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Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) among internet companies increased rapidly during the last decade which was caused by the growing competition and changing consumer preferences. Many startup companies enter the market offering hit products and getting millions of users in a short period of time. Due to such quick success established internet players like Google, Twitter and Facebook tend to acquire these startups instead of developing their own R&D. Internet acquisitions are very risky and imply high premiums, therefore, their impact on the innovation performance is quite unclear in the short- and long-term perspective. There is a variety of factors that can affect the innovation performance of both acquiring and acquired companies after the M&A transaction. This thesis is aimed to analyse the impact of M&A on the innovation performance of internet companies taking into account recent acquisitions among social networking players. A case study about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram occurred in 2012 presents the main application for the thesis. Qualitative data for the research is taken from the articles that contain opinions of the industry experts which are then critically assessed using the main scientific concepts about M&A and innovation performance.
A contract as one of the essential means which regulates national and international commercial transactions, intended to determine the rights and responsibilities of the parties and protect their assets. Parties to international business transactions may freely choose the law governing their contract. As a result, parties are free to choose a contract law which best fits their needs, irrespective of its connection to the particular transaction. The market of contracts offers a choice among the laws of national jurisdictions and uniformed commercial contract law drawn up by intergovernmental organizations. Even application of a reputable national law or uniformed contract law does not guarantee eligible certainty. In particular, uncertainty is not admissible in transactions of industrial products and technologies, where protection of intellectual properties is one of the crucial aspects. In the aforementioned conditions, it might be a problem for businesses to make an appropriate choice of an applicable law of a contract, which is less complex, involves adequate efforts of contract enforcement and costs of dispute resolution. The task of this research is an analysis of different legal environment and making suggestions to a business in a subsequent strategy, depended on scopes of business transactions, national or international, and power levels of the involved parties. The research to be carried out in the following four parts, problem setting, theoretical study, empirical study and implementation. Solutions of the problems related to making and enforcement of a contract and dispute resolutions, basically may be divided into preventive and reactive actions. The preventive actions include choice of an applicable contract law, involving various mechanism to ensure that each party will stick to the contract terms, like self-enforcement, reputation, third party audits. As the reactive actions there may be considered, formal litigation through the judiciary system, which might be costly and slow, and alternative dispute resolution, such as an arbitration, mediation and conciliation hearings.
The sector of supply chain risk management has been expanding for several years now, with the goal to not only prepare organizations to recover after supply-chain disruptions but also mitigate risks to reduce losses.
One of the most remarkable techniques in the field is the Artificial Intelligence technology, which owing to its effectiveness and efficiency, allows humans to develop new solutions to predict or prevent a great variety of supply-chain disruptions.
This paper aims to forecast the future state of the Artificial Intelligence technology in Europe by 2035 with the use of the INKA 4 scenario manager software. A total of four areas of influence –– i.e., technological, financial, legal, and social –– were identified.
From those, 11 descriptors were created based on relevant scientific literature and were inserted in the INKA software to develop the scenarios. This process resulted in three clearly differentiated scenarios that exhibit high probabilities and positive outlook for the Artificial Intelligence technology to be widely integrated in supply chain risk management systems in Europe by 2035.
Life insurance penetration rate in Malaysia has been stagnant in the past few years although a few InsurTech companies set up in Malaysia recently. Prior researches on InsurTech fail to clarify the gap of the target customers’ and the insurance experts’ opinions on how to enhance the customer experience in online life insurance with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To address this, a model is recommended based on the literature review on similar articles and survey results conducted on both target customers and insurance experts. The recommended model has four main components: official website by InsurTech companies collaborated with traditional life insurers, customer support, customer service and customer engagement.
As businesses advance toward globalization, their supply chains have expanded. Globalization has brought together varied marketplaces, but it also has consequences. The most significant of these impacts is environmental damage. As organizations and customers are becoming growingly aware of the extent of the damage, organizations are transitioning towards greener practices. However, the long, complex supply chains make visibility and transparency in the chain, particularly beyond the first tier of suppliers difficult. Managing companies at a global scale become complex due to differences in interests and difficulty in managing information, material, and financial flow that require rigorous validation and management from external participants. This is where Blockchain Technology has immense potential. Blockchain is a new, ground-breaking technology with applications primarily in the financial sector. This thesis is exploratory by necessity, as it is an early work on blockchain's influence on green supply chain management. The study employs the funnel technique, which begins with a broad and general perspective before moving on to more particular aspects of the subject. A framework is designed based on a thorough assessment of the literature and real-world applications of blockchain technology. The findings show that incorporating blockchain into supply chain management can potentially increase understanding of the supply chain's hidden layers and aid in the transformation of the existing supply chain to a green supply chain.
This thesis aims to find out what are the career related self-perceptions of female researchers and scientist working or studying in the biomedical field in Finland and Germany. The literature research, statistics and empirical evidence collected by in-depth interviews are used to enlighten the cultural differences, environmental influencers and importance of self-esteem in career development. These in-depth interviews are arranged as individual narratives, which are then further analyzed in the data part. The main findings in the paper point out, that the support from the system provides better chances for women in Finland to combine family and the career, but many of the challenges are still rising form the lack of self-confidence and the tendency to avoid self-promotion. The both sides of working in the industry versus academy are as well looked into. Suggestions for new policies include better information for academics about employment possibilities in industrial the sector, positive role models who especially encourage women to combine work and family, and feedback and coaching in order to motivate women.
Concerns about China’s currency intervention strategy against the U.S. dollar and other major currencies have been raised by many members of congress for more than a decade. They view it as one of several distorting economic policies China is employing to gain an unfair advantage over their competitors. Assuming the RMB is a freely traded currency, they argue that China’s currency strategy is designed to lower the cost of exports and raise the cost of imports greatly.
Problem and Objective: How is China competing with the USA to become the economic world leader? This paper examines the interconnection among three major economic components in the Chinese economy through financial development, international trade, and economic growth.
Method: The research method involved the exploration of articles authored by economic scholars who have concluded that productivity increases significantly contribute to China’s rapid economic expansion. Numerous articles were retrieved from the website to explain how China is slowly becoming the world economic giant overtaking the United States.
Findings: Scholars expect to have significant economic growth in China, surpassing the individual European countries in terms of ranks and G.D.P. size. The entry of China into the W.T.O. depends on the successful completion of the multilateral phase of accession negotiations. Its membership will significantly impact the international trading systems for numerous reasons. First, the admission serves as a template for various transition economies looking to join the W.T.O due to the increasing demand that the Chinese have accepted within the bilateral phase, the W.T.O. admission negotiations deter the entry of various new members. Secondly, China has taken critical steps towards meeting some of its W.T.O. obligations and the steps that can complete the process that may disappoint some individuals within the organization. Due to the large volume of international trade, there is a risk that trade conflicts can overburden the capacity of the W.T.O. to settle disputes. Third, China has a critical role in shaping various multilateral trade negotiations agendas. The developing nation is also one of the top trading countries, and China is a forceful advocate within the next round for the interest of various developing nations.
Conclusion: US congress has long been concerned about China’s currency policies and economic growth. The RMB’s value versus the dollar has risen by 34 percent nominal and 42 percent actual since 2003. Another concern is China’s use of industrial policies to subsidize priority domestic firms while restricting foreign market access. China’s financial system could be severely undermined if the proportion of non-performing loans increases dramatically due to policies that promote significant gross fixed investment and are primarily backed by low-cost credit policies.
In the opinion of many observers, RMB value is undervalued because of Chinese government restrictions on its value.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have become a driver motor of economies. Moreover, in developed countries, the manufacturing SMEs play an important role in the value creation and employment generation.O'regan et al. (2006) presents that constant innovation is a key component to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Raymond et al. (2010) claims that particular manufacturing SMEs should continuously improve their manufacturing processes in order to ensure long term sustainability. However, given the lack of resources and experience, SMEs find it difficult converting research and development into effective innovation (O’regan et al., 2006). Researchers have explained why certain firms innovate more than others by identifying a number of critical success factors or drivers of innovation such as strategy, social capital (Balachandra and Friar, 1997) or R&D (Becheikh et al., 2006a, Raymond et al.2010). The literature on the topic is diverse, there are different approaches and there is not a consensus on how those success factors can be measured. Therefore, the present thesis develops a meta-analysis study of the empirical research on the drives of innovation in manufacturing SMEs of developed countries. The result is a consolidated framework of the success factors and its measurements proposed by 49 authors, those were organized in the different phases of a holistic innovation process. The process considered was presented by Tidd and Bessant (2005). In consequence, the contribution of the present thesis is to serve as a starting point for future studies on drivers of innovation and its measurements, also, to serve as reference for future researchers that will develop a meta-analysis study.
In the 21 century, global companies are spreading all over the world for the sake of chasing profits. Driving by the desire of new market & profitability, they struggle in the business world by competition, merge, innovation and utilize all the resources that available. Among them, hidden champions are winners in this period. However, it also needs to be asked for the hidden champions, will they been succeed in a totally different market? The answers came with new market in China, which will verify their belief. Coming into China, into different markets, is an inevitable step for most hidden champions, for development and defend themselves as champions.
This thesis mainly gives the hidden champions that working on Chinese market or going to this market a brief intro about the local situations, competition existed, entry & marketing strategy, and hidden champion real cases. In the following chapters, you could found: The definitions & characteristics of hidden champions, learning that what build the family business into the most successful business in niche industries;
The Chinese business historical moments, what makes the Chinese business culture today, and today’s business situations in China.
The entry strategies for foreign companies getting into China, discussing the different forms from licensing business to the wholly-owned subsidiary and their pros & cons.
The marketing strategies typically for hidden champion companies in China, applying the classic marketing management theories & localization situations in China.
Real hidden champion company case in hidden champion cluster in China, the current situation and value chain analysis.
New trend marketing risks & chances in China for 21 century, digitalization & cyber – physical system development.
As this paper study how a brand can differentiate itself to stand out among the competitions for better growth opportunities, focus is given to two emerging trends in the market, the halal skincare and also functional skincare brand. Halal skincare stands for the skincare product that is permissible for Muslim consumption from the religious perspective. This trend is growing tremendously as Muslim is the second biggest religion in the world with high fertility rate. In skincare, the concept of halal would exclude the use of alcohol and pig-derives material in the product. This market amount to $46 billion in 2013 and is growing at 8% annually. This undercapitalised halal skincare market with few competition provides good opportunities for a brand to grow and develop. The functional skincare on the other hand, is a trend emerged over time where products provide additional benefits on top of basic function. This skincare trend is basically driven by modern technology that leads to many innovations of these multi-featured products. Example of the additional benefits that will be the focus in this study are the anti-aging and the sun care protection. Both trends gained enough attention by demonstrating a strong growth in the respective segments. This study will provide a snapshot of the current growing trends in the market and provide the key steps to position and differentiate a brand in order to stand out against the competitors with reference to the halal and functional skincare. The key objective here is to understand the determination of the brand positioning through the analysis of competitors, the target consumer and formulation of own brand differentiations. As every brand will be given a variety of judgements by the consumers, it is essential that a brand is position properly in the mind of the consumer in order to be successful in the market.
Sustainability first caught greater attention when the Brundtland commission first published their report “Our Common Future”. Since then, a lot has been done to fight against climate change. Sustainability has become one major issue in the daily business of companies. One industry that is surely going to change as a cause of the increased awareness of sustainability issues is the automotive industry. The disruptive electrification push plays an important role in the fast changing industry. E- mobility solutions as a means for more sustainable mobility are demanded more and more by customers. Also, governments shape the change in the industry with new regulations, bonus payments for buying electric cars and their emission targets. All this might sooner or later push traditional combustion engine cars out of the market. New players like Tesla focusing only on electric vehicles are entering the market and traditional car companies are changing their business towards e-mobility as well. That this change works well, companies also will need a well-developed marketing as well as brand positioning strategy and this is where the concept of green marketing kicks in. Broadly spoken, green marketing is the marketing of products that minimize the negative effects on our environment. Therefore, the thesis is generally researching the details of literature on green marketing and brand positioning. Later on, a detailed transition to the automotive industry is made with the analyzing of the three companies Volkswagen, BMW and Tesla. The thesis works out how those three companies managed to transfer their marketing mix into a green one and how this then affected their brand positioning. The thesis discusses the findings critically and gives implications for theory and practice as well as a guide to what needs to be done to be recognized as a green player in the automotive industry.
The purpose of this study was to work out structured ways to lead GVTs. The Model of Team Leadership, which has been worked on in chapter 5, has shown that a mental model that can be used by people leading a team is helpful also when applied for GVTs. This model for virtual leadership offers the possibility to locate possible issues and address upcoming problems that might hinder the project to succeed early enough, but with prior monitoring, surveying and examination. This model, which is based on the assumption that leaderships is being shared in teams and also multiple team members can execute leadership actions, can be applied in GVTs as a basic mental model by all team members. This helps creating a common understanding of team leadership and the areas where issues, misunderstandings and conflicts can stem from.
Secondly, this work showed that there is not one single form of GVT existing – as it is often the case in research work – and requires consequently different focus of leadership actions. The GVT Matrix is a first step, which tries to differentiate leadership challenges along the defined GVT types. This point can be addressed in future research to find respective data that are increasing the scientific relevance on the differences of leadership in GVTs that can then be applied in the model used in chapter 6.
This point is also the limitation of this research. As many data is available for general leadership of GVT, data on leadership issues relating special types of GVTs is relatively rare. The assumptions and validated findings that have been used to fill the GVT Matrix are not as fully scientifically reliable as it could have been. Future research can address this issue if new data is available which are examining the differences of GVTs.
Die Vielfalt von heutzutage auftretenden Datenstrukturen schafft Bedarf für individu-
ell abgestimmte Analyseplattformen. Dabei benötigte Ressourcen sind vom jeweiligen
Anwendungsfall abhängig. Diese Arbeit diskutiert Broker für die Virtualisierung der
verarbeitenden Anwendungen, welche durch ein abstrahiertes Dashboard bedient wer-
den. Eine Domain Specific Language ermöglicht die Generierung eines Grundgerüsts
entsprechender Komponenten, die mit individueller Logik anzureichern sind. Die be-
schriebene Architektur bezieht sich zu großen Teilen auf den Umgang mit den flexiblen
Eingangsdaten von virtualisierten Verarbeitungsplattformen.
The study explores the use of gamification approaches in complex diagnostic systems. Based on theories of gamification, a concept for the feedback function within the diagnostic software ESI[tronic] of the Robert Bosch GmbH is developed with user interviews and the analysis of feedback data. Through this, feedback loops should be generated to enable further development taking the user perspective into account. The results show that the target group of the diagnostic software can be intrinsically motivated and the aspect of mutual assistance as well as recognition and appreciation is particularly important. Therefore, the use of gamification concepts in complex diagnostic systems contributes to increasing user satisfaction and ultimately to influencing feedback behavior.
The German banking landscape is currently undergoing a paradigm shift of an unprecedented magnitude. As the financial world is changing, the future of German banks is highly uncertain. A multitude of present-day driving factors will shape the banking world of tomorrow. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate and analyze the future of the German banking sector until 2030. The concept of scenario planning serves as underlying method for this research. Based on current factors influencing the German banking sector, the present thesis systematically develops coherent future scenarios. The generation of these scenarios is performed with the help of the scenario software INKA 4. This enables to assess a comprehensive picture of the future environment and the interactions between external influencing factors. Based on the most consistent future scenario, implications for the strategies of German banks are derived. As a result, German incumbents can question their strategic orientation and position themselves optimally for the future.
This project builds an understanding on the evolution of financial intermediaries and its actors based on financial intermediation theory. By discussing the perspectives of borrowers and lenders within the crowdfunding industry, this study advises a way to create a competitive advantage for emerging Crowdlending platforms by leveraging on institutional investors.
This study recommends an inductive analysis of the crowdfunding industry, based on studies of other authors, observations of the industry and academic papers regarding investment behaviours. This leads to a Porter’s Five Forces analysis, which depicts the linkages among the actors of the business. The previous analysis suggests that institutional investors create positive linkages within the business; therefore, the project continues to explore the requirements of these agents when employing crowdfunding platforms as an effective investment vehicle.
As an investigation tool, a questionnaire is designed and delivered to institutional investors in the Latin American region. Results show that institutional investors lean towards short term credit operations structured under a monthly cash flow arrangement. While investors do care about the established communication channels and management of cash flows towards borrowers; support activities are susceptible of outsourcing and may constitute a value-added opportunity for financial intermediaries.
The context of this project is a study of the business expansion and development of the Becual Chile crowdlending platform as a young company in the market. The study is led by the Hochschule Furtwangen University and complemented by other two theses: ‘Credit Risk Model for a SME Crowdlending Platform’ (Aravena) and ‘Growth Strategies for SME Crowdlending Platform’ (Beltran).
The platform business model replaces the traditional linear value chain model, demonstrating how value can be created differently. The emergence of new platforms in various industries during the last decade has made it difficult to imagine a business without naming at least a handful of active platforms. The platform business model has been proven to revolutionize industries, and this study investigates the possibility of launching a platform business model in unprecedented arenas which still use conventional pipeline business models.
The study explores the process of generating ideas for a new opportunity in the platform business model. After generating 11 ideas, screening and evaluating methods were studied.
This thesis begins a theoretical investigation into leadership and organizational power by briefly examining the relevant academic literature. It then examines Robert House’s Path-Goal Theory, Bertram French, and John Raven’s Bases of Power frameworks. This study investigates the correlation between directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors and reward, coercive, legitimate, expert, and referent power within organizational set-tings by combining theoretical knowledge with empirical data gathered through questionnaires conducted with leaders and employees in the hotel sector. It also investigates how they impact the achievement of hotel goals.
Contributing to existing knowledge on leadership and power dynamics in the hotel industry, this research rigorously analyzes the compatibility and effectiveness of leadership behaviors with various power sources. The empirical backbone of this study comprises questionnaires conduct-ed across sixteen Southeast Asian hotels, yielding insights grounded in real-world organization-al settings. Based on 167 responses, this comprehensive investigation offers valuable implica-tions for practitioners and scholars, elucidating the intricate relationship between leadership be-havior and power sources. It underscores the strategic importance of aligning behavior with power sources to enhance leadership effectiveness and foster organizational success.