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KEY AUDIT MATTERS & COVID-19: An analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on KAMs of DAX 40 Companies
(2022)
The collapse of Enron and WorldCom2 and the negative effects of the Global Financial Crisis catalyzed two major challenges for the accounting profession. The work of independent auditors was questioned by the public as they had given unqualified audit opinion soon before these companies filed for bankruptcy. To address the dissatisfaction of users of financial statements on the role of the auditor, in January 2015, the IAASB issued a new ISA 701. ISA 701 requires auditors of listed entities to report key audit matters in the audit report. The purpose of KAMs is to present the most significant entity-specific matters based on the auditor's judgement to provide more useful information to the users of the report. The auditors of the top 40 Germany listed entities had to comply with this requirement for accounting periods ending on or after 15 December 2016. Ever since the introduction of KAMs in the auditor’s report, the most reported matters in DAX 40 audit reports relates to asset impairment (including goodwill), revenue recognition and taxation (including valuation of deferred tax assets). With the current Covid-19 pandemic, the work of auditors was affected in different ways. Therefore, there is need to analyze if matters significant to auditors were influenced by the pandemic. To address this issue, an analysis of auditors reports from financial years 2018-2020 for the DAX 40 companies was carried out. The results showed that matters significant to auditors were more or less the same since the adoption of ISA 701. Furthermore, the existence of Covid-19 played a significant role for commonly reported KAM (goodwill impairment) to be of high importance in the audit of 2020 consolidated financial statements because of the increased audit risk.
Earnings management is considered as a strategy applied by managers of a firm to intentionally modify the financial information to deceive stakeholders and achieve economic and contractual benefits. One of the forms of earnings management is accruals-based earnings management that occurs from accounting choices, adjustments, and managerial decisions. The primary objective of this thesis project is to investigate the impact of accrual-based earnings management on firms’ financial performance. A sample of 14 firms is selected from German automobile manufacturing firms listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) over the period from 2010 to 2019 using a purposive sampling technique. Data is gathered from financial reports of sample firms. This study measured accrual-based earnings management through discretionary accrual (DA) using the modified Jones model, while firms’ financial performance is measured using return on assets (ROA). In the econometric model, the dependent variable is return on assets (ROA), whereas the independent variable is discretionary accruals (DA) that incorporate with other three control variables such as firm size (SIZE), leverage (LEV), and liquidity (LIQ). This analysis is done using a panel data regression model to assess the relationship between variables. The findings show that automobile manufacturing firms listed on Frankfurt Stock Exchange are involved in income-decreasing discretionary accruals, and its impact on firms’ financial performance (ROA) is significantly positive. Furthermore, the finding of this study confirms that there is not only discretionary accruals but also size, which influences firms' financial performance. However, leverage and liquidity have an insignificant relationship with firms’ financial performance. Finally, the finding of this study may be useful for investors, financial analysts, and other interested parties to understand how firms’ earnings are manipulated and how its impact on firms' financial performance so that they can make their financial decisions and analysis accordingly.
The work performed by controllers changes over time, and due to technological evolution. Consequently, the controller competencies and academic formation to work change too. Therefore, this research aim was to answer: What is the required level of preparation of accounting and controlling graduates to handle the controller's role and tasks? To answer this question was realized an empiric research, where 32 graduates answered a survey, and it was collected 359 job advertisements. The job advertisement was analyzed using data mining applying phyton, and it was used descriptive statistics for the survey, both data set were compared using data visualization. The result demonstrated that a controller requires a set of controlling, interdisciplinary, methodological, socio-personal, and digital competencies. Obtaining these competencies are through business administration study or vocational training in business. digital competencies are not yet in demand by employer, except for business intelligence. The graduates do not master digital competencies. These findings can serve as a basis for the improvement of the curricula on which the controller training process is based.
This study was focused to determine the causal relationship between free cash flow (FCF) and profitability of public listed pharmaceutical companies in Germany. Based on the review of the past empirical studies it was found that contradictory evidences are present in the past studies regarding the relationship of FCF and the variables of profitability of publicly listed companies. To conduct this study, quantitative research was performed, where quantitative data was empirically testing to find evidence regarding the impact of FCF on variables of profitability of public listed pharmaceutical companies in Germany. A sample of 10 years panel data from 2011 to 2020 was selected for 10 German publicly listed pharmaceutical companies. The data was collected from the annual financial reports of the listed companies. Panel regression analysis with random effect was conducted to analyze the data. The results of the panel regression analysis suggested that FCF can have a significant positive impact on net profit margin (NPM) and return on asset (ROA) as variables of profitability. Therefore, the causal relationship of FCF with the two variables of profitability namely; NPM and ROA of the 10 German public listed pharmaceutical companies was found to be positive and significant. However, the causal relationship of FCF with the two variables of profitability namely; gross profit margin (GPM) and return on equity (ROE) of the 10 German public listed pharmaceutical companies was found to be insignificant. The FCF can increase the profitability in terms of NPM and ROA of German public listed pharmaceutical companies. Hence, the causal relationship between free cash available and profitability in term of ROA and NPM of the pharmaceutical public listed companies in Germany were found to be significant and positive. Therefore, the upwards movement of FCF can have a significant positive influence on profitability of pharmaceutical public listed companies in Germany in terms of ROA and NPM.
The Application of Valuation Models in Value-based Performance Measurement at Gas Industry Companies
(2022)
Die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf Immobilientransaktionen, inebesondere auf Fondsimmobilien
(2022)
Die folgende Masterthesis beschäftigt sich mit den rechtlichen Besonderheiten von Forward Deals und deren Rolle auf dem aktuellen deutschen Immobilieninvestmentmarkt. So wird untersucht, ob sie eine Alternative zu marktüblichen Investitionen in Bestandsobjekte darstellen. Zu diesem Zweck schafft die Arbeit einen inhaltlichen Überblick über die Einzelheiten von Forward Deals. Hierzu gehören die beteiligten Vertragsparteien und die Differenzierung zwischen den verschiedenen auftretenden Arten. Mithilfe von gegenwärtigen Marktberichten und der Auswertung von Statistiken, werden zudem die kürzlichen Entwicklungen auf dem Investmentmarkt in Bezug zu den Vorteilen von Forward Deals gesetzt. Des Weiteren beleuchtet der Verfasser primär mögliche rechtliche Risiken, die bei der Abwicklung eintreten können und erörtert im gleichen Zug auch die dementsprechend bestmögliche Vertragsgestaltung für die Parteien. Zusätzlich wird im Rahmen der Umsetzung, auch die Anwendbarkeit der Grunderwerbsteuer untersucht. Schlussendlich kommt die Arbeit zu dem Ergebnis, dass aufgrund des aktuell vorherrschenden Mangels an attraktiven Bestandsobjekten und bei ausreichender Absicherung der Risiken Forward Deals durchaus ein großes Potenzial für den Immobilieninvestmentmarkt bergen.
Im Jahr 2015 einigten sich alle Mitglieder der Vereinten Nationen auf die Umsetzung der 17 Nachhaltigkeitsziele (Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs) im Rahmen der Agenda 2030, um eine weltweite Nachhaltige Entwicklung zu unterstützen. Betrachtet man die beiden Handlungsziele „Kein Hunger“ und „Nachhaltige Städten und Gemeinden“ im Kontext, werden die gegenseitigen Abhängigkeiten deutlich. Im Jahr 2050 wird erwartet, dass weltweit 66 – 75 % der Menschen den urbanen Raum bevölkern. Im Handlungsziel 2 der SDGs „Kein Hunger“ werden die globalen Unterziele wie u.a. die Sicherstellung der nachhaltigen Entwicklung der Ernährungssysteme oder die Unterstützung für kleine landwirtschaftliche Betriebe adressiert.
SHEconomy in Asia has highlighted the changes in women’s gender roles, lifestyles, and consumption patterns. The traditionally male-dominated fitness industry faces the challenge of this new female market opportunity, which consequently urges the current research to investigate the impact of gender role attitudes in the Asian female fitness industry. The study aims to empirically explore the relationships between gender role attitudes, self-perception, fitness perception, brand perception and purchase intention, and compare the results in China and Taiwan. With a quantitative methodology, a 35-item online questionnaire was completed by female respondents of an age between 25 to 34 in urban cities from China (N=314) and Taiwan (N=426). Results of structural equation modeling demonstrated that gender role attitudes have a positive impact on self-, and fitness perception in both China and Taiwan whereby the effect on brand perception only occurs in China. In general, gender role attitudes have stronger influences in China. Moreover, self-, fitness and brand perception positively affect purchase intention in both places; brand perception plays a major role, especially for Taiwan. Fitness perception also mediates the relationship between gender role attitudes and purchase intention in China and Taiwan. The research validated the impact of gender role attitudes, contributed to a better understanding of Asian female consumer behaviors for fitness brands, and finally identified the similarities yet revealed differences between China and Taiwan. Implications were drawn for the development of marketing practices and directions for further research were proposed.
The study is attempting to survey whether the connectedness among leadership, employee voice, and the awareness of equity of employee can eventually be a complement of the achievements of office in German companies, and to scrutinize if the German experiences can be transplant to Taiwan. According to this rationale, the study endeavors to check whether the leadership affects to employee voice and whether the awareness of equity of employee moderates the effects of leadership on employee voice in German companies.
By using questionnaire survey with simple sampling, the results reveal that there are significant differences between sex and between occupations in the cognition of decision making of leadership; furthermore, there are significant differences between sex in orientation of change of employee voice behavior, and there also are significant differences between education in the cognition of considerable risk of employee voice behavior. Employee voice behavior is significantly affected by decision making, administrative method, interpersonal communication, and personal motivation of leadership, and the effects of leadership on employee voice behavior is significantly moderated by the distributive and interactional fairness of the awareness of equity.
Conclusively, by learning from German companies, the companies in Taiwan should build an environment full of trustworthiness, empowerment, and identification that make office members want to speak out, and managers in Taiwan companies can learn how to make employees recognize they are safe and free to make a speech relevant to leadership, business management and organizational development.
Keywords: Leadership, Employee Voice Behavior, Awareness of Equity, German, Taiwan
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.
Addressing Systemic Risk in Europe during Covid-19: policies, limitations, and challenges ahead
(2021)
This work examines the impacts which the Covid-19 pandemic brought to the stability of the European financial sector. Lockdowns, businesses unable to operate and uncertainty about how the pandemic would evolve fueled a sharp recession. From the lessons learned in the global financial crises and the Eurozone debt crises, there’s an increasing role of macroprudential policies, especially the regiments of the Basel III framework and the monetary policy toolkit. Alongside macroprudential regulation, the European Central Bank provided substantial monetary policy easing, for instance the release of capital buffers and other capital requirements, expanding the TLTRO III and Pandemic Emergency Program which facilitated monetary policy transmission. Authorities also deployed strong fiscal policies which encompassed from tax holidays to direct transfers to households and firms. The combination of fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policy was unprecedented and helped the economy during the shutdown moments. As a result, indicators of systemic risks in the banking sector during the pandemic remained relatively stable. Nevertheless, some challenges might emerge in the medium-term when policies are phased-out, namely the increasing size of non-performing loans and the sovereign doom-loop. Thus, in the final part of this text a stress test is conducted to evaluate the possible future impacts of the pandemic in the banking sector.
Startup incubation at universities is becoming increasingly important due to their ability to promote entrepreneurship among students and to increase the chance of survival of the created ventures. Moreover, due to the typically longer years of work experience of MBA students relative to other students, MBA students represent a key segment that such programs should target as previous research has shown that experience is a success factor in startup founders. However, there is little research in available literature on how to design startup incubation programs to maximize the participation and success of MBA students.
In this thesis, startup incubation programs at some leading universities around the world is surveyed. The goal is to come up with a framework inspired by the traits, internal or eco-system based, common to the successful university-based startup incubators. By evaluating these success factors with the preferences of MBA students, the thesis proposes certain services or processes that should be considered to design a university-based incubation program for MBA students. The result will be useful to university managers seeking to build an enduring entrepreneurial ecosystem and improve the entrepreneurial support services at their universities, especially for MBA students.
The thesis is composed of two aspects: first and foremost, desk research is conducted to catalogue the support services that are available to student entrepreneurs at some leading university-based startup incubators around the world. Secondly, a case study of part-time MBA students at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR Berlin) is conducted through a survey and series of interviews. The study reveals several interesting results:
• All the studied startup incubators offer comparable basic services including, mentorship, workspace, seminars, funding, network, etc. The key difference is how those services are provisioned and the extent to which they use specific services to differentiate themselves.
• The universities place entrepreneurship at a center stage with the involvement of the universities’ top management and several institutions within and outside the universities, i.e., they build entrepreneurial ecosystems, rather than isolated startup incubation programs.
• The universities leverage their relative strengths or situation in their entrepreneurial support services e.g., technologically oriented universities such as MIT, Technion, NUS and TUM, focus on creating an environment where more innovation is created and on technology commercialization, Stanford University offers remarkable access to Silicon Valley, SETsquared partnership raises the profile of its members by creating critical mass in a regional alliance.
• Stanford University and MIT have diverse programs that give students multiple entry points to the ecosystems and allow the students’ experience to be easily customizable according to their needs.
• The case study showed an improved entrepreneurial self-efficacy (self-confidence) among the MBA students during the period of their MBA studies. Of equal significance, the study also showed a higher degree of improvement among final year students compared to first-year students of the two-year program. This could hint towards a modular design of startup incubation programs for MBA students, with more advanced activities left for the later part of the program.
• The survey revealed the preference of MBA students for a strong network, availability of mentors and coaches, and access to funding at their startup incubation center. A revelation which further strengthens the case for creating ecosystems.
The Implementation of Artificial Intelligence in Data-driven Influencer Identification in Marketing
(2021)
In the age of digital media, social platforms have become an integrated part of daily life. Noticing the reach and customer engagement potential, marketers couldn’t resist turning their business strategies to social media. Thus, firms adopted the latest method of marketing; delivering messages over social media influencers. To hold an effective campaign, marketers need to select the best-fit influencer for their brands and promoted products. Yet, the selection process lacks efficiency since it requires extensive time, headcount, and capital investments. By conducting industry-specific interviews and a survey, this study aims to clarify the implementation process of necessary artificial intelligence (AI) methods to function data-driven influencer identification in influencer marketing. This paper shows clustering analysis, natural language processing, and image recognition can be used for optimizing the influencer selection process.
Today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world presents business leaders with new challenges. This master’s thesis investigates the issue of improving management education, in particular the Master of Business Administration (MBA), by integrating design. Therefor, it analyzes the current state of design in MBA education at 11 high-ranking business schools in the U.S., develops a conceptual model for design-integrated MBA education, and proposes a prototype curriculum consisting of business and design courses. An evaluation of the prototype conducted with practicing managers in the U.S. finds that the new curriculum has potential to produce leaders better suited for the challenges of a VUCA world.
Today, technology plays a vital role in many parts across various industries including the fashion retail industry. Augmented reality (AR) is one of the novel technologies that has become popular and beloved by people in recent years, and companies have leveraged the benefits to build strong competitive advantage and differentiate themselves from others. Moreover, AR may be the solution to attract consumers back to brick-and-mortar under the pandemic era. A number of fashion retailers have been adopting AR in the last decade, however, there is only limited research that focuses on the implementation of augmented reality in physical stores for fashion brands. Therefore, this study aims to explore the benefits AR can bring to the fashion retail industry and understand the thoughts retailers have on in-store AR implementation as well as examining consumers’ acceptance of the technology. This research will cover the fashion retail industry and its market under the COVID-19 pandemic, introduction to AR, the advantages and barriers of implementing in-store AR, applications of AR in different fields and cases specifically in the fashion retail industry. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were applied, which includes seven in-depth interviews and an online survey based on 417 respondents. Additionally, The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model provides guidance to understand consumers’ acceptance of in-store AR implementation. The results show that despite some limitations and challenges exist, AR offers substantial benefits to both fashion retailers and their consumers. Furthermore, people living in Germany and Taiwan are generally open to trying in-store AR technologies and applications. The findings of the study provide rich insights for both researchers and fashion retailers.
The global recorded music business is now in its sixth year of consecutive growth since 2015, primarily driven by increasing revenue from music streaming. At the same time, market-leading streaming platform Spotify is accumulating losses, and as a result of the Covid-pandemic, music creators have suffered one of the worst years in modern history due to a loss of income from live performances.
Thus, the revenue from music streaming is of increasing importance, and this has brought up concerns about the equality of its distribution, which were investigated by the DCMS Committee of the British government.
This thesis uses qualitative exploratory methods to analyse the data collected in the DCMS inquiry and answer the research question “Is the user-centric model the solution to more equality in the distribution of income from music streaming services?”. Furthermore, it puts the results in context with the academic literature on platform business frameworks, music streaming revenue models and distribution systems.
The findings suggest that the effects of the user-centric payment system are under-studied, and more in-depth research is recommended. Furthermore, the model’s implementation would depend on a few powerful stakeholders' consent, particularly major labels and publishers. Lastly, the findings indicate that managerial efforts should be focused on increasing the downstream revenue by raising fees for monthly subscriptions rather than the distribution of revenue.
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.
Globalization, advances in information technology, the rise of student prosumers and intensifying competition continue to challenge the relevance of conventional business models of business universities. The purpose of this research is to recommend opportunities for
business universities in Germany to maintain their competitiveness by enhancing student experience using Blue Ocean Strategy. The scope is the teaching and learning processes at the university. Within this scope the focus areas include: the curriculum and learning lifecycle,
student lifecycle, and the support and engagement services at the university. The study will analyse qualitative data gathered through interviews, and case studies using bibliographic and grey literature. The research addresses how they can deliver superior value to their current and future students.
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