPO is probably the single most important decision. It turns a private company into a public one. Our book will provide an inside view of the IPO process. On the one hand, it draws on the insights of an experienced investment banker, who has gone through numerous IPO transactions. On the other hand, it relates the story of an actual IPO through the eyes of a Chief Executive Officer who has taken two of his companies public. This unique double perspective is our book’s defining feature. We do not discuss initial public offerings in a textbook style fashion. What we would like to bring out is a more comprehensive portrayal of a “once-in-a-lifetime” event for most companies and their management, alike.
The Commitment of Traders report (CoT) has been around for over 30 years, consistently revealing the futures positions of key market players. This study's primary aim is to use the comprehensive data from the Commitment of Traders reports to develop a short-term reversal trading strategy. Against the benchmark, a S&P 500 buy-and-hold approach with a Sharpe ratio of 1.07, the CoT long only strategy generated significant results in six individual markets. Extending the strategy to long-and-short, two markets outperformed the benchmark significantly. However, a scenario analysis indicated underperformance of the CoT strategy when traded in a portfolio, confirming that the chosen strategy parameters could not generate excess Sharpe ratios. Our results indicate that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, more specifically the CoT report, contributed to efficient derivatives market.
Public transport causes in rural areas high costs per passenger and kilometer as the frequency of scheduled busses is low and therefore, many people avoid using public transport. With the trend of moving from urban regions to countryside individual traffic will further increase. To tackle issues of emissions, mobility for young and elderly people and provide economically meaningful public transport a new concept was elaborated in Germany. This consists of (partly) autonomous shuttle busses which are remote controlled. For implementation rural districts of Germany have worked together and set up a three-phase plan consisting of a project with public funding, a highly frequent used pilot region and industrial partners with the commitment and possibilities for necessary investments. The concept promises economical value with respect to installation, service and maintaining costs, it leads to lower barriers for public transport of young and elderly people and ultimately reduces emissions and congestions.
Customer foresight is a relatively new research field. We introduce the customer foresight territory by discussing it localization between customer research and foresight research. For this purposse, we look at a variety of methods that help to understand customers and future realities. On this basis we provide an overwiew of customer foresight methods and outline an ideal-typical research journey.
Given the increasing internationalisation of higher education, universities compete more and more not only for national but even more for international students. Selecting the best candidates from the pool of international applicants is a challenge. In our study, we analysed which criteria are best to predict the academic performance of students coming from different countries with different education systems, using different grade point average (GPA) standards. Using an administrative data set from an International Business programme at a German university of applied sciences, we explored the predictive power of adjusted high school GPA, IQ test result, interview score and first year grades in English, maths, and statistics.
To remain relevant and mitigate disruption, traditional companies have to engage in multiple fast-paced experiments in digital offerings: revenue-generating solutions that leverage digital technologies to address customer needs. After launching several digital offering initiatives, reinsurance giant Munich Re noticed that many experienced similar challenges. This briefing describes how Munich Re addressed these common challenges by building a foundation for experimenting more systematically and successfully with digital offerings. The foundation has enabled Munich Re to become a serial innovator of digital offerings.
Sustainability is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Business Model is a plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying sources of revenue, the intended customer base, products, and details of financing.
Circular economy is an approach of how a company creates, captures and delivers value, with a value creation logic designed to improve resource efficiency through contributing to extending the useful life of products and parts (e.g., through long-life design, repair and remanufacturing) and closing material loops.
While academia and industry see large potential for human-robot collaboration (HRC), only a small number of realized HRC application is currently found in industry. To gather more data about current hindrances to wider implementation of collaborative robots, a study among 15 robot manufactureres and 14 system integrators of collaborative robot technology has been conducted through a predesigned questionnaire procedure. Additionally, five industrial users of human-robot collaboration have been interviewed on the main challenges they experienced during the initial implementation process. The quantitative data has been analyzed using the Wilcoxon-Signed-Rank-Test. Accoring to the study participants, the main challenges within the implementation currently are the identification of HRC-suitable processes, the application of relevant safety norms (such as ISO 10218, ISO/TS 15066) and the application-individual risk assessment.
What does the factory of tomorrow have to offer for companies? This question and its aspects are the focus of many actual articles and publications. According to Gartner digital twins, one of 2017 strategic technology trends will play a big role for the future of manufacturing. At the moment digital twins are gaining more importance for the industrial application. If companies want to be competitive in the future they have to implement the digital twin in the factories of today. Therefore this paper provides a basic overview of the concept of the smart factory and its requirements. In addition, digital twins are identified as a necessary concept for the evolution of the factory of today.
Intermittent time series forecasting is a challenging task which still needs particular attention of researchers. The more unregularly events occur, the more difficult is it to predict them. With Croston’s approach in 1972 (1.Nr. 3:289–303), intermittence and demand of a time series were investigated the first time separately. He proposes an exponential smoothing in his attempt to generate a forecast which corresponds to the demand per period in average. Although this algorithm produces good results in the field of stock control, it does not capture the typical characteristics of intermittent time series within the final prediction. In this paper, we investigate a time series’ intermittence and demand individually, forecast the upcoming demand value and inter-demand interval length using recent machine learning algorithms, such as long-short-term-memories and light-gradient-boosting machines, and reassemble both information to generate a prediction which preserves the characteristics of an intermittent time series. We compare the results against Croston’s approach, as well as recent forecast procedures where no split is performed.
This article explores current debate on the use of soft power in international higher education, highlighting existing tensions between competing political and academic discourses. It draws on examples from practice and relevant insights in soft power scholarship to capture varying paradoxes and dilemmas that emerge as nations try to leverage the power of international tertiary education to enhance their brand and attract foreign audiences in the name of public diplomacy. Whilst exposing cases of hubris and hidden agendas, this study also addresses issues of inequality and responds to a growing call for knowledge diplomacy aimed at tackling common global problems.
Ein wichtiges Qualifikationsziel von heutigen Wirtschaftsingenieurstudien-programmen ist, Studierende dazu zu befähigen, vernetzt, ganzheitlich, interkulturell und interdisziplinär zu denken und zu handeln. Die Lehr- und Lerninnovation Quest 3C fördert durch ein integratives Blended-Learning Format sowohl die Vermittlung von grundlegendem Fachwissen als auch von berufsqualifizierenden Schlüsselkompetenzen.
The use of gamification in workplace learning to encourage employee motivation and engagement
(2019)
When we think about playing a game, be it a card game, board game, sport, or video game, we generally associate the act of playing with a positive experience like having fun, enjoying the interaction with others, or feeling a greater motivation to reach a certain goal. By contrast, workplace learning is often perceived as being dull. Employees are likely at some point in their career to find themselves stuck in a rigidly defined seminar for a long period of time or in front of their computer navigating through a mandatory e-learning course on a dry topic such as standards of business conduct of safety policies.
In recent years, organizations have tried to leverage the motivating quality of games for more serious learning contexts. Gamification entails transferring those elements and principles from games to nongaming context that improve user experience and engagement. In this chapter, we will specifically focus on the context of workplace learning.
This article examines centralised and decentralised approaches towards managing internationalisation by means of a case study. Reutlingen University (Hochschule Reutlingen), a university of applied sciences in Southern Germany, has three decades of experience in managing internationalisation. Its strongly integrated and hybrid approach combines centralised and decentralised strategies with the aim of achieving responsiveness, innovation, transparency, quality, and goal alignment. Centralisation and decentralisation are manifested on two levels: university versus schools, and school versus individual programmes. Since internationalisation is embedded in virtually all areas of the university’s operations, examples will be provided ranging from administration and marketing to research, international programme management and curricula.
In countries such as Germany, where municipalities have planning sovereignty, problems of urban sprawl often arise. As the dynamics of land development have not substantially subsided over the last years, the national government decided to test the instrument of ‘Tradable Planning Permits’ (TPP) in a nationwide field experiment with 87 municipalities involved. The field experiment was able to implement the key features of a TPP system in a laboratory setting with approximated real socioeconomic and planning conditions. In a TPP system allocated planning permits must be used by municipalities for developing land. The permits can be traded between local jurisdictions, so that they have flexibility in deciding how to comply with the regulation. In order to evaluate the performance of such a system, specific field data about future building areas and their impact on community budgets for the period 2014–2028 were collected. The field experiment contains several sessions with representatives of the municipalities and with students. The participants were confronted with two (municipalities) and four (students) schemes. The results show that a trading system can curb down land development in an effective and also efficient manner. However, depending on the regulatory framework, the trading schemes show different price developments and distributional effects. The unexperienced representatives of the local authorities can easily handle with the permits in the administration and in the established market. A trading scheme sets very high incentives to save open space and to direct development activities to areas within existing planning boundaries. It is therefore a promising instrument for Germany and also other regions or countries with an established land-use planning system.
This paper generalizes the theory of policy uncertainty with the new literature on rational inattention. First, the model demonstrates that inattention is dependent on the signal variance and the policy parameter. Second, I discover a novel trade-off showing that a policy instrument mitigates attention. Third, the policy instrument is non-linear and reciprocal to both the size and variance of the signal. The unifying theory creates new implications to economic theory and public policy alike.
On 5 May 2020, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany announced in a momentous ruling that the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB) exceeds European Union (EU) competences. This decision initiated a lively debate in law and economics all over Europe. This article provides a unique interdisciplinary reading of the ruling in order to clarify the line of argument. Considering a cross-disciplinary view enlightens the understanding of the historic judgment.
This paper studies whether a monetary union needs a fical union in particular in the Eurozone. On 1 January 1999, despite controversial debates, the rule-based Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) started without a fiscal union. I show that there is weak economic convergence in the EMU since 18 years. In addition, I argue that a fiscal union does not solve the past disintegration failures.
I demonstrate that the major flaws are domestic policy failures and not institutional failures in the euro area. Consequently, establishing a monetary union without having a political union is a risky strategy. Indeed, the rule-based architecture of Maastricht is not guilty for the crisis alone. The root causes are the political flaws aligned with the rather weak enforcement of the rules. I propose a genuine redesign of the rule-based paradigm without a fiscal union. Yet a monetary union without a fiscal union works effectively if the rule enforcement is more automatic and independent of domestic and European policy-making.
Behavioral economics links social, cognitive and emotional elements to help understand and explain the economic decision-making of individuals and institutions. The focus of research in behavioral economics is on individual choice and the motives underlying that choice. This study booklet introduces the key features and ideas of behavioral economics.
Game theory is the study of how people behave in strategic situatons. By "strategic" we mean a situation in which each person, when deciding what actions to take, must consider how others might respond to that action. Like other fields in economics, game theory consists of a collection of models. The understanding that game-theoretic models give is particularly relevant in the social, political, and economic areas.
This article studies the development of e-governance over time and across countries. We use a large data sample consisting of 99 developing and 34 OECD countries to study this notion. Firstly, we study the development of e-governance. Secondly, we estimate models to check the determining factors of e-governance over time and across countries. The study reveals that the level of e-governance is determined by the degree of e-participation, online access as well as GDP per capita.
This article examines the risks and societal costs associated with flexible average inflation targeting in the United States and symmetric inflation targeting in the Eurozone. Employing an empirical approach, we analyze monthly cumulative inflation gaps over a monetary policy horizon of 36 months. By investigating the trajectories of the cumulative inflation gaps, we find a heavy tailed distribution and a 20 percent probability of over- and undershooting the inflation target. We exhibit that the offsetting mechanism introduced in the revised monetary strategies lack credibility in ensuring price stability during a period of persistent inflation. Consequently, the credibility of central banks may be compromised. The policy implications are the integration of an escape clause and prompt monetary corrections in cases where the inflation goal is not achieved. This study provides insights for policymakers and central banks, emphasizing challenges in maintaining credibility and price stability within the new monetary strategies.
This article provides a stochastic agent-based model to exhibit the role of aggregation metrics in order to mitigate polarization in a complex society. Our sociophysics model is based on interacting and nonlinear Brownian agents, which allow us to study the emergence of collective opinions. The opinion of an agent, x i (t) is a continuous positive value in an interval [0, 1]. We find (i) most agent-metrics display similar outcomes. (ii) The middle-metric and noisy-metric obtain new opinion dynamics either towards assimilation or fragmentation. (iii) We show that a developed 2-stage metric provide new insights about convergence and equilibria. In summary, our simulation demonstrates the power of institutions, which affect the emergence of collective behavior. Consequently, opinion formation in a decentralized complex society is reliant to the individual information processing and rules of collective behavior.
Haptic softness is a central product attribute for many fabric-related retailers. Can those retailers use music - an easy to implement in-store atmospheric cue - to influence consumers' perception of this central product attribute? Across four studies, this research shows that high (vs. low) music softness enhances consumers' haptic softness perceptions. We argue that this cross-modal effect occurs owing to a transfer of softness-related associations from the auditory to the haptic modality. To better inform retail practice, we examine three managerially relevant boundary conditions at the product and store levels.
In this paper we claim that a competitive analysis with new players entering a market requires a specific and systems-based analysis. System dynamics provides such an approach. We infer from our study that established premium automobile manufacturers could have identified a possible threat by a newcomer like Tesla earlier with using system dynamics. In particular, we postulate that a feedback view supports decision makers to better understand the significance of competitive information and perceive information faster and more reliably.
Delphi Markets
(2023)
Delphi markets refer to approaches and implementations of integrating prediction markets and Delphi studies (Real-time Delphi). The combination of the two methods for producing forecasts can potentially compensate for each other´s weaknesses. For example, prediction markets can be used to select participants with expertise and also motivate long-term participation through their gamified approach and incentive mechanisms. In this paper, two potentials for prediction markets and four potentials for Delphi studies, which are made possible by integration, are derived theoretically. Subsequently, three different integration approaches are presented, on the basis of which the integration on user, market and Delphi question-level is exemplified and it is shown that, depending on the approach, not all potentials can be achieved. At the end, recommendations for the use of Delphi markets are derived, existing limitations for Delphi markets as well as future developments are pointed out.
The EAT–Lancet planetary health diet (PHD) provides guidelines on a global scale and calls for red meat consumption to be halved. Operational PHD guidelines at country level have yet to be determined. Here we argue that the biological link between milk and bovine-meat production must be considered when operationalizing the globally calculated PHD to national contexts. Using a stylized computer simulation model rooted in a food system approach, we explore the impact of dietary scenarios on milk and bovine-meat production and show that ignoring this biological link can lead to substantial imbalances between national dietary guidelines and production outcomes and potentially lead to food waste. Furthermore, we assess current national dietary guidelines in Europe and find that most disregard this biological link and are incompatible with the PHD, with implications for policymakers and consumers to consider when adapting the PHD in national contexts.
Research organisations are not only contributing to sustainable development but also contribute to scientific findings. As key influencers of innovation; employers and publicly funded research organisations not only have the social mandate to deal with their responsibilities regarding the environment and society, but also drive to understand their social responsibility for their employees and the impact on research and operational processes. Sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), this paper presents the results of the joint research project; LENA—Guidelines for Sustainability Management and describes how 3 of Germany’s biggest research organisations (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Leibniz Association and Helmholtz Association) face current challenges in human resource management of research organisations by the integration of a common understanding of sustainability and a broad-based framework. The empirical basis is built by a qualitative organisational ethnographical study which reflects the expert knowledge, everyday experiences and the subject-oriented interpretation of sustainability in human resource management. The result derives concrete recommendations for the institutional practice and offers structured and methodologically proven options for action addressing the stakeholders in human resource management in research institutions.
By 2019, Germany-based Kärcher, “the world’s leading provider of cleaning technology,” had turned its professional cleaning devices into IoT products. The data generated by these IoT-connected cleaning devices formed a key ingredient in the company’s ongoing strategic shift in its B2B business: Kärcher was transforming from a seller of cleaning devices to a provider of consulting services in order to help professional cleaning companies improve their cleaning processes. Based on interviews with seven IT- and non-IT executives, the case illustrates how the company learned to generate value from IoT products. And it demonstrates how a family-owned company transformed its organization in order to be able to more effectively develop and provide IoT products, while adding roles, developing technology platforms, and changing organizational structures and ways of working.
In 2017, Philips' goal was to use innovation to improve the lives of three billion people a year by 2025. To achieve that, the company was shifting from selling medical products in a transactional manner to providing integrated healthcare solutions based on digital health technology. Based on our interviews with 23 executives at Philips, the case examines the two directions of the transformation required by this shift: externally, Philips worked on transforming how healthcare was conducted. Healthcare professionals would have to change the way they worked and reimbursement schemes needed to change to incentivize payers, providers, and patients in vastly different ways. Internally, Philips needed to redesign how its employees worked. The company componentized its business, introduced digital platforms, and co-created integrated solutions with the various stakeholders of the healthcare industry. In other words: Philips was transforming itself in order the reinvent healthcare in the digital age.
As businesses grow and diversify, they almost inevitably make their range of offerings more complex. Complexity brings costs - but smart use of today’s digital technologies can help companies finesse the trade-offs between complexity´s costs and benefits. Imagine a retailer that has 10 million products and hundreds of variations for each product yet keeps it simple for customers to make a choice. Impossible? Not today. Amazon.com Inc. creates value from its product complexity with simple customer-facing processes, such as search, ratings, reviews and suggestions. Now imagine a diversified high-tech company with locally differentiated products in 60 categories in more than 100 different countries. A mess of internal processes and systems? Not necessarily. Royal Philips creates value by providing locally relevant products to different markets, while keeping the vast majority of its processes standardized on digitized platforms. Until now, managing business complexity has usually involved a trade-off. This trade-off forced companies to compromise between creating value from complexity and benefiting from the efficiencies of simplicity. As businesses entered new geographies, developed new products, opened new channels and added more granular customer segments, they made their offerings more complex with the intention of adding value. But, as an almost inevitable consequence, companies also made it more difficult for customers to interact with the company and more unwieldy for employees to get things done. However, with today´s increased digitization, companies can finesse this trade-off; they can increase valueadding complexity in their product offerings while keeping processes for customers and employees simple. Our research suggests that companies operating in this "complexity sweet spot" outperform their competitors on profitability. In this article, we explain how companies achieve this breakthrough in the digital world.
Climate change is one of the key challenges of this century due to its impact on society and the economy. Students are asking their business schools to scale up climate change education (CCE) across all disciplines, and employers are looking for graduates ready to work on solutions. This desire for solutions is shared by faculty; however, in a recent survey, many highlighted that they lack knowledge about climate change mitigation and how to integrate CCE into their disciplines.
This chapter supports lecturers, professors and senior management in their journey to get an overview of CCE and, more importantly, to find high-impact climate solutions to be integrated and assessed in their teaching units.
There are indicators we are entering a new era for MTM research, by moving beyond the structural approach that has characterized MTM research to date, to focus on important and under-researched issues, such as the nature of employees’ experiences in an MTM context. Although team research suggests that the experiences of members impact team functioning, these lines of reasoning have not, until recently, made their way to MTM research. To overcome this limitation, this symposium showcases five papers that use a variety of theoretical perspectives, research designs (i.e., qualitative, quantitative), contexts (e.g., healthcare, automotive manufacturer, online panels), methodologies, and analytical methods (i.e., meta-analysis, content/thematic analysis). The symposium focuses on surfacing and advancing unanswered questions that extend theory and can offer fruitful directions for MTM research by examining critical individual and team level outcomes (e.g., individual/team performance, individual counterproductive and organizational citizenship behavior, individual learning, individual turnover intentions, organizational commitment) in the experiences of MTM employees across their teams (e.g., goals, functions, roles). We hope to provide a forum to advance unanswered questions that offer fruitful directions for MTM research.
This article highlights three major outcomes from global employability surveys about the topic of gender diversity. Students and graduates of two master programs at ESB Business School of Reutlingen University in Germany were asked about their study programs, their expected and their realized career paths, and their individual well-being. This article highlights selected gender differences that were discovered in the analysis and underlines results on specific gender issues. The three major outcomes are: firstly, men and women work in different industries, functions, and leadership positions; secondly, there is a potential for unfulfilled expectations of young managers regarding their achievement of certain positions and the realization of their private goals; thirdly, by looking at the graduates’ career paths in combination with their well-being, a low level of satisfaction with work-life balance and high levels of stress could be identified. The results give valuable insights into the conceptual world of students at the beginning of their career and as future managers. Looking at gender differences and gender issues leads to interesting findings which can be used for further research and discussions at ESB Business School. By contrasting the outcomes of the alumni survey with outcomes of the student survey, significant differences between the awareness of students and the reality of the graduates concerning gender diversity issues were discovered. The disclosed gap between students’ expectations and the real-life situations of the alumni indicates further areas for discussion. One major question is how students can cope with these challenges and issues of gender diversity management in future management positions as (female) managers while taking corporate social responsibility into consideration.
Ambush marketing in sports
(2013)
Ambush marketing is a strategy by which a company or organisation uses their marketing communications to associate themselves with an event without being an official sponsor or authorised partner or licensee. It has become a particular concern in the marketing of major sports events, with international sponsorship and branding properties worth many millions of dollars. Ambush Marketing in Sports is the first book to offer comprehensive analysis of the theoretical and practical implications of ambush marketing.
Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research data, the book outlines an innovative model for understanding ambush marketing and offers practical advice for all stakeholders, from sponsors and event organisers to media organisations. The book examines the opportunities and the risks of ambush marketing, assesses the legal, ethical and business dimensions, and offers advice for preventing ambush marketing in a range of contexts. Fully supported throughout with examples and cases from major international sports events, such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, this book is important reading for any student, researcher or practitioner with an interest in sport marketing, sport business or event management.
The Football World Cup 2014
(2017)
International sporting events such as the Football World Cup constitute the ideal platform for companies to implement their target-group-specific marketing communications. Therefore, sporting event organisers sell exclusive marketing rights for their events to official sponsors. In return, these sponsors acquire exclusive opportunities to utilise the event for their own marketing purposes.
Ambush marketing is the method used by companies that do not actually hold marketing rights to an event, but still use marketing activities in diverse ways to establish a connection to it. The philosophy of ambush marketing consists of achieving conventional marketing objectives using unconventional methods. However, it creates the risk of fines or punishment, since companies that use these strategies even though they do not have sponsorship rights are violating legal requirements.
This case study introduces and analyses the marketing communications tools of sports sponsorship and ambush marketing.
Relationship marketing is an important issue in every business. Knowing the customers and establishing, maintaining and enhancing long-term customer relationships is a key component of long-term business success. Considering that sport is such big business today, it is surprising that this crucial approach to marketing has yet to be fully recognised either in literature or in the sports business itself. Relationship Marketing in Sports aims to fill this void by discussing and reformulating the principles of relationship marketing and by demonstrating how relationship marketing can be successfully applied in practice within a sports context. Written by a unique author team of academic and practitioner experience, the book provides the reader with: the first book to apply the principles of relationship marketing specifically to a sports context case studies from around the world to provide a uniquely global approach applicable worldwide strong pedagogical features including learning outcomes, overviews, discussion questions, glossary, guided reading and web links practical advice for professional, semi-professional and non-professional sporting organisations a companion website providing web links, case studies and PowerPoint slides for lecturers. Relationship Marketing in Sports is crucial reading for both students and professionals alike and marks a turning point in the marketing of sports.
For many companies, it is major international sporting events (in particular the Football World Cup or the Olympic Games) that constitute the ideal platform for the integration of their target group-specific marketing communication into an attractive sports environment. Sports event organizers sell exclusive marketing rights for their events to official sponsors, who, in return, acquire exclusive options to utilize the event for their own advertising purposes. Ambush marketing is the method used by companies that do not hold marketin rights to an event, but still use their marketing activities in diverse ways to establish a connection to it. There is still whidespread debate and confusion about the topic. Ambush marketing is often defined in different ways, by different people, according to their position as either supporters of opponents of the practice.
Ambush marketing in sports
(2014)
A sports event organizer sells exclusive marketing rights for his event to official sponsors, who, in return, acquire exclusive options to utilize the event for their own advertising purposes. Ambush marketing is the practice by companies of using their own marketing, particularly marketing communications activities, to create an impression of an association with the event to the event audience, although the companies in question have no legal or only underprivileged or non-exclusive marketing rights for this event sponsored by third parties. So, the objective of ambush marketing is to benefit from the success of sports sponsorship without having the duties of an official sponsor.
It is fine line between creative marketing communication and infringing on sponsorship rights. From the perspective of the event organizers and sports sponsors ambush marketing represents an understandable threat, while from the perspective of the ambushers it offers the opportunity to reach the target audience in an attractive environment and at affordable cost. The paper defines and structures the phenomenon of ambush marketing and analyses the impacts of ambush marketing in sports. The results of an empirical study on the effects of ambush marketing in the frame of the FIFA Soccer World cup are presented and discussed.
Branding in sports
(2016)
Brands are ubiquitous in the sports business. The significance of the brand is fuelled not only by the various functions that a brand performs for providers and consumers in sports, but by the monetary value that brands have come to represent for sporting organizations. As part of the commercialization and professionalization of sports, a uniform brand presence is becoming increasingly important for sporting organizations. The implication is the need for systematic and integral brand management. This chapter initially examines the key features of sports from the marketing perspective and the most important fundamentals of sport marketing. Based on this, we will demonstrate specifically how brands in sports are established and cultivated.
The management of football brands : brand identity management illustrated by Borussia Dortmund
(2017)
Despite a growing awareness of the importance of the management of trademarks at the club level, there is a significant delay regarding the professional management of the brand within the Bundesliga clubs. So far, the principles of brand identity management were rarely applied, and most clubs have given up, despite a high economic potential, the ability to create competitive advances in economic terms, but also in sports terms. In this chapter, we will study the success factors of the management of brand identity of professional football clubs from the actual case of Borussia Dortmund.
The sound of brands
(2019)
The aim of this research paper is to both examine and conceptualise the concept of audio branding. Audio branding is an important part of the overall brand management concept and corporate identity. Strong brands ease the choice for customers and convey values and a certain quality promise. Branding is of vital importance. It needs to be acknowledged that only 0.004% of all outer stimuli reach the human consciousness. Therefore, audio branding is a way to further strengthen the overall brand awareness. This leads to an emotional connection with a brand.
This study strives to determine the characteristics of audio branding and to analyse the corporate audio branding of Audi. The result of this research study is the suggestion of the use of audio branding in a way that fits the overall brand picture. Otherwise, the brand communication is inconsistent, and this could lead to a misunderstanding of the brand values for customers. The analysis of the Audi corporate sound design might be beneficial for practitioners. The overall evaluation of the concept of audio branding contributes to the existing body of literature in branding.
This book is about the challenges that emerge for organizations from an ever faster changing world. While useful at their time, several management tools, including classic strategic planning processes, will no longer suffice to address these challenges in a timely and comprehensive fashion. While individual management tools are still valid to solve specific problems, they need to be employed based on a clear understanding of what the greater challenge is and how they need to be combined and prioritized with other approaches. In order to do so, companies can apply the clarity of thinking from the military with regard to which leadership level is responsible for what and how these levels need to interact in order to produce a single aligned response to an outside opportunity or threat. Finally, the tool of business wargaming, while known for some time, proves to be an ideal approach to quickly and effectively bring all leadership levels together, align them around a common objective and lay the groundwork for effective implementation of targeted responses that will keep the organization competitive and in the game for the long run. The book offers a comprehensive introduction to business wargaming, including a historical account, a classification of different types of games and a number of specific real-world examples. This book is targeted at practicing managers dealing with the aforementioned challenges, as well as for students of business and strategy at every level.
The promise of the EVs is twofold. First, rejuvenating a transport sector that still heavily depends on fossil fuels and second, integrating intermittent renewable energies into the power mix. However, it is still not clear how electricity networks will cope with the predicted increase in EVs and their charging demand, especially in combination with conventional energy demand. This paper proposes a methodology which allows to predict the impact of EV charging behavior on the electricity grid. Moreover, this model simulates the driving and charging behavior of heterogeneous EV drivers which differ in their mobility pattern, decision-making heuristics and charging strategies. The simulations show that uncoordinated charging results in charging load clustering. In contrast, decentralized coordination allows to fill the valleys of the conventional load curve and to integrate EVs without the need of a costly expansion of the electricity grid.
Mastering of complex systems and interfaces, idea and innovation management as well as virtually integrated product and process planning are essential competences to be developed and fostered to cope with the changing role of the workforce in a future industry 4.0 work system. Learning factories, like the Logistics Learning Factory at Reutlingen University, which are equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure, offer a high potential to decidedly address these competences.
Shorter product life cycles and emerging technologies are changing the circumstances under which the design of assembly and logistics systems has to be carried out. Engineers are in charge of adapting the production in accordance with the underlying product at a higher pace, oversee a more complex system and find the ideal solution for a functional work system design as well as social interactions between humans and machines in cyber-physical systems. Such collaborative work systems consider the individual capabilities and potentials of humans and machines to combine them in a manner that assists the operator during his daily work routine. To be able to design such work systems, specific competences such as the ability of integrated process and product planning as well as systems and interface competence are required. Learning factories train students as well as professionals to gain such qualifications by providing a close-to-reality learning environment based on a didactical concept which covers all relevant methods for ergonomic work system design and a state-of-the-art infrastructure. Group-based, activity oriented scenarios enable the participants to put the learnings into their everyday work life. Thereby, learning factories have an indirect impact on the transfer of proven best practices to the industry.
The increased availability of data gives rise to the use of machine learning methods for purposes like forecasting or quality control in operations management. Practitioners who want to employ these methods are faced with the task of choosing from a large number of available methods. We give an overview of classification methods and available implementations and present considerations for choosing appropriate methods.
Many scientific reports have warned about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change, with the latest international report calling for emissions of climate pollutants to reach net zero by around 2050 (IPCC, 2018). Limiting warming to 1.5°C could save more than 100 million people from water shortages, as many as 2 billion people from dangerous heatwaves, and the majority of species from climate change extinction risks (IPCC, 2018; Warren et al., 2018). The actions taken to achieve these climate outcomes would generate benefits of more than $20 trillion while easing global economic inequality (Burke et al., 2018). Scientists make it clear that it is physically possible to meet these goals using today’s technologies (Holz et al., 2018). Yet emissions of climate pollutants continue to grow, reaching a new record high in 2018 (Jackson et al., 2018). Clearly, scientific evidence has failed to spark needed climate action. The question now is: what can?
Successful digital offerings are created at the intersection of what technologies can deliver and what customers want and will pay for. That point of intersection, however, has proved to be elusive. To find it, companies must experiment repeatedly, cocreate with customers, and assemble cross-functional development teams - and the insights gleaned along the way must be shared internally.
In this article, we discuss how several of the nearly 200 companies we've studied have built and exercised these capabilities. We also take a close look at how one company, Schneider Electric, is using them to acquire and share customer insights.
"Designed for digital" offers practical advice on digital transformation, with examples that include Amazon, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, LEGO, Philips, Schneider Electric, USAA, and many other global organizations. Drawing on five years of research and in-depth case studies, the book is an essential guide for companies that want to disrupt rather than be disrupted in the new digital landscape.
The limited focus on particular research designs, data analysis methods, and research objects frequently characterise customer research projects. However, standard practice regarding researching certain phenomena is not always correct, and, in many cases, could provide misleading results. In this paper, we call for a more holistic approach to customer research, which considers the entire research design and data analysis toolbox, while also recognising the importance of consumer groups other than costumers. At the same time, we call for using simple data analysis methods, which often suffice to show relevant effects, instead of overemphasising method complexity as is often the case in top-tier journals. Based on our discussion, we offer researchers and practitioners concrete recommendations for advancing their research design and data analyses.
The SDGs give an overview of the world's development challenges of the present and the coming decades and set a new global agenda for more inclusive and sustainable development and growth. These challenges also represent opportunities for social innovations and the creation of scalable and financially self-sustaining solutions by businesses and (social) entrepreneurs. Examples of solutions to social and ecological challenges are for instance providing low-income communities with access to affordable, quality products and services in areas such as water and sanitation, energy, health, education and finance. New business models can meet customer demands by providing solutions and thereby create opportunities for low-income people as employees, suppliers and distributors.
The influence of trust on the adherence to investment recommendations in the context of robo-advisors is under-researched. This relationship needs to be better understood because robo-advice lacks a critical element of trust: human interaction. Theory suggests that ability, integrity, and benevolence are key factors in building trust in human advisors. Using an experimental study design, our research examines the relationship between a robo-advisor's trust attributes and the acceptance of its investment advice. The results show that trust in a robo-advisor increases the propensity to follow its recommendations. While ability and integrity are significant, benevolence is not. The study contributes to the research on technology acceptance, trust, and the adoption of technology-based recommendations by improving the understanding of the relationship between trust and the acceptance of automated investment recommendations.
The paper analyses the importance of List's views on growth and integration from the perspective of modern approaches to economic growth and international economics. Furthermore, some ideas will be presented on how List's ideas could help to explain and understand current economic developments, such as the crisis of the European Union or the new form of isolationism of the United States of America.
Participation in fast fashion brands’ clothes recycling plans in an omnichannel retail environment
(2020)
The rise of the fast fashion industry allows more and more people to participate in fashion consumption, but goes along with negative consequences on the environment. To reduce wastage, fast fashion retailers have begun to offer used clothes recycling plans to which customers can submit clothes they no longer wear. Since these recycling plans have mainly been operated in offline stores so far, the rise of omnichannel retailing poses new challenges on retailers with regard to organizing the plan and motivating consumers to participate. On a sample of N=370 Chinese fast fashion consumers, this paper investigates, which factors determine consumers’ willingness to participate in fast fashion brands’ used clothes recycling plans in an omnichannel retailing environment. It finds that consumers’ clothes recycling intention is determined by individual predispositions (environmental attitude, impulsive consumption), as well as by organizational arrangements (channel integration quality), as well as by the outcomes of their interaction (consumer satisfaction, brand identification). Conclusions are drawn, implications for omnichannel fast fashion retailing practice, as well as for further research, derived, and limitations discussed.
It has been recognized that to increase the competetitiveness of international higher education institutions in the global education market, their international graduates' employability must be enhanced. The present paper investigates, from the employers' perspective, the possibilities of international graduates with domestic degrees in Russia and Germany to find jobs in the Russian and German labor market. It uses qualitative open-ended interviews at 12 companies in St. Petersburg, Russia and Germany, which are engaged with International Business activities. The investigation concentrates on the employment opportunities and barriers of international graduates from an individual, organizational and an institutional perspective.
The research highlighted the main differences and similarities in the perception of the HR managers in both countries. In the German labor market, companies have a high demand for international graduates, especially those operating internationally, highly demand international graduates, emphasizing the existence of international trainee programs and the need to reflect the diversity of their business in the diversity of their staff. In contrast, Russian companies showed a positive predisposition for international graduates but no demand. Domestic firms focus their efforts on expatriate programs and/or highly-qualified specialists rather than trainee programs to hire internationals. On the other hand, insitutional barriers exist, as well as a lack of support with regards to regulations and requirements for entering both Russian and German markets. The national language requirement was stressed as the major barrier towards hiring internationals in both countries. The investigation from an organizational point of view revealed that interviewers showed a positive predisposition towards international graduates in both countries, focusing on the graduate's skill set rather than their nationality. This research explores the opportunities and barriers and discusses the implications for students and universities.
Businesses need to cope with myriad challenges including increasingly competitive markets and rapid developments in digital technology. The overall aim of the research described in this paper is to generate fresh insights into the impacts of digitalisation on the design and management of global supply chains. It focuses on understanding the current adoption rate of new technologies in global supply chains, identifying perceived opportunities and challenges and clarifying the critical factors driving (and inhibiting) their deployment. The authors administered an online survey with a global sample of respondents from various supply chain functions, resulting in a sample of 142 responses. Significant differences emerged in adoption patterns between companies of different sizes. Moreover, the study pointed to a widening gap (or a ‘digital divide’) between leaders and laggards in terms of technology adoption. Perceived benefits and challenges also differ notably between companies of varying sizes. Adoption patterns are very diverse across specific technologies. The results further suggest that there is a significant correlation between adoption of digital technologies and different dimensions of company performance.
Increasing concerns regarding the world´s natural resources and sustainability continue to be a major issue for global development. As a result several political initiatives and strategies for green or resource-efficient growth both on national and international levels have been proposed. A core element of these initiatives is the promotion of an increase of resource or material productivity. This dissertation examines material productivity developments in the OECD and BRICS countries between 1980 and 2008. By applying the concept of convergence stemming from economic growth theory to material productivity the analysis provides insights into both aspects: material productivity developments in general as well potentials for accelerated improvements in material productivity which consequently may allow a reduction of material use globally. The results of the convergence analysis underline the importance of policy-making with regard to technology and innovation policy enabling the production of resource-efficient products and services as well as technology transfer and diffusion.
Companies compete more and more as integrated supply chains rather than as individual firms. The success of the entire supply chain determines the economic well-being of the individual company. With management attention shifting to supply chains, the role of management accounting naturally must extend to the cross-company layer as well. This book demonstrates how management accounting can make a significant contribution to supply chain success.It targets students who are already familiar with the fundamentals of accounting and now want to extend their expertise in the field of cross company (or network) management accounting. Practitioners will draw valuable insights from the text as well.
Management and cost accounting has been the basic toolbox in business administration for decades. Today it is an integral part of all curricula in business education and no student can afford not to be familiar with its basic concepts and instruments. At the same time, business in general, and management accounting in particular, is becoming more and more international. English clearly has evolved as the „lingua franca“ of international business. Academics, students as well as practitioners exchange their views and ideas, discuss concepts and communicate with each other in English. This is certainly also true for cost accounting and management accounting.
In today's business landscape, companies compete more and more as integrated supply chains rather than as individual firms. The success of the entire supply chain determines the economic well-being of each company involved. With management attention shifting to supply chains, the role of management accounting naturally must extend to the cross-company layer as well. This book demonstrates how management accounting can make a significant contribution to supply chain success. It targets students who are already familiar with the fundamentals of accounting and want to extend their expertise in the field of cross-company (or network) management accounting. Practitioners will draw valuable insights from the text as well.
This second edition includes a new chapter on Digitalization and Supply Chain Accounting, as well as new opener cases to each chapter that provide real-world examples.
Logistics has undergone tremendous changes over the past few decades. Above all with the advent of the digital age, we have witnessed the significant impact of new technologies on supply chains in terms of business transformation, increased agility and performance. However, many businesses have chosen to harness the full potential of these technologies to create further value (Bughin et al, 2017). High investment costs, fears for cyber security, a lack of expertise in the workforce and insufficient awareness of the concrete benefits of these technologies are just some of the factors hampering the decision to adopt digital technologies.
The following chapter draws on the findings of both recent quantitative and qualitative research conducted by practitioners und academics.
Computers are increasingly used in teams in various contexts, for example in negotiations. Especially when using computer-support for decision making processes, it is an important question whether active collaboration within the team - for example via audio-conference - has additional benefits beyond the supply of full task-relevant information via computer. In team negotiations, team representatives are only able to represent the whole team, if diverse preferences of the team members are aligned prior to the negotiation. In an experimental study with 150 participants, we provided team members with the complete information about each other's preferences during an either collaboratively (computer-mediated) or seperately conducted computer-supported negotiation preparation and subsequently asked them for their priorities as representatives of the team. Our results showed that providing complete task-relevant information via computer is insufficient to compensate for the absence of active collaboration within the team.
Early exposure makes the entrepreneur: how economics education in school influences entrepreneurship
(2022)
Many countries that seek to boost their economy share the goal of promoting entrepreneurship. Whereas there is ample research on the predictors of entrepreneurship during adulthood, we know little about how pre-adulthood experience influences entrepreneurship later in life. Using a natural experiment, this paper examines whether introducing economics classes in school enhances entrepreneurial behavior in adulthood. Our difference-in-differences approach exploits curricula reforms across German states that introduced compulsory economics education classes in secondary schools. Using information on school and labor market careers for more than 10,000 individuals from 1984 to 2019, we find that the reform increases students’ entrepreneurial activities by three percentage points. Examining gender differences, we find that economics classes equally benefit female and male students. Our results advance our understanding of how pre-adulthood experiences shape individuals’ entrepreneurial behavior.
The success of an autonomous robotic system is influenced by several not easily identifiable interdependent factors. This paper is set to lay the foundation of an integrated approach in order to examine all the parameters and understand their contribution to success. After introducing the problem, two autonomous systems for the process of unloading of containers are presented. Then a recently developed method for modelling and interpreting all the parameters, the STIC analysis, are introduced. The preliminary results of applying such a methodology to a first study case is shortly presented. Future research is in the end recommended in order to prove that this methodology is the only way to overcome barriers to the investment in autonomous systems in the logistics sector.
This paper looks at the case of Reutlingen University (Hochschule Reutlingen), a university with a reputation for international student mobility. It examines how the university strives to fulfil its mandate to prepare ‘industry-ready’ graduates for the global industry by providing an international practice-oriented education. The key focus is on its efforts to establish credit-bearing internship programmes for international students, an area where the institution has ramped up its activities in recent years. Internships for international students is understood to encompass both domestic internships for international students (exchange and degree-seeking students) as well as internships abroad for home-grown degree-seeking students. The paper presents models and approaches that seek to ensure the quality of the international internship experience. It discusses challenges that the university has encountered on the way and makes suggestions about how to create internship opportunities against the backdrop of competing demands and expectations.
The level of automation in intralogistics has steadily increased over recent years. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), however, the associated digital change is a major challenge. Since most SMEs are facing increasing sales volumes (e.g. due to e-commerce and good overall economy) in combination with decreasing lot sizes due to the market demand for individualized products, SMEs have to find innovative solutions to cope with these challenges in production as well as in logistics. Innovative technologies, like 3D printing technologies for the production for small lot sizes and future-oriented intralogistics technologies can serve as enablers in logistics to realize flexible logistic processes for increasing market requiremments. Considering that, this paper examines innovative and future-oriented technologies for intralogistics such as smart containers, driverless forklift systems, data glasses, smart shelves and smart pallets regarding their potential for SMEs. This explorative research paper shows that digital technologies are already suitable and available for SMEs.However, challenges are still seen in areas like the identification and digitalization potential and the financing of these new projects. The primary reason escpecially for SMEs for this is that they have to make investments based on an economically feasible payback period and less based on prestigious reasons like digitalization flagship projecs done by large corporations. In addition, the identification of feasible starting points for digitalization within intralogistic systems embedded in specific factory processes is a major challenge not only for SMEs.
This book presents an empirical investigation of the efforts that multinational pharmaceutical companies take in order to find a business model that allows for a profitable access to the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) markets. The Bottom of the Pyramid in Africa is frequently mentioned as an attractive market due to its sheer size. Yet most companies struggle to access it because of the low price level, difficult physical market access and challenges when it comes to payment.
More specifically, the book investigates the following business model-related questions: Do pharmaceutical companies provide products that meet the needs of the BoP? What characterizes the value generation of the company? What revenue model leads to a profitable business, and what role does a network of partners play in the business model?
Findings reveal that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer to these questions. Providing continuous availability, affordability at a good quality of goods and services, creating health awareness, as well as localizing business to achieve a level of inclusivenessare essential prerequisites for success. In the last chapter this book provides a business model prototype that accounts for these key success factors for business at the Bottom of the Pyramid and points to further research topics.
CODE RED FOR HUMANITY. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible. (Guterres 2021)
The digitalisation ongoing in households and sustainability-related challenges are multifaceted and complex. The introducing quote of the United Nations Secretary-General refers to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emphasising the urgency to act – now. As of today, becoming a sustainable population is still a distant destination. As outlined in the previous chapters, the challenges associated with that transformation remain huge, complex, and largely unsolved. Recent dramas such as the power incident in Texas (2021), the floods in Germany (2021), or the drought in sub-Saharan Africa (2020s) – are just a few of the uncountable issues stirring up the debate about fossil-fuel abandonment and the timing of climate neutrality. Business research can actually be accused of referring to the persistent focus on gains and growth, despite early warnings for society at large (e.g., Meadows et al., 1972; Kölsch & Veit, 1981; Veit & Thatcher, 2023). However, academic researchers, corporations, and society are now waking up, as shown by the climate change conference. In fact, it appears that the information systems (IS) discipline just began tackling mammoth challenges around climate change within the last decade (Melville, 2010; Watson et al., 2010). The central discussion in emerging work revolves around the role and use of digital technologies on the path to a healthy planet. But while early studies have focused on organisational settings (e.g., Gholami et al., 2016; Seidel et al., 2013), increasingly research addresses private settings (e.g., Wunderlich et al., 2019).
The general conclusion of climate change studies is the necessity of eliminating net CO2 emissions in general and from the electric power systems in particular by 2050. The share of renewable energy is increasing worldwide, but due to the intermittent nature of wind and solar power, a lack of system flexibility is already hampering the further integration of renewable energy in some countries. In this study, we analyze if and how combinations of carbon pricing and power-to-gas (PtG) generation in the form of green power-to-hydrogen followed by methanation (which we refer to as PtG throughout) using captured CO2 emissions can provide transitions to deep decarbonization of energy systems. To this end, we focus on the economics of deep decarbonization of the European electricity system with the help of an energy system model. In different scenario analyses, we find that a CO2 price of 160 €/t (by 2050) is on its own not sufficient to decarbonize the electricity sector, but that a CO2 price path of 125 (by 2040) up to 160 €/t (by 2050), combined with PtG technologies, can lead to an economically feasible decarbonization of the European electricity system by 2050. These results are robust to higher than anticipated PtG costs.
This book examines the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in East Africa. The BRI is considered China's central geopolitical and geo-economic project in the era of President Xi Jinping. Through this work, the author aims to contribute to filling some research gaps, such as the lack of depth in studies of individual BRI projects and the underconsideration of processing narratives in participating countries. The guiding question is the extent to which the BRI is a political or hegemonic project of the CCP-directed state-civil society complex in East Africa. To answer these questions, databases of international organizations and policy documents are analyzed. In addition, the author conducts a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles from local media houses in the countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania to examine three infrastructure projects. The work illustrates that the BRI contributes to increasing connectivity in East Africa. At the same time, the compression of economic relations and the implementation of infrastructure projects in East Africa lead to numerous consequences and contour a hegemonic project.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has reinforced China’s business engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). While previous international business research focused on the internationalization and investments of Chinese companies, this viewpoint uncovers how both local African and international non-Chinese Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) may benefit from and participate in the BRI. A focus is laid on the infrastructure sector accounting for the highest investments since the inception of the BRI in 2013. In a conceptual way, the motives of SMEs to participate in infrastructure project business in the context of the BRI are explored. Investigating the challenges of two large transport infrastructure projects, the business potentials for SMEs become visible. It is argued that SMEs find business potentials particularly as investors, sub-contractors and project management experts in the BRI in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 global objectives to promote economic, social and ecological development in all parts of the world. While the academic discussion on the contribution of companies to the Sustainable Development Goals has recently gained momentum, the role of business-to-business (B2B) partnerships in reaching the SDGs is underexplored, particularly when it comes to North-South relationships. With our research, we aim to fill this gap in the literature by investigating sales partnerships between German manufacturers and their distributors in African markets. Based on a qualitative analysis of 28 interviews with managers of German and African companies, we show that long-term partnerships and job creation, technology transfer, training as well as high standards are significant contributions of companies to achieve the SDGs. While several SDGs such as goals 4,6,13,16 and 17 are addressed by B2B partnership, we also discuss approaches on how the firms’ engagement could be further leveraged and expanded.