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The 17 SDGs, as agreed upon by the international community, are designed to be implemented across all levels of human activity. Alongside the level of international politics, this also includes the local levels, national politics, wider society, and the economic sphere. Many channels are called on to further implementation, including the transfer of technology to developing and emerging countries. As the patent holders, this must include the active participation of companies. While the literature examines the important role of technology transfer in North-South business-to-business (B2B) partnerships, studies on the technology transfer between European and African companies are scarce. Therefore, in this study we use original data from 26 interviews conducted with managers engaged in sales partnerships between German manufacturers and their distributors in African markets to examine the existence and forms of technology transfer. We find that training and marketing excellence are the predominant forms of technology transfer and based on that suggest a refinement of established frameworks on B2B technology transfer.
The dawn of the 21st Century has witnessed a tremendous increase in trade pacts among nations, resulting in renewed hopes for sustainable enterprise development in emerging economies worldwide. Ghana and other sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have signed onto several North-South and South-South free trade agreements with the hope of strengthening their presence in the international trade arena, and to promote economic growth in SSA. For over two decades, however, very little has changed, and many have dashed their high hopes as enterprises continue to struggle in SSA. Not even the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) could renew the hopes of sceptics. Several studies opined that enterprises in SSA could improve their domestic and international competitiveness by establishing mutually beneficial partnerships with their counterparts from the Global North and South. This study delved into the issues that affect North-South and South-South business collaborations and recommends key success factors that could help promote mutually beneficial cross-border business partnerships. The research includes both literature and empirical information on the key success factors of business partnerships between African enterprises as well as between African enterprises and firms from the Global North. We approached the study qualitatively using a phenomenological research design. Research participants included important stakeholders in Africa and Europe's international trade and sustainable enterprise development ecosystem. The study identified several challenges with the current business collaborations and recommended new ways of making such partnerships more beneficial.
Internet of things innovations and the industrial internet these days become more and more decisive factors of future success for companies. Especially manufacturing oriented SME will face the challenge to develop innovative technology driven business models alongside technology innovations in this field which will be essential for future competitiveness. Failing in developing these technology driven business models in an internationally highly competitive environment will have a serious impact both on companies and on the society. Hence, securing economic stability and success of these technology driven business models is an indispensable task. To identify challenges for innovative industrial internet business models first it is necessary to understand what the industrial internet means to the leading parties and applying companies and start-ups in the field. Second, challenges from general business model development will be outlined. In a third step risks and challenges in business model development will be discussed with regard to the special characteristics of technology driven business models in the context of the industrial internet and the important role of the technological key component of the business model. Especially the capability to deal with an integrated consideration of the indivisible linked dimensions of economic and technological aspects of these business models is questioned. In the fourth place the specific challenges for industrial internet business models are derived. On the basis of these results it is also discussed what might be done to handle these challenges successfully with the goal to turn them into chances. The need for future research on the integration of the risk management perspective into the development of these technology driven business models is derived. This will help established companies and start-ups to realize great technological innovations for the industrial internet in sound and successful innovative business models.
The financial crisis of 2007-2010 was probably one of the greatest, most lustrous black-swan events that people of our generation(s) will experience – and at its heart, it was a dynamic phenomenon. It is stated in the vision of the System Dynamics Society that we aspire to transform society by influencing decision-making. Yet, it seems as if system dynamics did not play any significant role in this crisis: we did not examine the markets, we did not provide insights to banks, and we did not warn governments or the people. In our presentation we describe the dynamics involved in a housing bubble, and describe what made the last one different. With the insights gained from this exercise we conclude that, from a system dynamics perspective, the dimension of the financial crisis of 2007-2009 was eminently foreseeable, which will lead us to pose the following question: where were we as a field while this crisis was unfolding, why were we not active players? We present a range of potential answers to this question, hoping to provoke some reflection… and maybe some (re)action.
Increasing flexibility, greater transparency and faster adaptability play a key role in the development of future intralogistics. Ever-changing environmental conditions require easy extensibility and modifiability of existing bin systems. This research project explores approaches to transfer the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm to intralogistics. This allows a synchronization of the material and information flow. The bin is enabled by the implementation of adequate hardware and software components to capture, store, process and forward data to selected system subscribers. Monitoring the processes in the intralogistics by means of the smart bin system ensures the implementation of appropriate actions in case of defined deviations. By using explorative expert interviews with representatives from the automotive and pharmaceutical industries, seven practical application scenarios were defined. On this basis, the requirements of smart bin systems were examined. For each individual case of application, a system model was created in order to obtain an overview of the system components and thus reveal similarities and differences. Based on the similarities of the system models, a general requirement profile was derived. After the hardware components of the bin system had been determined, a utility analysis was carried out to find the adequate IoT software. The utility analysis was conducted with a focus on data acquisition and data transfer, data storage, data analysis, data presentation as well as authorization management and data security. The results show that there is great interest in easily expandable and modifiable bin systems, as in all cases, the necessary information flow in the existing bin system has to be improved by means of new IoT hardware and software components.
Reacting to ever-changing business environments, in the last decade complex systems of systems accomplished giant leaps forward leading to great technological flexibility. However, this dimension of flexibility is often limited by the rigidity of super-ordinated planning systems. Especially when hybrid teams of automated and human resources are in place, the dynamic assignment of tasks taking into account ergonomics remains a challenge. After exposing a gap in the state of the art on the topic, this paper presents an approach to include ergonomics in dynamic resource allocation models. Combining and complementing existing approaches, the presented method monitors the actual ergonomic burden of the resources during a shift and it provides a linear optimization model to steer the resource allocation process.
Ambitious goals set by the European Union strategy towards the emission reduction of multimodal logistic chains and new requirements for intermodal terminals set by the evolution of customer needs, contribute to a shift in the driver for the infrastructure development: from economy of scale to economy of density. This paper aims to present an innovative method for designing a process oriented technology chain for intermodal terminals in order to fulfill these new demanding requirements. The results of the case study of the Zero Emission Logistic Terminal Reutlingen are presented, highlighting how this particular context enables the design and development of a modular concept, paving the way for the generalization of the findings towards the transfer to similar contexts of other European cities.
Rapidly growing population and increasing amount of shipments induced by the e-commerce are two of the main reasons for the constantly rising urban freight traffic. Cities are therefore overwhelmed by a growing stream of goods and the available infrastructure, shared between people and goods traffic, often reached its maximum capacity. Phenomena such as traffic congestion, pollution and lack of space are direct consequences of this trend and their impact on the quality of life in the city is not negligible. City administrations are keen to evaluate innovative city logistics concepts and adopt alternative solutions, to overcome the challenges posed by such a dynamic environment, constrained in existing infrastructure. In this paper, a heuristic method based on the utility analysis is presented. Thanks to a modular approach accounting for stakeholders´ requirements, possible different scenarios and available technologies, the development of new city logistic concepts is supported. The proposed method is then applied to a case study concerning the city of Reutlingen (Germany). Results are presented and a brief discussion leads to the conclusion.
The success of an autonomous robotic system is influenced by several interdependent factors not easily identifiable. This paper is set to lay the foundation of a new integrated approach in order to deeply examine all the parameters and understand their contribution to success. After introducing the problem, two cutting edge autonomous systems for the process of unloading of containers will be presented. Then the STIC analysis, a recently developed method for modelling and interpreting all the parameters, will be introduced. The preliminary results of applying such a methodology to a first study case, based on one of the two systems available to the authors, will be shortly presented. Future research is in the end recommended in order to prove that this methodology is the only way to efficiently and effectively mitigate the risk that stops potential users from investing in autonomous systems in the logistics sector.
Latest advancements in new technologies have made it possible to fully automate the in-plant material flow of small load carriers between the warehouse and the production or assembly line. However, none of methods available in literature fully addresses the planning and dimensioning problem of a logistic system based on these new autonomous technologies. This paper is set to present a method to estimate the fleet size of the new logistic system. After an overview on the state of the art, the method based on combinatorics and probability theory will be explained. A short discussion and suggestions for forthcoming research will conclude the paper.
Milk-run systems are becoming more and more popular when it comes to in-plant material supply. Planning and dimensioning such a system poses challenges, which are difficult to overcome, especially in scenarios characterized by a large number of hard constraints and by well-established processes. This paper is set to ease the task of the planner by presenting an innovative flexible method for the planning and dimensioning of in-plant milk-run systems in high constrained scenarios. After an overview on tugger train systems and existing planning methods, an extensive description of the new method will be given. The new method proposed will be critically analyzed and discussed before suggesting forthcoming research.
The EU funded project RobLog recently developed a system able to autonomously unload coffee sacks from a standard container. Being the first of its kind, a further development is needed in order for the system to be competitive against manual labor. Financing this development entails a risk, hence a justified skepticism, which can be overcome by the longsighted view of the existing market potential. This paper presents a method to estimate the market potential of autonomous unloading systems for heavy deformable goods. Starting from the analysis of the coffee trade, first the current coffee traffic is investigated in order to calculate the number of autonomous systems needed to handle the imported sacks; Results are validated and the method is extended for the calculation of the potential of other market segments, where the same unloading technology can be applied.
The seamless fusion of the virtual world of information with the real physical world of things is considered the key for mastering the increasing complexity of production networks in the context of Industry 4.0. This fusion, widely referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), is primarily enabled through the use of automatic identification (Auto-ID) technologies as an interface between the two worlds. Existing Auto-ID technologies almost exclusively rely on artificial features or identifiers that are attached to an object for the sole purpose of identification. In fact, using artificial features for the purpose of identification causes additional efforts and is not even always applicable. This paper, therefore, follows an approach of using multiple natural object features defined by the technical product information from computer-aided design (CAD) models for direct identification. By extending optical instance-level 3D-Object recognition by means of additional non-optical sensors, a multi-sensor automatic identification system (AIS) is realised, capable of identifying unpackaged piece goods without the need for artificial identifiers. While the implementation of a prototype confirms the feasibility of the approach, first experiments show improved accuracy and distinctiveness in identification compared to optical instance-level 3D-Object recognition. This paper aims to introduce the concept of multisensor identification and to present the prototype multi-sensor AIS.
So-called cloud-based management information systems are a fairly new phenomenon in management accounting in recent years. Quite a few companies (and especially their business managers and management accountants) do not always work via the cloud, but with hybrid solutions or on-premise solutions of ERP software such as SAP or Oracle, but often still with "manual" solutions such as Microsoft Excel.
Veränderungen der Rolle von Controllern in Großkonzernen - Ergebnisse einer empirischen Erhebung
(2021)
Die anhaltende Diskussion über die Rolle von Management Accountants (MA) führt häufig dazu, dass die Rolle des Business Partners (BP) als die Rolle der Wahl angesehen wird. Dennoch scheinen viele Wissenschaftler und Praktiker davon auszugehen, dass diese Rolle den Managern und MA klar ist, dass sie für sie sinnvoll ist und alle Manager und MA ihr zustimmen und sie umsetzen. Unstimmigkeiten zwischen der tatsächlichen Rolle, der wahrgenommenen und der erwarteten Rolle könnten zu Identitäts- und Rollenkonflikten führen. Dieser Beitrag basiert auf einer quantitativen empirischen Studie in einem großen deutschen High-Tech-Unternehmen im Jahr 2019, dessen Top-Management sich für die Einführung der BP-Rolle entschied.
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.
Lean Management hat in viele Unternehmen Einzug gehalten. Lean Konzepte stellen neue Anforderungen an die Art und Struktur der benötigten Kosteninformation, welche von traditionallen Kostenrechnungssystemen nicht unmittelbar erfüllt werden. Vertreter eines „Lean Accounting“ schlagen deshalb teils radikale Änderungen und eine Vereinfachung der Kostenrechnung vor. Der Beitrag diskutiert die Beschränkungen der traditionellen Kostenrechnung bei der Umsetzung von Lean Management und stellt ausgewählte Ansätze eines „Accounting for Lean“ vor. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Ansätze des Lean Accounting zu eng fokussiert sind und die in der Praxis vorhandene Pluralität der Kostenrechnungsfunktionen nicht adäquat abbilden können. Eine radikale Neugestaltung bestehender Kostenrechnungssysteme wird deshalb als unrealistisch und unbegründet verworfen. Der Beitrag entwickelt alternative Vorschläge, wie Konzepte des Lean Managements und die dafür benötigte Kosteninformation in traditionellen Kostenrechnungssystemen integriert werden können.
Im Fokus der AG stand in erster Linie die Auseinandersetzung mit Konzepten und Praxismodellen aus den Lehrangeboten der Sprachzentren ... Es ging ... um Themen und Aspekte, die noch nicht in den GER aufgenommen und beschrieben sind, um die Grenzen und Lücken des GER; die das Thema des 6. Bremer Symposiums waren : interkulturelle, soziale, strategische und mediatorische Kompetenzen.
In a recently developed study programme at Reutlingen University, which focuses on practical orientations, an innovative product with solid company references is to be defined and realised by student teams. On the basis of this product, all subjects of the business engineering study programme “Sustainable Production and Business” are taught. By focusing on three main paths of future skills that have been developed by NextSkills to analyse upcoming social changes, global challenges and fields of work that are innovation-driven and agile, the new study programme aims to create responsible leaders who will shape global businesses respectfully. Thereby, different TRIZ tools help to support students in developing their own products with a focus on sustainability and pay off on the future skills enhancement. Further, students get to know TRIZ tools in an unbiased way, unburdened by too much theory, and are thus continuously supported in the progressing product development process that accompanies their studies. Hence, students perceive TRIZ on the one hand as a method to develop sustainable products and, on the other hand, to find sustainable solutions for everyday problems. The knowledge and positive experiences gained in this way should then arouse curiosity for the TRIZ class at the end of the study programme. The students can graduate with a TRIZ Level 1 certificate. Thereby, as many students as possible are introduced to the TRIZ methods, and the TRIZ tool is spread widely.
Governments and public institutions increasingly embrace digital opportunities to involve citizens in public issues and decision making. While public participation is generally seen as an important and promising venture, the design of the participation processes and the utilized digital infrastructure poses challenges, especially to the public sector. Instead of limiting conceptual guidance and exchange to one domain, we therefore develop a taxonomy for digital involvement projects that unites the domains of e-participation, citizen science and crowd-X. Embedded in a design science research approach, we follow an iterative design process to elaborate the key characteristics of a digital involvement project based on the participation process, its individuals and digital infrastructure. Through evaluating the artifact in a focus group with domain practitioners, we find support for the usefulness of our taxonomy and its ability to provide guidance and a basis for discussion of digital involvement projects across domains.