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Adaptability of information systems has become a substantial competition factor. Today's insufficient methodical support for the realization of adaptability frequently leads to unused potentials of deployed information technology in enterprises. In this contribution a procedure is presented, which addresses the demand to determine the necessary adaptability of an enterprise related to its surrounding environmental environment.
The concept of adaptability has been widely recognised as research field in recent years. Business information systems play a key part in terms of business performance. Adaptability of information systems therefore is a primary goal of vendors and end-users. However, so far concepts that help to determine the adaptability of Information Systems are missing. Based on research results of the project CHANGE1 this contribution presents an integrated process model addressing the problem and a possible solution.
The thesis assesses the contribution of technology option of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) to climate change mitigation. CCS means that CO2 is captured at large industrial facilities and sequestered in goelogical structures. The technology uses the endogenous growth model MIND. Herein the various climate change mitigation options of reducing economic growth, increasing energy efficiency, changing the energy mix and CCS are assessed simultaneously. An important question is whether CCS is a temporary or long-term solution. The results show that in the middle of the 21st century CCS has its peak contribution, which allows prolonged use of relatively cheap fossil energy carriers. However, this leads to delayed introduction of renewable energy carriers. The technology path ways are accombined with different costs of climate change mitigation. The use of CCS delays and reduces the costs of climate change mitigation. However, the delayed introduction of renewable energy carriers leads to reduced technological learning, which induces higher costs in the longer term. All in all the temporary use of CCS reduces the costs of climate change mitigation costs. The result is robust, which is tested with various uncertainty analysis.
Many European countries have experienced a significant increase of unemployment in recent years. This paper reviews several theoretical models that try to explain this phenomenon. Predominantly, these models claim a link between the poor performance of European labor markets and the high level of market regulation. Commonly referred to as the Eurosclerosis debate, prominent approaches consider insider-outsider relationships, search-models, and the influence of hiring and firing costs on equilibrium employment. The paper presents empirical evidence of each model and studies the relevance of the identified rigidities as a determinant of high unemployment in Europe. Furthermore, a case study analyzes the unemployment problem in Germany and critically discusses new reform efforts. In particular this section analyzes whether the recently enacted Hartz reforms can induce higher employment.
Public pensions in the U.S.
(2005)
Contents: The Public Old Age Insurance of the U.S. -Historical overview -Technical details -Individual equity and social adequacy The Economic Problem of Old Age -Risks and economic security -Old age, retirement, and idividual precaution -Insurance markets, market failures, and social insurance -Options for public pension systems The Problems of Social Security -The financial balance of OASDI -Causes of the long-run problems -Rates of return -Conclusion - The case for Social Security reform Proposed Remedies -Full, partial, or no privatization? -The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security -Kotlikoff's Personal Security System -The Diamond-Orszag Three-Part plan
Since Eastern Germany's conversion to a market economy wages have remained considerably below the West German wage level. This article looks at the role of establishment-specific factors-such as sectoral affiliation and size of the labour force-in this process. A non-parametric decomposition that has played a prominent role in the gender wage gap literature is applied to breakdown the East-West wage gap into its constituent components. Using establishment data from German employment statistics, the article demonstrates that the catching-up process of Eastern Germany's wage level is hindered by the shift in its economic structure towards lower-paying types of companies, which has caused the lagging behind in the adjustment of wages
Existing approaches in the area of knowledge-intensive processes focus on integrated knowledge and process management systems, the support of processes with KM systems, or the analysis of knowledge-intensive activities. For capturing knowledge-intensive business processes well known and established methods do not meet the requirements of a comprehensive and integrated approach of process-oriented knowledge management. These approaches are not able to visualise the decisions, actions and measures which are causing the sequence of the processes in an adequate manner. Parallel to conventional processes knowledge-intensive processes exist. These processes are based on conversions of knowledge within these processes. To fill these gaps in modelling knowledge-intensive business processes the Knowledge Modelling and Description Language (KMDL) got developed. The KMDL is able to represent the development, use, offer and demand of knowledge along business processes. Further it is possible to show the existing knowledge conversions which take place additionally to the normal business processes. The KMDL can be used to formalise knowledgeintensive processes with a focus on certain knowledge-specific characteristics and to identify process improvements in these processes. The KMDL modelling tool K-Modeler is introduced for a computer-aided modelling and analysing. The technical framework and the most important functionalities to support the analysis of the captured processes are introduced in the following contribution.
Not only the public services are able to ensure the effective and efficient use of e-democracy tools. This contribution points out how a party must be structured to function as a neutral service provider for the citizen to set the results of electronic decision-making processes generally binding. The party provides only the methodology and the technology of decision making. Contents are defined exclusively from the citizens. These contents and voting results are implemented obligatorily in the parliament by the delegates of the party. The electronic democracy contributes, in order to supplement the representative democracy, scalable around direct democratic elements. The citizens can determine all 4 or 5 years with the national elections, how much each political decision has to be affected direct democratically by edemocracy tools. Such an approach is subject to other requirements than a governmental offered service.
This paper analyses the structural change in Russia during the transition from the planned to a market economy. With regard to the famous three sector hypothesis, broad economic sectors were formed as required by this theory. The computation of their shares at GNP at market prices using Input-Output tables, and the adjustment of results from distortions, generated as side effects of tax avoidance practices, shows results that clearly reject claims that Russia would be on the road to a post-industrial service economy. Instead, at least until 2001, a tendency of "primarisation" could be observed, that presents Russia closer to less-developed countries.
In recent years, the development of software in open source communities has attracted immense attention from research and practice. The idea of commercial quality, free software, and open source code accelerated the development of well-designed open source software such as Linux, Apache tools, or Perl. Intrinsic motivation, group identification processes, learning, and career concerns are the key drivers for a successful cooperation among the participants. These factors and most mechanisms of control, coordination, and monitoring forms of open source communities can hardly be explained by traditional organizational theories. In particular, the micro and macro structures of open source communities and their mode of operation are hardly compatible with the central assumption of the New Institutional Theory, like opportunistic behavior. The aim of this contribution is to identify factors that sustain the motivation of the community members over the entire life cycle of an open source project. Adequate coordination and controlling mechanisms for the governance in open source communities may be extracted.
Process oriented knowledge management focuses on knowledge intensive business processes. For modelling and analysis of these processes the modelling technique KMDL (Knowledge Modeling and Description Language) has been developed. KMDL is a method to describe knowledge flows and conversions along and between business processes. Thereby KMDL identifies existing and utilized information as well as knowledge of individual participants and of the entire company. This research-in-progress contribution introduces a practical example in the field of software engineering, in which KMDL models are evaluated to identify process improvements, e.g. by adding knowledge management activities. Therefore three individual views focussing on selected aspects of interest are introduced.
A Procedural Model for the Production of reusable and standard-compliant E-Learning Offerings
(2005)
Cost-efficient production of high-quality learning contents is an important success factor for a sustainable and economic realisation of E-Learning. This necessitates the design of sustainable production processes, which create reusable Learning Objects and require minimal resources. In such a context, this contribution introduces a practical and business-process oriented Procedural Model for the Production of reusable and standard-compliant E-Learning Offerings. It has been developed and applied in a project that produces learning contents for a Master program of an international virtual university. After the introduction of a reengineering method, a special analysis instrument for E-Learning has been designed to analyse the existing production processes and to improve them in terms of efficiency, costs, standard- compliance, and process automation. The method introduced is hence not focussing on individual technical solutions but on the efficiency of the whole E-Learning production and value chain. It gives an orientation for establishing and maintaining sustainable and competitive E-Learning production processes with appropriate effort.
Existing theoretical literature fails to explain satisfactorily the differences between the pay of workers that are covered by collective agreements and others who are not. This study aims at providing a model framework which is amenable for an analysis of this issue. Our general-equilibrium approach integrates a dual labor market and a two-sector product market. The results suggest that the so-called 'union wage gap' is largely determined by the degree of centralization of the bargains, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, by the expenditure share of the unionized sector's goods.
Textbook wisdom says that competition yields lower prices and higher consumer surplus than monopoly. We show in two versions of a simple location-product differentiation model with and without endogenous choice of products that these two results have to be qualified. In both models, more than half of the reasonable parameter values lead to higher prices with duopoly than with monopoly. If the product characteristics are exogenous to the firms, consumers may even be be better off with monopoly in average.
Instability in competition
(2005)
In this paper we show that Puu (2002) does not provide a stable solution to the location game, according to his own definition of stability. If the usual two-stage game is considered, where in the first stage a location is chosen once and forever, and in the second stage prices are determined, the equilibrium proves stable for a sizeable interval of parameters, however. Even though this procedure is most common in analyzing Hotelling's location problem, it is not satisfying because it exhibits an inconsistent informational structure. The search for a better concept of stability is imperative.