@article{GiotopoulosKritikosTsakanikas2022, author = {Giotopoulos, Ioannis and Kritikos, Alexander and Tsakanikas, Aggelos}, title = {A lasting crisis affects R\&D decisions of smaller firms}, series = {The Journal of technology transfer}, journal = {The Journal of technology transfer}, number = {48}, publisher = {Springer Science+Business Media}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0892-9912}, doi = {10.1007/s10961-022-09957-7}, pages = {1161 -- 1175}, year = {2022}, abstract = {We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R\&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the continuation of the crisis is harmful for the R\&D engagement of smaller firms while it increased the willingness for R\&D activities among the larger ones. At the second stage, among smaller firms the knowledge production remains unaffected by R\&D investments, while among larger firms the R\&D decision is positively correlated with the probability of producing innovation, albeit the relationship is weakened as the crisis continues. At the third stage, innovation output benefits only larger firms in terms of labor productivity, while the innovation-productivity nexus is insignificant for smaller firms during the lasting crisis.}, language = {en} } @article{SocherPratiBochetal.2012, author = {Socher, Stephanie A. and Prati, Daniel and Boch, Steffen and M{\"u}ller, J{\"o}rg and Klaus, Valentin H. and H{\"o}lzel, Norbert and Fischer, Markus}, title = {Direct and productivity-mediated indirect effects of fertilization, mowing and grazing on grassland species richness}, series = {The journal of ecology}, volume = {100}, journal = {The journal of ecology}, number = {6}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0022-0477}, doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2745.2012.02020.x}, pages = {1391 -- 1399}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Recent declines in biodiversity have given new urgency to questions about the relationship between land-use change, biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Despite the existence of a large body of research on the effects of land use on species richness, it is unclear whether the effects of land use on species richness are principally direct or indirect, mediated by concomitant changes in ecosystem processes. Therefore, we compared the direct effects of land use (fertilization, mowing and grazing) on species richness with indirect ones (mediated via grassland productivity) for grasslands in central Europe. We measured the richness and above-ground biomass in 150 grassland plots in 3 regions of Germany (the so-called Biodiversity Exploratories). We used univariate and structural equation models to examine direct and indirect land-use effects. The direct effects of mowing (-0.37, effect size) and grazing (0.04) intensity on species richness were stronger compared with the indirect effects of mowing (-0.04) and grazing (-0.01). However, the strong negative effect of fertilization (-0.23) on species richness was mainly indirect, mediated by increased productivity compared with the weak direct negative effect (-0.07). Differences between regions in land-use effects showed five times weaker negative effects of mowing (-0.13) in the region with organic soils (Schorfheide-Chorin), strong overall negative effects of grazing (-0.29) for the region with organic soils opposed to a similar strong positive effect (0.30) in the Hainich-Dun region, whereas the Schwabische Alb region displayed a five times weaker positive effect (0.06) only. Further, fertilization effects on species richness were positive (0.03) for the region with organic soils compared to up to 25 times stronger negative effects in the other two regions. Synthesis. Our results clearly show the importance of studying both direct and indirect effects of land-use intensity. They demonstrate the indirect nature, via productivity, of the negative effect of fertilization intensity on plant species richness in the real-world context of management-induced gradients of intensity of fertilization, mowing and grazing. Finally, they highlight that careful consideration of regional environments is necessary before attempting to generalize land-use effects on species diversity.}, language = {en} } @article{HippKonrad2022, author = {Hipp, Lena and Konrad, Markus}, title = {Has Covid-19 increased gender inequalities in professional advancement?}, series = {Journal of family research}, volume = {34}, journal = {Journal of family research}, number = {1}, publisher = {University of Bamberg Press}, address = {Bamberg}, issn = {2699-2337}, doi = {10.20377/jfr-697}, pages = {134 -- 160}, year = {2022}, abstract = {Objective: This article analyzed gender differences in professional advancement following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic based on data from open-source software developers in 37 countries. Background: Men and women may have been affected differently from the social distancing measures implemented to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that men and women tend to work in different jobs and that they have been unequally involved in childcare duties, school and workplace closings may have impacted men's and women's professional lives unequally. Method: We analyzed original data from the world's largest social coding community, GitHub. We first estimated a Holt-Winters forecast model to compare the predicted and the observed average weekly productivity of a random sample of male and female developers (N=177,480) during the first lockdown period in 2020. To explain the crosscountry variation in the gendered effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on software developers' productivity, we estimated two-way fixed effects models with different lockdown measures as predictors - school and workplace closures, in particular. Results: In most countries, both male and female developers were, on average, more productive than predicted, and productivity increased for both genders with increasing lockdown stringency. When examining the effects of the most relevant types of lockdown measures separately, we found that stay-at-home restrictions increased both men's and women's productivity and that workplace closures also increased the number of weekly contributions on average - but for women, only when schools were open. Conclusion: Having found gender differences in the effect of workplace closures contingent on school and daycare closures within a population that is relatively young and unlikely to have children (software developers), we conclude that the Covid-19 pandemic may indeed have contributed to increased gender inequalities in professional advancement.}, language = {en} } @article{AbuJarourAjjanFedorowiczetal.2021, author = {AbuJarour, Safa'a and Ajjan, Haya and Fedorowicz, Jane and Owens, Dawn}, title = {How working from home during COVID-19 affects academic productivity}, series = {Communications of the Association for Information Systems : CAIS}, volume = {48}, journal = {Communications of the Association for Information Systems : CAIS}, publisher = {Association for Information Systems}, address = {New York, NY}, issn = {1529-3181}, doi = {10.17705/1CAIS.04808}, pages = {55 -- 64}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced most academics to work from home. This sudden venue change can affect academics' productivity and exacerbate the challenges that confront universities as they face an uncertain future. In this paper, we identify factors that influence academics' productivity while working from home during the mandate to self-isolate. From analyzing results from a global survey we conducted, we found that both personal and technology-related factors affect an individual's attitude toward working from home and productivity. Our results should prove valuable to university administrators to better address the work-life challenges that academics face.}, language = {en} } @article{AudretschKritikosSchiersch2020, author = {Audretsch, David B. and Kritikos, Alexander and Schiersch, Alexander}, title = {Microfirms and innovation in the service sector}, series = {Small business economics}, volume = {55}, journal = {Small business economics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer Science + Business Media B.V.}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0921-898X}, doi = {10.1007/s11187-020-00366-4}, pages = {997 -- 1018}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In the context of microfirms, this paper analyzes whether the link between the three aspects involving innovative activities—R\&D, innovative output, and productivity—hold for knowledge-intensive services. With especially high start-up rates and the majority of employees in microfirms, knowledge-intensive services (KIS) have a starkly different profile from manufacturing. Results from our structural models indicate that KIS firms benefit from innovation activities through increased labor productivity with highly skilled employees being similarly important compared to R\&D for creating innovation output in microfirms. Moreover, the firm size advantage of large firms found for manufacturing almost disappears in KIS, with start-ups and young firms having a higher probability of initiating innovation activities and of successfully turning knowledge into innovation output than mature firms.}, language = {en} }