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Die Globalisierung und der damit einhergehende Konkurrenzdruck einerseits,aber auch neue Absatzchancen andererseits fordern u.a. auch in den Geschäftsbereichen Logistik und Produktion stetige Weiterentwicklung und Prozessverbesserungen, um in diesem globalen Markt bestehen zu können. Unter Schlagworten wie 'Internet of Things' (IoT) oder 'Cyber Physical Systems' (CPS) wird insbesondere seitens der IT-Branche die Auffassung vertreten, durch Einsatz solcher Technologien zu dieser Weiterentwicklung und Prozessverbesserung beitragen zu können. Ab den Jahren 2011 bzw. 2012 wurden speziell produzierenden Unternehmen,Maschinen- und Anlagenbauern und sonstigen Anbietern von Automatisierungstechnologien seitens der IT-Branche (und der deutschen Politik)unter dem Schlagwort 'Industrie 4.0' CPS-Technologien als ein potentiell wirksames Instrument angepriesen, um konkurrenzfähig zu bleiben.
Vor allem der Trend hin zu einer immer individuelleren und präziseren Befriedigung der Kundenwünsche führt entsprechend zu immer individuelleren Entwicklungsprozessen. Die überproportional steigende Anzahl technologischer Lösungskomponenten, die zudem in sich in vielen Varianten konfiguriert werden können, sind Ausdruck dieser individuelleren Entwicklungsprozesse. Aus dieser dadurch entstehenden hohen Komplexität ergibt sich die Herausforderung, eben jene Komplexität im Entwicklungsprozess noch beherrschen zu können und insbesondere im Dialog zwischen Technologieanwender und Technologieanbieter auf eine systematische und beiderseits verständliche gemeinsame Diskussionsgrundlage setzen zu können.
Die vorliegende Arbeit geht daher auf grundlegende Weise der Frage nach, auf welche Art und Weise Technologien als auch Anwendungsszenarien solcher Technologien beschrieben und gegliedert werden sollten, um systematische Entwicklungsprozesse optimal zu unterstützen. Darauf aufbauend werden abhängig von der Art und Weise der gefundenen Klassifikationsstrukturen entsprechende Entwicklungsprozesse abgeleitet, mit denen eine möglichst transparente systematische Suche komplexer technischer Lösungsarchitekturen für einen gegebenen Anwendungsbereich oder auch die Suche geeigneter Anwendungsbereiche für innovative Technologien möglich sein soll. Adressaten dieser Arbeit sind vor allem IT- bzw. Entwicklungsabteilungen insbesondere in Unternehmen aus Produktion
und Logistik, sowie Forschungseinrichtungen, die technische Innovationen für den Produktions- bzw. den Logistiksektor entwickeln.
Als Ergebnis dieser Arbeit konnte zunächst ein auf Einzelwirkungen basierender Systementwicklungsansatz gefunden werden, auf dessen Grundlage eine erste Partonomie von Wirkungen entwickelt wurde. Neben dieser Partonomie konnte im Rahmen dieser Arbeit eine Struktur zur systematischen Erhebung sog. wirkungsbezogener Anforderungen vorgeschlagen werden. Aufsetzend auf die Partonomie als auch auf die Struktur wirkungsbezogener Anforderungen konnte mittels methodischer Ansätze aus dem Bereich des Operations Research ein Lösungsansatz skizziert werden, mit der eine systematischere und teilautomatisierbare Entwicklung einer technischen Lösung für ein Anwendungsszenario im Grundsatz möglich erscheint. In Ansätzen konnte sowohl die Tauglichkeit der Partonomie, der wirkungsbezogenenen
Anforderungsstruktur als auch des Entwicklungsverfahrens erläutert und verprobt werden. Der auf Einzelwirkungen basierende Entwicklungsansatz
entzieht sich jedoch wesentlich der manuellen Prüfbarkeit, womit diese Arbeit eine Reihe von relevanten Anschlussarbeiten eröffnet, die sich der weiteren Formalisierung und der Implementierung des wirkungsorientierten Entwickelns widmen müssen.
The motivation for this thesis is the daily work of professionals in vocational education and training (VET) which has become highly challenging due to globalization and digitalization. Language heterogeneity among learners, in particular language difficulties, are present in all (vocational) subjects of the school-to-work transition. Professionals are subject matter experts who are now required to obtain an additional linguistic competence in language awareness to deal with the multitude of and deficits in learners´ language proficiency.
Many VET systems on the European level face similar challenges, one reason being the entrance of a large number of refugees. The international dimension combined with the lack of concrete practical and effective professional development measures for teachers to increase their language awareness and language promotion competence result in the need for a solution across national boundaries.
The central aim of this study is to investigate how vocational teachers´ competence to teach contents in a language-sensitive way can be addressed transnationally within a professional development concept for German vocational teachers in the school-to-work transition system. This is carried out following the Design-Based Research Approach on the basis of two transnational study visits. The focus lies on designing, implementing and evaluating this study visit in two European countries
A research model is built which includes two complete iterative development cycles with one professional development intervention in Sweden and a second, revised one, in France. The design-based research approach uses methods of qualitative social research. The intended practice-oriented design requires the close collaboration with experts from practice and the process is characterized as developmental including iterative cycles of testing, evaluation and revision.
The results – a study visit across borders as professional development intervention – show positive effects regarding the development of competences associated with language-sensitive content teaching and yield design principles in the specific context of professional development.
With this thesis, I aim to provide a better understanding of immigrants’ integration processes in internationalizing societies by studying how the structural conditions under which immigration takes place affect immigrants’ economic incorporation. Immigrants’ successful economic incorporation is key to their successful integration in the receiving society; yet, it is often impeded by immigrants’ foreign qualifications that prove less valuable in the receiving labor market.
My research scrutinizes how national institutions shape the opportunities of immigrants with foreign qualifications in the labor market. First, I zoom in on the interplay between educational institutions in immigrants’ sending and receiving countries, which I argue will determine the opportunity structure for importing foreign education. Depending on the institutional configuration in their sending country, immigrants will bring a certain type of education, and depending on the institutional configuration in the receiving country, employers will prefer a certain type of education that can prove more or less compatible with that supplied by immigrants. Second, I study the effectiveness of institutions that receiving countries put in place to improve immigrants’ opportunities in the labor market. To facilitate employers’ recognition of the foreign education that immigrants bring, several countries have introduced procedures to officially recognize foreign educational credentials.
In factorial surveys, I simulate hiring processes for medium-skilled positions in various occupations and study how employers respond to foreign-educated applicants that recently immigrated. Using vignettes, I experimentally vary the applicant profiles in several dimensions, and ask the employers to rate how likely they would invite the applicants to interview for jobs that correspond with their foreign qualifications, and how much on-the-job-training they expect would be required upon hiring the applicants. This controlled experimental setting provides excellent leverage for analyzing how national institutions shape immigrants’ opportunities. By exploring how employers in different institutional contexts of reception respond to foreign-educated applicants from systems of various institutional configurations, I can clarify how the interplay between educational institutions in sending and receiving countries affects immigrants’ prospects in the labor market. Moreover, by comparing how employers respond to immigrants with non-recognized foreign credentials, recognized foreign credentials, and credentials acquired in the receiving country, I can demonstrate the extent to which foreign credential recognition improves immigrants’ prospects of successful positioning.
The empirical findings underpin that the institutional context in which immigrants have acquired their foreign education clearly matters to employers: Immigrants from countries where highly standardized vocation-oriented education and training systems are in place have better chances of importing their foreign qualifications and getting hired for adequate jobs than immigrants from countries with less vocation-oriented systems. Notably, this is the case both in labor markets where vocational pathways strongly regulate the allocation of workers to jobs, such as in Germany, and in more flexible markets, such as in England.
Nevertheless, there remains some hope for immigrants that do not have the right type of educational background: Further analyses reveal that under certain circumstances, they will be able to overcome the institutional shortcomings of their education – for example, when they bring extensive occupational experience from their sending country. Moreover, the analyses show that the official recognition of foreign credentials has considerable potential to effectively foster immigrants’ labor market integration. Although foreign credential recognition does not lift foreign-educated applicants’ hiring chances to the level of native-educated applicants, immigrants with recognized foreign credentials have significantly better prospects of accessing adequate jobs.
Taken together, this thesis highlights the institutional embeddedness of stratification processes and immigrants’ integration in internationalizing labor markets and provides new insights into the conditions and strategies that allow immigrants to access jobs that correspond with their foreign qualifications.
This dissertation presents three essays that use experimental or empirical methods to investigate the the impact of incentives and the decision-structure on behavior. Each essay is a self-contained study that contributes to the understanding of human behavior. The first essay (chapter 1) identifies the impact that tracking technology and individual incentives have on human behavior. The second essay (chapter 2) focuses on interventions to induce short-term action for long-term benefits. The third essay (chapter 3) investigates the tendency by decision-makers to compensate potential previous mistakes.
In chapter 1, my coauthors and I investigate the impact of tracking technology and individual incentives in a controlled experimental setup. We identify the impact that the team interaction tracking and the individual incentive scheme have on behavior by fixing the experimental conditions and balancing teams across different treatments. Deviating from a standard laboratory experimental setup allows us to credibly manipulate the tracking environment. Since participants in this experiment are allocated to the different teams and treatments by the experimenters, the selection into incentive schemes does not affect the reaction to the incentives. The study not only evaluates the productivity effects of tracking technology and individual incentives, but also identifies effects on stress levels, which can lead to long-term health effects. First, we do not find evidence that team members produce higher output due to individual incentives. However, the results show that the work effort is less specialized as a result of moving from team to individual incentives. We then show that the introduction of tracking technology causes higher stress levels. The results demonstrate that tracking technology can be implemented to monitor teams and set incentives in teamwork. However, the productivity effects of such technology will be limited if incentives are not set optimally. Furthermore, since stress levels increase, the introduction of tracking technology may not pass a cost-benefit analysis if the stress increase leads to large long-term health costs.
Chapter 2 reports results from a framed field experiment that identifies the impact nudges have on voluntary actions with a long-term benefit. This experiment is set in the context of a university course. This context allows for the observation of behavior over a full semester, including the final exam. By randomizing students into different groups and sending each group different information emails for exam preparation, the impacts of different nudges on behavior and on exam outcomes is identified. Investigating behavior over the entire semester allows for the differentiation between the short-term reactions to the nudge and the long-term benefits. The results show that reminder nudges can increase exam preparation and lead to considerable improvements in grades. Subgroup analyses suggest that such grade improvements occur for students who achieved better-than-average grades on previous exams, but also for students who did not take a previous test. The results imply that the tracking of student behavior and more targeted interventions to tackle low preparation among some student types may be more effective than general nudges applied to all students.
In chapter 3 my coauthors and I analyze decisions by supposedly impartial decision-makers for compensation behavior in response to mistakes. By using data on referee mistakes in the Bundesliga, the highest elite football division in Germany, we evaluate whether referees try to alternate who they favor in close situations. Furthermore, we evaluate whether discretionary decisions such as yellow cards are influenced by previous mistakes. The results indicate that referees compensate a home team for a mistake against it by awarding additional yellow cards to the away team. This represents a form of home bias since no such behavior can be observed following mistakes against the away team. Additional analysis shows that the effects are more pronounced in games that are important to the home team, when the stadium is fully occupied, and when the referee is less experienced. These additional results are consistent with social pressure as an important factor in whether the referee compensates for a previous mistake. In summary, all three chapters provide evidence that humans react to incentives in their every-day environments. These reactions are rational and strategic but can also be influenced by the social context. The methods employed in the different chapters account for the different contexts investigated. The experiment in chapter 1 favors internal validity over generalizability due to the restricted actions investigated. The experiment in chapter 2, in contrast, provides data from a more natural context and allows for the analysis of short and long term effects of the considered intervention. Finally, the data in chapter 3 is collected without an experimental intervention and is thus unaffected by any influences due to the identification method. These methods all have comparative strengths and weaknesses. By combining multiple methods, the chapters in this dissertation demonstrate the wide range of tools available to produce insights into human decision-making processes.
Nach Darlegung der Forschungsziele in Verbindung mit einer Herleitung und Einordnung des Themas folgt im zweiten Kapitel ein theoretischer Abriss über die Digitalisierung im Krankenhaus.
Das dritte Kapitel gewährt einen Überblick über die etablierten Akzeptanztheorien. Es erfolgt eine Differenzierung zwischen Akzeptanztheorien der Sektion Technologieakzeptanz, Evaluationsmodellen der Sektion Systemerfolg und weiteren ausgewählten Modellen im Kontext der Akzeptanzforschung.
Das vierte Kapitel dient der Identifikation von Akzeptanzfaktoren, welche in ein konzeptionelles Akzeptanzmodell überführt werden können. Anhand dieser sollen fördernde oder hemmende Faktoren auf die Einführung bzw. Nutzung eines Klinischen Informationssystems ermittelt werden. Die Ergebnisdarstellung erfolgt zunächst deskriptiv, indem ausgewählte Merkmale der Primärstudien näher charakterisiert werden. Daran knüpft eine umfassende Darstellung der metaanalytischen Ergebnisse an, die durch die Ableitung eines metaanalytischen Akzeptanzmodells komplettiert wird.
Im Rahmen des fünften Kapitels wird als Schwerpunkt der Arbeit ein konzeptionelles Akzeptanzmodell entwickelt und validiert. Es werden zunächst die Ziele der Untersuchung konkretisiert. Nachfolgend werden anhand definierter Kriterien das konzeptionelle Akzeptanzmodell sowie die Forschungshypothesen abgeleitet und das Untersuchungsdesign festgelegt. Nach den theoretischen Vorüberlegungen folgt die Operationalisierung des konzeptionellen Akzeptanzmodells und die Durchführung der Befragung. Die empirische Validierung des konzeptionellen Akzeptanzmodells wird mit einer Gütebeurteilung sowohl der Messmodelle als auch des Strukturmodells abgeschlossen. Die Ergebnisse werden in den wissenschaftlichen Rahmen eingeordnet und Implikationen sowohl für die Universitätsklinik als auch für die Akzeptanzforschung abgeleitet.
Information systems research on smart services receives numerous contributions that result from joint research projects. Such projects bring together researchers from academia and industry; both conducting applied research while developing marketable services. This paper contributes a conceptual metaframework, which represents and describes joint research projects in service research based on the integration of previous conceptualizations. It combines the service marketing perspective of new service development (NSD) with the industry-academic collaboration perspective of action design research (ADR). The framework provides the entire IS community with a better understanding how joint research projects are conducted. Researchers that work in such projects can adopt the framework concepts and organize their projects accordingly. To demonstrate the framework’s application, we use the case of the development of a smart service in electric vehicle domain.
To create value from the increasing amount of data produced by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), many firms establish platforms to collect data and make it available to third parties. Thus, IIoT platforms rely on a diverse ecosystem of complementors for value creation. While platform ecosystems have received considerable attention in research, most studies focus on the platform owner and domains such as video game or mobile platforms. In this article, we conducted a case study to shed light on why complementors choose specific IIoT platforms and how they leverage IIoT platform ecosystems for their benefit. To this end, we collected interview data from 15 firms that provide complementary offerings to an IIoT platform. We identified platform owner relationship, platform owner background, customer decision, platform market position, and platform features as vital criteria for platform choice. Additionally, our findings show that complementors leverage IIoT platforms primarily as a technological basis for individual solutions but not as a marketplace for generic applications. Our study extends research on platform ecosystems by illuminating the complementors’ perspective and adding insights from the IIoT domain. Additionally, our findings provide guidance for platform owners on how to design IIoT platform business models and facilitate leverage.
Consumers are often unable to assess the environmental impact of food while making
purchasing decisions. Footprint labels provide consumers with information on the
environmental performance in order to differentiate between products and ultimately choose
environmentally friendly product alternatives. In this case study, a monetary indicator on the
basis of the eco-cost model using life cycle assessment data, called a second price tag, is used
to represent the environmental footprint of tomatoes. Two focus group sessions with a total of
twelve participants were conducted to gather insights on the acceptance and characteristics of
three label alternatives designed for the purpose of the study. The second price tag concept and
the design alternatives were assessed with regard to the requirements of understandability,
comparability, credibility, consistency, and relevance in decision-making. Propositions for a
second price tag can be derived from the results in the following categories: degree of
information input, degree of information output, degree of independence and degree of
voluntariness. The findings suggest that a low degree of information output using comparative
traffic light labeling might be useful, whereas a stand-alone monetary indicator was considered
too abstract and ineffective for comparison. Standardization and monitoring were critical
factors leading to the proposal of high independence of the label source to ensure high
credibility. The second price tag could serve as an effective communication tool for nonprocessed
food but needs to be further investigated with broader samples and more statistical
power.
In a laboratory experiment on tax compliance, we model a situation in which high-income taxpayers can leave a tax system that finances a public good. We compare low-income taxpayers’ compliance decisions and equity perceptions across treatments in which they are informed or not informed about the mobility option of high-income taxpayers. This allows us to test if low-income taxpayers regard the mobility option as a rationale for implementing a regressive tax schedule. To investigate if a potential ‘justification effect’ of the mobility option depends on the causes of income heterogeneity, we also varied whether income was allocated based on relative performance in a prior ability task or at random. Interestingly, although the performance-based allocation itself was judged to be fairer, we observed higher compliance under the random allocation mechanism. However, compliance and equity perceptions did not significantly differ by the information treatment variation, regardless of the source of income inequality. The results indicate that the threat of losing high-income taxpayers’ contributions does not lead low-income taxpayers to view the regressive tax schedule more favorably. This suggests that taking the differential mobility options as given and altering tax schedules accordingly may not be perceived as an adequate policy response.
This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on migration and labor economics, with a particular focus on the evaluation of policy interventions in Germany. The three essays analyze three reforms and their effects on immigrants and establishments on the labor market. The first two essays investigate the effect of policy instruments on immigrant integration in Germany. The policy instruments under consideration are naturalization and voting rights acquisition in Germany. The third study analyzes the impact of dismissal protection regulations on small German establishments.
The first study investigates the causal impact of naturalization on the labor market outcomes of immigrants in Germany. The study includes 3 different outcome groups: indicators of labor market access, outcomes describing success on the labor market and measures of investment in host-country specific human capital. The analysis focuses on two reforms of German citizenship laws in 1991 and 2000, which introduced and changed minimum residency duration requirements for German citizenship eligibility. The study exploits the exogenous variation generated by these two reforms in naturalization regulations and applies an instrumental variable estimation strategy. It uses a novel dataset collected by the Institute of Employment Research (IAB) in cooperation with the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the IAB-SOEP Migration sample. This dataset provides detailed information on recent immigrants and their migration biographies, which allows a precise calculation of eligibility for citizenship. The estimation sample consists of first-generation immigrants born abroad, aged 17-65, and who had not obtained German citizenship at birth. After taking into account the potential endogeneity of naturalization, the findings reveal that male immigrants' labor market outcomes do not benefit significantly from naturalization. In contrast, naturalization decreases the risks of unemployment and welfare dependence and increases employment stability for female immigrants.
The second study analyzes the causal effects of non-citizen voting rights in municipal elections on the integration of EU immigrants in Germany. The analysis considers the following outcomes as measures for immigrant integration: subjective well-being, German language skills, the intention to stay in Germany permanently and identifying as a German. The analysis exploits a late-1995 extension of voting rights in German municipal elections to non-German European Union citizens residing in Germany to identify a causal effect of voting rights. The study applies difference-in-differences techniques using this reform as a source of exogenous variation in voting eligibility. Greek and Italian immigrants who acquire municipal voting rights serve as the treatment group, while the control group consists of Turkish immigrants. Using a representative longitudinal survey dataset, the German SOEP, the findings suggest that there is no significant effect of extending municipal voting rights to EU immigrants on any of the analyzed integration outcomes.
The final study examines the causal effects of relaxed dismissal protection on worker flows and hire quality in small establishments in Germany. To identify the causal effects of dismissal protection regulations, the study exploits a change in German dismissal protection law in 2004, which raised the establishment size threshold from more than five to more than 10 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers. This reform serves as a source of exogenous variation in dismissal protection coverage in a difference-in-differences estimation framework. While the treatment group consists of establishments with 5.75 to 9.25 FTE workers, establishments with 10.75 to 20 FTE employees form the control group. The worker flow outcomes include the number of hirings and separations within a given year, and the respective hiring and separation rates. Using the unique linked employer-employee administrative data provided by the IAB, I find a positive significant effect on both hirings and separations in establishments. The increase in separations is smaller in magnitude and associated with a time lag. Incumbent workers maintaining their protections after the reform could explain this. In contrast, I do not find any effects of relaxed dismissal protection on the minimum or the spread of hire quality.
Machine Learning in Football Betting: Prediction of Match Results Based on Player Characteristics
(2019)
In recent times, football (soccer) has aroused an increasing amount of attention across continents and entered unexpected dimensions. In this course, the number of bookmakers, who offer the opportunity to bet on the outcome of football games, expanded enormously, which was further strengthened by the development of the world wide web. In this context, one could generate positive returns over time by betting based on a strategy which successfully identifies overvalued betting odds. Due to the large number of matches around the globe, football matches in particular have great potential for such a betting strategy. This paper utilizes machine learning to forecast the outcome of football games based on match and player attributes. A simulation study which includes all matches of the five greatest European football leagues and the corresponding second leagues between 2006 and 2018 revealed that an ensemble strategy achieves statistically and economically significant returns of 1.58% per match. Furthermore, the combination of different machine learning algorithms could neither be outperformed by the individual machine learning approaches nor by a linear regression model or naive betting strategies, such as always betting on the victory of the home team.
The thesis shows how tactical information in football can be obtained by applying analytics techniques from the fields of network science, machine learning and process mining. It uses professional event tracking data from the European Championship in 2016.
The main motivation behind this research is, on the one hand, the lack of studies that use professional tracking data in football, and on the other, the lack of studies investigating real-time decision support in football based on data analytics. Therefore, the thesis aims at demonstrating how event tracking data can support football coaches and their staff to make decisions pre- and post-match, as well as during live games.
As a theoretical basis for the analytics concept followed in this thesis, the dynamic system theory is used. According to this theory football teams are dynamic systems, composed of elements (the players) who interact constantly with each other and their environment and who, by their dynamic interactions, form behavioral patterns over time. These patterns are due to the self-organization ability of the players, and thanks to this, they are able to reorgan-ize themselves and regain a state of balance following a perturbation occurrence (e.g., a counter attack). By following the principles of this theory, analytics techniques such as social network analysis, self-organizing maps, and process mining are applied on football event data.
Social network analysis answers questions related to the relevance of a player, the structure of a team, as well as sudden changes occurring in the team related to different metrics of in-terest. Self-organizing maps help to transform highly dimensional data about what happened in the game into more understandable two dimensional maps. Process mining analyzes se-quence data of a football team and can be used to gain a quick idea about the team’s behav-ior, as well as identifying key players.
The final chapter demonstrates how some of the results discussed in the thesis can be used for real time decision support. A mockup displays examples of a dashboard and the type of results that a coach can use in order to decide which players should be substituted.
The main contributions of the thesis are related to the use of a real world dataset, the methods used for the analysis as well as the discussion of how the results can be used for real-time decision support in football, which has previously not been sufficiently investigated in litera-ture.
E-Learning ist als Maßnahme der Personalentwicklung von Unternehmen im kontinuierlichen Aufwind. Aufgrund der Megatrends Industrie 4.0 und Digitalisierung befindet sich allerdings auch diese Branche im Wandel. Diese Veränderungen betreffen zunehmend die Entwicklung von E-Learning Angeboten, die sogenannte Content-Entwicklung im Corporate E-Learning. Durch die Vielzahl an neuen Chancen und Möglichkeiten für Anwendungsgebiete ist zu erwarten, dass die Auftragslage weiter steigt. Hierauf sind die Abteilungen des Corporate E-Learning jedoch nur bedingt vorbereitet, was zu Problemen bei der Content-Entwicklung führt.
Als Lösungsmöglichkeit für die Problemlage im Corporate E-Learning werden Methoden des agilen Projektmanagements angeführt, die sich bereits im Bereich der Softwareentwicklung für ähnliche Probleme als nützlich erwiesen haben. Das für diese Methoden typische iterative und inkrementelle Vorgehen in Verbindung mit regelmäßigen Ergebnisüberprüfungen kann eine erhebliche Verbesserung der Arbeitsweise herbeiführen. Diese positiven Effekte sollen mit dieser Arbeit auf den Kontext der E-Learning Content-Entwicklung übertragen werden, um auch hier von den Auswirkungen profitieren zu können.
Das zentrale Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht somit in der Erörterung der Frage, wie die Prozesse und Abläufe der E-Learning Content-Entwicklung im Corporate E-Learning agil gestaltet werden können. Die Implementierung agiler Vorgehensweisen erfolgt anhand eines Modells, das auf den agilen Projektmanagementmethoden Scrum und Kanban basiert. Das Modell wird im Sinne des Design-Based Research in zwei Forschungszyklen iterativ weiterentwickelt und an den Kontext angepasst. Die Auswirkungen der Einführung agiler Methoden wird anhand von Verfahren und Techniken der qualitativen Sozialforschung evaluiert.
Die Implementierung agiler Methoden in den Content-Entwicklungsprozess wurde in zwei Unternehmen vorgenommen und führt zu vielen positiven Effekten, welche die Arbeitsweise der Personen im Corporate E-Learning verbessern. So konnten u. a. eine verbesserte Transparenz, die frühzeitige Erkennung von Probleme und Risiken, verbesserte und intensivere Kommunikation, die Entwicklung von Routinen, verbesserte Qualität sowie eine Steigerung der Motivation bei gleichzeitiger Reduzierung des Stressempfindens festgestellt werden.
Optimierungen im Bereich Working Capital durch die Einführung bestandsreduzierender Belieferungsstrategien wie der Konsignationslager- und Just-in-Time-Strategie fokussieren größtenteils auf die Quantifizierung des Bestände-Effekts und damit auf die kurzfristige Sicht der Liquiditätssteigerung unter Vernachlässigung des Kosten-Effekts, der langfristig negative Wirkungen auf den Cashflow haben kann. Dadurch können Fehlentscheidungen getroffen werden. In dieser Arbeit wird daher mit dem OTP-TCO-Werttreibermodell ein prozessbasiertes Bewertungs- und Vorgehensmodell entwickelt, diese aufwendig zu bewertenden langfristigen Kostenwirkungen der Belieferungsalternativen auf den Cashflow zu berechnen. Dazu wird das Logistik- und Supply Chain-Referenzmodell von Klaus (1993 und 2008b) – auch als Order-to-Payment-Modell (OTP-Modell) bezeichnet – mit dem Werttreiberkonzept von Rappaport (1986 und 1999) und dem Total Cost of Ownership-Ansatz (TCO-Ansatz) von Ellram (1993a, 1993b, 1994 und 1995a) verknüpft und ausgestaltet. Mit Hilfe dieses strategiespezifisch anpassbaren Working Capital Controllinginstruments gelingt eine vollständigere Erfassung der Cashflow-Effekte und ermöglicht auch bei sich verändernden Rahmenbedingungen (z.B. Kosten, Mengen, Zeiten) eine Quantifizierung und damit laufende Kontrolle der Kosten- und Cashflow-Wirkungen von Belieferungsalternativen. Diese Controllinginformationen schaffen Kostentransparenz für die Logistik, können in Lieferantenverhandlungen eingesetzt werden und dienen dem Ziel, die kosten- sowie cashflowoptimale Belieferungsstrategie für ein Material zu bestimmen. Zudem lässt sich mit diesem Instrument der Wertbeitrag der Logistik quantifizieren und damit eine häufig angeführte Forschungslücke schließen.
Multiplikatorische Fortbildungen für pädagogische Professionals sind sehr verbreitet, aber wenig erforscht. In der vorliegenden Dissertation soll sich auf das didaktische Potenzial konzentriert werden: So wird untersucht, wie multiplikatorische Fortbildungen durch E-Learning unterstützt werden können.
Dabei wird in der ersten Phase eine multiplikatorische Blended-Learning-Konzeption am Beispiel eines Forschungsprojekts entwickelt und erprobt.
In der zweiten Phase wird in einem Prozessmodellierungsworkshop ein Prozessmodell für multiplikatorische Lehrkräftefortbildungen und darauf aufbauend in einem Ideenworkshop eine semantische E-Learning-Landkarte mit Unterstützungstools entwickelt, welche mit dem Prozessmodell verknüpft ist und tiefere Einsichten in die Thematik ermöglichen soll.
This thesis analyzes product developments and costs in the European life insurance industry. In particular, four open research areas are studied in detail – two concern new life insurance products and two focus on costs in the European life insurance industry.
First, the cost of life distribution in Europe is examined. Here, we focus specifically on distribution costs of distribution systems, channels, and insurance markets. Based on several unique data sets from the European life insurance market, we study the key drivers of distribution costs and discuss potential future developments against the background of an increasing intermediary regulation and digitalization. In addition, we analyze the implications of regulatory interventions in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Second, we also analyze administrative costs in the European life insurance sector, with a focus on recent market dynamics and the development of insurers’ economies of scale in regard to administrative costs for four of the largest European life insurance markets (Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Toward this end, we conduct regression calculations based on a log-log transformation of premiums and costs based on several unique data sets of the European life insurance market.
Third, we specifically focus on the German market, which turned out to face considerable cost-related challenges. Here, from the customer’s perspective, we look at new product developments and their effects on product complexity – effects which might be substantial cost drivers, particularly when related to IT, personnel, and distribution costs. Also examined are new life insurance products with respect to type and new characteristics. This involves a comprehensive empirical analysis based on an individual assessment of products recently launched in the market.
Finally, we analyze “enhanced annuities,” which are very prominent in the UK market but not in other markets (e.g., Germany). We study drivers of and barriers to demand and supply for enhanced annuities as well as the potential market implications of introducing them. We assess implications for annuitization rates, immediate and deferred annuity markets, and the so-called cannibalization effect, which can arise within the portfolio of standard annuities when enhanced annuities are introduced. This is done based on a comprehensive review of literature as well as an empirical survey of the German life insurance market.
The dissertation deals with the valuation of environmental goods under uncertainty and the capitalisation of energy efficiency in housing prices and rents. It assembles five papers.
The first paper (Chapter 1) draws attention to two important elements that are not covered by the standard hedonic pricing framework: relocation costs and uncertainty. The paper develops a theoretical model that highlights key aspects of local housing markets. The model shows that relocation costs are related to uncertainty due to the option value of waiting. Following Fischel (2001), this phenomenon could explain why solving facility siting controversies is difficult. Moreover, the model suggests that the implicit price of environmental quality increases with uncertainty even if agents are risk-neutral. It implies that house owners suffer more from uncertainty than renters because the former group
faces much higher relocation costs. The model serves as theoretical basis for two empirical applications in Chapters 2 and 3.
The second paper (Chapter 2) examines the effects of the expansion of Berlin Airport on the prices of houses and flats located under the planned flight paths. The focus lies on the role of expectations of aircraft noise. It is argued that the publication of the flight paths can be seen as an exogenous event. It provides reliable information to local residents and potential home buyers in a situation that is characterised by uncertainty. The flight paths greatly influence expectations with respect to the noise level. As a result, property listing prices were reduced substantially in the affected areas directly after the flight paths were published. The loss of value of the affected properties was found to be 9.6% on average within a slant distance of 3 km from a planned flight path. If the flight altitude is below 1000 m, the discount is between 11.8 and 12.8%, whereas for higher flight altitudes the average decline in prices is estimated to be 8.3%. Furthermore, projected flight path utilisation or official noise projections did not seem to influence property prices much, in line with predictions from the model in Chapter 1.
Following the critique of Pinkse and Slade (2010) and Gibbons and Overman (2012), the third paper (Chapter 3) develops an instrument for the estimation of local price effects of cell phone base stations in an urban area. The instrument is derived from the spatial structure of the network. Such a strategy could be useful in other contexts in which location choice is endogenous but depends on an existing network structure. Proximity to cell phone base stations significantly decreases listing prices, but there does not seem to be an effect on rents. This can either be interpreted as a result of financial risk carried by owners or of market power of landlords. Furthermore, the estimations reveal that spatial econometric methods have limited capability of identifying causal relationships.
Chapters 4 and 5 of the dissertation deal with the capitalisation of energy efficiency in property prices. Concerns about global warming and growing scarcity of fossil fuels require substantial changes in energy consumption patterns and energy systems, as targeted by many countries around the world. One key element to achieve such transformation is to increase energy efficiency of the housing stock. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investments are too low in light of potential energy cost savings. In Chapter 4, differences in the valuation of energy efficiency between rental and owneroccupied dwellings are investigated. Heterogeneous incentives to invest in energy efficiency, especially for owner-occupants and landlords, may serve as one explanation for relatively low investment in the housing stock. This is particularly important for countries with a large rental sector, like Germany. Nevertheless, previous literature largely focuses on the pay-offs owner-occupants receive, leaving out the rental market. The paper addresses this gap by comparing the capitalization of energy efficiency in selling prices and rents, for both types of residences. For this purpose data from the Berlin housing market are analysed using hedonic regressions. The estimations show that energy efficiency is well capitalised in dwelling prices and rents. The comparison of implicit prices and the net present value of energy cost savings/rents reveals that investors anticipate future energy and house price movements reasonably. However, in the rental segment, the value of future energy cost savings exceeds tenants’ implicit willingness to pay by factor 2.5. This can either be interpreted as a result of market power of tenants, uncertainty in the rental relationship, or the “landlord–tenant dilemma”.
A second important question related to the valuation of energy efficiency is whether house owners are aware of potential energy cost savings. A priori, it is not clear whether “green” marketing or cost considerations are responsible for correlations between energy efficiency of a building and its selling (or listing) price. The German “Energy Performance of Buildings Directive” (Energieeinsparverordnung) requires sellers on the housing market to provide detailed information on yearly energy consumption per square metre. This paper uses variation of expected heating costs from local fuel prices, climatic conditions, and fuel types to analyse the relationship between expected energy cost savings from energy efficient building structure and house prices in a data set of listing prices from all regions of Germany. Furthermore, the role of building age for the value of energy efficiency is considered. Results suggest that market participants are aware of the investment dimension of energy efficiency improvements, but not all important aspects are taken into account.
Background
Even though physician rating websites (PRWs) have been gaining in importance in both practice and research, little evidence is available on the association of patients’ online ratings with the quality of care of physicians. It thus remains unclear whether patients should rely on these ratings when selecting a physician. The objective of this study was to measure the association between online ratings and structural and quality of care measures for 65 physician practices from the German Integrated Health Care Network “Quality and Efficiency” (QuE).
Methods
Online reviews from two German PRWs were included which covered a three-year period (2011 to 2013) and included 1179 and 991 ratings, respectively. Information for 65 QuE practices was obtained for the year 2012 and included 21 measures related to structural information (N = 6), process quality (N = 10), intermediate outcomes (N = 2), patient satisfaction (N = 1), and costs (N = 2). The Spearman rank coefficient of correlation was applied to measure the association between ratings and practice-related information.
Results
Patient satisfaction results from offline surveys and the patients per doctor ratio in a practice were shown to be significantly associated with online ratings on both PRWs. For one PRW, additional significant associations could be shown between online ratings and cost-related measures for medication, preventative examinations, and one diabetes type 2-related intermediate outcome measure. There again, results from the second PRW showed significant associations with the age of the physicians and the number of patients per practice, four process-related quality measures for diabetes type 2 and asthma, and one cost-related measure for medication.
Conclusions
Several significant associations were found which varied between the PRWs. Patients interested in the satisfaction of other patients with a physician might select a physician on the basis of online ratings. Even though our results indicate associations with some diabetes and asthma measures, but not with coronary heart disease measures, there is still insufficient evidence to draw strong conclusions. The limited number of practices in our study may have weakened our findings.
Background: Improving the transparency of information about the quality of health care providers is one way to improve health
care quality. It is assumed that Internet information steers patients toward better-performing health care providers and will motivate
providers to improve quality. However, the effect of public reporting on hospital quality is still small. One of the reasons is that
users find it difficult to understand the formats in which information is presented.
Objective: We analyzed the presentation of risk-adjusted mortality rate (RAMR) for coronary angiography in the 10 most
commonly used German public report cards to analyze the impact of information presentation features on their comprehensibility.
We wanted to determine which information presentation features were utilized, were preferred by users, led to better comprehension,
and had similar effects to those reported in evidence-based recommendations described in the literature.
Methods: The study consisted of 5 steps: (1) identification of best-practice evidence about the presentation of information on
hospital report cards; (2) selection of a single risk-adjusted quality indicator; (3) selection of a sample of designs adopted by
German public report cards; (4) identification of the information presentation elements used in public reporting initiatives in
Germany; and (5) an online panel completed an online questionnaire that was conducted to determine if respondents were able
to identify the hospital with the lowest RAMR and if respondents’ hospital choices were associated with particular information
design elements.
Results: Evidence-based recommendations were made relating to the following information presentation features relevant to
report cards: evaluative table with symbols, tables without symbols, bar charts, bar charts without symbols, bar charts with
symbols, symbols, evaluative word labels, highlighting, order of providers, high values to indicate good performance, explicit
statements of whether high or low values indicate good performance, and incomplete data (“N/A” as a value). When investigating
the RAMR in a sample of 10 hospitals’ report cards, 7 of these information presentation features were identified. Of these, 5
information presentation features improved comprehensibility in a manner reported previously in literature.
Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically analyze the most commonly used public reporting card
designs used in Germany. Best-practice evidence identified in international literature was in agreement with 5 findings about
German report card designs: (1) avoid tables without symbols, (2) include bar charts with symbols, (3) state explicitly whether
high or low values indicate good performance or provide a “good quality” range, (4) avoid incomplete data (N/A given as a value), and (5) rank hospitals by performance. However, these findings are preliminary and should be subject of further evaluation.
The implementation of 4 of these recommendations should not present insurmountable obstacles. However, ranking hospitals by
performance may present substantial difficulties.
Die Zukunft der Wirtschaftsschule scheint alles andere als gesichert. Aber die Anstrengungen, die zum Erhalt und zur Weiterentwicklung dieser etablierten und wichtigen bayerischen Schulart unternommen werden, sind äußerst bemerkenswert.
Dieser Band möchte einen weiteren Einblick in die aktuelle Entwicklungsdebatte der bayeri-schen Wirtschaftsschule geben und versteht sich als Fortführung der Diskussion um die Zu-kunft der Bayerischen Wirtschaftsschule, die mit dem von Prof. Wilbers veröffentlichten Band „Die Wirtschaftsschule – Verdienste und Entwicklungsperspektiven einer bayerischen Schul-art“ im Jahr 2011 dokumentiert wurde.
Dieser Band befasst sich nun mit den aktuell wichtigsten Themen für die bayerischen Wirt-schaftsschulen: Dem Übergangsmanagement und die Implementierung des neuen Lehrplans. Besonders das so genannte Übergangsmanagement hat im Hinblick auf das erfolgreiche Weiterführen der Schullaufbahn mittlerweile für viele Schülerinnen und Schüler und damit auch für die Wirtschaftsschulen selbst eine sehr hohe Bedeutung gewonnen. Im ersten Teil des Buches befassen sich die Beiträge damit. Der neu eingeführte Stundenplan Lehrplan-PLUS und die damit verbundenen Implementierungsbemühungen zur bestmöglichen Umset-zung bewegen zurzeit vor allem die Lehrkräfte an den Schulen in besonderem Maße. Der zweite Teil des Buches widmet sich diesem Themenkomplex.