Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (192)
Document Type
- Article (192) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (192) (remove)
Keywords
- bibliometric analysis (8)
- social media (6)
- systematic literature review (6)
- COVID-19 (4)
- Industrie 4.0 (4)
- Delphi study (3)
- Digitalisierung (3)
- Industry 4.0 (3)
- Voluntary simplicity (3)
- co-citation analysis (3)
Institute
- Fachgruppe Betriebswirtschaftslehre (192) (remove)
Over the last decades, Better Regulation has become a major reform topic at the federal and—in some cases—also at the Länder level. Although the debate about improving regulatory quality and reducing unnecessary burdens created by bureaucracy and red tape date back to the 1960s and 1970s, the introduction by law in 2006 of a new independent institutionalised body for regulatory control at the federal level of government has brought a new quality to the discourse and practice of Better Regulation in Germany. This chapter introduces the basic features of the legislative process at the federal level in Germany, addresses the issue of Better Regulation and outlines the role of the National Regulatory Control Council (Nationaler Normenkontrollrat—NKR) as a ‘watchdog’ for compliance costs, red tape and regulatory impacts.
German Public Administration
(2021)
The international community of public administration and administrative sciences shows a great interest in the basic features of the German administrative system. The German public administration with its formative decentralisation (called: administrative federalism) is regarded as a prime example of multilevel governance and strong local self-government. Furthermore, over the past decades, the traditional profile of the German administrative system has significantly been reshaped and remoulded through reforms, processes of modernisation and the transformation process in East Germany. Studies on the German administrative system should focus especially on
key institutional features of public administration;
changing relationships between public administration, society and the private sector;
administrative reforms at different levels of the federal system; and
new challenges and modernisation approaches, such as digitalisation, open government and better regulation.
The chapter analyses recent reforms in the multilevel system of the Länder, specifically territorial, functional and structural reforms, which represent three of the most crucial and closely interconnected reform trajectories at the subnational level. It sheds light on the variety of reform approaches pursued in the different Länder and also highlights some factors that account for these differences. The transfer of state functions to local governments is addressed as well as the restructuring of Länder administrations (e.g. abolishment of the meso level of the Länder administration and of single-purpose state agencies) and the rescaling of territorial boundaries at county and municipal levels, including a brief review of the recently failed (territorial) reforms in Eastern Germany.
The economics of COVID-19
(2020)
Purpose
Within a very short period of time, the worldwide pandemic triggered by the novel coronavirus has not only claimed numerous lives but also caused severe limitations to daily private as well as business life. Just about every company has been affected in one way or another. This first empirical study on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on family firms allows initial conclusions to be drawn about family firm crisis management.
Design/methodology/approach
Exploratory qualitative research design based on 27 semi-structured interviews with key informants of family firms of all sizes in five Western European countries that are in different stages of the crisis.
Findings
The COVID-19 crisis represents a new type and quality of challenge for companies. These companies are applying measures that can be assigned to three different strategies to adapt to the crisis in the short term and emerge from it stronger in the long run. Our findings show how companies in all industries and of all sizes adapt their business models to changing environmental conditions within a short period of time. Finally, the findings also show that the crisis is bringing about a significant yet unintended cultural change. On the one hand, a stronger solidarity and cohesion within the company was observed, while on the other hand, the crisis has led to a tentative digitalization.
Originality/value
To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first empirical study in the management realm on the impacts of COVID-19 on (family) firms. It provides cross-national evidence of family firms' current reactions to the crisis.
In coherence with the progressive digitalization of all areas of life, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a flourishing concept in both research and practice. Due to the increasing scholarly attention, the literature landscape has become scattered and fragmented. With a focus on the commercial application of the IoT and corresponding research, we employ a co-citation analysis and literature review to structure the field. We find and describe 19 research themes. To consolidate the extant research, we propose a research framework, which is based on a theoretical implementation process of IoT as a concept, specific IoT applications, or architectures integrated in an adapted input–process–output model. The main variables of the model are an initial definition and conceptualization of an IoT concept (input), which goes through an evaluation process (process), before it is implemented and can have an impact in practice (output). The paper contributes to interdisciplinary research relating to a business and management perspective on IoT by providing a holistic overview of predominant research themes and an integrative research framework.
This paper aims to confirm pitfalls relevant in the integration stage of startup acquisitions mentioned in the literature and to identify new ones. To accomplish this, we conducted a literature review and a multiple case study with semi-structured, qualitative expert interviews. The results indicate the integration of an acquired startup may be challenged by potential pitfalls relating to acquirers or startups or a lack of their concordance. Unfavorable integration process attributes can also harm the integration success. We identified a lack of national-cultural fit and low performance of the integration team as additional potential pitfalls.
Influence of generational status on immigrants’ entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures
(2023)
Purpose: This study aims to identify the intentions of immigrant entrepreneurs to start new projects by investigating the role of influence of institutional support, social context, cultural intelligence, self-efficacy, optimizing personality traits and hierarchy legitimacy on intentions to start new ventures. In addition, the strength of the relationship for such factors and intentions to start new ventures was determined through the moderator role of easy access to venture capital.
Design/methodology/approach: To this end, this study complements the academic literature by integrating the structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. Thus, the MCDM (i.e. analytic hierarchy process and vlsekriterijumska optimizcija i kaompromisno resenje [VIKOR]) is an effective approach to solving the problem of complexity and evaluation (i.e. multiple evaluation criteria, important criteria and data variation). Hence, to complete the strategic guideline solution, this study uses a survey for collecting data from 202 immigrants in Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria and Singapore.
Findings
The results from SEM prove several critical factors of immigrants’ entrepreneurs. These factors of immigrants’ entrepreneurs can be vital for academics and host countries. By focusing on these aspects and by developing some personality traits (such as self-efficacy and optimal personality traits), these factors can contribute a good deal to increasing the capabilities of immigrant’s entrepreneurs toward entrepreneurial intentions. In the validation, the statistical objective method indicates that the immigrants' prioritizations in all countries are supported by the systematic ranking. Thus, entrepreneurial intentions for immigrants can pursue the order proven by the VIKOR results.
Research limitations/implications: This study has some significant practical and theoretical implications. Practically, the study findings will enable managers to develop strategies to support immigrants for entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.
Originality/value: The novelty of the context under given circumstances of global environment adds to the originality of this study. Several previous studies have also emphasized the need for this type of study in other contexts. The findings can call managers’ attention toward a critical issue of immigrants’ entrepreneurial intentions to start new ventures.
This research examines the impact of firms’ decision-making, crisis management, and risk-taking behaviors on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors through the mediating role of their eco-innovation behavior in the energy industry in Iraq. Firms are exploring applicable mechanisms to increase green practices. This requires the industry to possess the essential skills to overcome the challenges that reduce sustainable activities. We applied a dual-stage structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach to explore the linear relationships between variables, determine the weight of the criteria, and rank energy companies based on a circular economy. The online questionnaire was sent to 549 managers and heads of departments of Iraqi electric power companies. Out of these, 384 questionnaires were collected. The results indicate that firms’ crisis management, decision-making, and risk-taking behaviors are significantly and positively linked to their eco-innovation behavior. This study confirms the significant and positive impact of firms’ eco-innovation behavior on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors. Likewise, eco-innovation behavior has a fully mediating role. For the MCDM methods, ranking energy companies according to the circular economy can support policymakers’ decisions to renew contracts with leading companies in the ranking. Practitioners can also impose government regulations on low-ranked companies. Thus, governments can reduce the problems of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental pollution.
Regardless of the prevalence and value of change initiatives in contemporary organizations, these often face resistance by employees. This resistance is the outcome of change recipients’ cognitive and behavioral reactions towards change. To better understand the causes and effects of reactions to change, a holistic view of prior research is needed. Accordingly, we provide a systematic literature review on this topic. We categorize extant research into four major and several subcategories: micro and macro reactions. We analyze the essential characteristics of the emerging field of change reactions along research issues and challenges, benefits of (even negative) reactions, managerial implications, and propose future research opportunities.
Despite the merits of public and social media in private and professional spaces, citizens and professionals are increasingly exposed to cyberabuse, such as cyberbullying and hate speech. Thus, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) are deployed in many countries and organisations to enhance the preventive and reactive capabilities against cyberabuse. However, their tasks are getting more complex by the increasing amount and varying quality of information disseminated into public channels. Adopting the perspectives of Crisis Informatics and safety-critical Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and based on both a narrative literature review and group discussions, this paper first outlines the research agenda of the CYLENCE project, which seeks to design strategies and tools for cross-media reporting, detection, and treatment of cyberbullying and hatespeech in investigative and law enforcement agencies. Second, it identifies and elaborates seven research challenges with regard to the monitoring, analysis and communication of cyberabuse in LEAs, which serve as a starting point for in-depth research within the project.
Business and management research on scenarios has been highly productive over the decades but led to a complex literature that is hard to oversee. To organize the field and identify distinguishable research clusters, we conducted a co-citation analysis focusing on the long-term history of research. We compare our findings with a previously published bibliographic coupling, focusing on the more recent research to trace its development over time. Our study revealed six research clusters: (1) Planning the Future with Scenarios, (2) Scenario Planning in Strategic Management, (3) Reinforcing the Scenario Technique, (4) Integration of Scenario Planning and MCDA, (5) Combination of Different Methods, and (6) Decision-making through Stochastic Programming, whereas the bibliographic coupling generated 11 clusters. Some former research clusters were divided into separate new clusters, while others were united. Additionally, completely new clusters emerged. Future research on scenarios is expected (1) to further differentiate into strategy and operations, (2) to be based on “behavioral futures” or “behavioral foresight” as a new research stream, (3) to advance the scenario technique methodically and include new specific scenario generation methods, and (4) to put forth new application areas.
Although German bureaucracy is typically categorised as Weberian, a clear distinction between politics and administration has never been a defining characteristic of the German political-administrative system. Many close interrelations and interactions between elected politicians and appointed civil servants can be observed at all levels of administration. Higher-ranking civil servants in Germany are used to and generally appreciate the functional politicisation of their jobs, that is their close involvement in all stages of the policy process, from policy formation, goal definition, negotiation within and outside government to the implementation and evaluation of policies. For top positions, therefore, a class of ‘political civil servants’ is a special feature of the German system, and obtaining ‘political craft’ has become an important part of the learning and job experience of higher-ranking civil servants.
To purchase or not?
(2017)
Although ecologically and socially responsible consumption helps to reduce the harmful effects of resource use for both nature and society, all types of consumption (whether green or fair) deplete valuable resources. At the same time, to maintain household financial sustainability, spending should not exceed a household's financial resources. Thus, economically sustainable consumption is related to the consumer's decision to not buy products and the disposition to forgo specific purchases. Based on a means-end chain approach, this study investigates consumer cognitive decision-making structures related to six distinct options for economically (non-)sustainable consumption. Whereas saving motives, waste concerns, and avoidance motivations support economically sustainable decisions, economically non-sustainable decision-making is directly linked to attaining overall life goals. By clustering respondents based on the elicited means-end chains, the study discloses four consumer groups with distinctive motivational structures. The study also reveals several obstacles to promoting economic sustainability, indicates methods to overcome such obstacles, and suggests avenues for future research.
Welfare beyond consumption
(2020)
In developed regions worldwide, so-called anti-consumers are increasingly resisting high-level consumption lifestyles or shifting to alternative forms of consumption. A general reduction in consumption levels is considered necessary to attain global sustainability goals. However, knowledge regarding the factors driving people to deliberately consume less and how anti-consumption affects individuals' well-being is limited. Against this background, this study considers the influence of human values and the well-being effects of two types of anti-consumption: voluntary simplicity and collaborative consumption. Based on representative data from the US (N = 1075) and Germany (N = 1070), the findings show that the two anti-consumption types do not reduce the well-being of individuals' but in some cases, even improve it, which suggests that lowering consumption can not only help protect environmental resources but also serve the greater good of society. In particular, this relationship holds among collaborative consumers with a strong need for cognition, i.e., a cognitive thinking style that involves a high level of decision control. According to the study results, opposite value orientations are the drivers of voluntary simplicity and collaborative consumption (i.e., a focus on self-transcendence versus self-enhancement). These findings are comparable in both countries; however, the strength of the effects differs.
The coronavirus pandemic
(2022)
As a means to preserve present and future generations' living conditions, sustainable consumption presents a route to the enhanced well-being of individuals. However, the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic raises the question of whether society is going to continue down a path of increased awareness of sustainable consumption or whether the pandemic will move people to focus more on themselves. Based on data gathered before and near the end of the first pandemic lockdown in Germany in spring 2020, this research demonstrates that ecological, social, and voluntary simplicity consciousness deteriorated in the minds of sustainability-conscious consumers, with notable impacts on their willingness to spend sustainably and their shopping affinity. Furthermore, we identify segments that show particular vulnerability to the lockdown by reacting with a decrease in their ecological consumption consciousness. This study concludes with a discussion of the pandemic's implications for the spread of sustainable consumption styles and human well-being.
Powered by blockchain
(2020)
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to formulate the most probable future scenario for the use of blockchain technology within the next 5–10 years in the electricity sector based on today’s experts’ views.
Design/methodology/approach: An international, two-stage Delphi study with 20 projections is used.
Findings: According to the experts, blockchain applications will be primarily based on permissioned or consortium blockchains. Blockchain-based applications will integrate Internet of Things devices in the power grid, manage the e-mobility infrastructure, automate billing and direct payment and issue certificates regarding the origin of electricity. Blockchain solutions are expected to play an important big role in fostering peer-to-peer trading in microgrids, further democratizing and decentralizing the energy sector. New regulatory frameworks become necessary.
Research limitations/implications: The Delphi study’s scope is rather broad than narrow and detailed. Further studies should focus on partial scenarios.
Practical implications: Electricity market participants should build blockchain-based competences and collaborate in current pilot projects.
Social implications: Blockchain technology will further decentralize the energy sector and probably reduce transaction costs. Originality/value: Despite the assumed importance of blockchain technology, no coherent foresight study on its use and implications exists yet. This study closes this research gap.
There are two fundamental ways in which consumers can express their concerns and obligations for society through their consumption decisions: They can boycott companies that they deem to be irresponsible or they may deliberately buy from companies that they perceive to act responsibly (‘buycott’). It has been largely ignored that individuals are driven by different motivational mechanisms to join boycotts and buycotts (punishment vs. reward of corporate behaviors), and thus, these mechanisms have disparate implications for the participating individual (e.g., high vs. low subjective costs because of a restriction in consumption habits). This paper fills this void and develops a framework suggesting that the extent to which consumers translate their concerns and obligations for society into a willingness to boycott and/or buycott is bounded by self-interest. Using a unique, representative sample of 1833 German consumers, this study reveals that the effects of environmental concerns and universalism on buycotting are amplified by hedonism, while the effects of social concern on buycotting and boycotting are attenuated by hedonism and simplicity, respectively. These results have far-reaching implications for organizations and policy planners who aim to change corporate behavior.
In virtual collaboration at the workplace, a growing number of teams apply supportive conversational agents (CAs). They take on different work-related tasks for teams and single users such as scheduling meetings or stimulating creativity. Previous research merely focused on these positive aspects of introducing CAs at the workplace, omitting ethical challenges faced by teams using these often artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technologies. Thus, on the one hand, CAs can present themselves as benevolent teammates, but on the other hand, they can collect user data, reduce worker autonomy, or foster social isolation by their service. In this work, we conducted 15 expert interviews with senior researchers from the fields of ethics, collaboration, and computer science in order to derive ethical guidelines for introducing CAs in virtual team collaboration. We derived 14 guidelines and seven research questions to pave the way for future research on the dark sides of human–agent interaction in organizations.
Behavioral strategy
(2023)
Purpose: Behavioral strategy, as a cognitive- and social-psychological view on strategic management, has gained increased attention. However, its conceptualization is still fuzzy and deserves an in-depth investigation. The authors aim to provide a holistic overview and classification of previous research and identify gaps to be addressed in future research.
Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a systematic literature review on behavioral strategy. The final sample includes 46 articles from leading management journals, based on which the authors develop a research framework.
Findings: The results reveal cognition and traits as major internal factors. Besides, organizational and environmental contingencies are major external factors of behavioral strategy.
Originality/value: To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first holistic systematic literature review on behavioral strategy, which categorizes previous research.
Purpose - This study aims to investigate whether a team of females negotiates differently than a team of males, and whether (workplace) friendship moderates the relationship between single-gender team composition and negotiation outcomes. Design/methodology/approach - The authors used two laboratory studies and paired 216 MBA students into single-gender teams of friends and non-friends, and then engaged them in several dyadic multi-issue negotiations. Findings - The results show that on average, male teams of non-friends reached significantly better outcomes than female teams of non-friends. However, and interestingly, female teams of friends perform equally to male teams of friends. Research limitations/implications - The authors contribute both to the negotiations and the workplace friendship literature because very little research has examined negotiation among friends at work and in particular team negotiations. In addition, the authors also contribute to the literature on gender differences in negotiations because existing research has rarely examined the differences between all-male and all-female teams and especially the relationship between same-sex teams and their effects on negotiation outcomes. Practical implications - This research has clear implications to managers with regard to team composition. Specifically, a winning all-female team should not be changed! Originality/value - This is the first study to examine the relationship between workplace friendship, gender and negotiation outcomes.