TY - THES A1 - Bongers, Franziska Maria T1 - Three essays on digital and non-digital transformations in business-to-business markets N2 - Fundamental changes in business-to-business (B2B) buying behavior confront B2B supplier firms with unprecedented challenges. On the one hand, a rising share of industrial buyers demands digitalized offerings and processes from suppliers. Consequently, suppliers are urged to implement digital transformations by expanding the range of both digital offerings and processes. On the other hand, B2B buyers increasingly expect suppliers to provide individually tailored solutions to their idiosyncratic needs. Hence, suppliers are also required to implement non-digital transformations by providing offerings and processes that are customized to each customers’ specific requirements. The rise of these digital and non-digital transformations calls established knowledge into question. Thus, B2B marketing research and practice are urged to create a comprehensive understanding of digital and non-digital transformations by means of novel and empirically grounded insights and derive actionable response strategies. In respond, my dissertation addresses the overall research question of how B2B supplier firms can successfully implement both digital and non-digital transformations in three individual essays. In Essay 1, I offer a broader perspective on both digital and non-digital transformations by investigating digital service customization (i.e., the tailoring of digital B2B services to customers’ individual needs). Through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, I outline a comprehensive set of factors that favor the application of distinct digital service customization strategies. Essay 2 represents a deep dive into digital transformations of sales processes. By making use of two rich sets of qualitative interview material from supplier and buyer firms, I identify the challenges resulting for B2B salespeople from the introduction of digital sales channels into personal selling. Moreover, I uncover facilitating mechanisms that sales managers can employ to support salespeople in coping with digital sales channels. Finally, Essay 3 constitutes a deep dive into non-digital transformations. Based on qualitative interview material and survey data from matched sales manager–salesperson dyads, the essay explores how configurations of individual salespeople’s personal and procedural competencies facilitate success at selling customer solutions (i.e., highly customized, performance-oriented offerings comprising products and/or services). The essay shows that successfully selling customized offerings like solutions hinges on salespeople’s unique configurations of present and absent competencies. In a nutshell, these essays provide three major insights on how B2B suppliers can successfully implement digital and non-digital transformations. First, they underscore that a comprehensive understanding of the origins and spillover effects of transformations is a key prerequisite to successfully implementing them. Second, they unveil that digital and non-digital transformations impact on multiple organizational levels. Third, they point out important resources and capabilities that help suppliers to successfully implement transformations, be they digital or non-digital. With this dissertation, I make substantial contributions to the broader literature on digital and non-digital transformations in B2B contexts. At the same time, my dissertation provides hands-on implications for managers in B2B supplier firms that are facing fundamental transformations in the marketplace—both digital and non-digital in nature. KW - business-to-business; digitalization; customization; digital services; digital sales channels; customer solutions Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-9149 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zierke, Oliver T1 - Innovation and Competition in the Digital Economy: Implications for Internet Platforms, Telecommunications Networks and Data Sharing Initiatives N2 - Governments around the world currently focus on shaping the digital economy. Particular attention is paid to Internet platforms, Internet infrastructure and data as essential components of the digital economy. The three studies in this thesis contribute to the understanding of the behavior of firms in each of these domains and derive insights for future regulations and business projects. The first study deals with the ranking of content on Internet platforms and how it affects the incentives of content providers to invest in content quality. The focus of the study is on sponsored ranking and organic ranking, but the case that a vertically integrated content provider is favored by an Internet platform is also taken into account. Using a game theoretic model, it is shown that there is no ranking design that strictly leads to more investment compared to the other designs. It is also shown that the Internet platform usually chooses the type of ranking that, from the perspective of the Internet platform and consumers, yields the best expected overall content quality. The second study deals with the incentive of Internet service providers to throttle specific Internet content. The key finding is that Internet service providers use this instrument to utilize the capacity of their telecommunications network more efficiently. This leads not only to more benefits for Internet users, but also to a higher incentive to invest in network capacity due to better monetization. The third study examines the circumstances under which firms are willing to share data with other firms. By means of an economic laboratory experiment, it is shown that more data is shared if the firms have control over who exactly they share data with. Thus, for example, data pools that grant unrestricted data access to all participating firms can be expected to perform worse than data pools that give their participating firms control over with whom their uploaded data is shared. In addition, the third study finds that established relationships are characterized by more data sharing and less volatility in the amount of shared data than new relationships. The study concludes that data sharing projects should not be expected to work optimally right away. In summary, the studies in this thesis identify a number of costs that may arise when digital firms' choice is restricted by regulation or design. The ability of Internet service providers to throttle certain content and the ability of Internet platforms to choose the ranking design are usually used in the best interests of consumers. Data sharing also works best when firms are free to decide who gets their data. KW - online platform KW - ranking algorithm KW - sponsored search KW - platform regulation KW - net neutrality Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-10006 ER - TY - THES A1 - Soubeiga, Sidiki T1 - Four empirical essays on the role of institutional quality, political instability and entrepreneurship for economic growth and jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa N2 - Most Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries experienced sound economic growth and a declining rate of poverty over the last two decades. Though, by far, the SSA region remains the poorest in the world and faces tremendous political, social, and economic challenges. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SSA entered into a recession with a GDP growth rate of minus 5% in 2020 as ever recorded over 25 years. This has also induced an increase in poverty in the region, which adds up to the structural challenges and further highlight the need of sound policies to address economic growth, governance, jobs, and poverty for the region to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030 and beyond. This thesis examines the effects of institutional quality, political instability, and a government targeted entrepreneurship program on the accumulation of human, physical, and financial capital by households and firms. In the literature, these factors are identified as the key determinants of economic growth and job creation, yet this thesis contributes to a knowledge gap, especially at the microeconomic level, on how households and firms accumulate these factors in the presence of weak institutional quality, political instability, and government targeted entrepreneurship programs. In particular, this thesis investigates heterogeneity as well as a single country study of the effects of institutional quality and political instability; it also employs a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the impacts of two different targeted entrepreneurship support programs; and finally, it taps on data from this field experiment to assess the performance of two different targeting mechanisms for selecting growth-oriented entrepreneurs. Each paper is self-contained and three among the four papers were written with co-authors. The first paper assesses the effects of institutional quality and political instability on household assets and human capital accumulation in 19 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2003-16. In this paper, the concept of instability is enlarged to include factual instability as measured by the number of political violence and civil unrest events, perceived instability as measured by the perceptions of the quality of institutions by households, and the interplay between factual and perceived instability. Contrary to most previous analyses, this paper takes into account household wealth distribution to show how the effects of political instability differ for poor vs. rich households. For identification, I exploit the variation of factual and perceived instability across 185 administrative regions in the 19 countries. My regressions control for a large range of confounding factors measured at the levels of households, regions, and countries. Overall, factual and perceived instability are associated with higher investments in assets, and factual instability is also associated with more investment in house improvements, yet it is negatively associated with the ownership of financial accounts. With regard to the heterogeneous effects, increased factual or perceived instability is associated with more investments in physical capital but less investments in financial and human capital among rich households, and with less investments in physical, financial and human capital among poor households. These findings suggest that political instability might enhance the accumulation of wealth by rich households and reduce that of poor households, implying that the detrimental effects of political instability have lasting consequences for poor households, especially when poor households are exposed to an actual or even just perceived deteriorating quality of the country’s institutions. The second paper, written with Nicolas Büttner and Michael Grimm, analyzes households’ investments in assets and their consumption, and education and health expenditures when exposed to actual instability as measured by the number of political violence and protest events in Burkina Faso. There is a large, rather macroeconomic, literature that shows that political instability and social conflict are associated with poor economic outcomes including lower investment and reduced economic growth. However, there is only very little research on the impact of instability on households’ behavior, in particular their saving and investment decisions. This paper merges six rounds of household survey data and a geo-referenced time series of politically motivated events and fatalities from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED) to analyze households’ decisions when exposed to instability in Burkina Faso. For identification, the paper exploits variation in the intensity of political instability across time and space while controlling for time-effects and municipality fixed effects as well as rainfall and nighttime light intensity, and many other potential confounders. The results show a negative effect of political instability on financial savings, the accumulation of durables, investment in house improvements, as well as on investment in education and health. Instability seems, in particular, to lead to a reshuffling from investment expenditures to increased food consumption, implying lower growth prospects in the future. With respect to economic growth, the sizable education and health effects seem to be particularly worrisome. The third paper, written with Michael Grimm and Michael Weber, employs a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to assess the short-term effects of a government support program targeted at already existing and new firms located in a semi-urban area in Burkina Faso. Most support programs targeted at small firms in low- and middle-income countries fail to generate transformative effects and employment at a larger scale. Bad targeting, too little flexibility and the limited size of the support are some of the factors that are often seen as important constraints. This paper assesses the short-term effects of a randomized targeted government support program to a pool of small and medium-sized firms that have been selected based on a rigorous business plan competition (BPC). One group received large cash grants of up to US$8,000, flexible in use. A second group received cash grants of an equally important size, but earmarked to business development services (BDSs) and thus less flexible and with a required own contribution of 20%. A third group serves as a control group. All firms operate in agri-business or related activities in a semi-urban area in the Centre-Est and Centre-Sud regions of Burkina Faso. An assessment of the short-term impacts shows that beneficiaries of cash grants engage in better business practices, such as formalization and bookkeeping. They also invest more, though, this does not translate into higher profits and employment yet. Beneficiaries of cash grants and BDSs show a higher ability to innovate. The results also show that cash grants cushioned the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for the beneficiaries. More generally, this study adds to the thin literature on support programs implemented in a fragile-state context. The fourth paper, written with Michael Weber, examines the selection of entrepreneurs based on expert judgments for a BPC in Burkina Faso. To support job creation in developing countries, governments allocate significant funds to a typically small number of new or already existing micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that are growth oriented. Increasingly, these enterprises are picked through BPCs where thematic experts are asked to make the selection. So far, there exists contrasting and limited evidence on the effectiveness and efficiency of these expert judgments for screening growth-oriented entrepreneurs among contestants in BPCs. Alternative or complementary approaches such as evaluation and selection algorithms are discussed in the literature but evidence on their performance is thin. This paper uses a principal component analysis (PCA) to build a metric for comparing the performance of these alternative mechanisms for targeting entrepreneurs with high potential to grow. The results show expert subjectivity bias in judging contestant entrepreneurs. The paper finds that the scores from the expert judgment and those from the algorithm perform similarly well for picking the top-ranked or talented entrepreneurs. It also finds that both types of scores have predictive power, i.e. have statistically significantly associated with 17 firm performance outcomes measured 10 or 34 months after the BPC started. Yet, the predictive power, as measured by the magnitude of the regression coefficients, is higher for the algorithm metric, even when it is considered jointly with expert judgment scores. Despite the statistical superiority of the algorithm, expert assessments at least through pitches of entrepreneurs have proved useful in many settings where free-riding or misuse of public funds may occur. Hence, efficiency and precision could be achieved by relying on a reasoned combination of expert judgments and an algorithm for targeting growth-oriented entrepreneurs. These four papers bring new insights on the relationship between weak institutions, political instability, and targeted government support to entrepreneurship for increasing the accumulation of financial, physical, and human capital, and productivity. And these are the key factors for spurring economic growth and creating jobs in SSA. These findings suggest that efficient institutions building in SSA countries would enhance citizen perceptions of good governance which would reduce political instability and enable households including the poor to accumulate productive assets, increase their productivity and reduce poverty. The findings also suggest that targeted government entrepreneurship support programs, e.g. in the forms of cash grants with monitored disbursements yet flexible in use, can enhance firms’ human capital, productive assets, and innovations, even in the short term. Moreover, the targeting mechanism of such programs could be made more effective and efficient by relying on a combinaison of expert judgments and an algorithm for picking growth-oriented entrepreneurs. KW - Subsaharisches Afrika KW - Wirtschaftsentwicklung KW - Wirtschaftswachstum Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-10326 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Haupt, Harry A1 - Fritsch, Markus ED - Rykov, Vladimir V. T1 - Quantile Trend Regression and Its Application to Central England Temperature JF - Mathematics N2 - The identification and estimation of trends in hydroclimatic time series remains an important task in applied climate research. The statistical challenge arises from the inherent nonlinearity, complex dependence structure, heterogeneity and resulting non-standard distributions of the underlying time series. Quantile regressions are considered an important modeling technique for such analyses because of their rich interpretation and their broad insensitivity to extreme distributions. This paper provides an asymptotic justification of quantile trend regression in terms of unknown heterogeneity and dependence structure and the corresponding interpretation. An empirical application sheds light on the relevance of quantile regression modeling for analyzing monthly Central England temperature anomalies and illustrates their various heterogenous trends. Our results suggest the presence of heterogeneities across the considered seasonal cycle and an increase in the relative frequency of observing unusually high temperatures. KW - temperature KW - trend modeling KW - seasonality KW - heterogeneity KW - quantile regression KW - C02 KW - C14 KW - C18 KW - C22 KW - Q54 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-10382 SN - 2227-7390 VL - 10 IS - 3 PB - MDPI ER - TY - THES A1 - Garbas, Janina T1 - From now to next – Three essays on consumer responses to innovative technology-driven business models N2 - Over the last decades, ongoing advancements in information technology (i.e., Internet and mobile devices) have expanded a firm’s ability to communicate and interact with consumers and hence, create the potential of building sustainable relationships. Tailoring offerings through (1) consumer-initiated customization and (2) firm-initiated personalization is considered a key driver of long-term consumer relationships. As technologies continue to evolve, the opportunities for tailored marketing expand and enable new technology-driven business models that help to leverage customization and personalization and strengthen customer relationships in the era of the digital economy. Across three independent essays, the purpose of this dissertation is to answer the overarching research question of how innovative technology-driven business models versus traditional business models in the domains of customization and personalization influence consumer behavior. Thereby, this dissertation contributes to an understanding of challenges and opportunities of innovative customization and personalization business models with the ultimate goal of enabling their successful diffusion in the marketplace. Specifically, in Essay 1 and Essay 2, I investigate an innovative business model located in the realm of customization, that is, internal product upgrades (i.e., offering fee-based access to originally built-in, but deliberately restricted, optional features). Using a conceptual approach, Essay 1 provides a framework for understanding how internal product upgrades will likely influence consumers’ responses. As such, it outlines evolving challenges and opportunities of internal product upgrades and derives questions for future research. In Essay 2, I use an empirical approach to examine pitfalls of internal product upgrades in the product usage phase. Drawing on research on normative expectations and perceived ownership, this essay reveals that consumers respond less favorably to internal (vs. external) product upgrades and investigates managerially relevant boundary conditions. Finally, Essay 3 creates novel insights into a business model in the domain of personalization. This essay examines how the increasingly prevalent data disclosure practice of firms engaging in a network with other firms to exchange consumer data, which we denote as Business Network Data Exchange (BNDE), influences consumers’ privacy-related decision-making. In particular, this essay shows that consumers are less likely to disclose personal data in BNDE (vs. traditional dyadic) data exchange settings and that immediate affective reactions are crucial in explaining consumers’ privacy-related decision-making. Within this dissertation, I make substantial contributions at a more general level to literature on customization and personalization by comparing innovative business models to established ones. At the individual essay level, I extend existing research in the domains of product feature modifications, norm violations, and privacy-related decision making. Moreover, this dissertation provides actionable implications for managers who are facing the decision to transform their established business model into an innovative technology-driven one. KW - technology-driven business models KW - consumer behavior KW - customization KW - personalization Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-11132 ER - TY - THES A1 - Resch, René Matthias T1 - Three Essays on Brand Management in the Business-to-Business Context: Brand Identity, Brand Culture, and Brand Essence N2 - This dissertation examines the overarching research question of how the suppliers’ brand management in the form of brand identity, brand culture, and brand essence influences buyer-seller relationships in three independent essays. In Essay 1, I address the structure, capabilities, and outcomes of brand identity from a supplier perspective. Through qualitative interviews with suppliers, I examine how widespread the concept of brand identity is in practice and what exactly practitioners understand by it. Going further, I look at what capabilities and conditions are necessary for brand identity to be successful and what outcomes suppliers hope to achieve. Using an Information-Display-Matrix (IDM) test and a sample of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students, I examine the relevance of brand functions in more detail. In Essay 2, I use a dyadic dataset with matched buyer-seller dyads to examine the causes and effects of perceptual congruence and incongruence of brand culture strength on the buyer-seller relationship, while considering relationship-specific investments and interaction mechanisms as moderating effects. I show that congruence and incongruence have different effects on customer loyalty and price sensitivity and that these are strongly context-dependent. In Essay 3, I deal with brand essence strength interactions and their effects on the buyer-seller relationship. I use a dyadic dataset with matched buyer-seller dyads to show how brand essence strength influences customer loyalty and customer profitability, and how it interacts with key customer attitudes and other important buyer-seller relationship closeness indicators. This dissertation makes a significant contribution to the literature on brand identity, brand culture, and brand essence in buyer-seller relationships. Furthermore, my dissertation offers practical implications for managers at B2B suppliers who (re)shape their brand management with a focus on the inner parts of the brand. KW - brand management KW - business-to-business KW - brand identity KW - brand culture KW - brand essence Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-11589 ER - TY - THES A1 - Postel, Lea T1 - In Data We Trust: Three Essays on Consumers' Trust-Based Decision-Making Strategies in Privacy-Relevant Online Contexts N2 - Technological advancements and new legal requirements are continuously changing the online data disclosure landscape in terms of both, the quantity and quality of data that firms can acquire. Nowadays, consumers are required to disclose personal data online multiple times a day and in a variety of different contexts, such as creating user profiles, online payment or using location-based services. Despite consumers’ increasing online privacy concerns, firms rely ever more strongly on consumer data that they convert into a competitive advantage through personalized product recommendations and targeted advertising. In an effort to encourage consumer data disclosure, many firms have focused on building trust as a way to counterbalance privacy concerns and mitigate risk perceptions. Correspondingly, marketing literature has continued to examine the interplay of trust and consumer privacy concerns. While the extant research has considerably advanced our understanding of the role of trust in privacy-related decision-making, the majority of studies has mainly focused on single-stage, dyadic disclosure settings and cognitive decision-making processes. Against this background, the overarching goal of this thesis is to shed light on under-researched data disclosure contexts involving trust and to explore additional facets of the underlying decision-making processes. For example, considering pre- and post-disclosure stages when evaluating consumers’ data disclosure decisions allows for a more holistic picture of the decision-making process. Similarly, social media and sharing economy settings challenge the traditional assumption of purely dyadic consumer-firm data disclosure, thus extending traditional conceptualizations of trust. Across three independent essays, this thesis addresses the overarching research question of how the peculiarities of multi-stage and multi-actor settings shape consumers’ trust-based decision-making strategies. Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-14021 ER - TY - THES A1 - Grösbrink, Carl-Friederich T1 - Three Essays on Firm Value and Firm Risk and their Relation to IT-Exposure, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Religiosity N2 - 1. IT-Exposure and Firm Value: We analyze the joint influence of a firm’s information technology (IT)-Exposure and investment behavior on firm value. Estimating a firm’s (partial) IT-Exposure allows for distinguishing between firms with a business model that is challenged by IT above and below market average. Hence, we estimate the annual IT-Exposure of a firm using a 3-factor Fama-French model extended by an IT-proxy. Subsequently, we analyze the relationship with Tobin’s Q in a panel data context, accounting for the relationship between IT-Exposure and investments proxied by R&D as well as CapEx. We use more than 48,000 firm-year observations for firms in the Russell 3000 Index covering the period 1990 to 2018. Although IT-Exposure has a negative impact on firm value, this discount can be overcompensated by up to 2.1 times by sufficient investments through R&D and CapEx, giving a firm with an average Tobin’s Q a premium of 14.8% to 19.2%, while controlling for endogeneity. 2. Corporate Social Responsibility, Risk, and Firm Value: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach: This paper examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm risk, comprising total risk, idiosyncratic risk, and systematic risk, as well as firm value. We focus on analyzing the interrelationships along the entire distribution of the dependent variables, thus estimating an unconditional quantile regression (UQR). The analysis is based on CSR scores from Refinitiv and MSCI, using up to 12,013 firm-year observations over the period 2002 to 2019 for all U.S. companies listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX. UQR reveals strongly heterogeneous effects along the unconditional quantiles of the dependent variables, which are reflected in sign changes, magnitude and significance variations. For CSR we find a risk-reducing as well as value-enhancing effect. When applying fixed effects OLS, we can just partly confirm the risk-reducing and value-enhancing effect of CSR shown in the literature. 3. Heterogenous Effects of Religiosity on Firm Risk and Firm Value: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach: This paper examines the impact of religiosity on firm risk, comprising total risk, idiosyncratic risk, and systematic risk, as well as firm value. We focus on analyzing the interrelationships along the entire distribution of the dependent variables, thus estimating an unconditional quantile regression (UQR). The analysis is based on all U.S. companies listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX for the period from 1980 through 2020. UQR reveals strongly heterogeneous effects along the unconditional quantiles of the dependent variables, which are reflected in sign changes, magnitude and significance variations. Overall, the risk-reducing effect of religiosity is more pronounced in the higher quantiles of the distribution. We further observe a value-reducing as well as value-enhancing religiosity effect. When applying fixed effects OLS, we can confirm the risk-reducing and non-existing value effect of religiosity shown in the literature. The robustness of our results is underpinned by a battery of additional tests. KW - Firm Value KW - Firm Risk KW - IT-Exposure KW - Corporate Social Responsibility KW - Religiosity Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-11558 ER - TY - THES A1 - Seruset, Marco T1 - Three Essays on Price Discovery, Stock Liquidity, and Crash Risk N2 - Abstract 1: This paper investigates whether market quality, uncertainty, investor sentiment and attention, and macroeconomic news affect bitcoin price discovery in spot and futures markets. Over the period December 2017 – March 2019, we find significant time variation in the contribution to price discovery of the two markets. Increases in price discovery are mainly driven by relative trading costs and volume, and by uncertainty to a lesser extent. Additionally, medium-sized trades contain most information in terms of price discovery. Finally, higher news-based bitcoin sentiment increases the informational role of the futures market, while attention and macroeconomic news have no impact on price discovery. Abstract 2: We investigate whether local religious norms affect stock liquidity for U.S. listed companies. Over the period 1997–2020, we find that firms located in more religious areas have higher liquidity, as reflected by lower bid-ask spreads. This result persists after the inclusion of additional controls, such as governance metrics, and further sensitivity and endogeneity analyses. Subsample tests indicate that the impact of religiosity on stock liquidity is particularly evident for firms operating in a poor information environment. We further show that firms located in more religious areas have lower price impact of trades and smaller probability of information-based trading. Overall, our findings are consistent with the notion that religiosity, with its antimanipulative ethos, probably fosters trust in corporate actions and information flows, especially when little is known about the firm. Finally, we conjecture an indirect firm value implication of religiosity through the channel of stock liquidity. Abstract 3: This study shows that higher physical distance to institutional shareholders is associated with higher stock price crash risk. Since monitoring costs increase with distance, the results are consistent with the monitoring theory of local institutional investors. Cross-sectional analyses show that the effect of proximity on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with weak internal governance structures. The significant relation between distance and crash risk still holds under the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, however, to a lower extent. Also, the existence of the channel of bad news hoarding is confirmed. Finally, I show that there is heterogeneity in distance-induced monitoring activities of different types of institutions. Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-11563 ER - TY - THES A1 - Daschner, Stefan T1 - Essays on Trust, Behavior, and Decision-Making in the Human-Algorithm Interaction N2 - With recent progresses in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms can support more complex tasks (Frey and Osborne, 2017) that seemed safe from automation a few years ago (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2012). They can even outperform human decision-making in many task domains (Meehl, 1954; Dawes et al., 1989). The prominent defeat of Garry Kasparov, the world champion in chess, in 1997 is a milestone for the potentials of algorithms, increasing the value of IBM’s stock increased by $18 billion (Norvig and Russell, 2010). More recently, universal chatbots such as ChatGPT and the Bing Chatbot Sydney can influence millions of users and provide them answers to a broad range of tasks. To gain a competitive edge, companies invest heavily in algorithmic systems (Kappelman et al., 2021), which are considered as one of the most important drivers of today’s economy (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011; Hogharth and Makridakis, 1981; Önkal et al., 2019). Particularly in management accounting, an algorithmic data analysis offers the potential to support a high decision quality, making their usage a key factor for success. However, algorithms can not only support, but also manipulate human decision-making (Roose et al., 2023). Algorithmic advice can lead to overtrust, i.e. to the heuristic replacement of vigilant information seeking and processing in favor of the advice provided (Mosier et al., 2001). The implementation of algorithmic decision support systems is thus no panacea to improve human decision-making. In contrast, they can entail new risks, such as the uncritical use of these algorithms (Boden, 2016). Yet, this ‘dark side’ of algorithms is not sufficiently investigated in the field of management accounting. With advances in machine learning, algorithmic support can become even more of a black box, blurring the reference points for evaluating its advice quality and thus increasing the risk of overtrust. Stephen Hawking even warns that AI will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity” (Alex Hern in: The Guardian: Stephen Hawking: AI will be 'either best or worst thing' for humanity, 19th October 2016). Interacting with such algorithmic systems therefore requires data literacy skills for an appropriate use. They seem to be a crucial prerequisite in today’s data-driven world to reap of the benefits of algorithmic systems. If no reflective and critical interaction between human and algorithm can be ensured, the trend towards a digitalized world will be a race against the algorithm (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2011). This dissertation takes this understudied critical perspective on the increasing implementation of algorithmic systems and sheds light on different aspects of human-algorithm interaction, ranging from the ability to use data visualization tools to trust calibrations and critical evaluations of algorithmic advices. Study I investigates an adequate information representation of subjective multiple criteria decision problems, an important task in management accounting, to support human decision-making. Study II distinguishes different designs of the human-algorithm interaction investigated in the trust in automation literature and compiles factors influencing the calibration of trust and behavior toward the true capabilities of the algorithm. Study III examines the role of performance feedback on trust and advice usage in a forecasting task for a better understanding of the recently observed phenomenon ‘algorithm aversion’. Finally, Study IV focusses on the risk of overtrust in advice in repeated interactions with a forecasting advisor and investigates the calibration of advice usage. Each study thereby represents an independent contribution and contains all information relevant to the respective research questions asked in the study. KW - artifical intelligence KW - algorithmic advice Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-14749 ER - TY - THES A1 - Stoffer, Gloria T1 - Three essays on b2b solution selling - challenges in sales, contracting, and pricing N2 - Offering solutions impose manifold challenges on suppliers. To master these challenges, suppliers need excellent commercial capabilities. This thesis considers these challenges and opportunities in sales, contracting, and pricing of complex B2B solutions in three essays: Essay 1 addresses the increased complexity for solution salespeople, who represent an essential strategic asset in solution selling. In-depth interviews with solution sales managers in study 1 and survey data from matched sales manager-salesperson dyads in study 2, reveal nine specific equifinal configurations of key personal and procedural competencies that qualify individual salespeople in their role and thus determine their solution sales success. The focus of essay 2 lies on B2B export relationships for complex product-service combinations in an international context. A regression analysis based on a survey study with 198 responses shows several direct and indirect effects of contractual and cultural constructs. The results give insights under which cultural framework conditions contract specificity serves as a safeguarding mechanism against uncertainty and opportunism. Essay 3 examines how the bidirectional agency relationship between suppliers and customers and the performance uncertainty of a solution influence B2B customers’ acceptance of performance-based pricing (PBP). Drawing on a cross-industry survey with 196 managers of B2B firms, this study contributes to extend PBP literature by showing how bidirectional agency relationships shape customers’ acceptance of PBP. In sum, this thesis contributes to a better understanding on how to optimize commercial capabilities in the context of national and international solution selling. It thereby focuses on addressing recently identified causes that hinder B2B firms from increasing their margins through solution selling by (1) optimizing the sales force through a better understanding of important resources and capabilities for solution selling, (2) optimizing their contractual set-up through a better understanding of cultural factors and the interplay with contract specificity, and 3) optimizing price policy through a better understanding of framework conditions, which have an impact on customers’ acceptance of PBP. KW - solution selling KW - customization KW - business-to-business Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-14728 ER - TY - THES A1 - Donner, Eva Katharina T1 - 4 Essays on Sustainable Development and Organizations’ Response to Stakeholder’s Expectations N2 - As integral part of the society, environment, and economy, the organization’s survival and growth depend on legitimacy which reflects the social support and acceptance of its stakeholders, the institutions and individuals it interacts with. Organizations interact with internal and external stakeholder groups which not necessarily have the same legitimacy expectations. Due to several reasons, such as the adoption of new laws or the invention of new technologies, stakeholders’ expectations of legitimate actions can change in the course of time. Thus, to respond to changing stakeholder’s expectations, as integral part of a changing environment, is complex. The main objective of this dissertation is to answer the research question: “How do organizations respond to changing stakeholder’s expectations in context of sustainable development?”. Building on two empirical settings with four essays, this dissertation provides insights into organizations’ responses as reaction to changing stakeholder expectations with regard to sustainable development. In particular, it takes a closer look on the interplay between internal stakeholders, such as employees, and external stakeholders, such as politics or customers. The first essay summarizes the organizational factors for the implementation of a research data management (RDM) system within higher education institutes (HEI) and how they interact with each other. Based on Leavitt’s (1965) classical model of organizational change, the essay provides an overview about the interrelation between the individual components that make up an RDM system. The second essay investigates how early career researchers within HEI make use of different respond strategies to the state, market, professional, and community logic in context of RDM. It provides insights how employees deal with changing environmental conditions and the organization’s response to them. The third essay analyses the shift from voluntary to mandatory sustainability reporting and demonstrates different strategies organizations adopt to respond to it. The fourth essay incorporates the findings of the third essay and investigates which factors influence the organization’s strategy to respond. It focuses on the interface between the top management team and the chief executive officer. This dissertation makes at least two overall contributions to management and organization studies research. First, it emphasizes the role of different stakeholder groups and their impact on the organizations’ activities. Second, this dissertation shows the value of connecting different theoretical approaches such as institutional logics, upper echelon theory, and organizational transparency research in context of organizational legitimacy and demonstrates that a nuanced view is necessary to understand the concept of organizational legitimacy. This cumulative dissertation is structured as follows. Part A is an introduction to the study organizational legitimacy. Part B contains the four essays. KW - Legitimacy KW - Strategisches Management Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-14516 ER - TY - THES A1 - Fritz, Manuela T1 - Health challenges of the 21st century - Empirical essays on the health and economic burden of non-communicable diseases and climate change in Southeast Asia N2 - In the ongoing 21st century, low- and middle-income countries will face two health challenges that are thoroughly different from what these countries have been dealing with in preceding centuries. First, they are confronted with surging rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and second, climate change will take its toll and is predicted to cause catastrophic health impairments and exacerbate chronic health conditions further. Both will pose a disproportionate health and economic burden on low- and middle-income countries, which are also the countries least able to cope with them. By threatening individual health and socioeconomic improvements, and by putting an immense burden on already constrained health care systems, they impede the progress in poverty reduction and widen health inequities between the rich and the poor. Against this background, this thesis investigates the potential of NCD prevention and treatment measures in the context of Southeast Asia, with case studies in Indonesia. Specifically, it seeks to understand what kind of health interventions have the potential to be (cost-)effective considering the cultural background, lifestyle, health literacy and health system capacities in the region. Further, this thesis analyzes the interplay between NCDs and climate change and assesses the financial burden that both might pose in the decades to come. Hence, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of how the two health challenges of the 21st century, NCDs and climate change, can be addressed in the context of Southeast Asia and offers insights into what type of health policies and interventions can play a supportive role. KW - Health KW - Climate change KW - Non-communicable diseases KW - Southeast Asia Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-12649 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Donner, Eva Katharina T1 - Research data management systems and the organization of universities and research institutes: A systematic literature review JF - Journal of Librarianship and Information Science N2 - New technological developments, the availability of big data, and the creation of research platforms open a variety of opportunities to generate, store, and analyze research data. To ensure the sustainable handling of research data, the European Commission as well as scientific commissions have recently highlighted the importance of implementing a research data management system (RDMS) in higher education institutes (HEI) which combines technical as well as organizational solutions. A deep understanding of the requirements of research data management (RDM), as well as an overview of the different stakeholders, is a key prerequisite for the implementation of an RDMS. Based on a scientific literature review, the aim of this study is to answer the following research questions: “What organizational factors need to be considered when implementing an RDMS? How do these organizational factors interact with each other and how do they constrain or facilitate the implementation of an RDMS?” The structure of the analysis is built on the four components of Leavitt’s classical model of organizational change: task, structure, technology, and people. The findings reveal that the implementation of RDMS is strongly impacted by the organizational structure, infrastructure, labor culture as well as strategic considerations. Overall, this literature review summarizes different approaches for the implementation of an RDMS. It also identifies areas for future research. KW - Data handling KW - information infrastructure KW - organization KW - organizational change KW - research data management KW - research data management system Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-12654 SN - 0961-0006 SN - 1741-6477 VL - 55 IS - 2 SP - 261 EP - 281 PB - SAGE Publications CY - Sage UK: London, England ER - TY - THES A1 - Ghaffar, Abdul Muqeet T1 - Understanding Individuals’ Willingness for Prosocial Data Disclosure: Exploring Antecedents and Investigating Strategies for its Promotion N2 - Privacy research has traditionally focused on understanding individuals' behavior in disclosing personal data by assuming that individuals disclose their data mainly out of self-interest. However, in many contexts, individuals disclose their data primarily for the benefit of others and society, thereby showing a form of prosocial behavior. This dissertation conceptualizes these types of data disclosure as prosocial data disclosures and argues that existing privacy research frameworks, such as the privacy calculus, have not been sufficiently applied in privacy research and need to be reevaluated to fully capture the complexities of prosocial data disclosures. Despite the growing relevance of understanding individuals’ willingness for prosocial data disclosures, existing research in this field is limited. This dissertation consists of four essays that seek to deepen the understanding of the underlying decision-making processes of individuals by exploring the antecedents and investigating strategies that promote prosocial data disclosure. By employing different research methods, including systematic literature reviews, qualitative and quantitative surveys, interviews, workshops, and conjoint analysis, this dissertation contributes to the identification of the multifaceted antecedents of prosocial data disclosure which can be classified into different drivers and barriers. Furthermore, by integrating insights from different disciplines such as behavioral economics, social psychology, and information systems research, this dissertation provides empirical evidence for the use of message framing and the deliberate emphasis on impact uncertainty as two promising strategies in promoting prosocial data disclosure. The findings derived from all four essays inform privacy research and prosocial behavior research about the need for sophisticated theories that are capable of better capturing the complexities of prosocial data disclosure. Additionally, the findings offer practical implications for designing ethically responsible data disclosure practices while respecting individual privacy rights. KW - privacy KW - behavioral economics KW - social psychology KW - message framing KW - impact uncertainty Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-15001 ER - TY - THES A1 - Rose, Julian T1 - Poor Economics and the Long Term: Empirical Essays on Energy and Economic Poverty N2 - This dissertation explores different aspects of poverty specific to urban and rural areas. The first two chapters examine energy access for poor urban households, emphasizing the need for effective energy policies that ensure access while considering environmental and climate impacts. The final two chapters analyze the long-term effects of transfer programs targeting poor rural households, aiming to overcome poverty traps. The dissertation expands the methodological toolkit typically used in economics, addressing increasing concerns about the generalizability of experimental results, the narrow focus of research question in causal research, and the credibility crisis of empirical research. KW - Armut KW - Energieversorgung KW - Stadt KW - Ländlicher Raum KW - Wirtschaftshilfe Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-15124 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fritz, Manuela T1 - Temperature and non‐communicable diseases: Evidence from Indonesia's primary health care system JF - Health Economics N2 - Climate change induced rising temperatures will pose a detrimental threat to decent health in the coming decades. Especially at risk are individuals with chronic diseases, since heat can exacerbate a variety of health conditions. In this article, I examine the heat‐morbidity relationship in the context of Indonesia, focusing on chronic, non‐communicable diseases, namely diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Using a novel dataset from the Indonesian national health insurance scheme Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional/Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial (BPJS) and linking it with meteorological data on the daily‐district level, I estimate the causal effect of high temperatures on the daily number of primary health care visits. The results show that on a hot day all‐cause visits and visits with a diagnosis of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases increase by 8%, 25% and 14%, respectively. These increases are permanent and not offset by visit displacement or ‘harvesting’. Visits related to respiratory diseases seem not to be affected by high temperatures. I use several climate change scenarios to predict the increase in visits and costs by the end of the century, which all forecast a substantial financial burden for the health care system. These results might have relevance for other middle‐income countries with similar climatic conditions. KW - climate change KW - health KW - Indonesia KW - JKN/BPJS kesehatan KW - non‐communicable diseases KW - temperature Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-11429 VL - 31 IS - 11 SP - 2445 EP - 2464 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - THES A1 - Wild, Matthias T1 - A statistical perspective on machine learning: three essays on improvement, application and interpretation of predictive algorithms N2 - In this thesis we address a series of topics at the interface between statistics and machine learning. This includes the improvement of predictive algorithms using statistical concepts, potential and challenges in the application of predictive algorithms in areas traditionally covered by statistical theory, and the interpretation of black-box algorithms by means of statistical hypothesis testing. KW - machine learning KW - hypothesis test KW - statistical learning KW - boosting KW - random forest Y1 - 2025 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-15311 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Knott, Manuel A1 - Strich, Franz A1 - Strunk, Kim Simon A1 - Mayer, Anne-Sophie T1 - Uncovering potential barriers of using initial coin offerings to finance artistic projects JF - Journal of Cultural Economics N2 - Artists make vital contributions to our society and lay the foundations for billion-dollar industries. However, these artists consistently struggle to acquire sufficientfunding for their projects and their livelihood. New technology-supported possibili-ties for funding artists and their projects have emerged in recent years. Initial CoinOffering (ICO) is a novel form of reward-based tokenized crowdfunding. AlthoughICOs are promising as a way to fund artistic projects, they lack widespread adoptionin the creative and cultural industry (CCI). Based on 35 qualitative in-depth inter-views, we identify four barriers that hinder the funding of artistic projects throughICOs: legal shortcomings, investment restrictions, lack of consumer interest, andintermediaries’ resistance. Our research contributes to cultural finance and fundingliterature by disclosing barriers that impede a promising form of financing artisticprojects. Further, we outline possible solutions to overcome them. We also con-tribute to the research about ICOs by showing that rather than reducing investmentrisks, these offerings merely shift them. KW - initial coin offerings KW - blockchain technology KW - cultural finance KW - artists KW - creative and cultural industries KW - barriers Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022081518483651137386 VL - 2022 IS - 46 SP - 317 EP - 344 PB - Springer Nature CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Beierl, Stefan A1 - Dodlova, Marina T1 - Public Works Programmes and Cooperation for the Common Good: Evidence from Malawi JF - The European Journal of Development Research N2 - This paper investigates the relationship between Malawi’s largest and oldest publicworks programme (PWP) and social cohesion, specifically within-community coop-eration for the common good. Using both primary and secondary data, we show thatpublic works are associated with higher coordination activities and higher voluntary(unpaid) contributions to public goods, along both vertical ties (between communitymembers and local leaders) and horizontal ties (among community members). Espe-cially for school-building activities, voluntary inputs in the form of labour and otherin-kind contributions are higher in the presence of the PWP. Our results contrib-ute to a better understanding of the link between social protection programmes withcommunity-driven features and social cohesion. KW - Public works KW - Cash-for-work KW - Social protection KW - Cooperation for the common good KW - Coordination KW - Community meeting KW - Voluntary contributions Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:101:1-2022080712061894426936 VL - 2022 IS - 34 SP - 1264 EP - 1284 PB - Springer Nature CY - Berlin ER -