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Die Masterarbeit untersucht die Einflüsse personalisierter Werbung im Umfeld sozialer Medien auf die Wahrnehmung der Werbeanzeigen und das Online-Impulskaufverhalten deutscher Konsumenten.
Dazu wurde ein theoretisches Modell entwickelt, welches anhand einer Online-Befragung überprüft wurde. Die Auswertung der Ergebnisse erfolgte mittels konfirmatorischer Faktorenanalyse und eines Strukturgleichungsmodells.
The following thesis aims to explore the particular changes that occurred in user behavior on social media (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook) during the pandemic from March 2020 to present time, how these changes relate to user engagement rate and what impact these changes have on the online radio show industry from a perspective of emerging independent radio show series “Widows Radio”. For limitation purposes of the research, purposive sampling method is used to identify particular behaviors. As a result of the research, a list of changes of user behavior are identified, specific impact of these changes on user engagement rate is shown. On the base of the conducted research, several recommendations for the online radio company “Widows Radio” regarding their social media strategy are provided.
In the contemporary era, large number of companies publish their business performance as a report on the Internet. To make them usable in larger numbers, these reports must be read and labeled. This is inefficient and expensive. This study supports this business need by automatically classifying four different categories of metadata of financial reports. For training of the used random forest classifier, an active and a passive learning strategy are contrasted. The results show a clear advantage of active learning for classifying whether a financial report contains consolidated enterprise data or not. For more complicated multi-class classifications, no advantage is shown so far under the applied active learning strategy, however, there is potential to develop an alternative more efficient strategy.
Despite backlash and public outrage in recent years, the long existing phenomenon of crunch time as a method to speed up the progress of a video game development project persists in the video game industry. Regardless of its reputation, employees of the video game industry
continue to work under the use of this industry practice. The previous research has examined the reasons for the use of crunch time, but there is much to be explored concerning the point of view of the crunching employees as individuals with agency. Examining their perception presents an opportunity to better understand crunch as a multifaceted phenomenon. This knowledge can then be used to develop alternatives to using crunch time. Therefore the objective of this thesis is to determine the positive and negative impacts of crunch as well as potential alternatives from the employees’ perspective.
This thesis’ research uses semi-structured expert interviews with six expert gameworkers. The interviews are evaluated through the method of qualitative structured content analysis. It becomes apparent how the negative and positive perceptions are closely intertwined and
depend on the differing contexts and experiences of crunch time. In the case of the interviewed experts it was found that in some circumstances, an improved motivation, mental state and team spirit was perceived. In particular when employing agile methodologies, an
increased quality and productivity became apparent. In general the ability to meet deadlines was seen as positive. Negative perceptions were more commonly observed, such as damage to the team dynamics and spirit, negative impacts on the employees’ physical and mental
health, social life, work life balance, and creative ability. Furthermore, the long term mindset shift normalizing crunch time was noticed. Other impacts include a negative influence on product quality and scheduling, as well as brain drain due to skilled gameworkers leaving the studio or industry. Suggested alternatives target the conscious adjustment of the projects’ resources, schedule, and scope, as well as increased resources and improved management thereof. Furthermore the employees see the need for clear quality standards, and for managers to be more aware of their importance as role models. Other suggestions include the use of workshops and agile methodologies.
Purpose: This study aims at investigating how nonprofit organisations can successfully and sustainably implement web analytics. It develops a framework based on existing literature as well as expert interviews and tests its applicability and practicability in a hands-on case study with the German nonprofit organisation Gemeinsam TECHO e.V..
Methodology: The research questions are explored through a qualitative approach via a literature review and semi-structured interviews. The author draws a convenience sample of seven German nonprofit organisations. The interviews are analysed through qualitative content analysis. Based on the results a first web analytics framework is developed which is then tested and reviewed in a practical application.
Findings: The outcome of the study is a framework with a general step-by-step plan for NPOs on how they can implement web analytics into their business.
Research limitations: The convenience sample as well as the focus on German nonprofit organisations are possible limitations. The framework should be further tested with nonprofit organisations in different settings and conditions: country, industry, etc. Another limitation is that during the practical application only a single pass of the framework was done. Additional testing of the framework with several iterations might uncover more suggestions for improvement.
Value: This paper seeks to propose guidelines that give valuable hints for nonprofit organisations looking to implement web analytics into their business. Some existing web analytics frameworks can be found in current scientific literature; however, little empirical evidence exists for the case of nonprofit organisations. This study provides a new viewpoint on the use of web analytics which may be of use for those working in the context of nonprofit organisations.
Keywords: web analytics, nonprofit organisations, NPOs, TECHO, marketing, data analytics, web analytics framework
The use of the Country-of-Origin (COO) effect is a relevant topic in the field of international marketing research and is gaining more attention in today’s global economy. Especially in the cosmetics industry, the origin of brands tends to be included within their marketing strategy. Therefore, this thesis examines how the COO effect is impacting the evaluation of international cosmetics brands with influential market players such as the USA, South Korea and France. Using a quantitative approach, the opinions of consumers in relation to the different COO dimensions and the importance of these, as well as possible influencing factors and the impact on behavior, was analyzed. Ultimately, significantly different ratings of each dimension and their importance were found. Similarly, the influencing factors involvement and familiarity might affect the evaluation and it is likely that the higher the COO effect evaluation, the higher is the purchase intention and the willingness to pay. The findings underline the role of the COO effect for internationally marketed cosmetics and theoretical and managerial implications can be drawn based on these.
We are living in the age of data, organizations are facing exponential growth in data. This growth
of data if not dealt with in the right approach will do more harm than good to the organization.
One of the most important aspects of data is data quality. Increased data quality ensures better
decision-making, thereby enabling companies to stay competitive in the market. Data quality
directly affects business decision-making, consequently having a direct effect on the KPIs of the
organization. So it is integral for growing organizations to gain an understanding of where they
stand with regards to their data quality to make improvements needed so data quality problems
won’t affect the organization's goals and KPIs. The topic of data quality is a topic that has been
addressed in numerous researches and from different aspects, there are many established and
interesting studies that have been done and resulted in different frameworks that are followed in
our days now and that shows how rich and important this topic is. The thesis aims to gain a more
precise understanding of how data quality can affect the ability of an organization to achieve the
set key performance indicators (KPIs). To do that this study will take a live example which is the
company of Uberall and do a case study on it, the situation of data quality of Uberall was
analyzed through interviews with different employees from different departments. This research
gives an insight into some precise data quality problems that Uberall is currently facing and
needs to address .
The aim of this paper is to understand the current state of financial development in Mexico. First, the paper introduces the Financial Development Index (FDI) which provides an overview of the situation throughout the world, and then the paper analyzes several proxies for each aspect of financial development, namely access, depth, efficiency, and stability.
This thesis proposes a framework for extracting crucial textual information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission annual 10-K reports using multiple natural language processing techniques. Ongoing progress has been made on retrieving the summary or sentiment from financial text in recent years due to the large volume of data and advanced computing power. However, the combination of different techniques for generating insight from 10-K textual content has not yet been addressed in the literature. Therefore, the main study contribution is designing a framework that integrates text summarization, sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and regression to provide readers with several indicators to help them acknowledge the valuable information in 10-K reports more efficiently and effectively. The framework considers various models but focuses on transformer-based models because the literature review indicates that these models surpass the performance of others on most natural language processing tasks. As a result, the framework successfully condenses the report content by 88% into the most critical sentences with the sentiment and discussed topic. Finally, these extracted features are further used to predict future company growth that, in addition to the traditional quantitative metrics, can be a new reference for investors in making more comprehensive decisions.
Abstract
Der Einsatz gezielter Content-Strategien im Kontext politischer Kommunikation auf Kam- pagnenebene kann wortwörtlich in letzter Sekunde Wahlen entscheiden. Nicht ohne Grund hat der Teilbereich der öffentlich wirksamen politischen Kommunikation in den letzten Jah- ren enorm an Bedeutung gewonnen. Dabei verschiebt sich nicht nur die politische Kommu- nikation derweilen mit enormer Geschwindigkeit ins Internet, sondern ganze Wahlkämpfe werden online ausgetragen. Insbesondere Social Media-Kanäle spielen eine bedeutende Rolle.
Um in einem informationsüberflutendem und von politischen Maximalpositionen übersät- tigtem Umfeld zu bestehen, wird es notwendig, herauszustechen und seine Zielgruppe tief- gehend zu verstehen, um sie auf dieser Basis durch zielgerichtete Inhalte anzusprechen und als Wähler (zurück) zu gewinnen. Eine vollumfängliche Kommunikationsstrategie endet je- doch nicht bei der Auswahl der Contents, sondern setzt darüber hinaus die richtigen Medi- enkanäle, Ansprechpartner und Art und Weise authentischer Kommunikation voraus. Konkreter Forschungsgegenstand der vorliegenden Masterarbeit ist das Gewinnen junger Menschen, der sogenannten Generationen Y und Z. Grundlage war dabei der aktuelle For- schungsstand hinsichtlich der Charakteristika dieser. Aus marketingpolitischer Sicht ist die- ses Forschungsfeld bereits sehr gesättigt, die Einzigartigkeit und somit Forschungslücke ent- stand durch das Überführen dieser Erkenntnisse auf politische, marketingadressierte Kom- munikation, mit Fokus auf die CDU Deutschlands. Auf dieser Basis wurde anhand durchge- führter quantitativer sowie qualitativer Forschung die Voraussetzungen erfolgreicher Kam- pagnenkommunikation geschaffen. Gegenstand und Ziel war dabei, eine Content-Strategie für eine Kampagne der CDU Deutschlands vor den Bundestagswahlen im September 2021 zu entwickeln, um die Attraktivität und Wählbarkeit für die Zielgruppe junger Menschen zu erhöhen. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass durch zielgerichtete Inhalte, authentische Vermittlung die- ser und die richtige Auswahl der Medienkanäle die angestrebte Zielerreichung realistisch erscheint. Weiterführende Forschungsfelder entstanden auf dieser Basis hauptsächlich im Bereich langfristiger politischer Loyalität durch politische Partizipation und die Erforschung hinsichtlich der Einstellung junger Menschen zu Parteien im Allgemeinen, auch und vor allem in Abhängigkeit demographischer Faktoren.
This thesis focuses on the automatic classification of research methods used in scientific articles in the domain of Information Systems, and studies the effectiveness of a state-of-the-art long-document Transformer technique, Longformer, on the multi-label classification task.
In recent years, the task of automatically extracting knowledge from academic articles has become more and more popular. However, as far as the author knows, due to the limitations of the max input sequence length of Transformer models, there has not yet been a comprehensive study on the classification of research methods using Transformer models, which have made extraordinary achievements in various Natural Language Processing (NLP) fields. Therefore, this thesis establishes an artifact that uses a modified Transformer model, Lomgformer, which can proceed with long-sequence inputs, to discuss its effectiveness and possible limitations. Additionally, this thesis also discusses and evaluates the performance of other benchmark models, such as the traditional Transformer - BERT and RoBERTa, and a non-transfer-learning model based on the architecture of convolutional neural network (CNN), which has been proven to have good performance by previous researchers.
As a result, this thesis proves that the Longformer-based artifact can effectively improve the classification performance for the scientific articles, and surpasses all the other models, not only the traditional Transformer models but also the models presented in the literature from the previous researchers.
Abstract
A competitive design of a supply chain is achieved by considering all the variables that affect the entire system and their interaction in the decision-making process. In developing countries, where the supply chains are usually labour intensive and where institutional and infrastructural conditions for competitive supply chains are still setting, players should give importance to the strategy of joint forces to become stronger in national and international markets.
This research presents a framework for designing agricultural supply chains in developing countries based on simulation software and describing a collaborative model that supports joint investments, information exchange and coordination. The framework is tested using an illustrative case of a developing country agricultural supply chain. This case is analysed throughout the research to demonstrate how the proposed strategy may aid in the attempt to open possibilities for small actors to play in the competitive international marketplace.
The strategy comprises four components derived from the consulted literature and the multi- method simulation tool for supply chain optimisation anyLogistix. First, Greenfield Analysis to find the best location for processing facilities to consolidate and prepare the product for the shipment. Then, Simulation and Comparison experiments to analyse the solutions' behaviour and identify which one is the most suitable and advantageous in this partnership, aiming for the best profit and adequate lead times. Finally, a Sensitivity analysis to evaluate how changes in the main variables affect the selected configuration's performance and make informed decisions knowing the associated variability of the outcomes.
Keywords: Supply Chain; Agricultural Supply Chain; Supply Chain design; Collaboration in Supply Chains; Agricultural Supply Chain in developing countries.
Die Bearbeitung dieser Masterarbeit konzentriert sich auf die genaue Ausarbeitung des neuen Regierungsentwurfs zum FüPoG II im Hinblick auf die Einführung einer verbindlichen Frauenquote für deutsche Vorstände. Dabei soll die Fragestellung untersucht werden, inwieweit die Umsetzung einer solchen Quote unter Beachtung juristischer Regulatorien möglich ist. Insbesondere soll hierfür die verfassungsrechtliche Zulässigkeit der Vorstandsquote unter dem Aspekt der Vereinbarkeit mit Art. 12 Abs. 1 und Art. 14 Abs. 1 GG geprüft und kritisch beurteilt werden. Damit zusammenhängend stellt sich als Unterfrage, ob eine fixe Quote für Vorstände ebenso gut durchsetzbar ist wie die bereits eingeführte Geschlechterquote in Aufsichtsräten börsennotierter und mitbestimmungspflichtiger Unternehmen.
The study of disruptions management and resilience connected to the current COVID-19
outbreak has become an essential field in supply chain management. Post-disruption recovery
analysis amid the pandemic outbreak is relevant for organizations to respond to disruptions and
create new growth opportunities. Therefore, the performance impact of COVID-19 in the
German food retail supply chain is investigated using a hybrid case-study and discrete-event
simulation model implemented in anyLogistix software. Potential improvements and supply
chain actions are provided in response to the identified challenges. Moreover, a framework with
strong recommendations for stabilization and recovery in a post-disruption environment is
created as a guideline for the main supply chain actors in the food retail business.
Die Corona-Pandemie hat für viele Branchen einen starken Umsatzeinbruch bedeutet. Anders sieht es bei dem stark umkämpften Lebensmitteleinzelhandel aus, der während der gesamten Zeit der Pandemie geöffnet bleiben durfte. Hier revanchieren die Konkurrenten um das Ver- trauen und die Aufmerksamkeit der Bevölkerung.
In diesem Kontext war es von Interesse, zu untersuchen, wie die Lebensmitteleinzelhändler die Krisenkommunikation gestaltet haben, sich diese im Zeitverlauf verändert hat und wie die Maß- nahmen von der relevanten Zielgruppe wahrgenommen wurden. Dazu wurde zunächst eine qualitative Inhaltsanalyse der Instagram-Accounts und eines TV-Spots durchgeführt. In einem weiteren Schritt wurden die herausgearbeiteten Ergebnisse mithilfe einer Online-Befragung auf die Wahrnehmung bei den Kunden überprüft.
Die Analyse der Instagram-Feeds zeigte, dass sich die Unternehmen stark aneinander orientiert haben. Hierbei ähneln sich besonders die Discounter und Supermärkte untereinander.
Diese Einschätzung konnte von den Umfrageteilnehmern bestätigt werden. Die Branche hat zwar insgesamt einen guten und vertrauensvollen Eindruck hinterlassen, jedoch wurden keine starken Unterschiede festgestellt und die Bereitschaft, einen anderen Händler aufzusuchen ist gering. Nichtsdestotrotz wurden geringe Änderungen im Vertrauen zu den Händlern festge- stellt, wobei vor allem der Discounter Lidl profitieren konnte.
Der Markt für Milchprodukte stellt mit seiner Größe ein bedeutendes Potenzial für pflanzliche Alternativen wie Hafermilch dar. In diesen Markt hineinzuwachsen und Kuhmilch teilweise zu verdrängen erscheint in Anbetracht des wachsenden Trends der Reduktion tierischer Produkte derweilen realistisch. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine Kommunikationskampagne entwi-ckelt, die sich direkt an die Konsumenten von Kuhmilch richtet und sie davon überzeugen soll, teilweise oder vollständig auf Hafermilch umzusteigen. Herausfordernd ist dabei, das habituelle Kaufverhalten der Kuhmilchkonsumenten zu durchbrechen. Sekundärforschung, ein Fokus-gruppeninterview sowie eine Online-Befragung legen nahe, dass eine Kampagne am Ort des Kaufes der Produkte am meisten Erfolg verspricht. Das dortige gewohnte Umfeld muss mit Kaufanreizen ausgestattet werden, um das habituelle Kaufverhalten zu durchbrechen. Außerdem sollte die Werbung an die Motive der Kuhmilchkonsumenten appellieren und sie dazu bringen, das gewohnte Verhalten bewusst zu kontrollieren. Weiterhin sollten Influencer in die Kampagne intergiert werden, da Hafermilch besonders häufig durch Empfehlung von Freunden gekauft wird. Überzeugend wirken auch verständlich aufbereitete Produktinformationen sowie die Be-tonung von Convenience und Modernität der Hafermilch.
Innerhalb der Musikbranche wird kein Genre kontroverser diskutiert als der Hip-Hop. Mittels Skandales und Provokation erhält er immer wieder ein bedeutendes mediales Interesse. Hierbei spielt auch immer wieder die Präsenz von illegalen Drogen, vor allem im Hinblick auf minderjährige Konsument:innengruppen eine große Rolle. Die zugrunde liegende Masterarbeit konzentriert sich auf die Analyse der Cannabisdarstellung in deutschsprachigen Hip-Hop Musikvideos. Hierunter fallen das Ausmaß, die Art und Weise der Darstellung und die Künstler:inneneinstellung. Der explorative Charakter dieser Arbeit folgt den Prinzipien der Grounded Theory und stellt dadurch ein induktives Vorgehen dar. Die Anwendung eines Methodenmix, bestehend aus Chart-, Videoanalyse und Experteninterview ermöglicht die Untersuchung des Forschungsgebietes. Die Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, dass 14 % der Musikvideos der deutschen Top 100 Singlejahrescharts 2019 Cannabis darstellen. Vorherrschend ist hier besonders die
Darstellung in Form eines Joints, einer Bong oder in Cannabispaketen. Die analysierten Musikvideos lassen sich in drei Kategorien in Bezug auf die Cannabisdarstellung einordnen: Gangsterism, Luxus und Konsum sowie verrückte Fantasiewelten. Die Künstler:inneneinstellung zur Cannabisdarstellung ist insgesamt überaus positiv. Die Droge wird dabei verwendet, um spannende Geschichten zu erzählen, zu provozieren und Skandale zu erschaffen. In diesem Zusammenhang wird die Droge oftmals als harmlos angesehen und ist vor allem mit den persönlichen Lebenserfahrungen und der Interpret:innenidentität verbunden. Außerdem findet Cannabis auch im künstlerischen Schaffensprozess Anwendung. Insgesamt stellt die Cannabisdarstellung somit ein beliebtes Stilmittel zur Etablierung der eigenen Kunstfigur dar und um sich im Konkurrenzkampf von anderen Künstler:innen abzuheben. Sie ist demzufolge einerseits mit der Hip-Hop Kultur und ihren Grundwerten, andererseits aber vor allem mit dem einzelnen Künstler:innenindividuum verbunden. In diesem Fall bildet Gangster Rap eine Ausnahme, denn
dieses Subgenre nutzt die Cannabisdarstellung, um einen maskulinen Gangster-Charakter zu inszenieren.
Lead calling is one of the foundational promotional activities that bring business the first human-to-human interaction with potential customers. A successful call can build the root of trust between the business and potential customers, which ultimately converts the call into sales. However, conducting lead calls faces big challenges as customers nowadays are being bombarded by sales calls due to the unsustainable calling strategy of many businesses. To conduct lead calls in a sustainable and effective way, this thesis builds a first touchpoint scheduling system based on the lead call history of the InsurTech company wefox Group. By applying a set of machine learning techniques, the system can generate a list of leads with the highest reaching probabilities for the period requested by call agents. Thus, leads are called at the timing that is convenient to answer, meanwhile, call agents can work more productively with a higher reach rate.
Exploratory data analysis is conducted to understand the relationship between the reach status and the customer data. 14 classifiers are applied to predict the reaching probability. Brier Skill Score, Average Precision Score, Precision-Recall Curve, Precision, Recall, fit time and a customized evaluation metric are selected to evaluate the classifiers’ performance. Four resampling methods, class weight adjustment and a meta-model to adjust the class threshold are used to deal with class imbalance. Bayesian Optimization is used for hyperparameter tuning. The combination of mutual information classifier and correlation feature selection approaches helps reduce the number of features needed.
The experiments show that LightGBM classifier outperforms the other classifiers with Brier skill score of 0.181, average precision of 0.487 and recall of 0.642. Feature importance indicates that besides the customer interaction record with business, macro factors such as unemployment rate, social assistance rate are also powerful features. Business value evaluation indicates that the system can improve the time effectiveness of call agents by 158%. 72% of records have no overlapping between actual non-reachable hours and predicted reachable hours.
Online Content Marketing Strategy and Execution for SMEs – a Case Study of Umwelt Taxi Bremen
(2021)
Abstract: Consulting research aims at mapping scientific and practical perspectives against each other. Therefore, this Thesis is considering theoretical knowledge as well as practical insights which were empirically conducted. The author aims at creating a first snapshot on the influence of the Corona pandemic on the business model of the German consulting industry. Based on guideline-based, semi-structured interviews, the research gap on this recent topic was closed. Also, the author provides practicians with implications.
Summary: Contact bans imposed by the Corona pandemic led to a reduced amount of business travels and an increase in remote consulting. Digitalisation within the consulting industry was already on the horizon but pushed. Acceptance of clients for remote consulting increased. It became apparent that many activities do not have to be carried out at the client site. Video conferencing and online communication tools made remote project execution possible.
However, not all consulting fields seem to be suitable for remote execution. These include mainly soft and conflict-ridden topics as well as group workshops. Although, different online formats have been tried, innovative formats overcoming this obstacle are still missing. Nevertheless, it is assumed that relevance of remote consulting will remain high and that a hybrid consulting world will emerge.
The long-time successful consulting industry is suffering from economic effects of the Corona pandemic. Some projects have been cancelled or down streamed. Remote networking and acquisition of new projects has become a challenge. Furthermore, clients are becoming more price sensitive. However, this does not seem to affect the entire German consulting industry or all client segments. In the long run, demand for consulting is also not expected to decrease.
Some long-term effects are still unclear. These include possible changes in the cost structure, impact of remote consulting on the work-life balance, and effort required to create remote consulting. Changes to the business model so far mainly concern the shift of key activities to the online world and the increased use of new channels. There seems to be a strong hope for a quick return to business as usual. However, there are signals indicating that further business model innovation may be necessary.
Keywords: Strategic Management, Business Model, Innovation, Consulting Industry, Corona Pandemic
Are Real Estate Investment Trust considered a safe investment choice in times of financial shock?
(2021)
This paper focuses on real estate investment trust (REIT), one specific asset class in the real estate sector, and intends to answer the following research question: are real estate investment trusts a safe choice for investors, particularly during financial shocks? This study re-examines the relationship between public-traded U.S. REIT and other asset classes by implementing statistical dependence analysis and OLS regression to determine whether and how they follow other markets in times of ambiguity. This study's final results indicate that public-traded U.S. REIT investment should not be considered a safe investment during crisis times because it follows the equity market.
The debate over a European Green Deal has contributed to emphasize the need to reduce environmental cost and the urgency of decarbonizing the road transport sector. Therefore, the thesis operationalizes the materialist state theory to distinguish between competing hegemony projects in the struggle over the EU’s mobility transition, in order to identify the driving forces in the European road transport sector. By empirically analyzing the power relations behind the Energy Taxation Directive and the CO2 emissions for passenger cars, the results indicate two dominant hegemony projects that are contesting the implementation of the green transition: 'the authoritarian neoliberal project' and 'the green capitalist project'. None of these projects will be enough to decarbonize the transport sector without shifting emissions and environmental costs elsewhere, nor will either project move away from a car-dependent system.
Process mining is on the rise. It consists of methods, techniques, and tools to discover, monitor and improve processes by extracting knowledge from event logs of information systems. In combination with the rapidly growing availability of event data (Big Data), challenges
arise in the field of data quality. As data quality is the utmost success factor for process mining, there is an urgent need to get familiar with the topic and leverage possibilities to improve the data quality of event logs.
This thesis contributes to the improvement of event log data quality. It outlines criteria and issues for both, data quality in general and for process mining based on a literature review. The aim is to offer an overview of existing challenges and how to approach them with a preliminary framework, which consists of standard- ized BPMN processes. In addition, design science with experimental validation was applied to master the data quality challenges of data noise and
partial-incomplete traces with common tools like ProM and R. The approach was evaluated through real-life and artificial data.
The results reveal a large variety of data quality challenges for process mining and a need to raise awareness for this topic. Due to the early stage of process mining research, the number of methods, techniques, and tools to improve data quality is limited. Nevertheless, possibilities exist to improve the data quality of event logs. In particular, a repairing technique for data noise was positively evaluated.
The author recommends further specification of the framework and development of software features regarding data quality issue detection, data quality assessment, and event log reparation. It is
advisable to monitor new publications, e.g., as most of the leveraged R libraries were launched recently. Finally, further research in the field of data quality awareness shall be conducted to point out the importance of event log data quality for the overall success of process mining.
Auswirkungen der Besonderheiten im grenzüberschreitenden Cash Pooling auf dessen ökonomischen Nutzen
(2018)
The agriculture sector is a vital link for the socio-economic development of many rural areas in the developing countries. A major part of the poverty reduction is largely affirmed with an expansion of smallholders´ agricultural production and their capabilities. Moreover, the largest portion of their income is derived from the trade of agricultural products. However, over the last few years, with the raise of private agri-food standards, those often go beyond public requirements, agri-food value chains became not only sophisticated but private agri-food standards emerged as an entrance ticket to access European market segments. This trend, at the other extreme, significantly confronts less financially endowed smallholders´ in developing economies and shrinks their opportunities to participate in the global agri-food value chains thus, sell their product on the valuable markets. Against this background, this work provides a complementary perspective on the structural changes in the global food marketplace resulting from the emergence of global value chains and compliance with the retailer-led food safety and quality standards. Moreover, based on the case analysis of the Global GAP and fresh fruits and vegetable sector, located in the buyer-driven chains, it examines major implications of the private food quality and safety certifications and identifies their inhibiting factors on the small-scale farmers in developing economies. Due to some constraints such as lack of financial and technical capacities, these vulnerable value chains actors are not able to comply with the tightening private certification schemes repercussions of which, among others are lost income, savings and increased poverty level.
It is likely that private food standards will continue to evolve. Thus, contingent upon the findings and conclusions derived from the analysis, this research identifies possible governance mechanisms and points of interventions for addressing detrimental implications of private food schemes. This also includes recommendations for empowering small-scale farmers to comply with the food standards and national authorities in developing countries in creating enabling
export enabling environment for smallholder farmers. In that regard, it also provides insights on enhancing the legitimacy of the private food certifications. Last but not least, it discusses the role EU should play, in respect to leveraging private agri-food schemes, to prevent exclusion of small-scale farmers from the European markets that could threaten their livelihoods and hinder development objectives in general.
China has achieved a tremendous economic growth in the past few decades. In the pursuit of self-reliance, economic and social upgrading, the central government of China has given a great attention to upgrading their industries. In this regard, the automobile industry and automanufacturing companies have attracted great attention from both central and local governments.
The intention of the Chinese central government to encourage the establishment of joint ventures between the local Chinese and European automobile manufacturers was to take advantage of the technology spillover that would take place as a result. This project is a case study on the relationship between European and Chinese automobile industries to inspect the possibility of achieving social upgrading via economic upgrading as a result of technological spillover. The argument is that technology transfer has been made possible through industrial collaboration between the Chinese and the European automakers. In addition, industrial upgrading in China is translated to an unprecedented economic growth that has affected the
society.
The Portuguese water supply and sanitation sector has witnessed over the last 40 years a steady improvement in levels of coverage and in the general quality of services provided. This evolution has been hailed by international organizations as the "Portuguese miracle". Yet, this qualification is restricted to the results achieved during the period marked by the liberalisation of the sector. In 1993, a water sector reform led by the central government started a number of processes towards commercialization, corporatization and liberalization of the Portuguese water sector. In 2007, a major financial crisis started in the United States of America and spread across the world. In the European Union, and in particular in Portugal and other peripheral countries, the crisis meant the enforcement of neoliberal shock therapy for almost five years after the so-called sovereign debt crises. The social impacts were devastating and provision and access to public services were restricted. This paper concentrates on assessing the links between the neoliberalisation of the Portuguese water sector and the situation of access to water and sanitation services in the aftermath of the deep crisis. The analysis focus on typical dimensions of neoliberalisation in this sector and empirically tries to assess how and to what extent these processes impact on the political and human rights goal of progressive universal access to these services in a context of austerity politics. It is argued that neoliberalisation processes both increase and hinder access to the services. In fact, by expanding networks under an environmental paradigm and improving consumer rights, neoliberalisation delivered on increasing levels of access with improved quality, yet consistently rising water prices coupled with policy loopholes and institutional blindness to the distributional impacts of that trend lead to the imposition of inequitable burdens on low-income households. Recent policy initiatives to relief the financial burden on low-income households seem weak and difficult to implement since they do not break away from the basic principles guiding water policy (user-pays principle, polluter pays principle and full-cost recovery from water charges).
The Energiewende as concept and policy strategy for an energy transformation towards a renewable energy regime in Germany, has since its very beginning included many societal goals beyond the mere shift towards renewables. The decentralised dimension based on principles of energy democracy have characterise the roots of the transition, and through the distinct legislative framework in Germany, mainly by the Renewable Energy Source Act(EEG), the market landscape has reached a large degree of actor heterogeneity mainly constituted by small players. However, in recent years this decentralisation has been challenged by a variety of different policies, resulting from European Union and national legislation. This research outlines how these two governance levels have evolved with respect to the renewable energy regime and how certain policies have affected the decentralised dimension of the Energiewende. Through this policy analysis on the shifting framework, many risks for the continued existence of the renewable energy regime in Germany based on decentralised principles have arisen are being outlined. Small actors under the new market-based conditions have been strongly impacted by the shifting regime and first results of the regime change have been analysed and show the challenges. Based on those findings, the analysis has concluded that to a certain degree, mainly in the legal and policy spheres, a shift towards a more centralised renewable energy regime that favours concentrated ownership structures has occurred. The main drivers have been market-based interests pushed forward by the European Union and a decreased effort of Germany to uphold its renewable energy market design which allowed the shift towards decentralisation. However, the paper also concludes that it is yet too early to say if an overall shift towards centralisation has taken place, as the recent developments of the new regime will have to be further monitored in the coming years, and it will have to be seen how smaller market actors will continue to respond to a framework which is no longer in their favour in the long-run.
The Rise of Right-wing populism in Europe. Different or similar causes in Western/Eastern countries?
(2018)
Craving for Super-foods - Understanding underlying motivation driving consumers´food consumption
(2018)
This paper explains the emergence of the „pledge and review‟ governance approach found in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in place of the „obligatory targets and timetables‟ approach found in the Kyoto Protocol, from a neo-Gramscian perspective. The main argument is that the adoption of pledge and review was a response to both the pressure to agree a new international treaty and the simultaneous divergence of interests and fragmentation of negotiation groups within the UNFCCC regime.
Firstly, the bilateral agreement between the US and China, signed in November 2014, signified the commitment of the world‟s two largest economies to reduction their GHG emissions. Combined with the commitment of the EU, these three actors represent over half of all GHG emissions worldwide, applying strong pressure towards reaching an agreement during the Paris climate negotiations. Breaking from previous historical reluctance on the part of China and the US in the field of international climate policy, China‟s recent heavy investment in green technology and its numerous policy initiatives to increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution have lowered China‟s cost of participation and heightened the cost of its obstructionism within international negotiations, as it shifts onto a path of low-carbon development in an attempt to increase economic competitiveness, increase energy security, and reduce domestic pollution levels. The US, under Obama‟s Democratic Presidency, has sought to make fresh strides in the field of domestic and international climate policy.
And secondly, a continuous fragmentation of the international climate negotiation process has occurred since the early days of the UNFCCC, with an increasingly divergent set of interests being expressed within the negotiations, compounded by the recent addition of developing countries‟ emission reduction targets that resulted in a whole new set of interests being added to the table. This emerged as part of a broader fragmentation of the global climate regime in general, as numerous diverse sites of climate governance were founded, both within and outside the existing UN climate regime. The failure to show leadership on climate from the Global North, the decline of US hegemony and the shift of power towards China and the East, and the emergence of a new multi-polarity in the world political economy were given as causes of fragmentation of the global climate regime. In addition to the complex nature of climate change as a problem, requiring an equally complex and differentiated response from a diverse set of actors, networks, and sites of governance.
When taken together, the pledge and review approach can be seen to have reinforced cooperation between nations and strengthened consensus building, facilitating the search for an agreement under differentiated interests. Being less fixed than obligatory quantitative emission reduction targets, this degree of flexibility is key to the functioning and adoption the system. Thus, the pressure to reach an international agreement and the divergence of interests and fragmentation of negotiation groups resulted in the adoption of the pledge and review governance approach found within the Paris Agreement.