@phdthesis{Linhart2025, author = {Linhart, Jan}, title = {Science and the Other: An Inquiry into the Geopolitics of Knowledge, Potiguara Ontology and the Hard Problem of Modern Science}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-032-03926-2}, issn = {3005-0901}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-032-03927-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-14290}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {XI, 474 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Modern science has given us the superpowers that have brought about the 'Anthropocene', but unfortunately not the wisdom to face its existential challenges. We cannot afford to dismiss potentially useful knowledge on mere ideological grounds without due assessment. Science and the Other is an in-depth exploration of what hinders us from engaging in cross-fertilising pluriversal dialogue. The book examines how scientific universalism naturalises the exploitation of both human and non-human nature. Other(-ed) knowledge practices are marginalised and excluded from scientific discourse on the presumption that they are incompatible with scientific evidence. However, an in-depth comparative analysis of the marginalised views and practices of the Brazilian Potiguara nation shows that their cosmology is not contradicted by scientific evidence, and hence a constructive dialogue should be possible. Furthermore, the use of radically different metaphors paints a different picture of 'reality', allowing onto-epistemic shifts and opening up new horizons towards alternative futures beyond the scope of modern/colonial metaphysics.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Udoh2025, author = {Udoh, Gabriel}, title = {Legal and Ethical Considerations in the Use/Ban of Autonomous Weapons Systems in International Humanitarian Law}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1409}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-14098}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {224 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {This dissertation critically examines the legal and ethical dimensions of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) within the frameworks of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). By tracing the historical evolution of weapons technology - from mechanized guns to AI-driven autonomous systems - it highlights the growing autonomy in warfare and the resultant accountability gaps. Further, the thesis analyzes state and institutional positions at the Group of Governmental Experts on emerging technologies in the area of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) mandated under the Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), revealing a fragmented global discourse shaped by geopolitical interests and definitional ambiguities. Key legal challenges include LAWS' compliance with IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity - split into targeting law and weapons law requirements, as well as their alignment with IHRL protections of the right to life and dignity. Ethical concerns center on the dehumanization of killing, algorithmic bias, and the erosion of meaningful human control (MHC), while political concerns, such as weapons proliferation and asymmetric warfare, are discussed. The research concludes that existing legal mechanisms, such as Article 36 reviews under Additional Protocol I, are insufficient to address LAWS' risks and advocates for a binding international treaty. Recommendations include moving the conversation to a different international platform (from the current GGE CCW) to escape its consensus requirement, redefining autonomy spectrums, institutionalizing MHC as a non-derogable standard, and expanding accountability to weapon developers under individual criminal responsibility doctrines.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kahlert2024, author = {Kahlert, Peter}, title = {As Seen at the Hackathon. On the Cultural Significance of Creativity}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1373}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13738}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {235 Seiten}, year = {2024}, abstract = {My thesis is a study of creativity, with creative problem-solving in particular, based on a field study of hackathons and inquiry of everyday life occurrences and documents concerning creativity. It is no research of "why", nor is it a description of how, but a semiotic study of whats: what is a hackathon, what is creativity? I collected applications and occasions of creativity and hackathon to put them under structuralist scrutiny. The result is a structural description of the hackathon in five dimensions and by 20 criteria: "authenticity", "temporality", "organization", "participation", and "openness", therein: "hacker- likeness", "common outline", "content of coding", "strangeness", "boundedness", "length", "structuration", "regularity (repetition)", "rigidity", "detail", "homogeneity", "hosting", "threshold and filters", "motivation", "diffuseness", "commitment", "topicality", "skills", "means and tools", "participation". It further presents the finding that a concrete, empirical hackathon event is no simple configuration within this structure but constantly reconfiguring itself throughout its performance. This constant reconfiguration is illustrated by examples from participant observations at six hackathons. Based on these findings, a semiotic social theory has been speculated: that both, hackathon and creativity, are recursive, closure rejecting symbols. In other words, they are floating, overflowing signifiers, which, like the concept's origin, mana, embrace their semantic openness and semiotic incompleteness, engendering occasions. Accordingly, the thesis contains also a theory and methodology discussion searching for alternatives to the textual linearism of Grounded Theory's coding paradigm and unfolding a Barthesian semiology in reference to the conceptual value of "Italianicity": hackathonicity, creativicity, and somethingicity in general.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Winter2024, author = {Winter, Helen}, title = {Peer Mediation in Refugee Shelters. What constitutes peer mediation from the participants' point of view?}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1348}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13489}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {V -- 207}, year = {2024}, abstract = {This empirical dissertation delves into the study of peer mediation within refugee shelters, focusing on understanding the participants' perspectives on what constitutes peer mediation. Drawing upon the grounded theory methodology by Strauss and Corbin, the study examines the experiences and perceptions of refugees engaged in peer mediation activities in refugee shelters in Germany. The findings of the dissertation reveal that peer mediation plays a significant role in strengthening the self-efficacy of participants. Furthermore, the study highlights that engaging in peer mediation imbues refugees with a sense of meaning, as they assist their peers in resolving conflicts. Additionally, participants who undergo training as peer mediators report an increase in self-confidence regarding their mediation skills and conflict resolution competence as a direct result of increased self-efficacy. The findings can guide the development of peer mediation programs that meet the specific needs of refugees in shelters. This research helps us see how peer mediation has the potential to promote self-efficacy, facilitating integration into new environments. Peers assisting one another not only aid others but also experience personal growth. By mitigating conflicts within refugee shelters, peer mediation reduces the need for security interventions. Implementing measures that incentivize refugees to reclaim their sense of self-efficacy is crucial.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Goebel2022, author = {Goebel, Katarzyna}, title = {Financing Decentralised Renewable Energy by Consumers. Consumer Stock Ownership Plans (CSOPs) as an Alternative to Traditional Models? The Examples of Poland and Germany.}, address = {Frankfurt (Oder)}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1299}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-12998}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {VIII, 260, (3)}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The Energy Transition requires social innovation to mobilise the necessary financing, increase acceptance towards technologies and trigger behavioural change. This thesis investigates consumer (co-)ownership in renewable energy as one possible solution to these challenges. It is argued that as such this instrument can contribute to expand renewable energy and bring the Energy Transition forward, both in countries that have been pioneering renewables, such as Germany, as well as in countries like Poland that have lagged behind. With the Clean Energy for All Europeans Package the EU for the first time lay the ground for "citizen energy" embracing both the role of citizens as active consumers on the energy markets and as co-investors. The transposition of new EU rules into national laws is pending and expected to take years. Therefore, it is crucial to determine the indispensable elements (1) of the most competitive consumer model and (2) of the facilitating framework that allows for the participation of heterogeneous actors without discriminating individual households. For that, this study examines conventional models for consumer (co-)ownership and investigates an innovative financing technique - the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP) - to modernise established schemes while meeting prerequisites for the governance of energy communities introduced by the relevant European directives. Based on a detailed analysis of the energy policies, support systems, existing models for collective projects and the feasibility of the CSOP in Germany and Poland, this study presents a range of recommendations for national frameworks.  }, language = {en} } @phdthesis{MartinRussu2022, author = {Martin-Russu, Luana}, title = {Deforming the Reform Luana Martin-Russu: The Impact of Elites on Romania's Post-accession Europeanization}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-031-11081-8}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-11081-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13027}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {XV, 211 Seiten}, year = {2022}, abstract = {This open access book presents an actor-centered study on Europeanization, based on the assumption that EU-driven reforms are highly dependent on the behavior and interests of the key domestic actors. Whether or not a state pursues a European and democratic agenda depends on domestic lawmakers. Further, political elites are pre-eminent in deciding on the nature, form and content of any law, and on the extent to which the rule of law is actually enforced. Elites can overcome structural or institutional barriers that stand in the way of achieving their goals. The empirical study on Romania presented here lends this observation a more profound meaning: it shows how, in contexts where high level corruption is the norm rather than the exception, self-serving political elites cannot be expected to genuinely commit to adopting sound anti-corruption reform. The book is an inquiry into the motivations that drive legislators to make particular decisions, but also into the structural characteristics and dynamics of the elite that invite a selfish rather than responsible and responsive behaviour. This publication was supported by funds from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kossack2023, author = {Kossack, Oliver}, title = {Pariahs or Partners? Patterns of Government Formation with Radical Right Parties in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2020}, publisher = {transcript}, address = {Bielefeld}, isbn = {978-3-8394-6715-2}, doi = {10.1515/9783839467152}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-13015}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {390}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In the past three decades, radical right parties had the opportunity to directly influence political developments from the highest public office in many post-communist Central and Eastern European countries. Oliver Kossack provides the first comprehensive study on government formation with radical right parties in these countries. Even after the turn of the millennium, some distinct features of the post-communist context persist, such as coalitions between radical right and centre-left parties. In addition to original empirical insights, the time-sensitive approach of this study also advances the discussion about concepts and methodological approaches within the discipline.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{LIN2023, author = {LIN, Zhuohan}, title = {MOOC - Only Media Hype? A Comparative Study of MOOC Coverage in the United States of America and in the People's Republic of China}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1291}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-12914}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {282}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Alles begann mit dem geb{\"u}rtigen Solinger Sebastian Thrun, der seit 2003 Professor an der Stanford University war, wo er den Kurs "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" f{\"u}r eine kleine Gruppe von Studierenden unterrichtete. Im Jahr 2011 beschloss er, den Kurs einschließlich der Abschlusspr{\"u}fung {\"u}ber seinen YouTube-Kanal zug{\"a}nglich zu machen. Innerhalb weniger Wochen meldeten sich Tausende von Menschen f{\"u}r den Kurs an, und drei Monate sp{\"a}ter hatten 160.000 Menschen aus 190 L{\"a}ndern den Kurs besucht, von denen 23.000 auch die Online-Abschlusspr{\"u}fung absolvierten. In der Folge begannen immer mehr Universit{\"a}ten, ihre Lehrveranstaltungen in der Form von "Massive Open Online Courses" (MOOCs) anzubieten, zun{\"a}chst in den USA und anschließend in der ganzen Welt. Die Presseberichterstattung {\"u}ber MOOCs begann am 16. August 2011 mit einem Artikel der New York Times mit der {\"U}berschrift "Free Course in Artificial Intelligence Is Offered Online, and 58,000 Sign Up". Danach berichteten immer mehr Zeitungen innerhalb und außerhalb der Vereinigten Staaten ausf{\"u}hrlich {\"u}ber MOOCs. Die große Aufmerksamkeit, die die Medien MOOCs, einem Thema aus dem Bildungsbereich, entgegenbrachten, weckte wiederum das Interesse von Medienwissenschaftlern. Sie forschten mit den Mittel der Inhaltsanalyse dar{\"u}ber, wie {\"u}ber MOOCS in der westlichen Presse berichtet wird. Auf diesen Ergebnissen baut auch die vorliegende Arbeit auf, erweitert die bisherige Forschung allerdings um zwei Fragestellungen. 1. Frage: Welches sind die inhaltlichen Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede der MOOC-Berichterstattung der Pressemedien in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika und in der Volksrepublik China? 2. Frage: Erf{\"u}llt das wachsende Interesse der analysierten Pressemedien in den USA und in der PRC jeweils die Kriterien eines Medienhypes? Die Beantwortung der ersten Forschungsfrage erfolgt durch eine Inhaltsanalyse aller Artikel, die in der Zeit von 2011 bis 2020 in der amerikanischen Tageszeitung New York Times und in der chinesischen Tageszeitung Guanming Daily zum Thema MOOCs erschienen sind. Bei der Analyse zeigen sich große inhaltliche Unterschiede in der MOOC-Berichterstattung in den USA und der VRC. Diese Unterschiede lassen sich in erster Linie mit den unterschiedlichen Herausforderungen erkl{\"a}ren, vor denen die Bildungssysteme beider L{\"a}nder stehen. Zur Beantwortung der zweiten Frage arbeitet die Arbeit mit den Kriterien, die von dem niederl{\"a}ndische Medienwissenschaftler Peter Vastermann definiert wurden, um einen Medienhype identifizieren zu k{\"o}nnen. Der Vergleich der beiden Pressemedien zeigt, dass die MOOC-Berichterstattung der New York Times alle Kriterien eines Medienhype erf{\"u}llt, w{\"a}hrend die Berichterstattung der Guanming Daily zwar durch ein wachsendes Interesse an dem Thema MOOCs gekennzeichnet ist, dabei aber kein einziges der Vastermann-Kriterien erf{\"u}llt.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Tavkhelidze2022, author = {Tavkhelidze, Tatia}, title = {The European Union's Role in the Cultural Integration of European Muslims and Combating Islamophobia}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1258}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-12580}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2022}, abstract = {The European agenda on multiculturalism has undermined Muslim communities through cultural repulsion. Muslims have been labelled as primitive and dangerous people. They experience discrimination at university, workplace or in the public sphere on a daily basis. Hence, the problem of Muslim cultural integration and the manifestation of Islamophobia in Europe pose a threatening challenge to European stability. The stigmatisation of Muslims and their exclusion undermine the image of the EU as the protagonist of liberal values and mar its motto of 'unity in diversity'. So, it is prudent to assume that a great power such as the EU should step forward to tackle Islamophobia and support a multicultural way of living by promoting Muslim cultural integration into European societies. Keeping this in view, the proposed research aimed to analyse the EU's legal framework and the mechanism of its 'soft policy' towards the cultural integration of European Muslims and combating Islamophobia from an anthropological perspective. By means of qualitative research methods, the descriptive analysis of the EU policy and its anthropological impact on the Muslim cultural integration and combating Islamophobia led to the following results: The EU's policy in this field is more likely to be assessed as insufficient and ineffective. Nevertheless, it tends to support the cultural hybridisation of European Muslims. Such a policy choice results in moderate Islamophobia and protecting Muslims only against certain forms of discrimination.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Koester2021, author = {K{\"o}ster, Anne Julia}, title = {Diversity-sensitive education for Native migrants in Mexico A critical analysis of the impact of monocultural ethnocentric education system structures on the educational quality of minoritized groups}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1250}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-12504}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {316}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This dissertation critically examines how the monocultural ethnocentric structures of the Mexican education system - that are reproduced in the course of change processes in macro-level institutions, in their educational policies and their diversity-sensitive educational approaches - affect the educational quality of Native Mexican peoples, and, in particular, of the internal migrants among them. Theoretical approaches, such as Critical Race Theory, Structuration Theory, Diversity Education Theory and Change Theory are combined with results of a critical mixed-method analysis of empirical data from the Mexican research context to first uncover the origins and mechanisms of the reproduction of monocultural ethnocentric structures in today's Mexican society. Then, the different internal migration patterns and related demographic profiles of Native Mexicans are explored. Afterwards the structures of the Mexican education system as well as the scope of influence of its institutions at the macro level are analyzed. Finally, the availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of education for Native peoples in Mexico is examined. The abductive, interdisciplinary, longitudinal and iterative analysis showed that the educational quality of the Native Mexicans, and, in particular of the internal migrants among them, is lower compared to non-Native Mexicans, because institutions at the macro level of the education system that opt at dismantling the existing monocultural ethnocentric system structures in order to improve the educational quality for minoritized groups such as Native Mexicans, are unable to implement their diversity-sensitive educational approaches and related policies due to their limited resources and their corresponding low scope of influence.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Raue2021, author = {Raue, Steve}, title = {Making Sense of Complexity in Projects - A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Discourses about Complexity and Project Management}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-1225}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-12258}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2021}, abstract = {In Zeiten steigender Komplexit{\"a}t und der kontinuierlichen „Projektifizierung" unserer Gesellschaft (Midler, 1995) ist Projektmanagement in einer paradigmatischen Sackgasse angelangt (Kuhn, 1970). In komplexen Organisationsformen haben die theoretischen und methodischen Fundamente des Projektmanagements wom{\"o}glich die Grenzen ihrer derzeitigen Funktionalit{\"a}t erreicht (Atkinson, 1999; Flyvberg, 2006; Flyvberg et al., 2005; Winch, 1996). In dieser Arbeit wird die Frage gestellt, ob Projektmanagement weiterhin den Umfang seiner Methoden und Werkzeuge erweitern sollte, um mit Komplexit{\"a}t umgehen zu k{\"o}nnen und ob die derzeitigen normativen Grundlagen in Frage gestellt und f{\"u}r neue Paradigmen {\"u}berworfen werden sollten (Whitty \& Maylor, 2009, Geraldi \& Adlbrecht, 2007; Whitty, 2005). Es wird argumentiert, die bestehenden Paradigmen konventionellen und agilen Projektmanagements neu auszurichten. Um die paradigmatische Krise zu bew{\"a}ltigen, wird die Integration der verschiedenen Projektmanagementans{\"a}tze im Rahmen einer systemisch integrierten Projektmanagement-Praxis eingef{\"u}hrt. Die Studie bedient sich mit einer Diskurs-Praxis-Analyse eines unkonventionellen Ansatzes zur Untersuchung von Projektmanagement (Boje, 2014; Van Leeuwen, 2008). Sie basiert auf der systemtheoretischen Annahme, das Projekte sozial konstruierte Formen von Organisation sind (Luhmann, 1995). Wenn Projekte das Results wiederkehrender, anschlussf{\"a}higer und organisierter Konversationen sind, ist Projektmanagement die Konvention, diese Konversationen zu leiten (Bredillet, 2012 \& 2006). Die Studie verwendet eine systemtheoretische Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung, um die Selbstbeobachtung und Selbstbeschreibung von Projektmitarbeitenden in der Anwendung von Projektmanagement, insbesondere in komplexen Umfeldern, zu analysieren (Kiehne \& Klein, 2006). Es wird das linguistische Konzept der Meme angewendet, um wiederkehrende Attraktoren in den Sprachmustern Projektbeteiligter zu identifizieren, welche sowohl die Projektpraxis, als auch dominante Narrative zu identifizieren (Boje, 2007; Whitty, 2005). Das Konzept der generischen Unterscheidung wird angewendet, um Fokuspunkte in der Entscheidungslogik von Projektmanagern zu identifizieren (Spencer-Brown, 2010). Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit st{\"a}rken die Annahme, dass Diskurse im konventionellen und agilen Projektmanagement vorrangig die Unterscheidung ihrer eigenen Ans{\"a}tze von anderen Ans{\"a}tzen suchen. Es ist dennoch feststellbar, dass diese unterschiedlichen Ans{\"a}tze auf den gleichen dominanten Narrativen basieren, wie Projekte durchzuf{\"u}hren sind. Es legt den Schluss nahe, dass die Reproduktion dieser Narrative nicht unbedingt einer funktionalen Logik in der Durchf{\"u}hrung von Projekten folgen, sondern der Logik, den einen oder anderen Projektmanagement-Ansatz zu legitimieren (Whitty, 2005). Es wird argumentiert, dass Projektmanagement prim{\"a}r als Konvention verstanden wird, um {\"u}ber Projekte zu sprechen. In Zeiten steigender Komplexit{\"a}t st{\"o}ßt dieses Paradigma an seine Grenzen. Um die ontologisch-normativen Tendenzen von Projektmanagement zu {\"u}berwinden wird argumentiert, dass Projekte in ihrer sozialen Dimension als Konversationen wiederentdeckt werden sollten und Projektmanagement als Grundlage, diese Konversationen sinnvoll zu gestalten. Die k{\"u}nstliche Unterscheidung verschiedener Projektmanagement-Ans{\"a}tze sollte {\"u}berwunden werden, f{\"u}r eine systemisch integrierte Projektmanagement-Praxis. Dieser paradigmatische Wandel k{\"o}nnte es erm{\"o}glichen, Projektmanagement in der sozialen Dimension einzuordnen (Klein, 2012 \& 2013), um als Mittel f{\"u}r die strukturierte Selbstbeobachtung und Selbstbeschreibung von Projektmitarbeitenden f{\"u}r eine sinnvolle Projektdurchf{\"u}hrung entdeckt zu werden.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{AlMasoudi2020, author = {Al Masoudi, Yassir}, title = {Business Models in the Eyes of National Culture: A Cross-Cultural Study}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-986}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-9863}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {225}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Despite a vast body of work published on the business model—a concept used to generally refer to how a firm conducts business and how it creates and captures value —remarkably, the literature to date has not yet explored the business model from a national culture perspective. Therefore, this PhD dissertation seeks to explore the business model concept through the lens of national culture, posing the following research questions: Do actors in different cultural settings experience their concepts of business ("their business models") differently? If they do, what are the differences, and how and why do these differences occur? To address these research questions, I adopt a qualitative multiple case study of three restaurants: a German restaurant in Germany, an Arab Yemeni restaurant in Jordan, and an Arab Syrian restaurant in Germany. My analysis is based on data collected from a range of sources, including 34 semi-structured interviews, informal follow-up interviews, direct observations, restaurants' documents, and archival materials, such as press coverage, restaurants' websites, restaurants' social media postings, and video excerpts. The emergent findings reveal eight dimensions and their constitutive themes, which shed light on how German and Arab actors experience the business models. While German and Arab actors show a common understanding of some themes relevant to the business model concept, they differ significantly in many themes, suggesting considerable differences in pursuing value creation and capture. Overall, this PhD dissertation makes several contributions to the business model and national culture literatures. More specifically, I contribute to the business model literature by delineating the nature of activities and classifying them into structured and semi-structured activities performed by German and Arab actors, respectively, refining the revenue concept, introducing the concepts of Al-Niyyah (good intention) and fated revenues, and providing insights into the different relationships between the business model participants. In addition, this PhD dissertation adds to the limited antecedent literature of business model innovation by indicating that a firm operating in a new national culture is more likely to innovate its business model. Further, this V PhD dissertation provides insights into the national culture literature by suggesting that Arab culture seems to be a culture of intention, fatalism, and particularism. Finally, this PhD dissertation offers insights for practitioners and concludes with limitations and suggestions for future research.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Breternitz2020, author = {Breternitz, Katharina}, title = {Creating Shared Value: A Conceptualization and Empirical Investigation of the Dynamic Stakeholder Management Capability}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-798}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-7989}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {205}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This dissertation introduces the construct of dynamic stakeholder management capability (DSMC) by joining the stakeholder management capability defined by Freeman (1984) and the dynamic capabilities approach by Teece et al. (1997). The DSMC enables firms to adapt their stakeholder relationships to external changes over time and to specific local contexts of different countries. Through these adaptations firms are better able to link stakeholder demands to business opportunities and create shared value - value for stakeholders and the firm. The study applies factor analysis for generating and confirming latent constructs and it applies hierarchical regression analysis, floodlight analysis (Spiller et al., 2013), and mediation analysis (Baron \& Kenny, 1986; Hayes, 2013) for testing the hypotheses. Analyzing more than 400 German firms with stakeholder relationships in multi-national supply chains the study confirms the positive effect of the DSMC on stakeholder value and firm value. As the first study of its kind, it supports the fundamental, yet not sufficiently verified assumption in stakeholder theory that positive stakeholder relationships relate to stakeholder value creation and, in turn, to firm value creation.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Suarsana2019, author = {Suarsana, Denis}, title = {Facilitating Worker Participation in the EU through an optional Common European Regime on Employee Financial Participation}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-772}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-7724}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {196}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This study examines how cross-border barriers to the implementation of Employee Financial Participation (EFP) schemes in the EU may be alleviated. It is argued that an optional regime would represent the most appropriate policy-option to this challenge. Finally, a blue-print for such a Common European Regime on EFP is developed drawing upon the results of a comprehensive comparison of the legal regulations on EFP in all EU Member States. (1) The study sheds light on the potential of optional regimes in the context of European civil law. (2) It provides a systematic overview of the incidence and political implications of EFP in the EU. Following this, (3) it discusses the barriers to cross-border EFP schemes in the EU as an infringement to the Right of Establishment of European companies. The study then (4) makes a point for an optional regime as the most appropriate instrument to overcome these barriers in comparison to traditional legal instruments in the EU. After that (5) a blue-print for a Common European Regime on EFP is developed. Finally, (6) the study takes a look beyond and discusses additional policy-meassures to promote EFP on the EU level.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ramesh2019, author = {Ramesh, Rajyashree}, title = {Sensing and Shaping - the emotive-kinetic grounding of meaning. A cross-disciplinary analysis of Indian Dance Theatre}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-485}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4856}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Indian dance theatre is known for its extensive and differentiated use of corporeal means to depict any given narrative content in the context of a performance. Its theory (Nāṭyaśāstra, Bharata, ca. 3BC- 5AD) and practise reveal thereby what can be defined as two approaches to meaning, one as evoked through the gestures of the hands, and the other by way of emotive expression, which is also corporeal and gestural, but pertaining to emotional states. These two approaches together offer a comprehensive notion on meaning that leads from linguistic to emotive meaning, and from conceptual to embodied meaning-making processes. And in doing so, they point to the very notion of embodied meaning grounded in movement-based experiences. In particular, meaning evoked by emotional states is given a central place, pointing to a fundamentality of movement-based experiences grounded in emotions for meaning. Pursuing this question of movement-based experiences grounded in emotions thus indicated from the performing arts perspective is of particular interest, considering it offers insights into the role of both emotions and movement in enabling meaning. Of further interest is how understanding embodied meaning as grounded in movement-based experiences connects and thus contributes to studies addressing this question, such as Linguistic Gestures Studies, Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. In particular the form-based linguistic approach to gestural meaning (M{\"u}ller, 1998, 2009, 2010a/b, 2013), the cognitive linguistic approach to embodied meaning-making (Johnson, 1987, 2007) and brain research on emotions (Damasio, 1999, 2003, 2010) reveal correspondences to the understanding of meaning and its corporeal dimension in the theory and practise of Indian performing arts. These will be laid out in this study. Whereas the role of emotions and movement are referred to in many of these studies, they are not pursued in terms of the movement itself that is considered central. As the perspective provided by a corporeal tradition such as Indian performing arts with its two-fold notion of meaning reveals, movement is a complex theme and needs to be approached in its own terms. Therefore the study aims to take a movement-based approach to address the notion of an embodied meaning and its grounding in embodied experiences. For instance, in instantiating the relevance of movement, also for emotive meaning to emerge, it enables looking beyond the sensorimotor notion of embodied experiences discussed, in particular, in the cognitive take on embodied meaning. At the same time examining the role of felt quality, also discussed thereby, is enabled directly, when looking at actual executed movement. The study is, thus, a cross-disciplinary empirical analysis of both gestural and emotive meaning based on analysing how these need to be brought forth in movement terms. In doing so it draws from data collected over several years in class, where a movement-analytic approach was applied for teaching the dance theatre tradition of Bharatanatyam. Teaching this in the West triggered the initial interest to delve deeply into the fundamentals of human movement itself. Insights provided by the study of Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals and current research on fascia have been used. These enable not only observation and analysis, but also movement facilitation, which in turn supports the analysis of actual executed movement. The fundamentally movement-based approach, in as much, has implications for Embodiment Studies, Gesture Studies, Cognitive Linguistics, Dance Studies, Movement Studies, Neuroscience Research and finally Cultural Studies. It instantiates, in this sense, how a dialogue between these can take place.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Akdemir2017, author = {Akdemir, Fahri}, title = {Choreographing Complexity : A Cross-Cultural Study on Authentic Leadership in Contemporary Dance Projects}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-483}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4834}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {236}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Abstract Project leadership is known as one of the key factors in project success. There are solid bodies of work on leadership, project management, and cultural studies. Yet, in spite of the great amount of literature, there exist only a few works about leading creative personalities that are known by their complex behavioural traits in the cross-cultural context. This research aims to illuminate leadership in behaviourally complex cross-cultural projects and propose a better understanding of dealing with complex situations. With this aim in mind, it argues the impact of authentic leadership on project success and dealing with behavioural complexities in cross-cultural complex projects. A multi-disciplinary study was conducted in order to fulfil the research goals. Two contemporary dance creation projects were selected as case studies from the creative industry field. These cases were chosen to show cross-cultural preferences for having a cultural reference on the topic. Participated observation was applied as the core method of data collection and semi-structured interviews were conducted as the supportive method. The epistemological design of the research focused on two aspects: Polyscopic view and common patterns. To create a polyscopic view on the cases and issues observed in these cases, the data provided views from three different perspectives: observer, dancer, and choreographer. The collected data was analysed through the authentic leadership perspective, and the impacts of presence and absence of authentic leadership were studied in correlation to each other. Additionally, the choreographers' common behavioural patterns were noted and analysed through the authentic leadership perspective. According to the research findings, there is a strong correlation between the authentic leadership style and dealing with complex issues generated by behavioural complexity of creative personalities. Also, there is considerable evidence of the project success and the applied authentic leadership. The research reveals supporting evidence of the impact of the authentic leadership style on preventing future complexities}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Nagel2018, author = {Nagel, Agata}, title = {Essays on Taxes and Organizational Form Choice: Evidence from Poland}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-468}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4683}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This thesis explores analytically and empirically the impact of taxes on the choice of organizational form of business owners using evidence from Poland. It focuses in general on the influence of tax legislation on the choice of legal forms that offer considerable tax benefits compared to other legal organizations. Furthermore, it tackles the question of how tax law ambiguity and resulting court decisions as well as changes in tax legislation affect the choice with regard to a tax-preferred organizational form. Tax law ambiguity presents a dimension of empirical tax research that has not received much attention yet. Two essays in this thesis deal in particular with the Polish partnership limited by shares as a tax optimal business organization and with the aspect of the tax law ambiguity during the period from 2003 to 2014, whereas the other two studies analyze the organizational shifts to the Polish special form of limited partnership in the context of the changes in tax legislation during the period from 2001 to 2015.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Amigoni2019, author = {Amigoni, Gaja}, title = {"Creative workspace: Talk vs. Action - A qualitative study on the substantive and symbolic roles and effects of creative workspaces in modern organizations"}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-461}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4617}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {198}, year = {2019}, abstract = {In recent decades, workspace design, as an enabling factor for creativity and innovation, has become the focus of organizational efforts in many firms and among practitioners who are showing a growing interest in the design of creative work environments. This research developed from the observation that firms can design creative workspaces to foster everyday creativity in work-related settings (action - substantive role) and/or to strengthen the company´s corporate image in order to appear as creative to the eyes of a targeted audience (talk- symbolic role). This study explored and assessed the relations existing between creative workspaces and everyday creativity and corporate image respectively. The substantive and symbolic roles and effects of creative workspaces were addressed through qualitative interviews with nineteen informants working for sixteen selected organizations. Data collected was triangulated with additional material gathered through field notes, on-site observations in 32 German companies, written as well as photographic documentation. The results led to a comprehensive, scientific definition of the creative workspace. Empirical findings informed the process of creation and the spatial characteristics of creative workspaces fostering or hindering everyday creativity in work-related settings. Not only, companies were categorized according to the roles, aimed effects and spatial configurations of their creative workspaces and four aspects were identified as been conducive to everyday creativity together with workspace design. As for the symbolic side, six different plausible roles of creative workspaces were proven to have an impact on corporate image. This study confirmed that creative workspaces designed for symbolic purposes can affect and provoke the reactions of external, targeted groups of stakeholders. A three-layer model of engagement informing and guiding companies´ communication strategy in relation to creative workspaces was also suggested. Understanding the substantive and symbolic roles and effects of creative workspaces in relation to creative performances (action) and perceptions (talk) is meant to provide academic knowledge and clearance on the strategic intents and objectives guiding organizations in relation to the design of their physical environments. The increased knowledge and awareness gained in relation to creative workspaces will also allow practitioners and organizations to make more conscious and informed decisions by taking into account a broader spectrum of stakeholders, spanning from the internal focus on individuals at work to external stakeholders such as investors and young talents.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Reschke2018, author = {Reschke, Monika}, title = {Entrepreneurial Founder Teams: An Empirical Investigation of the Cofounder Relationship in the Course of Venture Creation and Growth}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-420}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4204}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {251}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Several contributions from organizational, strategy and entrepreneurship research emphasize the cofounder relationship as a promising concept to explain the success of growing companies and acknowledge its peculiarities in contrast to conventional group or team behavior. Despite the recognized relevance of the cofounder relationship for organizational success, there has not been any systematic attempt to examine how a cofounder relationship develops in the course of venture creation and growth, even though most start-up teams split up in their first years of founding. As a result, key questions about the origins, evolution and stabilization of the cofounder relationship remain unresolved and a profound understanding of what dynamics of a relationship affect relationship maintenance and business innovation is missing. Drawing on insights from two different research disciplines, couple research and management research, I place the cofounder relationship as a central theoretical concept in the foreground of my research, especially the development of the quality of interaction among the members of a team from the perspective of the founders' subjective expectations of the relationship itself as well as the joint start-up project in order to find out how the founder's relationship and capabilities develop and stabilize over time. To examine these questions, I focus on the most prominent form of cofounder teams, i.e. dyadic team constellations, and draw on the findings of six case studies from a qualitative-exploratory and procedural analysis design to shed light on the phenomenon under study. Based on the theoretical and empirical investigations, this work shows that (1) the cofounder relationship may be better understood by examining the founders' individual expectations of autonomy and connection in their relationship (relationship expectation) as well as their expectations on the development and growth of their organizations (business expectation) over time, (2) relationship expectations in early stages of business creation are proximity-oriented, whereas cofounders place greater emphasis on autonomy in later stages of development and, ultimately, on achieving a balance of closeness and distance, (3) business expectations in early start-up phases are generally illusory and cofounders focus on converging and overly optimistic goals, whereas over time, individual business expectations are weighted more and the tolerance to accept expectations discrepancies decreases, (4) adapting and synchronizing diverging goal expectations and entrepreneurial actions becomes a critical skill for stable teams, (5) relationship expectations and growth expectations co-evolve in a dynamic way and cofounder relationships embrace contradictory needs that are constantly present and striving for balance, (6) relationship stability can only be achieved by maintaining relationships through an ongoing dialectical flux and by reaching a dynamic equilibrium in relationship definition and satisfaction levels of individuals. Overall, the findings of this dissertation offer contributions to better understanding the complex and multi-dimensional nature of the cofounder relationship as well as the development of internal relationship structures and provide a number of implications for further empirical research.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Botts2019, author = {Botts, Moritz Martin}, title = {The Role of Individual and Country Level Variables on Perceived Psychic Distance}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-4173}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4173}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {200}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Despite increasing globalization and decreasing transportation costs, distance remains an essential element of international management. This work discusses different concepts of distance with a focus on individual level psychic distance. The inconsistency of previous psychic distance concepts, and therefore their operationalization, leads to a new framework to differentiate between levels of analysis of distance origins and objects. Possible individual level antecedents of psychic distance can be inert, trained, or experiential, while country level distance antecedents tend to be more stable. This work employs a quantitative study with a quasi-experiment, where respondents gave answers to distance perceptions and different possible antecedents at the beginning and end of a stay abroad. Results derived from different regression models show almost no effects of individual level variables on psychic distance, while country level distances have a strong influence on individual level psychic distance. Implications for research are a more concise concept of distance in international management and a thorough discussion of different kinds of distance antecedents. Empirical findings show counterintuitive effects for cultural backgrounds of respondents, which point to an affective and cognitive element of psychic distance. For management practice, distance should be considered as not only concerning the different levels of analysis and the possible different meanings of distance, but also in regards to how an organization can influence distance perceptions. Since experience and training have hardly any effect, the inert antecedents show that employment policies need to take a more active role.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Leinberger2018, author = {Leinberger, Beate}, title = {Sand Play Reprocessing Integrating Nonverbal Trauma-Interventions and Self-Stabilization for Victimized Children Conceptualization and a Prospective Controlled Pilot-Study}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-398}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-3988}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {208}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Germany seems to be the synonym for refugee crisis. Up to now in the last two years more than a million people arrived, half of them younger than 20 years old, most of them more or less traumatized. Just now the 5000 psychotherapists specialized for this age group have enough work with the 12 million children and adolescents living already in our country serving about 200.000 patients a year. So what should we do with the new roundabout 150.000 patients? The idea is to integrate multipliers as co-therapists within trauma-therapy group sessions so that one professional therapist minimum doubles the effectiveness. These specially trained non-professionals we call "Traumahelpers". In the last three years the procedures have been applied in pilot projects in different German Cities, Telangana (India), Palestine and Gaza City (Multicenter Approach). The Children got the same diagnostics: levels of burden are comparable, reason of traumatization as different as societies are (parental power, social, psychological and physical violence, severe disease, rape, terrorism, flight, war etc.). Method: Traumahelpers first learn a bundle of self-stabilization techniques: Slow Paced Breathing (SPB), Somatic Universal Regulative Exercise (SURE) and different techniques of Bilateral Stimulation like tapping or "lying eight", which are near to daily habits children have (e.g. swinging, drawing slopes, singing songs, play instruments, move and run) and at the end the Traumahelpers experience the Sandplay-Therapy by themselves via role play to get an idea what children will do in the real therapy sessions. 15 children, aged 5 to 12 years, sectioned in two groups (one in Germany and one in Andhra Pradesh, India), both groups diagnosed with the Depression Self Rating Scale (DSRS) and the Children - Impact of Event Scale - CRIES-8, had over the time of three to five months altogether ten Sandplay sessions. Every child had its own individual Traumahelper who had to stay beside its foster child during all the ten sessions. If the Traumahelper observed emotion or excitation in the child, he or she offered self-stabilization exercises which he or she performed together, with the child in a manner that the child was able to perform the techniques even alone. The sessions were both started and closed with a song together including all described self-stabilization techniques, a simple way to introduce and perform the established methods for self-stabilization: Singing actually as a kind of Slow Paced Breathing, tapping as a kind of Bilateral Stimulation and walking on the place as a kind of Somatic Universal Regulative Exercise (SURE). Results: The children improved their scores significant, comparing pre-post results (see mentioned tests) and in comparison to the not yet treated multicenter control-group. There was no need for translation during the sessions, because children after an at least 3 month stay in Germany knew enough German words to cope with the situation, a large knowledge of the language is not needed, because construed as a non-verbal functioning therapy technique; under homeland conditions the question of understanding each other´s language didn't rise up in therapy sessions but in Traumahelper training, therefore an interpreter was needed. In general the therapy sessions took place in rooms, the children already knew from school or after school programs, which, was very helpful. Discussion and Conclusions: If enough people could be motivated to do this 2 day preparation course for Traumahelpers and commit themselves to assist in 10 one hour therapy sessions followed by one hour supervision each time (learning on the job) and at least one children psychotherapist this Sandplay-Therapy concept is an easy to applicate and more cost-effective, too: ten traumatized children in an individual setting would need at least altogether 50 hours of diagnostics (for each child five sessions scheduled) and at least about 450 hours of treatment. In this concept 20 hours of diagnostics are altogether followed by only 20 hours of engagement in group therapy and supervision and maybe followed by about 20 hours individual therapy sessions for in average on or two still suffering children after the Sandplay group therapy. The capacity of one therapist at least doubles and could even amount on five times more patients in the same time. Beside this the trained Traumahelpers could profit besides the special setting: personally but even in contact with burdened children, they have to deal with; the clinical improvements are even in the not specifically treated group significant. The concept can be easily transferred in other cultural spaces, as proven in this multicenter study.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bosetzky2018, author = {Bosetzky, Sascha}, title = {Emerging as an agentic-empathic leader: The effects of a leadership empathy intervention}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-405}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-4059}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {256}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Purpose - The dissertation seeks to explore the qualitative changes in leadership behavior after an empathy development intervention has been visited. Design/methodology/approach - Literature on empathy, empathy development, emotion-al intelligence, leadership and leader-member-exchange was used to build a theoretical background for observing changes in behavior of the participating leaders. Results from the literature on empathy and emotional intelligence development were taken to conceptualize an empathy development intervention which was then facilitated for 11 participants, 6 of whom were leaders. Qualitative, unstructured interviews were held with the participants in leadership positions which were then analyzed using Grounded Theory. Findings - The emergence of an agentic-empathic leadership style was identified in 4 out of 6 participants. These participants used behavioral emotional intelligent skills taught in the intervention to actively shape their own behavior, their team cultures, and their followers' behavior in an agentic yet empathic way reporting various positive effects from a reduction to sick days to an increase in compliant behavior and motivation. The changed leadership behavior helped them to build up their self-efficacy in situations which they formerly per-ceived as challenging. Research limitations/implications - The number of participants that contributed to the building of theory was relatively small as only six matched the criteria for inclusion into the sample. The whole research project was undertaken by a single researcher. Though this is not unusual for a doctoral thesis it entails certain limitations since possible distortions and biases in the qualitative design cannot be ruled out. A number of measures have been taken to improve study quality. Practical implications - The results help to better understand the impact of an empathy intervention on leadership behavior. While it is expected that participants become more empathic afterwards, the occurrence of instances of agentic behavioral traits were surpris-ing. It greatly increased the range of application of the behavioral emotional intelligent skills. A leadership style balancing agency and empathy can be very useful in leading a team of highly skilled individuals, motivating them to high performance as well as retaining them. Originality/value - As far as I know, the effects of an empathy intervention on the quality of leadership behaviors have not been researched before. Previous held hunches on the effect of empathy/emotional intelligence on leadership behavior were not confirmed.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Cenophat2018, author = {C{\´e}nophat, Sadrac}, title = {Customer Relationship Vulnerability: A New Concept in Relationship Marketing}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-342}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-3429}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {198}, year = {2018}, abstract = {While research on customer relationship management (CRM) focuses on customers' desire to engage in relationships, the literature has paid little attention to customers' ability to do so. Drawing on relationship research in psychology, this dissertation demonstrates that the success of CRM is contingent on customers' inherent ability to maintain relationships. To explain this ability, the current research introduces the concept of customer relationship vulnerability (CRV), that is, the predisposition of a customer to react adversely to the occurrence of critical incidents in relationships. In a series of six studies, this monograph develops and validates a CRV scale and probe the success of various CRM initiatives at different levels of CRV. The results show that customers with high CRV are immune to these initiatives. Integrating CRV in industry surveys can help marketers avoid the wrong customers and, therefore, allocate their CRM resources more strategically and efficiently towards the right customers.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Adegbile2018, author = {Adegbile, Abiodun Samuel}, title = {Linking Resource Mobilization Approaches and Performance in Entrepreneurial Ventures: A Social Network Perspective}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-3390}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2018}, abstract = {ENGLISH ABSTRACT This PhD dissertation examines the relationship between resource mobilization and new venture performance by presenting a thematic analysis and literature review of resource mobilization in entrepreneurial ventures and an empirical study in the context of Nigerian entrepreneurial ventures. The thematic analysis and literature review provide an inventory of the domain, and the integrative literature review identifies four main themes in the conceptual and empirical literature on resource mobilization in entrepreneurial ventures. The four themes reveal a) the embeddedness of resource mobilization in the organizing process of entrepreneurial ventures, b) the role of founders/managers in the resource mobilization process, c) the role of social networks in enhancing resource mobilization processes, and d) the focus on firm-level analysis with special emphasis on firm behavior regarding the processes, conditions, strategies, and activities associated with resource mobilization in entrepreneurial ventures. The thematic analysis and literature review contribute to advancing strategic entrepreneurship theories on resource mobilization by identifying the gaps in the literature and suggesting how they can be addressed in future research. They also contribute to the practice of strategic entrepreneurship research by showing that an increased understanding of resource mobilization in entrepreneurial ventures can be achieved by developing new theoretical foundations for research in entrepreneurship. The empirical study addresses the following research questions: What is the relationship between resource mobilization (approaches) and new venture performance? Under what conditions do resource mobilization approaches provide performance benefits to new ventures? To determine the relationship between resource mobilization and new venture performance, two resource mobilization approaches were examined—namely, optimization and bricolage. These are defined as the use of new and high-quality resources for a specific purpose and the use of existing resources for a new purpose, respectively. The effect of resource mobilization approaches on new venture performance is argued to be contingent upon network complementarity and network diversity. Using data from Nigerian ventures, the findings show that resource mobilization approaches have significant positive and negative impacts on new venture performance, while network complementarity and network diversity, as context variables, positively moderate these relationships. Overall, this dissertation offers several contributions to the strategic entrepreneurship literature and entrepreneurial network research by providing new directions for researchers to study optimization and bricolage from different viewpoints and offer suggestions for how optimization and bricolage can contribute to new venture performance. The dissertation also takes a step toward addressing the critique that conceptualizes entrepreneurs as nonstrategic actors and lends empirical support to the call to explore the moderating role of social networks in the organizing process of new ventures. Keywords: Resource mobilization, Bricolage, Optimization, Entrepreneurial ventures, Social networks, Nigeria, Quantitative data.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Lemke2017, author = {Lemke, Jana}, title = {Exploring human nature- A reflexive mixed methods enquiry into Solo time in the wilderness}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-3090}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {367}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Background. Research shows that people benefit from the mere presence of and direct interactions with nature. Paradoxically, it is now known that many contemporary environmental problems are caused by humans. This is why psychological research concerned with sustainability matters often focuses on the omnipresent gap between knowledge and practice. As contact with nature decreases, the psychological separation between humans and the rest of the world seems to intensify. Therefore, global change not only requires technical solutions but also approaches that are capable of facilitating behaviour change and internal psychological changes. This will require a new consideration of the human-nature relationship, based on experiential first-person exploration. Aim. The present study seeks to illuminate the human-nature relationship by exploring immersive experiences in wild nature. The catalyst for such experiences is a 24-hour, so-called Solo time in nature. The goal of the present research project is to explore the phenomenology and common features of such an experience and to evaluate its impact in relation to personal development and behavioural change in a longitudinal study. By researching concrete practices and programmes the present research aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Furthermore, by probing new methods, approaches and instruments the present work aspires to tackle and extend the limitations of common research methodology. Samples. The study involved participants from two distinct programmes: Butterfly and Solo-only. While the Butterfly programme represented a 14-day experiential outdoor programme involving community and nature experiences, the Solo-only programme lasted 7 days and solely focused on the Solo. The quantitative Butterfly data are based on 26 participants at pretest and 19 at posttest while the qualitative data rely on 9 interviewees at posttest and 8 at follow-up. The age of the Butterfly study participants ranged between 18 and 31. The quantitative Solo-only data are based on 11 study participants and the qualitative sample consists of four interviewees. Age in the Solo-only sample ranged between 18 and 26. Methods. A mixed methods approach was applied by integrating quantitative survey data, qualitative interview data, qualitative-intuitive dream data and reflexive first-person data concerning the author's research process. A convergent parallel design was used within multiple phases of the project. The Butterfly programme was researched in a longitudinal study up to one and a half years after the programme ended. Assessed changes included the participants' relationship with nature, self, others and the world as well as their proenvironmental behaviour and community engagement. Furthermore, the Butterfly participants' experience of the Solo in nature was assessed via the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) and via interviews. The qualitative and quantitative data of the Solo-only programme were collected at one point in time and served as comparative data for the Butterfly participants' Solo experience. Like in the Butterfly study the Solo-only participants' immersive experience in nature was assessed via the PCI as well as via interviews. Results. The present research revealed that immersing in nature evoked profound experiences of interconnectedness with it and altered the participants' perceptual state and attitude. Experiences of interconnectedness facilitated self-reflection and insight and thereby helped participants to make sense of themselves and the world. The longitudinal research further showed that the participants' nature experience sustainably altered their perception of and way of attending to nature and resulted in an enduring sense of interconnectedness with it. Interviewees designated their nature experience and positive role models as the main triggers for their enhanced practical and proenvironmental engagement. The dream enquiry disclosed significant negatively connoted themes thereby possibly revealing the challenging effects of the programme, which may have been concealed in the interviews. On a meta-level, the complementary research approach brought to the surface a fundamental tension between interconnectedness and separateness which is immanent in human experience today. Conclusion. Outcomes of the multi-method driven triangulation provide a detailed understanding of the Solo experience itself and speak for the depth and impact that it can have on the individual. The present work suggests that experiences of interconnectedness are powerful facilitators for introspection, insight and activism. It further shows that sustainable activism was not only inspired by a deepened connection with nature but also by the social environment, which framed the experience. Thus, this research may serve as a reference point for future research on promising triggers for change and simultaneously highlights valuable elements for future programmes. However, it should be noted that, due to the small sample size and lack of control group, the statistical results, on their own, should be regarded as rather descriptive and only apply to the particular investigated group(s). From a methodological point of view, the outcomes of the applied participatory research approach prove to be extremely enriching for the additional information they provide.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Merdian2014, author = {Merdian, Sara}, title = {Moral Politics in Turkey}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-3032}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {234}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Ein Hauptanliegen meiner Arbeit ist es, zu zeigen, dass sich kemalistisch-s{\"a}kulare und islamische Gruppierungen in der t{\"u}rkischen Gesellschaft nicht l{\"a}nger gegen{\"u}berstehen. Das Bild vom Kampf zwischen Islamismus und S{\"a}kularismus, auf den die politische Diskussion in der T{\"u}rkei zum Teil reduziert wird, war und ist nur in geringem Maße g{\"u}ltig. In Anlehnung an Taylor, Asad und Mahmood habe ich deshalb versucht, zu zeigen, wie sich der Kampf zwischen S{\"a}kularismus und Islamismus in eine Auseinandersetzung um Macht, Rechte und identit{\"a}re Anerkennung {\"u}bersetzen l{\"a}sst. Dass diese Sichtweise heute offensichtlicher ist als noch vor einem Jahrzehnt, hat vor allem damit zu tun, dass sich seit 2002 und vor allem ab 2008 viele Vereinigungen und Initiativen herausgebildet haben, die {\"u}ber diese gesellschaftliche Spaltung hinweg agieren. F{\"u}r die muslimische Studentengruppe, die ich in meiner Arbeit beschreibe, heißt das vor allem der Beginn eines gesellschaftlichen Engagements, das sich nicht mehr auf die Moschee oder allenfalls einen konservativen Stadtteil begrenzen l{\"a}sst. Muslimisches politisches Engagement sucht nach Verb{\"u}ndeten unter den S{\"a}kularen und besch{\"a}ftigt sich nun auch - jenseits des AKP-Mainstreams - mit all den Themen, die eigentlich nur die „modernen, s{\"a}kularen" T{\"u}rken angingen: Verfassung, religi{\"o}se, ethnische und sexuelle Minderheiten, Fl{\"u}chtlingspolitik, Arbeiterrechte und vieles mehr. Die Rolle, die dem Islam dabei als politischer und gesellschaftlicher Faktor zukommt, wird hier neu verhandelt und diskutiert.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Yalcin2017, author = {Yalcin, Altan}, title = {Multi-Agent Route Planning in Grid-Based Storage Systems}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-2924}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {173}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Infolge der Globalisierung und des E-Commerce steigt die Nachfrage nach Logistik-fl{\"a}chen. Doch Logistikfl{\"a}chen sind begrenzt und teuer, insbesondere in urbanen Gebieten. Daher m{\"u}ssen vorhandene Lagerfl{\"a}chen mit h{\"o}chster Effizienz genutzt werden. Gitterbasierte Lagersysteme bestehen aus Lagereinheiten, die dicht auf einem Quadratgitter gelagert sind. Jedes Gitterfeld ist entweder frei oder durch eine einzelne Lagereinheit besetzt. Die Lagereinheiten k{\"o}nnen gleichzeitig und jeweils voneinander unabh{\"a}ngig in die vier kardinalen Richtungen bewegt werden. Dies erm{\"o}glicht hochdichtes und gassenloses Lagern. Um eine Lagereinheit auf ein besetztes Gitterfeld zu bewegen, m{\"u}ssen andere Lagereinheiten bewegt werden. Daher muss mindestens ein leeres Gitterfeld vorhanden sein. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz zur Planung von gleichzeitigen Ein- und Auslagerprozessen mehrerer Lagereinheiten in einem gitterbasierten Lager vorgestellt. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein entkoppelter Multi-Agenten Routenplanungsansatz vorgestellt, bei der die Planung auf zwei entkoppelten Ebenen stattfindet. Auf der ersten Planungsebene wird die Bewegungsreihenfolge von Lagereinheiten sowie ihre Bewegungspfade bestimmt, welche kollisionsfrei sind in Bezug auf dauerhaft gelagerte Lagereinheiten, jedoch nicht auf bewegte Lagereinheiten. Ein besonderer Fokus wird dabei auf die puzzlebasierte Auslagerungsplanung gelegt. {\"A}hnlich wie beim bekannten Schiebepuzzle "15-Puzzle" mit nur einem freien Feld, k{\"o}nnen die Lagereinheiten mit der minimalen Anzahl an Bewegungen von einer Position zu einer anderen Position im Gitter geschleust werden. W{\"a}hrend bisherige Forschungsans{\"a}tze optimale L{\"o}sungsverfahren f{\"u}r Gitter mit einem oder zwei freien Gitterfeldern geliefert haben, wird in dieser Arbeit ein optimales L{\"o}sungsverfahren f{\"u}r Konfigurationen mit einer beliebigen Anzahl an freien Feldern vorgestellt. Dazu wird das Problem als Zustandsraumproblem formuliert und mit Hilfe von Graphensuchverfahren gel{\"o}st. Auf der zweiten Planungsebene werden Kollisionen zwischen den bewegten Lagereinheiten mittels Zeitablaufsteuerung behoben (d.h. die Belegungszeiten der Lagereinheiten entlang ihrer Bewegungspfade, welche auf der ersten Planungsebene bestimmt wurden, sind derart zu planen, dass Kollisionen untereinander entlang ihrer Bewegungspfade vermieden werden). Abschließend erfolgt eine Evaluierung der entwickelten Ans{\"a}tze im Rahmen einer Simulationsstudie anhand der Gestaltung und Analyse eines gitterbasierten Lagersystems im Einsatz als Fr{\"u}hgep{\"a}ckspeicher eines internationalen Großflughafens.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Selle2016, author = {Selle, Linn}, title = {What Parliamentary Budget Authority in the EU? The European Parliament and the German Bundestag in the Negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-2737}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {265}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The dissertation aims at better understanding the ambiguity of parliamentary representation in the EU political system where both national parliaments and the European Parliament play a functional role and are characterized by distinct electoral and territorial interests of representation. In this context EU budgetary politics are a particularly interesting field of research since they constitute a prime parliamentary function that carries high importance inside parliamentary institutions. The EU budget - the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) - is formally divided between the revenue side, which is legitimated through the national parliamentary channel and the expenditure side for which the European Parliament is responsible. Analyzing the internal parliamentary coordination and the parliamentary debate on the EU's MFF 2014-2020 it is shown that parliamentary actors are embedded at different points in the budgetary policy cycle while at the same time feeling legitimately responsible for both revenue and expenditure strands of the EU budget. The EU parliamentary budget authority is formally upheld through the national and supranational channels of legitimation. Practically, however, it is impeded by even more constraints than in national budgetary procedures due to the shape of the EU multi-level system. The performance of the parliamentary budget authority strongly diverged between the policy and the polity level of budgetary policies in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations. On the one hand there has been a broad understanding between parliamentary actors of the same political family on the policy level in the budgetary debate. This covered joint perceptions of what policies should be enacted through the EU budget and what political priorities should be pursued. However on the polity level of the budget, there has been a fundamental disagreement on what formal structure or institutional shape should be achieved with the EU budget. Therefore the representative interests of parliamentary actors are strongly centered on territorial interests of representation - despite strong similarities in terms of electoral interests. Budget policies constitute the core of parliamentary sovereignty which in the MFF 2014-2020 negotiations lead to the dominance of an institutional power-play over a joint coordination of welfare as it has already been found with regard to the EU budget negotiations on the member state level in the Council and European Council.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Blumberg2015, author = {Blumberg, Sandra}, title = {There is nothing that can replace a personal relationship - Practicing Intercultural Competence in German Multinational Corporations in Australia}, doi = {10.11584/opus4-237}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-2374}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This PhD thesis examines how work in the Australian subsidiaries of German multinational corporations is affected by cultural diversity. The investigation focuses on employee experiences, the salience of culture in different contexts, belonging and identity formation, as well as the impact of the corporate environment on transcultural communication. The study aims to strengthen collaboration in the subsidiaries under investigation and their partnership with the overseas parent company. Identifying the key ingredients of intercultural competence in this specific context is sought to assist the selected organisations - and others - in managing cultural diversity more effectively. In a broader sense, this research aims to provide empirical data to further substantiate the value of developing an interculturally competent workforce in private organisations in Australia. Following a critical realist epistemology and ontology, this study uses an in vivo approach to theory building and relies on mixed methods multiple case study. Data was collected from three German multinational corporations. The sample represents the logistics, energy and power transmission industries. Empirical evidence is based on seventy-four survey responses, twenty-three semi-structured interviews and three focus groups in the Australian subsidiaries. Another semi-structured interview with a representative of the senior management was conducted in the headquarters of each case during a cotutelle agreement with the Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder (Germany). This research study argues that building meaningful relationships with people from different cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds is central to intercultural competence in working for a German multinational corporation in Australia, and that collective identity in a sense of membership in the larger organisation is the major contributing factor in the variation of this employee ability. Miscommunication and conflict based on language - which emerged as the major intercultural challenge across the three subsidiaries - occur less frequently and are solved more easily when the involved parties have developed a personal connection. Where employees in the subsidiary felt respected and included by the headquarters, cultural and linguistic differences were perceived as less impacting on collaboration than in those cases where employees in the subsidiary sensed inferiority. This research proposes the Interrelated Model of Intercultural Competence for MNC Management to strengthen collaboration in the subsidiaries of German multinational corporations in Australia and their partnership with the overseas headquarters. The study extends current knowledge about meaningful relationships in intercultural competence through the investigation of the German-Australian business context, and adds the notion of collective identity to contemporary understandings of the concept.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hermann2016, author = {Hermann, Erik}, title = {The Cultivation Effect of Social Network Site Use on Consumers' Brand Attitudes, Ethnic Diversity Perceptions and Attitudes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-2206}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht den Kultivierungseffekt von Facebook-Nutzung auf Wahrnehmungen von und Einstellungen zu ethnischer Diversit{\"a}t als auch Einstellungen zu Markennamen und Marken. Basierend auf Kultivierungstheorie und der Forschung zu Facebook, ethnischer Diversit{\"a}t und Markeneinstellungen wird ein Forschungsmodell, welches den Einfluss von Facebook-Nutzung auf Wahrnehmungen (d.h. Kultivierungseffekte erster Ordnung) und Einstellungen (d.h. Kultivierungseffekte zweiter Ordnung) zum Gegenstand hat, entwickelt. Es wird angenommen, dass die wahrgenommene H{\"a}ufigkeit von ethnischer Diversit{\"a}t und Einstellungen zu ethnischen Minderheiten mit steigender Facebook-Nutzung zunimmt, w{\"a}hrend Ethnozentrismus abnimmt. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus wird angenommen, dass zunehmende Facebook-Nutzung die Einstellungen zu lokalen Markennamen und Marken verschlechtert, wohingegen Einstellungen zu globalen Markennamen und Marken verbessert werden. Die H{\"a}ufigkeit von ethnischer Diversit{\"a}t auf Facebook und die Hypothesen werden anhand des klassischen zweiteiligen Kultivierungsforschungsansatzes (d.h. Inhaltsanalyse und Analyse des Einflusses von Facebook-Nutzung auf die abh{\"a}ngigen Variablen) {\"u}berpr{\"u}ft. Die Inhaltsanalyse von 50 Facebook-Profilen (Studie 1) offenbart, dass ethnische Diversit{\"a}t auf Facebook h{\"a}ufiger vorkommt als in der Wirklichkeit. Die folgende Querschnittsbefragung (Studie 2) von 476 Facebook-Nutzern/innen best{\"a}tigt die Kultivierungseffekte erster Ordnung von Facebook-Nutzung auf die wahrgenommene H{\"a}ufigkeit von ethnischer Diversit{\"a}t, d.h. die wahrgenommene gesellschaftliche ethnische Diversit{\"a}t und die wahrgenommene Anzahl von Freunden/innen und Arbeitskollegen/innen/Kommilitonen/innen, die einer ethnischen Minderheit entstammen. Die folgende experimentelle Untersuchung (Studie 3) mit 75 Teilnehmer/innen testet die Kultivierungseffekte zweiter Ordnung und belegt einen negativen Kultivierungseffekt auf die Einstellung zu lokalen Markennamen. Außerdem best{\"a}tigt das Experiment die in Studie 2 nachgewiesenen Kultivierungseffekte erster Ordnung. Das Folgeexperiment (Study 4) mit 61 Teilnehmer/innen beweist einen marginal signifikanten, negativen Kultivierungseffekt zweiter Ordnung auf die Einstellung zu globalen Marken und bekr{\"a}ftigt die Kultivierungseffekte erster Ordnung auf die wahrgenommene Anzahl ethnischer Minderheiten entstammender Freunde/innen und Arbeitskollegen/innen/Kommilitonen/innen. Die Ergebnisse werden diskutiert, der theoretische Beitrag zu bestehender Forschung wird dargestellt, sozio-ethische Implikationen und Marketingimplikationen werden abgeleitet und die Limitationen und entsprechende M{\"o}glichkeiten zuk{\"u}nftiger Forschung werden pr{\"a}sentiert.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Pleshakova2015, author = {Pleshakova, Violetta}, title = {Crowdsourcing project management}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-1773}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Contemporary society is undergoing a fundamental transition: from traditional information economy we are moving into network society (Castells 2000, van Dijk 2006), also referred to as networked information economy (Benkler 2006). We witness the rise of social media tools, also known as Web 2.0, that bring about collaborative endeavours and crowdsourcing ventures in both the online and the offline domains. It becomes important to understand and conceptualize the new developments and inquire into the possible impact that they have on various aspects of human existence. This research is specifically concerned with project management discourse and practice. By engaging in studying cases of collaboration and crowdsourcing in cross-cultural complex settings, I aim to advance our understanding of the role that network society phenomena, especially collaboration and crowdsourcing, play in project management practice and discource. The point of embarkation for my research is the assumption that phenomena of network society, in particular collaborative tools and paradigms of Web 2.0, contribute to the rise of collaborative approaches and crowdsourcing endeavours, therefore changing the doing and the being of project management and contributing to a turnaround in project management discourse towards more collaborative, inclusive paradigms. Through employing narrative research methods, I suggest an experimental methodology of antecase studies, building on the ideas of Boje (2001). Exploring three projects in Berlin, I map antenarratives of collaboration and crowdsourcing, and thus derive conclusions about the status quo of project management and implications for discourse. What emerges is a map of antenarratives in the field, and an outline of next practice (Klein and Koerner 2008) of project management. Through this I advance the debate on the future of project management and shed light on the status quo of collaboration and crowdsourcing.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Oruc2015, author = {Oruc, Ruziye}, title = {The Effects of Product Scarcity on Consumer Behavior: A Meta-Analysis}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-1807}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This dissertation seeks to provide an understanding of consumer response to product scarcity. Despite the vast amount of research about whether and how product scarcity affects consumer behavior, an integrative analysis of research findings remains unexplored. To fill this void, this dissertation includes a thorough literature review about consumer response to scarcity and a detailed meta-analysis that examines the efficacy of product scarcity. The analysis consolidates to the extent that is possible the product scarcity research - published and unpublished - and addresses two questions that are central to understand the effectiveness of product scarcity: (1) How does product scarcity affect consumer behavior? and (2) Are there moderators of this effect? The meta-analytic review synthetizes 46 years (1968-2014) of empirical research for 17 outcome variables and reveals that product scarcity has a significant and positive effect on the following variables: attitude towards the deal, attitude towards the product, consumer competitive arousal, impulse buying, perceived exclusiveness, perceived popularity, perceived scarcity, purchase behavior, purchase intention, and willingness-to-pay. For simultaneously significant and heterogeneous relationships with sufficient number of effect sizes, several moderators been investigated through a series of sample size weighted analyses of variance and meta-regressions. Manipulations of scarcity generate higher perceived scarcity scores when a quantity limit instead of a time limit is used, when the scarcity appeal is communicated by salespeople, but not experimenters, when studies are conducted with samples other than North American/European samples, when scarcity is caused by excess demand compared to when it is caused by limited supply, when the scarce product is not promised to study participants, and when relative price information is present. For attitude towards the product, effect sizes of scarcity are more positive for conspicuous products subjected to supply-related scarcity, for durables compared to FMCG, and when an experimenter communicates the scarcity appeal. Scarcity`s impact on purchase intention is higher when inconspicuous products are combined with demand-related scarcity. Finally, effect sizes of scarcity on purchase behavior are more positive when possession of the scarce product is dependent on participants' response. These findings provide meaningful advancement of current knowledge for understanding the effects of product scarcity on consumer behavior.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kaemmerer2015, author = {K{\"a}mmerer, Maren}, title = {Demographic Diversity in Sales Teams, Team Performance and the Moderating Role of Service Climate}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-1753}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {183}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This dissertation reports on the impact of age, gender, and national diverse teams on team performance. In keeping with the categorization elaboration model (CEM), I propose service climate as a moderating mechanism between diversity and the quality of relations within team (TMX), which in turn functions as a mediating mechanism between age, gender and national diversity and team performance. I thereby draw on recent work on dynamic capabilities (DC) to explain the value of the human resource pool and their diversity to sustain a competitive advantage. Specifically, I argue that the aggregated knowledge, skills and abilities of individual employees, here the service climate, are important to a team and to the whole organization. Using a sample of service providers, an analysis reveals that service climate moderates the relations between age diversity and the quality of the relations within teams; at high levels of service climate age diversity influences the relations within a team positively, while with low service climate age diversity diminishes the relations within a team. Further, I find support for the moderated mediation model, showing that the underlying mechanism for this shift also effects team performance. When service climate is high, age diversity increases the positive relations within a team, which in turn increases team performance. In contrast, when service climate is low, the decrease of positive relations within a team due to age diversity also influences team performance negatively. Gender and national diversity do not render significant results. The results are discussed and theoretical and managerial implications for human resource management are considered.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bogodistov2015, author = {Bogodistov, Yevgen}, title = {Psychological microfoundations and activation of dynamic managerial capabilities: Influence of affective states on managerial behavior}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-1592}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {188}, year = {2015}, abstract = {In my work I investigate the influence of affective states on dynamic managerial capabilities or on manager's capabilities to reconfigure the asset base of a firm to adapt to rapidly changing environments. To achieve this goal I developed a measurement for the construct of dynamic managerial capabilities. I developed a simulation game where participants take the role of a manager and work with firm resources under conditions of changing environments. I conducted a series of studies which proved the reliability and validity of my measurement and of my manipulation method which I also developed for my dissertation project. Based on the rules of formal logic I investigated the concept of a capability and solved the problem of definition tautology stressed by many scholars. In my work I distinguish between a potential and an activated capability, and my developed tool allowed me to measure the difference and relationships between these two sub-concepts. Firstly, I measured the influence of potential dynamic managerial capabilities on activated dynamic managerial capabilities. Secondly, I investigated the moderating role of the affective states in the process of activation of a dynamic managerial capability. Finally, I measured the role of affective states as direct triggers for development of dynamic managerial capabilities. The results of my study proved to be interesting and significant. First of all, I showed that the potential and activated sensing and seizing capacities are positively related to the activated sensing and seizing capacities of managers. I proved a lack of impact of the potential reconfiguration capacity on the activated reconfiguration capacity. Secondly, I showed that the level of valence (pleasantness) and the level of arousal are negatively related to the activation of the seizing capacity. In the event the moderation of the activation of the reconfiguration capacity the level of pleasantness and arousal play a positive role. My hypotheses concerning the role of affective states in the activation of the sensing capacity were not significant, so I could not confirm any relationship. Thirdly, I found that the level of pleasantness is negatively related to the development of the sensing capacity. Both valence and arousal played no significant role for the development of the seizing and reconfiguration capacities.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ruban2013, author = {Ruban, Rostyslav}, title = {The European Natural Gas Supply, under Particular Consideration of Gas Transit}, publisher = {viademica.verlag berlin}, address = {Berlin}, isbn = {ISBN 978-3-939290-46-9}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-1486}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, pages = {218}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates security of European gas supply (gas-SoS) giving particular consideration to gas infrastructure, notably gas transport and transit. Gas-SoS is endangered mainly by a disruption to existing supplies. For Europe, gas supply infrastructure acts as a tool to gain, maintain and expand access to new gas sources and consolidate access to existing ones. So the SoS-related (infrastructure) strategy has been assessed in the dissertation theoretically and practically, qualitatively and quantitatively. The research objective pursued is: To describe and evaluate gas-SoS for Europe, as well as to specify prospective ways for the SoS enhancement, with a focus on European infrastructure […]. From this, two research questions have been derived: (1) How secure are the European countries in terms of their natural gas supplies? (2) How can the gas-SoS in Europe be improved (with emphasis on infrastructure)? The central discussion of the study is in assessing the level of security risks which single European countries face. Thereupon, the family of SoS-indices HHI'14 has been developed. The ultimate aim is to apply and test indices. With their application the author hopes to gain insights into the indices adequacy as a policy tool for energy security developments. While the existing literature offers a number of SoS indicators to date, their usefulness has never been tested. For the first time, this dissertation has been testing the predictive success of SoS-indices. It confronted them with the economic losses in the 2009 interruption of Russian gas flows to Europe, and with the EU subsidies under the EEPR programme. This investigation sets out that SoS-indices are rather important for a quick and coherent overview over the state of energy security for a large and diversified region like Europe. They cannot completely substitute, however, a detailed discussion of the situation in each member state.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jo2014, author = {Jo, Han-Gue}, title = {The Inner Sense of Free Will: Conscious Intention and Neural Substrates}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus4-905}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2014}, abstract = {The feeling of being in control of voluntary movement is crucial for the experience of free will. However, neuroscientists have often proposed that specific brain activity can predict our voluntary action even before we have made any decision concerning the action. This seems to confirm that a conscious will to act is an additional phenomenon arising after brain activity. These findings seem hard to reconcile with the view that such an action is our 'own' voluntary action. The present thesis contains four empirical studies aiming to demonstrate the underlying mechanism of intentional processes and its correlates to brain dynamics. We first demonstrated that in the Libet experiment ongoing neural fluctuations of the slow cortical potentials (SCPs) account for a significant fraction of the readiness potential (RP). The individual potential shifts preceding self-initiated movements were classified as showing a negative or positive shift. The negative and positive potential shifts were analyzed in a self-initiated movement condition and in a no-movement condition. Comparing the potential shifts between both conditions, we observed no differences in the early part of the potential. This reveals that the apparently negative RP emerges through an unequal ratio of negative and positive potential shifts. These results suggest that ongoing negative shifts of the SCPs facilitate self-initiated movement but are not related to processes underlying preparation or decision to act. Although Libet's experiment is highly dependent upon subjective reports, no study has been conducted that focused on a first-person or introspective perspective of the task. Therefore, for the second study, we took a neurophenomenological approach in an N = 1 study providing reliable and valid measures of the first-person perspective in conjunction with the brain dynamics. We found that a larger RP is attributable to more frequent occurrences of self-initiated movements during negative deflections of SCPs. These negative deflections occur in parallel with an inner impulse reported by an expert meditator, which may in turn lead to a voluntary act. We demonstrated in this proof-of-principle approach that the first-person perspective obtained by an expert meditator in conjunction with neural signal analysis can contribute to our understanding of the neural underpinnings of voluntary acts. For the third study, we investigated induced first-person access to inner processes of movement initiation and the underlying brain activities which contribute to the emergence of voluntary movement. Moreover, we investigated differences in task performance between mindfulness meditators and non-meditators while assuming that meditators are more experienced in attending to their inner processes. Two Libet-type tasks were performed; one in which participants were asked to press a button at a moment of their own decision, and the other one in which participants' attention was directed towards their inner processes of decision making regarding the intended movement which lead them to press the button. Meditators revealed a consistent RP between the two tasks with correlations between the subjective intention time to act and the slope of the early RP. However, non-meditators did not show this consistency. Instead, elicited introspection of inner processes of movement initiation changed early brain activity that is related to voluntary movement processes. These findings are supported by cortical source imaging analysis on brain activity in the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), in which directing the subjective experience towards inner process to move led to a decreased activation in non-meditators, while no or less change was found in meditators. Our findings suggest that compared to non-meditators, meditators are more able to access the emergence of negative deflections of SCPs, which could have fundamental effects on initiating a voluntary movement with awareness. For the last study, we examined the general sense of being in control of an intended movement. When a voluntary action is causally linked with a sensory outcome, the action and its consequent effect are perceived as being closer together in time. This effect is called intentional binding. Although many experiments were conducted on this phenomenon, the underlying neural mechanisms are not well understood. While intentional binding is specific to voluntary action, we presumed that preconscious brain activity (the RP), which occurs before an action is made, might play an important role in this binding effect. Therefore, the brain dynamics were recorded with EEG and analyzed in single-trials in order to estimate whether intentional binding is correlated with the early neural processes. Moreover, we were interested in different behavioral performance between meditators and non-meditators since meditators are expected to be able to keep attention more consistently on a task. Thus, we performed the intentional binding paradigm with twenty mindfulness meditators and compared them to matched controls. Although we did not observe a group effect in either behavioral data or EEG recordings, we found that self-initiated movements following ongoing negative deflections of SCPs result in a stronger binding effect compared to positive potentials, especially regarding the perceived time of the consequent effect. These results provide the first direct evidence that the early neural activity within the range of SCPs affects perceived time of a sensory outcome that is caused by intentional action. The present thesis enables a new perspective on the underlying neural mechanisms of intentional processes. The finding provides evidence that (i) the emergence of an conscious intention to act is associated with ongoing negative deflections of SCPs, which leads to the seeming build-up the RP. In addition, (ii) execution of voluntary movement during this ongoing negative deflection enhances the sense of agency via temporal attraction between intended action and outcome. Finally, the finding suggests that (iii) first-person experiences of phenomenal states reported by experienced meditators contribute to our understanding brain mechanisms and free will.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{DiPuppo2011, author = {Di Puppo, Lili}, title = {The elusive question of success in the fight against corruption: An analysis of the anti-corruption field in Georgia}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-848}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The topic of my thesis is anti-corruption activities in Georgia and the background of my research is the rise of corruption as a major development issue in the last two decades as well as Georgia's status as a model for successful anti-corruption reforms after the revolution of 2003. The starting point of my research is a striking fact that is difficult to explain if we conform to standard views about anti-corruption. Indeed, there is a consensus on the fact that Georgia has been successful in fighting corruption after the revolution of 2003. At the same time, some more critical voices also exist that point to shortcomings in the government's measures. Further, we observe that tensions between international organisations and the Georgian government appear to have increased in the post-revolutionary context in contrast to the previous period under Eduard Shevardnadze's government that was characterised by systemic corruption. This situation is unexpected to the extent that one would assume that a pro-reform government would rather win the approval of donor organisations and have no difficulty in gaining their support. Against the background of these observations, I want to explain the nature of the tensions between anti-corruption actors as well as the contestation of Georgia's claims to success in fighting corruption.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wohlgemuth2014, author = {Wohlgemuth, Veit}, title = {Microfoundations of dynamic capabilities: employee involvement, managerial trust, control, and routinization}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-961}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Diese Dissertation untersucht m{\"o}gliche akteursbezogene und prozessbezogene Mikrofundierungen dynamischer F{\"a}higkeiten. Im Speziellen untersuche ich die akteursbezogenen Mikrofundierungen: Mitarbeiterbeteiligung bei strategischen Ver{\"a}nderungen, Vertrauen der F{\"u}hrungskraft in Mitarbeiter und Kontrolle von Mitarbeitern. Dabei entwickle ich die Hypothesen, dass Mitarbeiterbeteiligung bei strategischen Ver{\"a}nderungen und soziale Kontrolle Mediatoren der positiven Beziehung von Vertrauen zu dynamischen F{\"a}higkeiten sind. Bez{\"u}glich prozessbezogener Mikrofundierungen konzentriere ich mich auf die Routinisierung der operativen und strategischen Ebene. Basierend auf Kontroversen in der Fachliteratur, entwickle ich konkurrierende Hypothesen zu deren Einfluss auf dynamische F{\"a}higkeiten. Des Weiteren wird das Zusammenwirken von Prozessen und Akteuren diskutiert. Hypothesen f{\"u}r die Mediation der Beziehung von Routinisierung zu dynamischen F{\"a}higkeiten durch Kontrolle und Mitarbeiterbeteiligung werden entwickelt. Ich teste die Hypothesen anhand einer umfragebasierten Stichprobe deutscher Kleinunternehmen des produzierenden Gewerbes. Die ermittelten Ergebnisse st{\"u}tzen die positiven Mediationen der Beziehung zwischen Vertrauen und dynamischen F{\"a}higkeiten durch Mitarbeiterbeteiligung und soziale Kontrolle. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus kann der positive Effekt von Ergebniskontrolle auf dynamische F{\"a}higkeiten best{\"a}tigt werden. Die Hypothese bez{\"u}glich eines negativen Effekts von Verhaltenskontrolle kann nicht best{\"a}tigt werden. Ferner st{\"u}tzen die Ergebnisse den positiven direkten und totalen Effekt einer routinisierten strategischen Ebene auf dynamische F{\"a}higkeiten. Bez{\"u}glich der Routinisierung auf der operativen Ebene kann kein direkter, jedoch ein negativer totaler Effekt nachgewiesen werden. Einige der konkurrierenden konzeptionellen Modelle in der Literatur k{\"o}nnen teilweise best{\"a}tigt werden. Es wird jedoch kein Modell vollst{\"a}ndig unterst{\"u}tzt. Die Beziehung von Routinisierung und dynamischen F{\"a}higkeiten scheint des Weiteren von den Mediatoren Mitarbeiterbeteiligung, sozialer Kontrolle und Ergebniskontrolle beeinflusst zu werden. Ein Beitrag zur Literatur wird durch die Offenlegung von Kontroversen in verschiedenen Konzeptionen von dynamischen F{\"a}higkeiten geleistet. Es wird außerdem der Einfluss verschiedener m{\"o}glicher Mikrofundierungen getestet. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine weitere m{\"o}gliche Kombination von Routinen hin, welche den Besitz dynamischer F{\"a}higkeiten f{\"o}rdern k{\"o}nnte. Es wird auch auf den Einfluss von akteursbezogenen Mediatoren hingewiesen. Ich leiste ebenfalls einen Beitrag zur andauernden akademischen Diskussion {\"u}ber die Beziehung zwischen Vertrauen und Kontrolle. Die Ergebnisse st{\"u}tzen die Komplementarit{\"a}t der beiden Konstrukte.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kersaint2013, author = {Kersaint, Mait{\´e}}, title = {Exploring Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Comparison of German and U.S. Digital Public Diplomacy in Theory and Practice}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-939}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Designed as an exploratory study, this dissertation consists of a policy analysis of German and U.S. American approaches to public diplomacy 2.0, understood as public diplomacy by means of social media. The study's main argument is that in spite of claims to the contrary, social media did not substantially change the practice of public diplomacy. No digital turn took place: Both countries' governments act according to their respective foreign policy tradition and public diplomacy doctrines and, by doing so, confirm a historical institutionalist view on politics. After developing public diplomacy as an integrated concept that incorporates facets of several other related ones like propaganda, branding and cultural relations, it will be demonstrated that public diplomacy remains an instrument of power employed by a given state to reaffirm its might; it is not destined to empower other groups. It will also be shown how social media's premises like transparency and decentralization clash with those of public diplomacy and government administration, and how this impedes public diplomacy's operationalisation on the Internet. It will be explored how that contradiction affects the practice of public diplomacy 2.0 and how its stakeholders deal with given implications by laying out a methodological framework based on historical institutionalism that combines content analysis and expert interviews. On a doctrinal strategic level, the dissertation will then show how the U.S. public diplomacy endeavour is strategically embedded into a wider concept, driven by post-9/11 feelings of vulnerability and the desire to win back hearts and minds. The German approach, on the other hand, refuses such a take, which is partly due to the country's history and negative experiences with propaganda especially during World War II. To Germany, distancing itself from its eventful past through presenting the country as a peaceful, stable democracy is paramount. Combined with the process of coming to terms with the major shakeup the country's reunification brought about, this attitude leads to a struggle to find a new political identity. The body of rules restricting and guiding public diplomacy 2.0 reflects these elements of both countries' respective history and foreign policy tradition. This underscores the weight of history and reaffirms its centrality as a factor for understanding politics. The paper's centrepiece is constituted by a comparative content analysis of the Facebook pages and Twitter feeds belonging to the German embassy in Great Britain (UK) and its American counterpart. The comparison was made over three months in 2011 during discussions about the possible adoption of a financial transaction tax. This particular conflict situation - the UK opposed the measure, backed by the USA, while Germany advocated for it - could have provided a textbook case for the use of social media in public diplomacy. The analysis will, however, reaffirm the allegations made in the dissertation's theoretical parts: Contrary to public opinion, social media are neither interactive nor a mass phenomenon. Communication is employed to echo official government positions as stated in national foreign policy and public diplomacy doctrines as well as to legitimize general policy through subtle rhetorical strategies. The dissertation on hand will further come to the conclusion that the effects of public diplomacy 2.0 can hardly be assessed (if at all), mainly because of a lack of reliable measuring frameworks and monitoring tools. Rather, social media are a listening and opinion gathering device, providing governments with big data on their audience.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Datsenka2013, author = {Datsenka, Rastsislau}, title = {Client's Readiness for IT Offshoring in Germany: A Model of Maturity, Capability and Business-IT Alignment}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-907}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The market for information technology (IT) offshoring is growing globally at a tremendously high rate. Companies all over the world are showing significant interest in subcontracting their IT services to low-cost offshore destinations in Eastern Europe and Asia. However, in Germany despite several decades of experiments with IT offshoring, many decision makers are still not fully aware of this practice, or, because of numerous technical and economic reasons, are cautious about adopting it. Researchers have shown that the motivation for German companies to move part or all of their IT services offshore is still significantly lower than that in the U.S. or Great Britain. The major goal of this research is to measure the readiness of German companies to adopt ITO, and to develop a model describing which factors determine a client's readiness to implement this business model and what impact these factors have on the success of offshore projects.}, subject = {Outsourcing}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Blomberg2012, author = {Blomberg, Franziska}, title = {The Bright \& Dark Sides of Civil Society - Democratic Consolidation and Regime Hybridity in Divided Societies}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-894}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This dissertation examines the widely assumed positive effect of civil society on democratic consolidation. During the past twenty-five years, civil society has been strongly supported in target states of external democracy promotion. A relatively rising share of so-called "hybrid regimes" around the world, among them many displaying deep ethno-national divisions, has led to increased attention to the "dark sides" of civil society. Also, doubts have arisen whether external democracy promotion in general and civil society promotion in particular are actually conducive to overall democratization. This, however, so far has not been investigated systematically. The dissertation investigates this research gap and asks to what extent previous ethno-national conflict influences civil society's contribution to democratic consolidation and the role external democracy promotion plays in this context. The research is conducated on the basis of two qualitative case-studies, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic Macedonia, both far advanced, but currently stagnating on their way of democratic consolidation. The research project comes to the conclusion that civil society can in fact positively influence democratic consolidation - particularly with regard to procedural aspects such as political participation, representation of interests, implementation of laws, or the rule of law - but it can also influence structural aspects, as for instance legislation, or the establishing of formal procedures for political involvement of citizens. Nevertheless, ethno-nationl divsions strongly inhibit civil society's impact. While, in fact, currently prevailing ethno-nationally mobilized cleavages affect civil society's influence more negatively than the scale of previous inter-ethnic violence - as frequently very dominant (clientelistic) networks impede coalitions and thus divide the society both vertically (between state, civil society, and citizens) as well as horizontally (within state, civil society, and citizens), which in turn limits the political influence of civil society. Summing up, civil society's theoretically assumed positive functions can, provided ethno-national divisions and incomplete democratic consolidation, be inhibitited if not negatively reversed, as the case studies show. External democracy promotion is found to play a controversial, yet potentially influencial role - as the contrast between a relatively better trained civil society in combination with a state increasingly ready to take civil society into account in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the one hand and a civil society with less ressources and a state less inclined to cooperate with critical civil society in Macedonia on the other hand shows. International organizations can, on the one hand, positively promote democratic structures, improve inter-ethnic relations, and support the establishment and improvement of civil society, notably in the fields of organizational capacity and social service provision. On the other hand, however, external democracy promotion also carries certain risks: previous practices have led to an "NGOization" and intransparent funding and clientelism between donors and recipients has fostered competition and mistrust between civil society organizations. Generally, where external democracy promotion wishes to lead to sustainable effects, external actors should provide continued support in states with weak regimes, and, in states with (over-)powerful regimes, they should provide a counterweight to the state and in support of civil society. If external democracy promotion pulls out before democratic consolidation is achieved, the risk is that (too) strong regimes may then promote mostly politically uncritical and social services providing CSOs, which will then lead to an undermining of the sustainability of civil society promotion, or, in states where sufficiently functioning structures for the cooperation between state and civil society have been established, fading external support combined with quality monitoring and incentives for elite cooperation can actually lead to "natural selection" of civil society organizations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{MacPhail2013, author = {MacPhail, Jean C.}, title = {LEARNING IN DEPTH. A CASE STUDY IN TWIN 5X5 MATRICES OF CONSCIOUSNESS}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-836}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In this study consciousness involves experience of five non-verbal states documented in Indian tradition, and also of five levels, verbal exemplifications of the content of the states. When these two aspects are related to each other orthogonally, twin, obverse 5x5 matrices of consciousness emerge, one pertaining to the verbal „logical" side of consciousness and the other to the holistic „experiential" side, which together make up the whole picture of the development of the human psyche. These findings are generated from a database on the transformation of consciousness (yoga) of Vivekananda, the nineteenth century Indian monk who modernized India and introduced yoga to the West. He progresses through five states sequentially while continually interrelating with five levels held up as an integrated, co-extensive unity by his instructor, Ramakrishna. When state experience at any particular stage connects with a level of the same stage, what supervenes is samadhi, a radical and permanent transformation of Vivekananda's consciousness that apparently gave the authority to his views that later proved to be so powerful in transforming both India and the West. In addition, Vivekananda's own method of teaching ten years later in both locations corresponds to the matriceal pattern. These phenomena may relate to the accession of a fifth state of consciousness characterized by the ability to integrate all preceding levels and states into the fully developed matrices. This is the origin of the term Integral Vedanta that permeates all of Vivekananda's work.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wolf2007, author = {Wolf, Nicole}, title = {Make it Real. Documentary and other cinematic experiments by women filmmakers in India.}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-663}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This project explores documentary film practices in India with a specific focus on the relation between documentary film, social movements and political thought and practice. The book concentrates on historical moments significant both in terms of political—referring to state politics as well as non-state activism—and documentary film developments, between the mid 1970s and the present. Hereby, the main body of this anthropological and interdisciplinary research foregrounds the work of women documentary filmmakers and argues that their negotiations of their socio-political and film cultural contexts has led them to, time and again, provoke crucial shifts in and the expansion of documentary modes present today. Hence, Make it Real! argues for feminist film/politics not as a sub-cultural realm, but as making propositions for the political as such and here in particular supported through the continuous discourses in and around documentary mode film. The Make it Real! of the chosen title refers to the book's theoretical approach, which perceives documentary film not as a tool to represent political issues but as a social, political and artistic practice, which continuously opens out the new—new debates on local and global citizenry. This translates into working from the politics that documentaries make through the realities that they imagine and engender and which are often political by thinking and arguing beyond what is thought within the "limits of the possible" (Ranci{\`e}re). Those contextual proposals for the real and the intelligible develop throughout the book into an interrogation of the ethics of documentary mode filmmaking in the context of contemporary regional and global conflict. Herein the themes discussed include the constitution of movements as such, questions of gender and public space, sexuality and the nation, presentations of the female body, as well as, and interrelated, debates on the politics of historicity, on the question of Human/Rights, victimhood and citizenship and the ethics of listening. The book chapters elaborate on singular moments in which particular historical-political constellations and the discourse and practice of documentary mode filmmaking generate points of emergence or a so called turn, which redefine relations between image making, the political and collectivity. Crucial nodes are: The rise of a new independent documentary film movement in the mid 1970s under a State of Emergency and therefore its particular relation to the nation state, to Marxist ideologies as well as its affinities to the Latin American Third Cinema movement. The particular development of mutual impact between documentary filmmaking and the Indian women's movements in the 1980s, the influence of national and international development organisations on film productions in the 1990s as well as the changing media scene post market liberalisation in 1989, up to the moment of a recent significant turn during the years 2002 to 2004. The latter can be seen as a key moment for filmmakers to rethink the relation between documentary film and its possibilities to address pressing contemporary issues such as the communal violence in Gujarat against the minority Muslim population in 2002, which was followed by increasing pressures through censorship regulations of the state. Both challenges spurred new networks for debate as well as state alternative screening and distribution possibilities and, together with and dependent on preceding developments, paved the way for what might be called 'the new Indian documentary'. Make it Real! addresses those moments of emergence through the prism of in-depth portraits of selected film examples - where the production process has in most cases been followed ethnographically. Film projects have been chosen for their innovative formal contributions, while recognizing that the focus on urban contexts as well as the personal selection does not at all lead to a representative description. Nevertheless, the examples are perceived as relevant moments of density from where legacies and genealogies are traced. The very writing of film histories is hereby thematized and the subjective views of individuals and institutions, including of the author herself, are implicated and reflected upon. Furthermore, this text argues for the theorizing that arises from conversations (also as media practice) as well as for an ethnography which does not merely describe and analyze the present but seeks to be attuned to the signals of the future present. Filmmakers whose works are addressed in more detail, next to many others mentioned, are: Monica Bhasin, Madhusree Dutta, Deepa Dhanraj, Sherna Dastur, Pooja Kaul, Surabhi Sharma, Soudhamini, Paromita Vohra.}, subject = {Dokumentarfilm}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Nourallah2011, author = {Nourallah, Riad}, title = {Taxation and International Capital Asset Pricing Theory}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-511}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Adler and Dumas (1983) laid the foundation for pricing international assets under deviation from Relative Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). Only Lally (1996) regards the spectrum of international taxation but in his model - he disregards the tremendous impact of exchange gains taxation in International Capital Asset Pricing Theory (IntCAPT). Furthermore, the consensus in economic literature that exchange rates show evidence of a non-linear behavior as elaborated by Dumas (1992), Grauwe (1993) and Ser{\c{c}}u and Uppal (1995) and that monetary policy ultimately determines inflation as determined by McCallum (1990) is ignored. In addition to this, a realistic version of the Tax International Capital Asset Pricing Model (Tax - IntCAPM) should incorporate the fact that dividends are stochastic, as developed in the Tax Capital Asset Pricing Model (Tax - CAPM) of Lally (1998), Wiese (2006b) and Mai (2006a). This dissertation develops a theory of taxation in pricing international assets. To understand this theory, in the first part we introduce and discuss the research question and the conceptual procedure of the dissertation. The review of the status of research provides an extensive overview on research pertaining to taxation in IntCAPT. In the second part, the framework of international taxation is introduced, and by introducing the features of exchange gains taxation a new income type in IntCAPT is presented. The analysis of the international tax system with the features of exchange gains taxation leads to the new result that under the hypothesis of Relative PPP certain constellations of international taxation lead to a Tax-IntCAPM that would be equal to the Tax - CAPM. With the features of exchange gains taxation and the modeling of deviation from Relative PPP by non-linear behavior of exchange rate and inflation determined by monetary policy, an extended model of taxation in IntCAPT - the Tax - IntCAPM - is developed and interpreted. The new result is that the integration of exchange gains taxation into the Tax - IntCAPM leads to an international pricing relationship composed of the risky asset's excess return and its world risk premium, which is adapted by exchange gains tax factors. The non-linear deterministic behavior of exchange rates and the determination of inflation by monetary policy lead to the integration of the market equilibrium exchange and inflation rate into the Tax - IntCAPM. International tax arbitrage opportunities lead to the derivation of the Tax - IntCAPM under short sale and borrowing restrictions. To implement this new international capital market model, the Tax - IntCAPM with homogeneous expectations is derived and interpreted. The third part concludes the dissertation with an extensive critique elaborating the boundaries of the models and a conclusion summarizing the main results and analyzing the implications of the findings.}, subject = {Steuer}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ohm2007, author = {Ohm, Britta}, title = {The Televised Community. Culture, Politics, and the Market of Visual Representation in India}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-469}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This book is essentially an ethnography of television production in a situation of acute change. In late February 2002, when the fieldwork for this thesis commenced, an Express train carrying many Hindu-nationalist activists caught fire outside a small-town station in the West-Indian state of Gujarat. The incident set off the most brutal and most clearly state-sponsored violence against the Muslim minority (more than 2000 dead, 200 000 displaced) in India's post-Independence history. It was the first communal violence that was 24x7 reported nation-wide by commercial television, and it was the first pogrom on a global scale that was covered live and uncensored by competing networks from the same country (rather than international media "uncovering" such a form of organised violence and persecution). Researched under this impression of mediated real violence, this thesis provides, firstly, an analysis of the interplay of transnational media corporations, particularly Rupert Murdoch's Star TV, in their pursuit of creating profitable national consumer markets, preferably in a democracy like India, with the anti-minority politics, modes of popular/populist mobilisation and discursive strategies of Hindu nationalism. It looks at the economic, technological, medial, political, social, visual/iconographic and legal aspects of this interplay and delineates their concrete manifestations in news as well as in entertainment programming of everyday television (particularly in very popular shows and channels at the time). These aspects are set into the larger framework of globalisation, privatisation, commercialisation and neo-liberal policies, the related thrusts of social upward mobility (especially in the new middle classes), 'good governance' (instead of socio-economic justice) and shifting class-, caste-, majority-minority and national-regional relations in the context of a re-formulation of nation and state that defines and legitimises new logics of inclusion and exclusion. Secondly, this work is a study of "Indianisation" and lingual/representational politics in the context of the growing precariousness of the liberal-secular discourse and of democratic, independent mass media in India. Especially English-language journalists, whose largely critical coverage of the anti-Muslim violence experienced an hitherto unknown rejection on the part of TV audiences (and consequently produced a slump in advertising revenues), turned with the Gujarat crisis out to epitomise the ambivalence of challenging the definitional power of a privileged postcolonial class: its rightful critique carries the danger of vindicating and naturalising anti-minority cultural nationalism. The study follows and examines, before the background of a normative construction of a Hindi-speaking, 'authentic' media consumer, the changing position of both English and Hindi-producing journalists and producers, their respective perceptions of alienation, speechlessness and empowerment, their unwanted role as activists in the context of shifting meanings of 'neutrality' and 'objectivity', their difficulties or agility in assessing their options and maintaining, changing or even developing their convictions, and the strategies they find or reject for adapting to the circumstances. In this context, thirdly, this book engages in a critical debate of anthropological assessments of globalisation and media change and theories of postcolonialism on the one hand and conventional modes of ethnography on the other hand. It attempts to show the 'blind spot' of the mutual linkage between Hindu nationalism and economic liberalisation in the approaches specifically of Arjun Appadurai and the Subaltern Studies Group and argues for a stronger reflection and consideration in anthropological research on the cooperation between 'the global' and 'the local' in terms of disabling and anti-emancipatory mechanisms rather than focussing mainly on aspects of empowerment and negotiation of identity. At the same time it proposes, by introducing an 'ethnographic moment' instead of the 'ethnographic present', a flexibility in ethnography that is aware of its increasingly ephemeral character and that takes account of the pace of change in the media as well as of the grown likelihood, in a global era of post-traditional wars and genocidal politics, of the field researcher to be confronted with incalculable situations of conflict and violence.}, subject = {Fernsehschaffender}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Oeser2010, author = {Oeser, Gerald}, title = {Methods of Risk Pooling in Business Logistics and Their Application}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-458}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Purpose/topicality: Demand and lead time uncertainty in business logistics increase, but can be mitigated by risk pooling. Risk pooling can reduce costs for a given service level, which is especially valuable in the current economic downturn. The extensive, but fragmented and inconsistent risk pooling literature has grown particularly in the last years. It mostly deals with specific mathematical models and does not compare the various risk pooling methods in terms of their suitability for specific conditions. Approach: Therefore this treatise provides an integrated review of research on risk pooling, notably on inventory pooling and the square root law, according to a value-chain structure. It identifies ten major risk pooling methods and develops tools to compare and choose between them for different economic conditions following a contingency approach. These tools are applied to a German paper merchant wholesaler, which suffers from customer demand and supplier lead time uncertainty. Finally, a survey explores the knowledge and usage of the various risk pooling concepts and their associations in 102 German manufacturing and trading companies. Triangulation (combining literature, example, modeling, and survey research) enhances our investigation. Originality/value: For the first time this research presents (1) a comprehensive and concise definition of risk pooling distinguishing between variability, uncertainty, and risk, (2) a classification, characterization, and juxtaposition of risk pooling methods in business logistics on the basis of value activities and their uncertainty reduction abilities, (3) a decision support tool to choose between risk pooling methods based on a contingency approach, (4) an application of risk pooling methods at a German paper wholesaler, and (5) a survey on the knowledge and utilization of risk pooling concepts and their associations in 102 German manufacturing and trading companies.}, subject = {Risikomanagement}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bednarski2010, author = {Bednarski, Mikołaj}, title = {The Adequate Level of Public Broadcasting Regulation and the Polish Television Market}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-389}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2010}, abstract = {The dissertation "The Adequate Level of Public Broadcasting Regulation and the Polish Television Market" analyzes and evaluates the overall significance of public market involvement in general and specifically in the Polish TV signal transmission segment. Public broadcasting as the sector's most distinct form of governmental involvement receives special consideration in this context. The dissertation's theoretical fundament consists on the one hand of the major technological parameters accompanying the market, and on the other hand of the two main theoretical approaches influencing this industry: the theories of competition policy and media policy. Based on the technological preconditions of the television sector, its natural markets and products are identified, thereby connecting the technological sphere with a market model terminology. The theoretical approaches examine the TV market's economic and socio-political specifics with the focus on the question of public market regulation, its justification, configuration, and extend. Based on the technological and theoretical foundations, Poland's television market is presented in its broader context. Country-specific characteristics as to the market's integration into its wider socio-political framework implies considering the Polish television sector's historical development, beginning at the country's major political transition in 1989. Poland's audiovisual broadcasting market is subsequently analyzed empirically from three interrelated angles: from the legislative, the political, and the economic perspective. The detailed analysis of the market's broad framework allows for a definition of its factual public market involvement level and for the elaboration of its shortcomings according to the previously derived theoretical postulates. Based on the multi-perspective analysis, refinement suggestions as to the adequate extent and configuration of Poland's public involvement in the broadcasting market are formulated.}, subject = {Audiovisuelle Medien}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{SchmidtEhmcke2009, author = {Schmidt-Ehmcke, Jens}, title = {Technology, Firm Performance and Market Structure}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-313}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2009}, abstract = {In an increasingly competitive environment, firms have to optimally adjust both their allocation of input factors and their technology portfolio. The latter determines economies of scope and scale in future research and production. The aim of this dissertation is to achieve better insight into the strategies that firms employ and the impact of these strategies on performance. Hence, this thesis can be seen as having two parts. Chapters 2 and 3 center on the question of outsourcing, market structure and productivity, while Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the strategic alignment of firms and the efficient use of inputs in the knowledge production process, given product market entry restrictions. In Chapter 2 I evaluate whether firms experience significant productivity gains which decide to rearrange their production process by subcontracting in-house activities to outside suppliers. Here, I focus on the influence of service outsourcing, measured by the costs of external contract work. The chapter is based on a unique micro dataset for the German manufacturing sector. My findings suggest that service outsourcing can contribute significantly to a better performance of firms. Firms starting to outsource exhibit a seven percentage points higher growth rate than firms that decide to continue all production activities in-house. Chapter 3 looks at specific market characteristics that favor the outsourcing decision of firms. I test two main hypotheses which I derive from both transaction costs and production costs considerations. My empirical analysis focuses on the German automobile industry, which offers a particularly interesting example in this context since German-car makers have played an active role in restructuring the industry by means of outsourcing. Chapter 4 aims to examine the supply side in greater detail. More specifically, I discuss the impact of a firm's technology portfolio on its performance, measured in terms of its market value. Based on an expanded Tobin's q approach, I present evidence for a negative relationship between the number of fields and the market value, combined with a counterbalancing effect of relatedness. Enlarging the technology portfolio in unrelated fields negatively influences the market value of a firm due to the fact that it reduces the ability to exploit future economies of scale and scope. In contrast, diversifying into related areas increases the possibility to benefit from economies of scope, which reduces future costs and thereby increase future profits. The last chapter - at least to some extent - turns back to the question of optimal input allocation and puts the knowledge production process at the center of the analysis. In contrast to Chapter 4, where the focus lies on the alignment of the technology portfolio and the market value of firms, Chapter 5 takes a macroeconomic perspective and assesses the relative efficiency of knowledge production on the country level. Countries are exposed to an increasingly competitive environment, both in domestic and foreign markets for innovative products and future technologies. This process forces nations to continuously update their technological capabilities. Thus, in a globalized world, the efficient usage of the scarce resources devoted to R\&D becomes more and more important. While most of the empirical literature affirms a positive link between R\&D expenditure, the number of researchers and innovative output, far less attention has been paid to the question of whether the input factors in the knowledge creation process are allocated to their most efficient use. In Chapter 5 I fill the gap in two ways: First, I calculate the relative efficiency of public and private R\&D expenditures in the OECD using a nonparametric efficiency analysis approach, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique. Using country level R\&D and patent information, I present efficiency scores based on intertemporal frontier estimation for the period 1995 to 2004. Secondly, I take a closer look at the different market structures of these countries. In particular, I test the hypothesis that regulation reduces competition by raising barriers to entry, thereby lowering competitive pressure and the incentives to innovate efficiently. I examine the impact of countries' product market regulation on their relative R\&D efficiency by applying a consistent two stage truncated regression approach proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007).}, subject = {{\"O}konometrie}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Lejpras2009, author = {Lejpras, Anna}, title = {Essays on the Determinants of Firm Innovativeness, Performance, and Internationalization}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-307}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2009}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates the forces driving firm innovativeness, performance, and internationalization, focusing on the effects of firm location by employing survey data from approximately 6,200 East German firms. The impact of firm environment is captured through three aspects: locational conditions, collaboration activities, and competition situation. What makes this thesis unique is that it uses firms' perceptions of the importance and quality of 15 different locational factors to assess the influence of locational characteristics. This approach takes into consideration that not all locational factors affect the performance and operations of all firms equally. The analysis also includes firm-related factors that allow consideration of firm heterogeneity in terms of size, age, and industry affiliation.}, subject = {Innovation}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kneiding2007, author = {Kneiding, Christoph}, title = {Financing Small Businesses in Western Europe - A Micro-Level and an Institutional Perspective}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-241}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Improving the access to finance for entrepreneurial endeavours is crucial in fostering competition, innovation and growth in Europe. A series of studies has shown that small companies and start-up firms play an important role for an economy's growth and development perspectives. However, access to sufficient capital to either start operations or grow and further develop their activities is a difficulty faced by many small businesses in Europe. Most financial providers consider small business finance a high-risk activity that generates high transaction costs and/or low returns on investment, and therefore refrain from extending loans to this potential client group. Solving this dilemma has become a major concern to entrepreneurs, financial institutions, and public policymakers. Based on three different data sets, this thesis provides new insights into the issue of small business finance from a micro-level as well as an institutional perspective. The results contribute to further the understanding of the financial needs and behaviours of small businesses and offer some practical recommendations for those involved in improving the access to finance for these enterprises. These findings can be summarised as follows. (1) There is a demand for microlending products in Germany. The target group is typically made up of retail business owners, foreign business owners, and persons with a loan history on the private market rather than the bank market. Key product features include fast access to these loans and flexibility in the repayment schemes. Demand for these products also arises in the periods after the foundation of the business. Therefore, adequate products should particularly focus on those businesses that are already operating. (2) Self-employed households tend to intermingle their household and business finance by transferring funds obtained through consumer loans to their businesses. This behaviour is particularly pronounced for those households that are credit constrained, which indicates an evasion strategy: business loans that cannot be obtained regularly are substituted through consumer loans. (3) Organisations that provide access to finance for small businesses are diverse. Any performance measurement of these entities must therefore be based on a theoretical rationale that takes into account the heterogeneous nature of this sector. A useful typology differentiates these institutions along three dimensions: organisational structure, type of lending, and orientation towards the client or the funder market. Social and financial aspects of performance are closely related to these dimensions and should be evaluated accordingly. Therefore, a policy aimed at improving the finance of small businesses should take the following into consideration. (1) Federal and local government activities on supporting Microfinance institutions (MFIs) should be refocused. Instead of developing own products (which are then distributed through local MFIs) or the provision of loan capital with heavy restrictions on the access to their special loan funds, policy should concentrate on the provision of risk capital available without any restrictions except for a maximum loan size and outreach-oriented targets. Banks and MFIs which aim to use these special funds should then be incentivised to do so. (2) MFIs are important in improving the access to finance for small businesses in Western Europe. Policy has to acknowledge, though, that an MFI sector cannot do the whole job. Consumer lending products of banks are an important source of business finance, which prevents these entities from establishing a credit history and thereby entering the formal banking market. Banks should therefore be incentivised to identify "hidden" business customers and promote them into their business department. (3) Policy makers are interested in identifying MFIs that use public funds in the most efficient way. Peer groups of these institutions could be created using the three dimensions mentioned above to enable more appropriate comparison. After identifying MFIs that perform within each peer group, their lending activities should not be restricted to overwhelming rules and regulations. Rather, they should be supported with sufficient capital to achieve scale and be given the opportunity to operate for some years with a minimum of restrictions on their lending activities.}, subject = {Kleinunternehmen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jankowska2007, author = {Jankowska, Bozena}, title = {Architectural Frameworks for Automated Content Adaptation to Mobile Devices Based on Open-Source Technologies}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-234}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The Web and enterprise information systems are gradually increasing their reach to a wide range of mobile devices. Although analysts hope for a breakthrough in the popularity of mobile solutions, field studies show that, except for Japan and South Korea, there is still a large gap between the technical capabilities of wireless devices/networks and the adoption of mobile services for business and private use. This paradox can be attributed to a high extent to low quality of existing mobile solutions and to their insufficient usability, represented particularly by two attributes: simplicity of use and content relevance. Additionally, network providers are afraid that mobile Internet could cannibalize their revenues from SMS and entertainment services and do not want to cooperate with service providers to improve the quality of services offered. Wireless applications depend on device-specific features such as input/output mechanisms, screen sizes, computing resources, and support for various multimedia formats and languages. This leads to the need for multi-source authoring - the creation of separate presentations for each device type or, at least, for each class of devices. Multi-source authoring is not a cost-efficient and feasible solution, especially for mobile services consisting of numerous pages. Therefore, various single-source or device-independent techniques that try to tackle the dream of software developers for automatic content generation emerged. These techniques perform the adaptation to the characteristics of mobile devices on the client- or server-side or with the help of some intermediary, the so-called proxy. The high complexity of most adaptation frameworks, missing support for the design and development of mobile content, or the lack of non-proprietary solutions often lead to the rejection of offered adaptation methods. This thesis describes the current state of the art in the area of adaptation techniques and proposes two new approaches for device-independent content delivery that are based on open-source technologies: the Mobile Interfaces Tag Library (MITL) framework and the Mobile Web Services Adaptation (MoWeSA) framework. The first framework is based on Mobile Interfaces Tag Library (MITL), in the second one Web Services Tag Library (WSTL) was introduced. MITL enables dynamic generation of content from existing Web pages, databases, or any other information sources. WSTL aims at the communication with Web Services. In both frameworks the development process is supported by an advanced Integrated Development Environment. Mobile services can be accessed from PCs, mobile phones or PDAs, and can be developed as browser-based or stand-alone applications. The MITL and MoWeSA frameworks currently support content delivery in the most popular formats (HTML, XHTML, WML, and Java ME) but are easily extensible to additional markup languages or standards. Tests conducted among end-user programmers confirmed that the proposed solutions are easy to learn and apply. The frameworks support the separation of tasks between page designers responsible for content presentation and programmers who modify business logic encapsulated in reusable components.}, subject = {Mobile Computing}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Badunenko2007, author = {Badunenko, Oleg}, title = {Efficiency of German Manufacturing Firms During the 1990's}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-219}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The first chapter investigates the factors that explain the level of technical efficiency of a firm. In an empirical analysis, a unique sample of about 35,000 firms in 256 industries from the German Cost Structure Census over the years 1992-2004 is used. The technical efficiency of the firms is estimated using distribution free assumption and then it is relates to firm- and industry-specific characteristics. One third of the explanatory power is due to industry effects. Size accounts for another 25 percent and the headquarter's location explains ten percent of the variation in efficiency. Most other firm characteristics such as ownership structure, legal form, age of the firm and outsourcing activities have an extremely small explanatory power. R\&D activity does not exert any positive influence on technical efficiency. In the second chapter a special attention is given to allocative efficiency. The traditional approach to measuring allocative efficiency exploits input prices, which are rarely known at the firm level. In this paper we propose a new approach to measure allocative efficiency as a profit-oriented distance to the frontier in a profit--technical efficiency space, which does not require information on input prices. To validate the new approach, we perform a Monte-Carlo experiment providing evidence that the estimates of allocative efficiency employing the new and the traditional approach are highly correlated. Finally, as an illustration, we apply the new approach to a sample of about 900 enterprises from the chemical manufacturing industry in Germany. The third chapter notices that the German chemical manufacturing industry experienced a major downsizing during 1992--2004. On the average, size of the firm almost halved. Using modern frontier efficiency analysis, this paper investigates technical and scale efficiency of firms. Based on reliable census data, analysis suggests that firms were not primarily concerned with improving technical efficiency, but rather establishing of an optimal scale of production. The share of scale efficiency firms has been persistently increasing, and downsizing was found to be a rational behavior because all scale inefficient firms have continually operated on decreasing returns to scale portion of technology.}, subject = {Effizienz}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Serwa2005, author = {Serwa, Dobromil}, title = {Empirical evidence on financial spillovers and contagion to international stock markets}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-209}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2005}, abstract = {In this thesis different definitions of financial contagion are explored. These definitions are applied to test for evidence of contagion on a number of stock markets and during several turbulent periods. First, we investigate the question whether emerging stock markets are more or less vulnerable to large financial shocks than developed capital markets. Second, this study analyzes how significant financial turmoil can change the direction and strength of spillovers between a mature calm market and emerging crisis markets. Additionally, we explore the direction of spillovers and contagion effects between two crisis markets during the same turbulent period. Third, dynamic dependencies between mature stock markets are explored to learn how the strength of spillovers changes in tranquil and turbulent times and how crisis markets are influenced by the leading stock market.}, subject = {Aktienportfolio}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Korczak2006, author = {Korczak, Adriana}, title = {Cross-Listing, Close Bank-Firm Relationships and Ownership Structure: Empirical Evidence on Corporate Governance Mechanisms}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-170}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2006}, abstract = {Corporate governance aims to reduce expropriation of investors by managers. This thesis identifies and empirically examines three corporate governance mechanisms: cross-listing in the United States, close bank-firm relationships in Germany and corporate ownership structure in an emerging market. To test the implications of these mechanisms the following questions are addressed: (i) is cross-listing in the United States an effective corporate governance mechanism reducing the profitability of insider trading? (ii) what is the influence of close bank-firm relationship on corporate investments? (iii) how does the corporate ownership structure affect the information content of accounting earnings? First, the thesis addresses the influence of cross-listing in the United States as a corporate governance mechanism. It examines information content of insider trading in British companies that list only domestically and in those that also cross-list in the United States. It argues that because of legal bonding, insiders in companies cross-listed in the United States may gain significantly lower abnormal returns, as they may be less likely to trade on price sensitive information. Generally, the empirical results show that insider trading in cross-listed companies is significantly less profitable than in companies listed domestically. The main findings corroborate the notion that a company can voluntarily strengthen protection of outside investors by cross-listing in the United States and thus renting more effective legal protection of outside investors. To address the second research question, the focus is placed on the unique close bank-firm relationships specific for the German corporate governance system. Close bank ties may reduce information asymmetry and enable banks to supply more external finance to the firm and consequently foster investment. This study empirically examines the influence of close bank-firm relationships as a corporate governance mechanism on liquidity sensitivity of investment of German manufacturing firms. The empirical evidence shows that close bank-firm relationships reduce the firm's liquidity sensitivity of investment. Investments in firms with close bank ties are much less sensitive to internally generated cash flow than for firms without close bank ties. The results support the common belief that universal banks are an important element of the German corporate governance system and close bank-firm relationships have a positive effect on the firm's investments. The ownership structure as a corporate governance mechanism in an emerging market is studied on the Polish stock market. In particular, the thesis investigates the implication of managerial ownership and block holders on the information content of accounting earnings. The results demonstrate a negative impact of managerial ownership on the information content of earnings when the company has low unrelated block ownership, and the relationship reverses for companies with high proportion of unrelated block ownership. The evidence suggests that unrelated block ownership may act as a partial substitute for missing corporate governance institutions to increase the information content of earnings. Overall, each of the markets investigated in this thesis has a different set of corporate governance mechanisms that are proved to work efficiently in given environment. The US system is recognised as the most effective in the world and can be borrowed by foreign companies through cross-listing in the United States. In Germany, close bank-firm relationships are identified as effective corporate governance mechanism that protects investors and helps maintain long-term development and stability of the company. The concentration of corporate ownership structure is characteristic for emerging markets, including Poland, where large shareholders have the power to monitor managers and can act as a corporate governance mechanism that substitutes lacking law enforcement.}, subject = {Kreditwesen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Havrylchyk2005, author = {Havrylchyk, Olena}, title = {Banking Efficiency, Consolidation and Foreign Ownerhip: Evidence from the Polish Banking Market}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00165}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2005}, abstract = {The thesis consists of four separate papers that can be read individually. In the first paper "Efficiency of the Polish Banking Industry: Foreign versus Domestic Banks" we analyze the efficiency of foreign and domestic banks. The second paper entitled "Foreign Acquisitions and Industry Wealth Effects of Privatisation: Evidence from the Polish Banking Industry" investigates the reaction of Polish bank stocks to acquisition by foreign investors. The third paper "Consolidation of the Polish Banking Sector: Consequences for the Banking Institutions and the Public" was motivated by the consolidation process in Poland and is the first attempt of its analysis. In the fourth paper "Does the Bank Lending Channel Work in a Transition Economy? A Case of Poland" we study the role of Polish banks in the transmission of the monetary policy. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership brings a number of positive developments to banks in transition countries, such as much needed capital and know-how. Moreover, the results show that all banks, not only those acquired by foreign investors, benefit from increased presence of foreign investors. However, we also discover that the results are mainly due to higher efficiency of greenfield banks and the fact that foreign investors target slightly more efficient institutions. Finally, we also document that foreign bank ownership has an impact on the transmission of the monetary policy.}, subject = {Polen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gebka2005, author = {Gebka, Bartosz}, title = {Asset Pricing in Emerging Capital Markets: Stock Returns, Trading Volume, and Returns Volatility}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00153}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2005}, abstract = {In this thesis, I investigate diverse aspects of capital market efficiency in selected emerging markets. In chapter 2, the focus of analysis is on the role of trading volume and capitalisation in the process of information absorption by the stock prices. Empirical analysis is conducted for stocks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) and it can be shown that stocks with higher trading volume and larger capitalisation adjust to common information quicker than their low volume, small capitalisation counterparts. In chapter 3, a dynamic relationship between trading volume and subsequent stock returns is investigated. The results are interpreted in light of existing theoretical models. It is argued that empirical evidence indicates that most of the trades on the WSE are conducted due to liquidity needs or changing preferences of investors, and are not driven by arrivals of private information. The impact of institutional investors on market efficiency is investigated in chapter 4. This analysis is based on diverse theoretical models, most of which arguing that institutional trading deteriorates market efficiency by increasing autocorrelation in stock returns. However, an empirical investigation conducted for WSE stocks traded most intensively by pension funds reveals that the impact of institutional trading on market efficiency is beneficial. Namely, stocks traded by institutions are characterised by lower autocorrelation than the remaining ones, which indicates their quicker adjustment to news and, hence, higher efficiency. Last, we analyse international financial spillovers in chapter 4. For the US and eight Asian markets, it is investigated whether, and to what extent, news originating in one country are incorporated into security prices abroad. The main result of this empirical work is that the US market leads the Asian ones. However, under certain conditions such as exceptionally high volatility or low returns, Asian markets might exert significant influence on the behaviour of the US market. This phenomenon can also be interpreted as evidence of financial contagion.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bialkowski2005, author = {Bialkowski, Jedrzej}, title = {International Stock Markets Linkages and Arbitrage between Futures and Spot Markets}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00143}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2005}, abstract = {stock markets linkages and analysis of the arbitrage between spot and futures markets. The first part is devoted to examination of long and short term dependencies between markets. As an example of long term relationship between stock markets, the influence of US market on the most important markets during twenty years period was subject of examination. In turn, to examine short term relationship the dependencies between Japanese and Hong Kong markets during Asian crisis 1997 were scrutinized. The examination of stock of linkages was carried out by application of Markov Switching models. This approach has an advantage to the previous methods because it does not assume a priori a form of relationship between financial markets. Moreover, the Markov Switching framework allows calculating the probability that one market is in crisis or calm regime conditional on different sets of information about other markets. According to the obtained results the contagion between financial markets was rejected, however, sufficient facts supporting the presence of feedback spillovers were found. The second part of thesis presents results of detailed analysis of arbitrage opportunity between spot and futures markets on Polish blue chips index WIG 20. The Polish stock market is one of the emerging futures markets in Europe, it is characterised by proprieties which were absent in case of previous studies of arbitrage. The analysis shows that the lack of efficiency in arbitrage sense is due to the fact that investors have limited access to short sale, there is uncertainty about the size of interest rates, and dividends are paid in an irregular way. Finally, the thesis provide detailed mathematical derivation of the price of future contract and the value of forward contract on zero coupon bond when the short term interest rate is modelled by Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model. In addition, the thesis contains some comments on the methods of deriving price of contigent claims.}, subject = {Internationaler Aktienmarkt}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wisniewski2004, author = {Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr}, title = {Empirical Evidence on Economic and Financial Aspects of Intensive Insider Trading}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00139}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2004}, abstract = {This thesis contributes to the literature by providing new insights into the patterns and market implications of insider trading. The inferences presented here are based on the insider trading reports filed with the Polish Securities and Exchange Commission and the New Zealand Exchange. First, the empirical inquiry examines the undue transaction profits accruing to supervisory and executive boards members, and their next of kin. Second, a hypothesis that an aggregate insider trading index can be used to formulate forecasts about future stock market development and macroeconomic fluctuations is tested. Third, the assertion that insider trading promotes more accurate pricing of assets is verified against the actual data. Last, it is argued that the presence of informed trading in the market increases the volume-induced return autocorrelation.}, subject = {Polen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Voronkova2004, author = {Voronkova, Svitlana}, title = {Institutional Trading, Trading Mechanisms and Equity Market Integration: Essays on the Polish Stock Market}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00125}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2004}, abstract = {The launch of financial reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) at the beginning of the 1990s stimulated increased interest of investors and academics in the newly-born stock markets of this region. Most of the existing studies, however, consider a group of the CEE markets, stressing their commonalities and discarding the fact that though these markets started at approximately the same time, due to the different starting conditions and reform paths, nowadays they differ considerably in terms of size and significance for domestic economies. In the present thesis, we focus on the Polish stock market, as it is considered to be an example of consistent and successful financial market reforms. There are, however, several important features pertaining to the institutional and regulation aspects of the Polish stock market that may impact formation of equity prices, which nevertheless failed to attract the interest of the researchers so far. Some of these features are common with other emerging markets, which makes the results of our study interesting to a broader international audience. This thesis consists of four separate self-contained essays. They extend four streams of the empirical literature on the developing European stock markets: investment behavior of institutional investors; impact of institutional demand on individual and aggregate stock prices; effects of trading mechanism regulation on stock return autocorrelation and volatility; predictability of stock returns due to long-run relationships between developing European and mature markets. Some of the results of the present research appear to challenge findings documented in the previous literature and question the extant policies, thus suggesting areas for future research.}, subject = {Polen}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Vigenina2004, author = {Vigenina, Denitsa}, title = {Analysis of the Incentive Mechanisms of Individual and Group- Microlending Contracts}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00117}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2004}, abstract = {the group- and the individual-based micro-lending contracts. The success of group lending has been attributed to the ability of the lender to alleviate asymmetric information problems. The existing theoretical literature offers a number of explanations for this phenomenon including the building of homogeneous groups, strong social ties between group members, internal group pressure to repay loans, and a willingness to help fellow group members. Using data from a questionnaire given to 236 borrowing groups of the microfinance institutions Constanta (Georgia) and FORA (Russia), this study describes to what extent borrowers behave as predicted by theory. According to the empirical results, the assortative matching brings informational advantages to the lenders and helps them mitigate the adverse selection problem. It is, however, not an absolutely necessary condition for the success of the group lending. When the selection period is very short borrowers oft The analysis of the individual lending mechanism - based on the experience of 130 borrowers of the Microfinance Bank of Georgia - shows that there are three core elements, a) the demand for non-conventional collateral, b) a screening procedure which combines psychological with economic elements, and c) dynamic incentives, which ensure high repayment rates of up to 100\% if small amounts of capital are lent on an individual basis. Finally, the analysis of the key characteristics of the surveyed borrowers reveals that the target group, which can be efficiently served by either one of the two mechanisms, is different. Individual loan contracts better fit to businesses with a dynamic perspective, joint-liability approaches better fit to rather static businesses. Only borrowers with a dynamic perspective but without collateral are forced to make use of the joint-liability approach until they are able to switch to individual loans. The conclusion is that there is no better design than a combination of individual-based and joint-liability loan contracts if a micro-lender aims to reach all types of micro-entrepreneurs in a certain region.}, subject = {Georgien}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Henke2004, author = {Henke, Harald}, title = {Trading Systems, Volatility, and the Regulation of Stock Markets: An Investigation of the Microstructure of the Warsaw Stock Exchange}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:521-opus-00104}, school = {Europa-Universit{\"a}t Viadrina Frankfurt}, year = {2004}, abstract = {The present thesis is a microstructure study of the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). In the first part, I find evidence in favor of the so-calles mixture of distributions hypothesis according to which the time-variant daily order flow translates into volatility persistence in stock returns. In part two, I show that the introduction of continuous trading on the WSE is neither accompanied by higher liquidity/price efficiency nor by persistent abnormal returns of continuously listed stocks upon transfers. The third part demonstrates that continuous trading became more attractive and liquidity in this system increased due to the appearance of a large number of institutional traders after the Polish pension reform. In the fourth and final part I show that price limits in the call auction system of the WSE constitute a costly regulation by causing excessive volatility on days after limit hits and positive autocorrelation in stock returns. I do not find significant advantages of this regulation.}, subject = {Warschau}, language = {en} }