330 Wirtschaft
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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.
Context
In a world of high dynamics and uncertainties, it is almost impossible to have a long-term prediction of which products, services, or features will satisfy the needs of the customer. To counter this situation, the conduction of Continuous Improvement or Design Thinking for product discovery are common approaches. A major constraint in conducting product discovery activities is the high effort to discover and validate features and requirements. In addition, companies struggle to integrate product discovery activities into their agile processes and iterations.
Objective
This paper aims at suggests a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent on Design Thinking activities. To operationalize DEW, proposals for practitioners are presented that can be used to integrate product discovery into product development and delivery.
Method
A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. In addition, we conducted an expert workshop to develop proposals for the integration of product discovery activities into the product development and delivery process.
Results
First, we present the "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" in form of a formula. Second, we identified requirements that must be fulfilled for systematic integration of product discovery activities into product development and delivery. Third, we derived from the requirements proposals for the integration of product discovery activities with a company's product development and delivery.
Conclusion
The developed "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" provides a tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. Integrating product discovery with product development and delivery should ensure that the results of product discovery are incorporated into product development. This aims to systematically analyze product risks to increase the chance of product success.
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.
Herein, biochar from biomass residues is demonstrated as active materials for the catalytic cracking of waste motor oil into diesel-like fuels. Above all, alkali-treated rice husk biochar showed great activity with a 250% increase in the kinetic constant compared to the thermal cracking. It also showed better activity than synthetic materials, as previously reported. Moreover, much lower activation energy (185.77 to 293.48 kJ/mol) for the cracking process was also obtained. According to materials characterization, the catalytic activity was more related to the nature of the biochar’s surface than its specific surface area. Finally, liquid products complied with all the physical properties defined by international standards for diesel-like fuels, with the presence of hydrocarbons chains between C10 - C27 similar to the ones obtained in commercial diesel.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Predictive maintenance information systems: the underlying conditions and technological aspects
(2020)
Predictive maintenance has the potential to improve the reliability of production and service provisioning. However, there is little knowledge about the proper implementation of predictive maintenance in research and practice. Therefore, we conducted a multi-case study and investigated underlying conditions and technological aspects for implementing a predictive maintenance system and where it leads to. We found that predictive maintenance initiatives are triggered by severe impacts of failures on revenue and profit. Furthermore, successful predictive maintenance initiatives require that pre-conditions are fulfilled: Data must be available and accessible. Very important is also the support by the management. We identified four factors important for the implementation of predictive maintenance. The integration of data is highly facilitated by Cloud-based mechanisms. The detection of events is enabled by advanced analytics. The execution of predictive maintenance operations is supported by data-driven process automation and visualization.
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.