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Current trends and challenges in last-mile delivery with consideration of digital technologies
(2021)
Growing online sales market, globalization and urbanization caused new challenges in freight transportation. These global trends created an open market where goods are purchased in any country and delivered directly to the end customer’s doorstep. Currently distributing goods around the city is the least efficient step of the entire supply chain, which makes it an important challenge not only for the retail and transportation companies, but also for researchers. In order to make the processes in urban logistics more efficient, different digital solutions and new business models were developed. However, there is still a lack of systematically organized information about the new trends and technologies in last-mile delivery.
The goal of this thesis was to explore and compare the new concepts of last-mile delivery. Therefore, two main research questions were formulated: How can new smart technologies change the current last-mile delivery processes? Which last-mile technology is more suitable for each type of urban delivery? In order to answer the research questions, a case-study research methodology was chosen. The information was gained through the state-of-the-art analysis, where relevant books and articles in scientific journals were reviewed, and the use-cases described.
The results of this work were three types of analysis. Operational feasibility analysis focused on the comparison of technical capabilities of identified last-mile technologies. Financial analysis compared different types of costs required for using each technology for urban delivery. Finally, in the comparison analysis all theoretical information and previously conducted analyses results were summarized. The most relevant last-mile technologies were then recommended for each type of last-mile delivery.
Driven by the decrease in the fertility rate, the increase in life expectancy, and, therefore, the shift of the demographical structure, the topic of labor shortage is gaining more importance worldwide, and in the context of the present paper, in Europe and Germany. More precisely, this paper deals with the labor shortage in the field of nursing in Germany.
The lack of nurses and geriatric nurses is not only due to the demographical change. Moreover, it’s a result of the poor working conditions, the negative image of the profession, and other factors that will be examined in the paper in every detail.
Further, the paper examines the labor shortage in nursing out of the perspective of several actors, including the state, institutions, and literature, in consideration of political, sociological, economical, and technological factors. In the course of this analysis, five semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed within the paper.
All these attempts aim to answer the research question: "What are the causes and the effects of the shortage of skilled labor in the nursing sector in Germany?" The answer to this question considers a variety of different components.
Concerning the effects, several activities and measures to counteract the shortage of nursing workforce in Germany are presented, including, among other things, the project “Konzertierte Aktion Pflege”, various legislations, activities driven by human resources. Overall, the thesis and the results are beneficial for everyone that is influenced by the topic (including nurses, governmental institutions, employers, and employees in nursing), along with everyone in society. This is because anyone, either as a relative or as a patient, can be confronted with the need for care.
The frequently changing environment forces organizations to adapt, resulting in the emergence of evolutionary forms of organizational design. Evolutionary organizations take actions based on the requirements of their environment, such as variation, selection, and retention. Designing their structures and processes to be adaptive (organic), evolutionary organizations react to their complex environments with social complexity. They are characterized by red uced standardization, formalization as well as wide configurations and decentralized authority. Complemented by their holistic perspective they represent a new and interesting field of research. Due to the high degree of informal structures in such organizations, organizational behavior is from major importance. In this context, psychological ownership has been credited to support several positive organizational behaviors, helping organizations to adapt. This thesis examines the relationship of both concepts, placing psychological ownership into the context of evolutionary organizations. A literature review and an empirical study (sample) have been conducted. As a result of the literature review, five behaviors of evolutionary organizations have been identified, such as innovation, careful resource handling, anticipation, selection, and preservation. The empirical study consisted of four open-ended interviews, exploring the link between psychological ownership and the evolution driven behaviors. As a result, a positive relationship between psychological ownership and each of the evolution driven behaviors has been hypothesized. Implications for evolutionary forms of organizational design have been d iscussed .
The aim of this research is to examine the potential of blended learning concepts for the development of future skills, which has not been sufficiently investigated. This subject is analyzed on the fundamentals of the behaviorist, the cognitivist, the constructivist and the connectivist learning theory.
For this purpose, the following research question was raised:
(How) Can relevant future skills be developed through blended learning concepts?
In order to obtain more precise results, the future skills were divided into technological, knowledge-based, digital and social skills. A qualitative content analysis was carried out on the basis of seven expert interviews.
Findings regarding the development of future skills suggest that blended learning concepts have a high potential to prepare students for the modern working world. Particularly with its focus on self-organized learning in cooperative and collaborative learning environments, blended learning proves to be more suitable for the development of future skills than purely analog or purely digital learning formats.
Driven by digitalization, the emerging sharing economy and the associated change in values, the concept of coworking spaces is gaining importance, as well as economic and scientific relevance.
However, despite the increasing popularity of this topic in the media there are hardly any scientific data about working conditions in coworking spaces from the user perspective.
This paper examines the experiences from the perspective of dependent employees in more detail. This group of people did not choose to work in such an environment but do so because of their employer. Working in a coworking space presents a range of new opportunities and at the same time new challenges for employees, which shall be discussed in this paper.
In the course of the analysis, nine semi-structured interviews were conducted and then analyzed based on Mayring's qualitative analysis.
The results show that most importantly, employees benefit from coworking spaces due to the networking and socializing component which is a vital part of this specific working environment. Consequently, the various possibilities for distraction that often accompany the social component pose a considerable challenge.
Interestingly, the majority of participants confirmed that they enjoy working in a coworking space despite the challenges involved. Nobody stated the opposite.
Given that an increasing number of people request a flexible work environment it is most likely that coworking spaces will gain more importance for organizations and therefore will continue to impact workspaces in the future.
This thesis and the results of the qualitative analysis are beneficial for scientific use, coworking space owners, for organizations as well as entrepreneurs.
In today’s world which is characterized by profound change, leaders are ex- pected to successfully steer companies through the difficulties of the digital age. To encounter the challenges leaders face on this journey, digital leader- ship has emerged as a potential approach, however, empirical research on the concept is limited. Hence, the main purpose of this thesis is to investigate dig- ital leadership by outlining the extent to which it emerges as a unique leader- ship style. Based on a comprehensive literature review and a qualitative anal- ysis of ten expert interviews, this thesis contributes to an enhanced under- standing of digital leadership. The results indicate that the role and perception of leadership itself are changing. The challenges arising from the new context of the digital age require leaders to display behavioral complexity and possess versatile competencies. By comparing digital leadership with established lead- ership styles, the thesis finds decisive congruence of various leadership com- petencies, while many digital competencies emerge as new. Overall, competen- cies regarding employee empowerment are of paramount importance. The complexity of the digital age requires leaders to exhibit situationally appropri- ate leadership styles. Therefore, digital leadership combines established lead- ership styles and is enriched by new behaviors required in the digital age. The extent of uniqueness is contingent on the new context in which leadership occurs.
Brand purpose has gained considerable importance in recent years. However, the term is not uniformly defined which makes an exemplification more difficult. The aim of this study is to give a detailed view on current brand purpose illustrations and practices. Therefore, an overview of different brand purpose interpretations is given, and a unified definition provided. Within this study brand purpose is defined as an organization’s inner core which is driving value for stakeholders by addressing a societal issue.
An extensive literature review in combination with expert interviews is performed to identify potential success factors for the implementation of brand purpose. The outcome of this analysis resulted in a brand purpose framework with five dimensions and 26 underlying success factors. This framework is then evaluated within a multiple-case study. By analyzing four best practice organizations in their implementation of brand purpose the previous results of the literature analysis are examined. The outcome of the case study research represents an updated brand purpose framework in which the success factor authenticity has notably stood out as one major aspect in brand purpose practices.
Lastly recommendations for the implementation of brand purpose are given. Therefore, it is important to build a community to collectively practice purpose- oriented activities which are creating value for the organization’s stakeholders.
This paper aims to investigate if and to which extent the brand fit between brand and art might influence the products of art business collaborations by taking the consumer involvement into account. This investigation focuses on solely fine art and its implementation in product design. An experiment (N = 180) was conducted to examine the effect of different brand fits on the product evaluation. The research indicates that the brand fit between brand and art has a significantly positive influence on the product evaluation, which is internally replicated across durable and non-durable products. However, this leveraging effect does not occur for all product categories since not all products fit with art to a high degree. An influence within consumer involvement is not confirmed. Although no negative effect could be exposed, a more conscious use of art regarding to the brand fit is recommended.
Purpose This study aims at examining the benefit of using poetry in a brand context. Hence, it strives at extending the art infusion effect, which had been found in previous research and demonstrated that art could enhance product and brand perceptions. Instead of focusing on visual art, this study aims at testing whether the effect is also perceivable for non-visual art, concretely, for poetry. It proposes that next to the art infusion effect, also a poetry infusion effect exists. In order to ascertain this assumption, it intends to measure specifically, whether the inclusion of poetry in advertising has a positive impact on product and brand perception.
Design/methodology/approach Next to a desk research, this study uses an experimental study to test the poetry infusion effect. By presenting advertising spots with and without poetry to different experimental groups, it is examined, whether people evaluate a brand and its products more positively, when having heard a poem before. Concretely the participants’ luxury and modernity perception of the brand, as well as their product evaluation are measured.
Findings The results of this study show that there is a direct effect between the presence of poetry and a positive product evaluation. Furthermore, it demonstrates that also the luxury and modernity perception is enhanced through poetry, and that both of these aspects have an impact on a more positive product evaluation.
Research limitations/implications On a managerial level this study implies, that it can be beneficial for brands to use poems in their advertising campaigns, or even cooperate with poets.
Originality/value Up to this point literature looking at the connection between brands and art has focused on visual art. This research extends this field of study, by examining the effect of a literary form of art, namely poetry, which constitutes a promising field of study in a marketing context, because poetry has always played an important role in the history of brand management and advertising.
Purpose – This thesis aims to investigate the impact of security, inquiry response time, type of bank, access and product diversity attributes on customer preference for internet banking services. It intends to understand the underlying logic behind how customers make their preferences.
Design/methodology/approach – Conjoint analysis was employed to investigate the attributes used in this study. Current attributes were selected after a comprehen- sive literature review on factors affecting internet banking services. Using different combinations of the respective levels of the attributes, 16 profiles were created through orthogonal design and respondents were asked to evaluate each profile. Data from a sample of 196 respondents were analyzed to reach findings.
Findings – Security was found to be the most important attribute affecting internet banking preference. Even though it might be less convenient, respondents tend to prefer higher security levels. Security attribute was followed by type of bank, ac- cess, inquiry response time and diversity of products respectively. The relative im- portance of each attribute and utility of attribute levels are presented in the results.
Practical implications – Internet banking is a major channel in the distribution of banking services. A successful digital strategy is of utmost importance to gain a competitive advantage and for long-term survival. Banks can understand how peo- ple value different attributes and findings can be used to design internet banking services. Designing aspect comes from the availability of different levels an attrib- ute can be offered. Apart from knowing the importance of an attribute, banks can use the utility values to create strategies and allocate their resources accordingly.
Originality/value – Unlike many other studies examining dimensions of internet banking services through factor analysis, the originality of this paper lies in the fact that it applies conjoint analysis to internet banking services. Respondents are pre- sented with a more realistic scenario where they have to make trade-offs. Further- more, the current study also focuses on customers’ perception of trust towards bricks-and-clicks banks and internet-only banks, providing a detailed comparison.
Digital fatigue – Analysis and evaluation of factors influencing the interaction with digital media
(2021)
Over the past decades, consumers changed their purchasing behaviour. Instead of relying on their renowned sources, people nowadays are enabled to draw on information provided on online platforms. The existence of electronic word of mouth has changed consumer purchasing behaviour significantly. This phenomenon, however, also harbours various threats for companies as consumers are more likely to voice their grievances about a service or product. Especially in the service industry purchasing behaviour, word of mouth as well as complaint behaviour can have a formidable impact on a company.
The service offers a variety of activities with the aim of meeting a consumer’s individual needs. Yet, this uniqueness also comes with several drawbacks as consistent quality cannot be entirely promised. Thus, the fact that service failures occur should not be taken lightly as customer dissatisfaction may be the result and ramifications may be severe for businesses. To minimise displeased customers, companies can strive for compensating for initial inconveniences in the wake of a well-functioning service recovery approach.
The empirical study targets to give in-depth insights into consumers’ complaint behaviour as well as service recovery expectations in the German market. The results reveal that good service recoveries should not be underestimated as they may have beneficial impacts on businesses as well as the customers themselves. Furthermore, it is obligatory to act not only via offline channels but also through online channels. Thanks to the delivered insights, companies might be able to better adjust their approach of implementing a good service recovery strategy and to place greater value in their consumers’ opinions and concerns. This paper intends to provide a thorough explanation of how dissatisfied consumers can be beneficial to a business in the long-run and why they should not be ignored.
This research aims at contributing to the growing scholarly interest in exploring and describing the journey towards data-driven marketing. As part of this, especially the establishment of a data culture seems to play an important role. Therefore, the study focuses on this aspect during the conduction of empirical research. The objective is to provide an overview of success factors for data- driven marketing, which might help change management teams or marketing leaders to transform the marketing approach into a data-driven one. Previous to the field research, a theoretical framework is developed on the basis of a structured review of relevant literature streams and expert opinions. At first, the literature on data-driven marketing and change management is consolidated and afterwards three consultants are interviewed to confirm the relevancy of the literature findings. An existing framework on managing change is adjusted according to the results and serves as guideline for the subsequent data collection and analysis. Eight expert interviews are conducted with marketing or data analytics managers from companies who find themselves in the middle of a transformation process. With the objective to gather practical information on how to establish a data culture, a thorough, qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts is conducted. The results reveal that data analytics is a people business and if data-driven marketing is the objective, the change management team and the leadership have to consider the human factor during the transformation. This includes the establishment of a data culture by changing mindsets, behaviours, structures and processes as well as performance measurements. The leadership’s attitude, behaviour and decisions are critical factors in this context. The author recommends further exploration of this topic and a resumption of the interviews in the future, so that the success factors can be reviewed from a backward-looking perspective.
The German startup landscape consists of 75% early-stage startups (Kollmann et al. 2020. Especially young startups face challenges to tap into traditional sources of funding, such as bank loans, because they have little securities to offer and often lack a sufficient business model, as re-occurring inflows are uncertain (Carpenter and Petersen, 2002; Hall, 2002). Venture capitalists are willing to take on higher risk in return for a share of the company and its profits (Caselli and Negri 2018). Additionally, they offer a variety of benefits like network, experience and advice, which is especially interesting for young startups. Since two out of three startups fail to generate a positive return (Eisenmann 2021) venture capitalists have thorough screening procedures before investing. Hence equity investing in early-stage startups has long been an exclusive activity to potent players on the capital market.
Crowd investing platforms like Companisto and Seedmatch have started to change the venture capital landscape, as they allow private persons to invest in startups like a VC in form of equity (Companisto 2021d). This means, that private persons can profit from startup success as soon as they create revenues or when the company is sold.
There are some platforms that aim to match startups and venture capitalists, but little is known about which criteria enable an optimal match. Thus, this thesis went on an endeavor to identify critical success factors, that foster high-quality matchmaking between startups and venture capital investors. Key factors can be divided into two categories. Firstly, soft
factors like trust, sympathy and leadership, which are difficult to depict on a platform.
Secondly, hard factors like investment target, number of customers, positioning and market
relevance. If a platform understands the principles that drive the decision making of startups
and venture capitalists, it can facilitate the deal making and could profit greatly from the
expected network effects. Because startups and venture capitalists would benefit from a
higher matching quality and thus promote the platform’s success.
How does the COVID-19 pandemic influence the ability of entrepreneurs to found a new business?
(2021)
As the Corona pandemic unexpectedly hit the world, almost all spheres of human
coexistence were radically affected, e.g., social interaction and the economy. Especially
newly established start-ups were thrown into an environment full of uncertainties and
challenges. Although there is much research on entrepreneurship in general, the field of startups in the Corona pandemic is only scarcely discovered. Thus, to close this gap, this thesis
asks how the COVID-19 pandemic influences the ability of entrepreneurs to found a new
business. As subquestions, it is examined what challenges and risks entrepreneurs face while
starting a new business during the pandemic and which business opportunities are fostered
by the pandemic. As a theoretical basis, a summary of the academic concept of
entrepreneurship is presented. Regarding methodology, a qualitative interview guideline was
created, and five interviews with founders of Berlin-based start-ups were conducted and then
analyzed according to Kuckartz. Afterwards, the Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the Network
Theory, and the Organizational Learning Theory are introduced and applied to evaluate the
results of the interviews. Following, the top three threats and opportunities for start-ups
founded during the pandemic were identified: the top three threats include contact
restrictions along with the resulting interaction through remote working. In addition, a
change in customer demand for specific industries, such as hospitality or travel, was
identified. The three main opportunities identified by the start-ups were the financing
situation, the accelerated digitization push, and the resulting opportunity to reach more
talented employees online. In conclusion, the majority of the founders agreed that the
opportunities exceeded the threats. Furthermore, the key implication of this thesis is that
founders who plan on starting a business that primarily focuses on products and services
marketed online should not be discouraged by the seemingly bad outlook for new business
due to the pandemic.
Green consumerism plays a crucial role in tackling environmental issues. This research aims to understand the different factors that determine the green purchase intention of China’s and Germany’s Generation Y by using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior model. The empirical research builds on a questionnaire with a sample size of 330 Chinese and 275 German millennials. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis indicate that environmental concern, subjective norm, and perceived consumer effectiveness are significant predictors of green purchase intention for both millennial groups. Besides, the analysis highlights that subjective norm has the strongest influence on Chinese millennials’ green purchase intention, while environmental concern appears to be the top predictor for German millennials. In contrast, the perceived availability of green products fails to show a significant relationship with green purchase intention for either group. The variables perceived quality of green products for German millennials and trust in eco-labels for Chinese millennials also show no significant relationship with green purchase intention. These cross-group differences can be linked to cultural differences. Therefore, the results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the green purchase behavior of both millennial groups and provide useful insights for policymakers and marketers to improve their strategies.
After the introduction into the topic and its relevancy, customer experience management and its relation to third-party cookies for digital advertising are explained. Common methods to track customers along the customer journey are established; one of them being third-party cookies. The third chapter presents all categories of web cookies and describes their purposes. Thereafter, data privacy legislations, which regulate cookie usage and consumer rights are introduced. In the same chapter, a timeline of the third-party cookie phase-out is given and cookies’ efficacy for advertising is analysed. In spite of marketer’s reliance on third-party cookies, the deprecation of them might present marketers with new opportunities.
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.
Waste-to-value food products represent a new, promising product category, as farmers can enrich their profits by selling their otherwise rejected products and waste of consum- able by-products is reduced. However, so far little is known about how consumers per- ceive such ‘waste-to-value’ food products, as this is still a relatively new area of research. Profound findings on consumer’s willingness to purchase are, in addition to production feasibility tests, crucial, to decide whether waste-to-value foods prove to be economically worthwhile. This master thesis focusses on the relevance of different social and product value motives for typical grocery purchase. Moreover, their relation to the purchase in- tention towards a waste-to-value product is examined. Differences within different die- tary and buyer groups regarding purchase intention towards such a product are also ex- amined. These insights are crucial for the development of appropriate marketing commu- nication. Therefore the present study aims to answer the following research question: Who are potential target groups for waste-to-value products in the German market? Through performing an explanatory survey with regular German food shoppers (N=128). It was found that 65,7% of the total sample indicate a very high probability of purchase, while 17,2% indicate purchase intention as ‘probable’ and only 8,6% state a lower possibility of purchase. Furthermore, it was found that the altruistic motives ‘regionality focus’, ‘en- vironmental concern’ and ‘social and environmental welfare’ positively influence the purchase intention of a waste-to-value product. Purchase intention towards a waste-to- value product differed significantly between light buyers of organic food and medium and intensive buyers of organic food, as well as between non-meat eaters and people with no dietary restrictions. The overall findings of this study suggest that marketers should dif- ferentiate between these consumer groups. Furthermore, marketers of waste-to-value brands should go into a public debate on food waste with an educational marketing cam- paign to sensitize consumers on this topic.
Purpose:
This study aims to investigate the general effect of response strategies, which react to brand hate, on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). The study also examines the effect of the delight of the response strategies on CBBE. It uses strategies with the following main characteristics: humorous, retaliated, co-created, explanation and apology.
Design/methodology/approach:
In a between-subject experiment with five treatment groups and a control group, the influence on the delight of the response strategies and the CBBE was measured. Data was sourced from a quantitative online survey including a total of 210 bachelor and master students.
Findings:
Findings show that the delight of a response strategy to brand hate has an impact on CBBE. It also showed that significant differences between the strategies existed regarding whether or not participants liked them. In this study no direct significant influence between the tested response strategies and the CBBE could be proven. Research limitations/implications:
Future research could examine how the impact on CBBE differs for specific antecedents or intensities of brand hate and which response strategy has the most positive impact depending on the circumstances.
Practical Implications:
The thesis includes implications for the examination of response strategies in the field of brand hate. The results provide indicators of the effectiveness of corporate responses. Significant differences in the delight of the strategies indicate that brand managers can use them to protect CBBE.
Originality/Value:
This study offers first insight into the effect of response strategies, which react on brand hate, on CBBE.
In this thesis, we focus on predicting diagnosis from drug treatment.We investigate if such a
task can benefit from recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP), transfer learning techniques, and in particular the new state-of-the-art transformer-based BERT models.
The paper shows a comparison of traditional machine learning methods, deep learning methods and pre-trained BERT models for predicting diagnosis. During the evaluation step, we
found simple traditional models and deep learning models to be more effective on the task
in question. The paper further discussed why pre-trained BERT models failed to deliver
results.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly moving from a differentiator to a necessity for many organisations with $37 billion estimated to be invested worldwide in its im-plementation in 2019. Nevertheless, this new technology is not always well under-stood by the businesses and its specific characteristics further complicate the adop-tion. Research has shown that merely half of all efforts to introduce new technology in organisations fully meet their set objectives. The application of organisational change management (OCM) methods is believed to increase the chances of success for such large and costly undertakings. This study aims to review general and tech-nology-specific OCM approaches and examine their relevance in the context of AI transformations. By contrasting existing work and practices on AI adoption against the OCM approaches used for previous technology implementations, the change management characteristics specific to AI are explored, as well as the suitability of the best-regarded established OCM methods is evaluated.
Based on a review of the literature on organisational change management, technol-ogy adoption and artificial intelligence, six semi-structured expert interviews were carried out. These conversations gathered qualitative data with the goal to enrich the existing knowledge on the topic, as well as to bridge some gaps with regards to AI’s practical adoption. Analysis of the responses, continuously compared to exist-ing research, showed that a few factors and AI traits require adjustments to the conventional OCM methods. Ethics, ambiguity, complexity, process and policy changes, speed, ubiquitous potential, as well as fear and anxiety highly influence AI transformations opposed to other technological adoptions. These might not re-quire revolutionary new OCM approaches but would imply focusing on developing organisational culture and ensuring an experimental and iterative change process. Kotter’s 8-step process and Prosci’s ADKAR model were found most appropriate in the face of organisational AI adoption. Further research is needed to validate these findings and examine them in specific contexts.
What does the end consumers think about our recently launched smartphone and how does this translate to future sales prospects? What are the implications of economic sanctions on our business? Economists and business analysts are facing these questions in their daily work. Sentiment analysis allows answering such questions as it enables corporations to evaluate web content on a large scale. Exploring the possibility of inte-grating global sentiments into the sales forecast is the aim of this research paper. Twitter has been chosen as the sole source for data retrieval due to its unique property of being a social network-, news broadcasting- and advertising-platform. The analysis reveals the opportunities and limits of sentiment analysis and its integration capability. The results show that a causal relationship among the public's opinion and sales development is present. Sanctions are reflected in the voice of the public with immediate effect but have moderate impact on sales in the short-term. In the midterm, such political and economic measures could impact the sentiments and – among other micro-economic factors –translate into decreasing sales. Ultimately, the sentiment analysis is suitable for a con-tinuous monitoring procedure and thus optimizes the comprehensiveness of convention-al forecasting methods.
In times of progressive urbanization, cities are increasingly confronted with a series of nega- tive effects. The roads are overcrowded, the environment is polluted, and citizens are deprived of valuable urban space. In addition to the problem, customers are purchasing more and more over the internet and shipments are becoming more fragmented. Consequently, the cityscape is characterized by a large number of delivery vehicles that put a strain on the infrastructure. As this development is taking place, solutions are increasingly being sought to mitigate the negative effects of these trends. These include, in particular, collaborative logistics concepts in which various players come together and develop joint approaches to supplying cities. Hub structures are a promising concept here, which enable a consolidated supply of inner cities. Even though a multitude of such projects have already been initiated, only a few of them have managed to be permanently implemented. City projects often fail due to insufficient funds or poor stakeholder management. The city authorities play a central role in the development and realization of collaborative logistics concepts. They must take on a coordinating role and en- sure that innovative solutions are adequately promoted in order to achieve long-term success and thus mitigate the negative effects of urbanization.
This thesis looks at the potential role of the IG Metall, the biggest German trade union, in the Green Transition of the German automobile sector. The IG Metall’s power and influence in the political, social and economic sphere will be analysed based on the Power Resource Approach by Dörre and Schmalz (2014). The analysis will show that there are two tendencies within the union: a conservative and a progressive approach, differentiated by their goals. Consequently, both wings have different ways to approach the transition and are each relying and focusing on certain power resources. The result is a tightrope walk of the IG Metall, balancing both tendencies within one union in an environment that is as torn as the union itself.
This paper investigates whether macroeconomic policy regimes contributed to the emergence and shifts in macroeconomic demand and growth regimes in the core Euro Area before and after the Eurozone crisis. Against the background of Post-Keynesian/ Kaleckian theory, it is argued that financialisation has led to higher income inequality, lower investment in capital stock, an increase in the potential for debt- and wealth-based consumption as well as high current account imbalances. These four characteristics entailed the emergence of unstable and extreme macroeconomic demand and growth regimes, in particular the export-led mercantilist and the debt-led private demand boom type, in financialised economies. In a qualitative analysis based on quantitative data, it is assessed by which regime type eleven core Eurozone economies were characterized in the periods 2001-2009 and 2010-2019. In a second step, the main transmission channels of economic policies, namely of fiscal, monetary and wage policies, as well as open economy conditions on aggregate demand are examined, and placed in the European policy context. Building upon findings of the first empirical part, the macroeconomic policy mix of four prototype and major Eurozone economies is analysed for the period before and after the crisis. It is found that macroeconomic policy regimes contributed to the emergence and shifts in macroeconomic demand and growth regimes in core Eurozone economies during the considered period.
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.
The digitalization impact on the performance of the Russian banking sector. Trends and cyber threads
(2021)
The EU Taxonomy is the first standardized and comprehensive classification system for sustainable economic activities. This paper provides the public interested in sustainability issues with an overview of the current state of non-financial reporting and the alignment with the EU Taxonomy. It aims at determining the institutional conditions and reporting practices of banking institutions in Europe. The thesis includes an analysis of non-financial information according to the TCFD recommendations and EU Taxonomy requirements of six banks throughout Germany and Spain during financial year 2020. The results highlight those geographic discrepancies in sustainability reporting will benefit banks who are already reporting in accordance with voluntary frameworks or have more stringent regulations for green financing in place. This paper shows that in the banking industry, comprehensive qualitative descriptions of climate change risk and opportunity have been provided, which will avail the consideration of the “do no significant harm” principle of the Taxonomy. Additionally, the social criteria of the EU Taxonomy are consistent with those of most existing systems and may thus be implemented by most banks already. The analysis also revealed that compared to existing frameworks, the EU Taxonomy's environmental criteria differ greatly. Accordingly, meeting the existing framework's criteria by itself is not enough to attain a high taxonomy alignment for financial institutions. Furthermore, a significant amount of data retrieval and analysis will be required by the EU Taxonomy. The lack of quantitative data in most financial institutions will require intensive improvement since this issue has not been adequately addressed yet.