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Background
In light of their experiences on the refuge and upon their arrival in the receiving society, refugees may have differentiated needs regarding health care. However, negative attitudes of the members of the receiving society and a lack of information pose as barriers for refugees when trying to access health care services. In that sense, it is largely unknown, which antecedents positively affect Germans’ perception of information barriers that refugees face. Based on an extended version of the Empathy-Attitude-Action model, this study examined selected predictors of problem awareness in the form of perceived information barriers that refugees face, emphasizing the role of positive intercultural contact experiences.
Methods
A sample of members of the receiving society, here: Germans (N = 910) completed a cross-sectional online survey with validated self-report measures. From the perspective of Germans, assessments covered positive intercultural contact, attitudes on refugees’ rights, the recognition of refugees’ socio-emotional support needs as a form of cognitive empathy, and the perception of refugees’ information barriers when accessing health care. We conducted structural equation modeling to examine hypothesized latent associations and specified three different models with unidirectional paths between the study variables, each allowing another direct path from intercultural contact to the variables. We determined the best model using the chi-square-difference test and tested for indirect effects along the paths through bias-corrected bootstrapping.
Results
Our results show consistency with the Empathy-Attitude-Action model. We found Germans’ cognitive empathy toward refugees to be associated with more positive attitudes and a greater awareness of refugees’ information barriers. We further found more positive intercultural contact to be associated with greater cognitive empathy toward refugees and with more positive attitudes. While these contact experiences showed a slightly direct negative effect on Germans’ perception of refugees’ information barriers to accessing health care, the indirect effects via cognitive empathy and positive attitudes were positive.
Conclusion
Previous positive intercultural contact may be directly and indirectly linked to greater awareness for refugees, helping Germans as the receiving community (1) to become more empathetic toward refugees, (2) to improve their attitudes toward refugees’ rights and to (3) raise consciousness for information barriers that refugees face when trying to access health care services.
Combinations of art and products are a classic and current topic. Examples like the collaboration of the Medici with artists in the Renaissance or the logo development of Chupa Chups by Salvador Dali are historical examples. The BMW art cars by Jeff Koons and Cao Fei or the art‐based special editions of Louis Vuitton bags are current best practices. All these cases expected a positive impact of art on the product or brand evaluation. This spillover effect was coined “art infusion effect” by Hagtvedt and Patrick. This, as well as further studies on the art infusion effect, are predominantly concerned with classical fine arts. However, despite an observable increase of urban arts‐brands collaborations, the effects of these have not been researched. Our study determines that graffiti and street art are perceived by consumers as art. To confirm the art infusion effect for urban art, a laboratory experiment was conducted. The presence of urban art has a favourable influence on the evaluation of products. These results replicate and extend the findings of Hagtvedt and Patrick. As drivers of the urban art infusion effect, we also identify two additional drivers: the fit between the art and the product and the “lifestyle perception”.
Exiting the COVID-19 pandemic: after-shock risks and avoidance of disruption tails in supply chains
(2021)
Entering the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on supply chains. Reacting to the pandemic and adaptation in the “new normal” have been challenging tasks. Exiting the pandemic can lead to some after-shock effects such as “disruption tails.” While the research community has undertaken considerable efforts to predict the pandemic’s impacts and examine supply chain adaptive behaviors during the pandemic, little is known about supply chain management in the course of pandemic elimination and post-disruption recovery. If capacity and inventory management are unaware of the after-shock risks, this can result in highly destabilized production–inventory dynamics and decreased performance in the post-disruption period causing product deficits in the markets and high inventory costs in the supply chains. In this paper, we use a discrete-event simulation model to investigate some exit strategies for a supply chain in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our model can inform managers about the existence and risk of disruption tails in their supply chains and guide the selection of post-pandemic recovery strategies. Our results show that supply chains with postponed demand and shutdown capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic are particularly prone to disruption tails. We then developed and examined two strategies to avoid these disruption tails. First, we observed a conjunction of recovery and supply chain coordination which mitigates the impact of disruption tails by demand smoothing over time in the post-disruption period. Second, we found a gradual capacity ramp-up prior to expected peaks of postponed demand to be an effective strategy for disruption tail control.
This paper examines empirically the importance of equity
preferences for the formation of international environmen-
tal agreements (IEA) for transboundary pollution control.
Although it has been shown theoretically that the existence
of equity preferences among countries considering an IEA
increases the chances for formation and stability of a coali-
tion, empirical assessments of such preferences have been
limited to climate change mitigation and single-country
studies. We consider the case of marine plastic pollution, of
which a large share consists of food and beverage con-
tainers, representing a transboundary pollution control
problem of increasing policy concern, with properties that
lead to distinct considerations for equity and the sharing of
abatement costs. We employ a coordinated choice experi-
ment in the United Kingdom and United States to assess
preferences for abatement-cost allocations in a marine plas-
tics IEA. Pairs of cooperating countries and the relative
allocation of abatement costs are varied experimentally.
Results show systematic aversion to both advantageous and
disadvantageous inequality with respect to abatement costs
but also that the relative strength of advantageous and dis-
advantageous inequality aversion differs across countries.
Across both countries, there is evidence that left-leaning
voters generally favor more equal international sharing of
abatement costs. Differences of these results from the case
of greenhouse gas emission reduction, and implications for
current efforts to establish a legally binding global treaty on
marine plastic pollution, are discussed.
Scholars have suggested that design thinking and effectuation theory may enrich each other. However, to date, we lack deeper theorizing and empirical evidence to further advance this valuable discourse for the benefit of innovation management. Our qualitative study draws on 41 in-depth interviews with Australian designer-founders, with the aim to provide a theoretical perspective on and empirical insights into the relationship between the behavioral practices of design thinking and the cognitive principles of effectuation. The contributions are twofold. First, our study explains how design thinking practices enable designer-founders to enact the cognitive principles of effectuation. Uncovering these “entrepreneurial ways of designing” provides an explanation for the effectiveness of design thinking for entrepreneurial innovation and new venture creation. Second, our study sheds light on the ways in which designer-founders interpret effectuation principles through the professional values and norms embodied in design thinking. These “designerly ways of entrepreneuring” resemble particular, normative interpretations of effectual action. By doing so, our study offers empirical substantiation and theoretical elaboration of the ways in which design thinking functions as an approach for entrepreneurial innovation and new venture creation. Through shedding light on the “entrepreneurial ways of designing” and “designerly ways of entrepreneuring” exhibited by designer-founders, our research reveals the reciprocal relationship between design thinking and effectuation theory.
Purpose
In a service society, the assessment of climate-relevant environmental impacts of services is of increased importance. In the few Product Category Rules (PCRs) for cleaning services available to date, it is noticeable that employee mobility and service-related management are excluded from the assessment. This practice is critically questioned in the following study. The aim is to show that a calculation of the carbon footprint of services that integrates employee mobility and service-related management provides a better basis for finding ways to reduce their environmental impact.
Methods
Key figures on the CO2e emissions of services are examined in exemplary case studies using the example of cleaning, maintenance and reception with regard to the possible share of emissions caused by employee mobility and service-related management activities. For the case studies located in Germany, characteristic values of the equipment, operating materials or mobility used for the service are obtained from available Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). In the absence of EPDs, a simplified estimate is made according to the VERUM method based on the proportion of materials in the product. The case studies compare the carbon footprint of a service by omitting and including employee mobility and service-related management.
Results
The analysed case studies show an impact share between 32 and 69% for employee mobility and between 10 and 26% for service-related management activities in an integrated carbon footprint of services. The emissions caused by employee mobility and service-related management therefore have a dimension that should not be neglected.
Conclusions
From these findings, the necessity is derived to include the emissions from the mobility of operational staff and service-related management in future PCRs for services in order to improve the comparability of services. Optimisation efforts of companies must also start at these points of the service organisation.
Die Bilanzierung digitaler Innovationen weist einen hohen Komplexitätsgrad auf. Auch wenn die IFRS keine spezifischen Rechnungslegungsstandards für Cloud-Verträge und KI-Systeme kennen, ist auf der Grundlage der bestehenden IFRS eine sachgerechte bilanzielle Abbildung möglich. Dabei ist allerdings eine Berücksichtigung der Gegebenheiten im jeweiligen Einzelfall unabdingbar. Software im Rahmen von Cloud Computing fällt in den Anwendungsbereich von IAS 38. Bei der Bilanzierung von SaaS-Verträgen ist zunächst zu prüfen, ob die dortigen Definitions- und Ansatzkriterien erfüllt sind. Bei selbst erstellter Software setzt eine Aktivierung zusätzlich das Vorliegen der speziellen Ansatzkriterien in IAS 38.57 voraus. Liegen die maßgeblichen Kriterien kumulativ vor, besteht eine Aktivierungspflicht. Die Aktivierung von Implementierungskosten hängt nach IAS 38 grundsätzlich von der Aktivierungsfähigkeit der Software ab. Sofern ein immaterieller Vermögenswert aktiviert wird, sind auch die direkt zurechenbaren Kosten zum Erreichen der beabsichtigten Nutzung und damit auch Implementierungskosten zu aktivieren. Implementierungskosten können daneben auch aktivierungsfähig sein, sofern diese einen eigenständigen immateriellen Vermögenswert darstellen, der die Definitions- und die Ansatzkriterien in IAS 38 erfüllt. KI-Systeme sind bilanziell ähnlich wie Anwendungssoftware zu behandeln. Bei Nachweis der Definitions- sowie der allgemeinen Ansatzkriterien gem. IAS 38 gilt eine Aktivierungspflicht als separater immaterieller Vermögenswert. Wird KI selbst erstellt, müssen zusätzlich die speziellen Ansatzkriterien laut IAS 38.57 vorliegen. Zudem ist die gebotene F&E-Phasentrennung nachzuweisen. Im Aktivierungsfall sind Softwarelösungen i.R.v. SaaS-Verträgen bzw. als eigenständige immaterielle Vermögenswerte aktivierte Implementierungskosten grundsätzlich unter dem Bilanzposten „Immaterielle Vermögenswerte“ auszuweisen. Zur Verbesserung des Einblicks in die Vermögenslage bietet sich für aktivierte Implementierungskosten der Unterposten „Computersoftware“ an. Für SaaS dürfte hingegen der Unterposten „Lizenzen“ sachgerecht sein. Bei KI-Systemen ist generell ebenfalls ein Ausweis als „Immaterielle Vermögenswerte“ geboten. Bei einer Untergliederung sind die Unterposten „Computersoftware“ bzw. „Künstliche Intelligenz“ zu empfehlen. Im Rahmen der Erstbewertung ist entgeltlich erworbene Software i.R.v. SaaS-Verträgen mit ihren Anschaffungskosten zu erfassen. Als eigenständige immaterielle Vermögenswerte aktivierte Implementierungskosten sind hingegen im Regelfall mit ihren Herstellungskosten zu bewerten. Bei der Folgebewertung ist i.d.R. auf das Anschaffungskostenmodell zurückzugreifen, sodass eine planmäßige Abschreibung über die Nutzungsdauer vorzunehmen ist. Eine Wertminderung dürfte bei Software i.R.v. SaaS-Verträgen aufgrund der meist nur kurzzeitigen Nutzung lediglich in Ausnahmefällen vorliegen. Gleichwohl ist in regelmäßigen Abständen ein Wertminderungstest nach IAS 36 erforderlich. Die Bewertung von KI-Systemen erfolgt i.d.R. ebenfalls zu fortgeführten Anschaffungs- bzw. Herstellungskosten. Die planmäßige Abschreibung darf linear, degressiv oder leistungsabhängig vorgenommen werden. Da für KI-Systeme üblicherweise weder aktive Märkte noch Vergleichswerte existieren, kommt im Rahmen der Folgebewertung indirekten Schätzverfahren besondere Bedeutung zu.
We contribute to the recent debates on demand and growth regimes in modern finance-dominated capitalism linking them to the post-Keynesian research on macroeconomic policy regimes. We examine the demand and growth regimes, as well as the macroeconomic policy regimes for the big four Eurozone countries, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, for the periods 2001–2009 and 2010–2019. First, our approach supports the usefulness of the identification of demand and growth regimes according to growth contributions of the main demand components and financial balances of the macroeconomic sectors. This allows for an understanding of the demand sources of growth, or stagnation, if there is a lack of demand, of how these sources are financed and of potential financial instabilities and fragilities. Second, when it comes to the macroeconomic policy drivers of demand and growth regimes, as well as their respective changes, we show that the exclusive focus on fiscal policies, as in the previous literature, is too limited and that it is the macroeconomic policy regime which matters here, i.e. the combination of monetary, fiscal and wage policies, as well as the open economy conditions.
AbstractBlack box machine learning models are currently being used for high-stakes decision making in various parts of society such as healthcare and criminal justice. While tree-based ensemble methods such as random forests typically outperform deep learning models on tabular data sets, their built-in variable importance algorithms are known to be strongly biased toward high-entropy features. It was recently shown that the increasingly popular SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values suffer from a similar bias. We propose debiased or "shrunk" SHAP scores based on sample splitting which additionally enable the detection of overfitting issues at the feature level.
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat sich in seinem Beschluss vom 27. September 2022, Az. 1 BvR 2661/21 zum Thüringer Waldgesetz auch mit den Gesetzgebungskompetenzen der Bundesländer befasst. Der Aufsatz analysiert den Inhalt der Entscheidung und leitet daraus Schlussfolgerungen für die Gesetzgebungskompetenzen der Bundesländer für Anteilserwerbe an Unternehmen mit Eigentum (und Besitz) an land- und forstwirtschaftlichen Flächen ab.
Increased electricity consumption along with the transformations of the energy systems and interruptions in energy supply can lead to a blackout, i.e., the total loss of power in an area (or a set of areas) of a longer duration. This disruption can be fatal for production, logistics, and retail operations. Depending on the scope of the affected areas and the blackout duration, supply chains (SC) can be impacted to different extent. In this study, we perform a simulation analysis using anyLogistix digital SC twin to identify potential impacts of blackouts on SCs for scenarios of different severity. Distinctively, we triangulate the design and evaluation of experiments with consideration of SC performance, resilience, and viability. The results allow for some generalizations. First, we conceptualize blackout as a special case of SC risks which is distinctively characterized by a simultaneous shutdown of several SC processes, disruption propagations (i.e., the ripple effect), and a danger of viability losses for entire ecosystems. Second, we demonstrate how simulation-based methodology can be used to examine and predict the impacts of blackouts, mitigation and recovery strategies. The major observation from the simulation experiments is that the dynamics of the power loss propagation across different regions, the blackout duration, simultaneous unavailability of supply and logistics along with the unpredictable customer behavior might become major factors that determine the blackout impact and influence selection of an appropriate recovery strategy. The outcomes of this research can be used by decision-makers to predict the operative and long-term impacts of blackouts on the SCs and viability and develop mitigation and recovery strategies. The paper is concluded by summarizing the most important insights and outlining future research agenda toward SC viability, reconfigurable SC, multi-structural SC dynamics, intertwined supply networks, and cross-structural ripple effects.
In Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie operieren viele Unternehmen in einem ökonomisch außergewöhnlich unsicheren Umfeld. Unter diesen Umständen ist die handelsrechtliche Beurteilung der Fähigkeit zur Unternehmensfortführung gemäß § 252 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 HGB besonders anspruchsvoll und zugleich mit Blick auf eventuelle Fehleinschätzungen risikobehaftet. Hinzu kommt, dass die Auswirkungen der Corona-Pandemie in Abhängigkeit von der jeweiligen Unternehmenssituation bestandsgefährdend sein können. Vor diesem Hintergrund geht der vorliegende Beitrag der Fragestellung nach, welche Anforderungen an die handelsrechtliche Beurteilung der Unternehmensfortführung in Zeiten der Corona-Pandemie zu stellen sind und unter welchen Voraussetzungen eine Abkehr von der Annahme der Unternehmensfortführung erforderlich ist. In diesem Kontext wird auch auf das Vorgehen der handelsrechtlichen Abschlussprüfer zur Beurteilung der Fortführungsprognose der bilanzierenden Unternehmen eingegangen, da sich hieraus indirekt weitere Anforderungen an die Unternehmen ableiten lassen. Die übergeordnete Zielsetzung des Beitrags besteht darin, Empfehlungen für die Vorgehensweise in der Rechnungslegungspraxis zu formulieren. Dabei stehen die handelsrechtliche Fortführungsprognose und die diesbezügliche Beurteilung durch den Abschlussprüfer im Vordergrund.
Im Ergebnis zeigt sich u.a., dass grundsätzlich eine Verpflichtung zur Aufstellung einer expliziten Fortführungsprognose besteht. Dabei sollte von den Unternehmen insbesondere auf der Grundlage einer aktuellen, hinreichend detaillierten und konkretisierten sowie auf der Gesamtunternehmensplanung basierenden Liquiditätsprognose beurteilt werden, ob innerhalb des Prognosezeitraums von der Unternehmensfortführung ausgegangen werden kann. Mit Blick auf den hohen Komplexitätsgrad der Thematik ist den bilanzierenden Unternehmen zu empfehlen, bereits bei der Aufstellung der handelsrechtlichen Fortführungsprognose die relevanten Verlautbarungen des Instituts der Wirtschaftsprüfer in Deutschland (IDW) und die hieraus in diesem Beitrag abgeleiteten Praxishinweise zu berücksichtigen, um spätere Einwendungen des Abschlussprüfers und hiermit verbundene zeitliche Verzögerungen im eigenen Interesse zu vermeiden. Zugleich kann auf diese Weise auch in Krisenzeiten eine rechtssichere Anwendung des handelsrechtlichen Prinzips der Unternehmensfortführung gewährleistet werden.
Andreas Grimmel, Hrsg. 2020. Die neue Europäische Union. Zwischen Integration und Desintegration
(2021)
In dem von Andreas Grimmel herausgegebenen, 12 Beiträge umfassenden Sammelband vermitteln namhafte Expertinnen und Experten der deutschen Europaforschung ihre neuesten sowohl empirisch gewonnenen als auch theoriegeleiteten Erkenntnisse zum europäischen Integrationsprozess. Der Sammelband richtet sich an einen europapolitisch interessierten Leserkreis in Forschung und Lehre sowie an Studierende an Universitäten und Hochschulen, die einen Master-Studiengang mit Schwerpunkt Europawissenschaften belegen. Nachfolgend wird exemplarisch auf einige der 12 Beiträge kommentierend eingegangen.
Adoption of carbon regulation mechanisms facilitates an evolution toward green and sustainable supply chains followed by an increased complexity. Through the development and usage of a multi-choice goal programming model solved by an improved algorithm, this article investigates sustainability strategies for carbon regulations mechanisms. We first propose a sustainable logistics model that considers assorted vehicle types and gas emissions involved with product transportation. We then construct a bi-objective model that minimizes total cost as the first objective function and follows environmental considerations in the second one. With our novel robust-heuristic optimization approach, we seek to support the decision-makers in comparison and selection of carbon emission policies in supply chains in complex settings with assorted vehicle types, demand and economic uncertainty. We deploy our model in a case-study to evaluate and analyse two carbon reduction policies, i.e., carbon-tax and cap-and-trade policies. The results demonstrate that our robust-heuristic methodology can efficiently deal with demand and economic uncertainty, especially in large-scale problems. Our findings suggest that governmental incentives for a cap-and-trade policy would be more effective for supply chains in lowering pollution by investing in cleaner technologies and adopting greener practices.
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across supply chain (SC) operations worldwide. Specifically, decisions on the recovery planning are subject to multi-dimensional uncertainty stemming from singular and correlated disruptions in demand, supply, and production capacities. This is a new and understudied research area. In this study, we examine, SC recovery for high-demand items (e.g., hand sanitizer and face masks). We first developed a stochastic mathematical model to optimise recovery for a three-stage SC exposed to the multi-dimensional impacts of COVID-19 pandemic. This allows to generalize a novel problem setting with simultaneous demand, supply, and capacity uncertainty in a multi-stage SC recovery context. We then developed a chance-constrained programming approach and present in this article a new and enhanced multi-operator differential evolution variant-based solution approach to solve our model. With the optimisation, we sought to understand the impact of different recovery strategies on SC profitability as well as identify optimal recovery plans. Through extensive numerical experiments, we demonstrated capability towards efficiently solving both small- and large-scale SC recovery problems. We tested, evaluated, and analyzed different recovery strategies, scenarios, and problem scales to validate our approach. Ultimately, the study provides a useful tool to optimise reactive adaptation strategies related to how and when SC recovery operations should be deployed during a pandemic. This study contributes to literature through development of a unique problem setting with multi-dimensional uncertainty impacts for SC recovery, as well as an efficient solution approach for solution of both small- and large-scale SC recovery problems. Relevant decision-makers can use the findings of this research to select the most efficient SC recovery plan under pandemic conditions and to determine the timing of its deployment.