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- BMP - Business Management and Psychology (47) (remove)
Phenomena like talent shortage, war for talents, and demographic change – Organizations are facing many challenges and changes these days. To compete in a contested market space the issue of employer attractiveness is becoming increasingly important. It seems that prioritizing the provision of attractive working conditions becomes prominent, while the importance of locus of control is underestimated. The research question addressed in this study is: What are the effects of working conditions and locus of control on performance? For this
investigation, a quasi-experiment with a 2x2 factorial design was conducted. Participants were assigned to either an attractive or unattractive working condition while simultaneously experiencing internal or external locus of control. Subjects were asked to perform cognitive tasks and performance was measured by the total number of points reached.
The results of the study did not yield statistical significance. However, it was observed that the group experiencing unattractive working conditions and internal locus of control had the highest performance. When also considering relevant research literature that highlights the psychological importance of control, it is suggested to conduct further research in this area of
interest to gain a deeper understanding of the effects of control and their impact on various job outcomes like performance.
With the increasing popularity of the home office model and the limited exploration of associated stressors necessitate a comprehensive investigation of potential drawbacks. This thesis embarks on an investigation of how the home office paradigm can be leveraged to alleviate distress, nurture mental well-being. Specifically, it delves into an analysis of five prominent stressors inherent in the home office context, identifying effective strategies for mitigating each one adeptly. The data and research in this thesis are drawn from existing literature on the work concept. The findings underscore the substantial influence of these stressors on employees’ mental health and productivity. However, specific measures to mitigate these challenges are identified and thoroughly expounded upon. This research provides valuable insights into optimizing the home office environment and promoting the holistic well-being of employees.
In recent years, several studies have reported inadequate financial capability. Studies in Germany have shown similar results. While there was no statewide initiative, learning offers were available. However, the financial capability level did not increase over time. As a possible reason, the Dunning-Kruger Effect was hypothesised. According to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, participants with low ability would simply lack the ability to realise their lack of ability. This study investigated the investment capability of participants in Germany and tested for a possible Dunning-Kruger Effect. The results have shown no evidence for a Dunning-Kruger Effect. The study’s results were supportive of literature critical on the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
This thesis examines the potential for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the German apparel industry to enhance circular capabilities. Given the urgency of environmental issues in garment production, the thesis delves into the broader context of the textile and apparel industry, circularity principles, circular product design, as well as business and regulatory framework conditions. However, this transformation necessitates substantial innovation, which can be challenging, especially for SMEs facing resource constraints. A utility analysis-based tool to support SMEs' circularity journeys is introduced, by systematically evaluating textile fibers. This approach assists SMEs in optimizing material choices and complying with sustainability standards and reporting. To demonstrate its effectiveness, the tool is applied for HAKRO GmbH, a SME in the German apparel industry. The assessment results indicate prioritization of specific fiber choices, emphasize knowledge gaps, and spotlight opportunities for innovation and circularity. The tool's systematic approach enables SMEs like HAKRO GmbH to strategically select material options, streamline innovation efforts, and align with CE principles. Ultimately, this research contributes to advancing CE transitions within the apparel industry by offering insights into enhancing circular capabilities for SMEs and facilitating informed decision-making through a utility analysis-based approach.
This paper aims to emphasize the significance of an effective break design in an
occupational context, with a specific focus on the implementation of phone-free work breaks. Through an experimental investigation, the potential impact of a mobile phone lockbox, intended to facilitate phone abstention during breaks, was examined. It is proposed that external control, imposed by the use of a lockbox, negatively influences performance due to a reduced sense of perceived control. Considering this, the experimental design sought to identify differences between three groups exposed to varying levels of external control during a work break. These differences were quantified using a memory recall assignment, which measured the performance change of each participant after the break. The results indicate that principles extending theories of perceived control must be considered. Contrary to the theory of perceived control, the group subjected to the highest degree of external control via a mobile phone lockbox exhibited the greatest performance improvement. Despite refraining from phone usage, the group allowed to keep the phone on the table but instructed not to use it demonstrated lower performance improvement, even compared to the group that used the phone during the break. The results indicate that further research on self-control as a limited resource is required.
This paper examines the effect of ownership on strategic reasoning in the classical p-beauty contest game. While much literature focused on cognitive ability as the foundation for higher-order strategic play, we investigate whether a more motivational perspective can serve as a foundation for strategic reasoning as well. This is to be induced via the endowment effect by combining two market simulations with a p-beauty contest game in three experimental sessions. We conclude that while an endowment effect does not have a significant influence on first-round behavior, there are indications that it can influence the learning of endowed players as early as round two of a repeated p-beauty contest game. We find that possible differences in the degree of commitment substantially affect strategic behavior. The analyses ultimately suggest that strategic behavior possibly could occur not only on a cognitive level but also on a motivational level, provided that the motivation is powerful enough.
The cheerleader effect describes the phenomenon, where pictures of faces are rated to be more attractive when presented as part of a group, than when presented in isolation. This study employs electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERP) to explore the origins of the cheerleader effect. We found significant ERP differences which suggest that the cheerleader effect is not caused by perceptual differences, but instead through social cues which distort the decision-making process that gives rise to subjects’ trait judgments.
Platforms are increasingly playing a more critical role in companies’ activities. The intense competition in the market and the global economic situation have promoted the transformation of traditional business models, making enterprises adopt digital transformation solutions (Ot, 2022).
Nowadays, there is an increasing amount of data generated on the internet and mobile apps, which have allowed the exponential growth of platforms, allowing value cocreation and enabling an ecosystem composition that has transformed the linear value chain into a platform business model (Şimşek, Öner, Kunday, & Olcayc, 2022).
The healthcare industry has experienced significant changes in recent years, driven by technological advances, increasing focus on cost-effectiveness and quality of healthcare services.
The use of technology and digital platforms to offer care and enhance patient experience is one of the main areas on which healthcare organizations focus. There is a high potential for telemedicine and remote patient monitoring to revolutionize healthcare services (Sjöström, Lars, & Eva, 2017).
The creation of integrated care models, which combine various health providers to give patients a better treatment and service, is another important topic of interest for healthcare organizations. Integrated care models can enhance patient outcomes, save healthcare costs, and boost patient satisfaction. Integrated healthcare models can also help in reducing healthcare system division and enhancing the coordination of care services for patients (Kodner & Spreeuwenberg, 2002).
Other digital initiatives such as data analytics and artificial intelligence are also emerging as a promising approach to improve healthcare services' quality and support decision-making in healthcare. These technologies can provide more accurate and timely information to healthcare providers and enable more effective and efficient care delivery. Medical service transformation is a cross-departmental and cross-level collaboration that demands the participation of the government, firms, consumers, and other participants (Hughes, Shaw, & Greenhalgh, 2020). The Healthcare system has shifted its service from supply management to value cocreation, rebuilding the social framework through technological change. This new business model approach gives openings to different members to cocreate and add value to current products and services (Leone, Schiavone, Appio, & Chiao, 2021).
Despite the benefits of introducing digitalization and a multi-level business model to the healthcare system, its application has needed to be faster because of multiple factors, such as information integration and the application of connectivity technologies and the telematic infrastructure. Additionally, the healthcare system represents a complex structure regulated by the government and dynamized by the interaction of individuals and service providers. Therefore, some other challenges represent the governmental laws and regulations, patient information privacy concerns, and stakeholders’ willingness to adopt the business model. (Viswanadham, 2021).
Therefore, this study aims to research the Status Quo of the Health Care Industry and to explore the opportunities and challenges of platform business models in the healthcare industry.
The results of this study can provide insights into the critical success factors that can help to drive the adoption and implementation of multilevel business models. It also can inform the decision-making strategies and healthcare initiatives adopted by different countries due to digitalization.
Knowledge about consumer buying behavior is of high importance to
companies. Being able to accurately identify customers' willingness to pay
(WTP) helps to optimize one of a company's core goals - to make profit. The
objective of this study is to apply the implicit method NeuroPricing Online to an
example in the tourism sector in order to be able to determine the buying
behavior of consumers and their WTP more precisely. In a bottom-up data
mining approach, individual attitudes towards several price points for a given
product of the vacation resort "Weissenhäuser Strand" were determined by
means of reaction time measurement. We were then able to model curves with
price points per product and their corresponding individual response times per
product. The Feel-Good Price (FGP) as well as the Area under the curve (AUC)
of an individual provide information about a subject's WTP for a given product.
Using independent two-sample t-tests, we found that gender has an influence
on WTP for some products. In addition, we found a difference between subjects
who have previously visited the "Weissenhäuser Strand" and those who have
not for some products. AUC average is larger for those who have already visited
the resort than for those who have not. Furthermore, we examined the factors
age and personality traits for their effect on subjects' purchasing behavior.
However, none of these correlation analyses showed a significant relationship
with FGP or AUC. These results suggest that the "Weissenhäuser Strand"
should specifically advertise to different groups of people in order to increase
profits and skillfully apply the different WTP of some groups as a basis for
pricing. In addition, the study shows that the implicit method of response time
measurement is sufficient for investigations in purchasing behavior in general,
and that NeuroPricing Online has the potential to become a valuable tool for
sophisticated pricing in the future.
Young wine consumers are becoming increasingly important for the wine industry, but also represent a challenge for wine businesses as their consumer behavior and attitude towards wine differs from other generations. This relative new group of wine consumers shows a comparatively low level of wine knowledge, while focusing wine choice criteria rather on different attributes, namely wine bottle optics, including label and bottle optic in general. Being aware of wine consumers choice criteria and its implications is crucial for wine marketers to successfully attract their potential customers. The presented thesis uses grounded theory to determine how the choice criteria of wine bottle optic influences the choice criteria of taste, in Gen Z wine consumers. For this purpose, a group of ten Gen Z wine consumers took part in a qualitative experiment, including pre- and post-test interviews, to determine attitude and behavior of participants concerning the wine choice criteria of taste and wine bottle optic. The findings of the study suggest that the choice criteria of wine bottle optic can overrule the importance of the wines actual taste in the decision process of wines. Furthermore, insights into the participants awareness of their own choice criteria, the influence of cognitive dissonance on the topic, as well as general attitude towards wine, such as the low level of knowledge and the preference for wine consumption in social context, could be generated.
The market for foods and beverages is one of the largest worldwide. Thus, there is a lot of interest in understanding and predicting consumer behavior. Two subjects that have gained attention recently in the food sector are perceived naturalness and high-tech eco-innovations like cultured meat. This work addresses how the preference for natural products and the inference of product attributes via perceived naturalness causes problems for novel technological food products. By reviewing existing literature following questions will be answered: (1) What do most people assume about the health, taste, sustainability, and safety of food products based on perceived naturalness? (2) How is the public acceptance of high-tech food eco-innovations influenced by a lack of perceived naturalness? (3) How can these challenges be addressed by food businesses? It will first be determined what natural means for customers and how it influences food choices in general. The main findings based on the currently available market research are consumers do not desire to consume any highly unnatural foods including technological eco-innovations and it might be more efficient in terms of sustainability gains and customer needs to commit resources to developing existing products or eco-innovations that are perceived to be natural.
This thesis examines the effects of social interaction and the interaction channel on affective commitment. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a major increase in the implementation of remote working policies in organizations. This development has significantly reduced the quantity and quality of social interactions among employees. In an experimental setting, subjects were assigned a level of social interaction, either limited or extensive and an interaction channel, either offline or online. Participants were given a task in which they had to find as many words as possible ending on a specific letter. Affective commitment was measured as the time spent on the task as well as the number of words found. Afterwards, subjects received a questionnaire with statements about their perceived affective commitment for which they had to indicate their level of agreement. The results indicate that extensive social interaction has a significant positive effect on affective commitment. Although the findings of the experiment are not significant for the interaction channel, some of the survey results hint towards a possible positive effect of offline interaction on the subject’s perception of affective commitment. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that there may be a discrepancy between displayed and perceived affective commitment. Taking the study results and available literature into consideration, organizations should warrant in-person interaction whenever possible and provide enough time and space for short informal conversations among employees to increase levels of affective commitment.
This thesis aims to ascertain whether the concept of job sharing might be a solution for organizations to adapt their company values to meet the changing principles of society. The shift in demands results from the younger generations seeking different values in their free time, which also influences the demands at work. The disbalance between organizational and individual values leads to employee dissatisfaction and increasing turnover rates. The part-time concept of job sharing is on the rise regarding new work opportunities. Therefore, subtopics including flexibility, work-life balance, gender balance, and diversity in the workforce are positively encouraged through job sharing. The data and research in this thesis are obtained from existing literature on the work concept. Most previous research has focused on the influences on individuals and less on multiple levels within a company. The findings of this paper state that job sharing can significantly impact the value shift of a company in many different facets. Nevertheless, the concept also provides a large number of requirements on several levels which need to be adjusted to benefit from the concept.
The sale of insurance policies through the payment of commissions to intermediaries, such as agents, is a common practice in the insurance sector. As a consequence of this compensation method, intermediaries must weigh-off between increasing their commission-based income and offering clients suitable low-priced policies. A novel business model seeks to address this issue by substituting this commission-fee-based approach with a subscription-based approach. Although a company already applies this business model with a minor customer base, there is a lack of information about whether and under which circumstances it can be financially profitable. To obtain transparency about the financial prospects of this business model, a corporate financial model was created, through which seven scenarios were modeled and financial key figures compared. Three scenarios simulate distribution via a direct sales channel through the company workforce, and four scenarios via an indirect sales channel consisting of external intermediaries. The comparison of the scenarios indicates that this commission- free business model can be profitable in the long term regardless of the sales channel selection. Yet the results show that distribution via the indirect channel can be perceived as more profitable. By optimizing processes in both channels and by adjusting the remuneration for intermediaries in the indirect channel, the financial prospects for all scenarios can be further increased.
Year after year, global warming, and plastic output increase, and massive volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) are being released into the atmosphere. Even though humans are aware of their environmental impact, they do struggle to change their behavior. But what is the reason for this?
The purpose of this thesis is to illuminate the factors that make it difficult for people to demonstrate pro-environmental behavior (PEB) and to form ideas from the field of nudging to assist in guiding humans to a better PEB. As a result, a meta-analysis was created from a multitude of papers on the issues of PEB and nudging. The proposals presented in this work serve as an impetus for future studies in the field of PEB nudging.
Due to technical advances, multisensory technologies have gained traction in the research and development of many industries. With the launch of virtual and augmented reality systems, the potential for these technologies increased even further. The senses of vision and hearing have long been integrated into current products, leading to the assumption that olfactory stimuli are likely to be included soon to stimulate the sense of smell.
With this trend, the issue of implementation into current digital products and services arises, as odors currently cannot be captured in one place and released in another on a large scale. Therefore, this thesis deals with the nature of smell from a cognitive psychological and technological viewpoint. We show why it makes sense to stimulate the sense of smell in multisensory experiences and present early and current technical standards. In addition to this, we conducted expert interviews enabling us to provide insights into the digital scent and olfaction industry. Among other aspects, our results suggest that there are fundamental challenges that developers have to overcome and that a successful implementation depends on the business application.
Prior research found extremeness aversion effects to be common and robust. Nevertheless, most research neglected the spatial arrangement's influence on a consumer's choice and placed the compromise option of a choice set simultaneously in the spatial middle. Following these findings, five bachelor theses were conducted to investigate both aspects by analyzing numerical and spatial choice architectures – their data comprised three online surveys and three field experiments. This study aimed to compare their findings and analyze their data sets to search for overarching effects. Therefore, we hypothesized that there is either information-format compatibility or a general tendency towards the spatial middle of a choice set. To research this hypothesis, we brought the data sets into a comparable format, analyzed our findings, and conducted t-tests to test for statistical significance. Even though the study could not find overarching effects across the data, it supports the notion that a choice set's spatial arrangement, like the numerical one, can influence consumer behavior. Furthermore, it led to valuable insights for future research approaches concerning expanding extremeness aversion into a spatial dimension.
There is a growing trend for multinational enterprises to send their expatriate employees on international assignments to achieve corporate development, human resource goals and to gain a competitive advantage in the global context. Therefore, the performance and productivity of international assignees play a major role for them and the organization. However, expatriate research has so far rarely taken into account the factors that do not directly relate to expatriate performance. Instead, research has focused on expatriate success and failure. However, the literature shows that neither can yet be clearly defined. Therefore, this study instead focuses on expatriate performance and productivity by placing special emphasis on literature gaps. Hence, in this study the importance of several factors is tested, namely: 1) overall international experience, 2) informal social networks, and 3) expatriate family. As this research aims to develop practical approaches to managing critical circumstances when relocating overseas, a link between theory and previous study findings has been established. To provide a point of departure for Global People Transitions GmbH, a special focus has been placed on organizational support and intercultural training. The data have been collected through guided expert interviews with six participants, three of them expatriates, two expatriate spouses, and one repatriate. The study results have found that the tested factors have an impact on expatriate adjustment and, consequently, on expatriate performance and productivity. In addition, several aspects to improve expatriate performance and productivity have been identified, such as providing organizational support or creating structures and routines. Lastly, it has become clear that research on international assignments is very elusive due to several underlying factors that influence the matter.
A Descriptive Study on Customer Attitudes towards Green Branding in the Fashion Industry in Germany
(2021)
This paper attempts to provide an up-to-date representation and analysis of customers' attitudes towards green branding in the fashion industry and their willingness to pay (WTP) for sustainable and ethical clothing in Germany. Related literature strands are reviewed to understand how the fashion industry works, what green branding means, and how customer attitudes are shaped. After creating an attitude measurement model, an online questionnaire was designed and sent to Furtwangen University students, with 153 valid responses returned. The descriptive analysis sheds light on the three attitudinal components related to sustainability and ethics in the fashion industry. It is noted that customers do not hold a definite attitude. However, a tendency towards the positive end is ascertained. Significant gaps still exist in terms of knowledge and awareness of some commitment by fashion brands. Another huge factor influencing attitudes appears to be a lack of trust. The behavioral component showed that customers are trying to contribute through proper disposal and are willing to buy sustainable and ethical clothing more often. However, there is still some room for improvement in terms of customer education. Nevertheless, it is found that they are willing to accept an additional contribution for sustainable and ethical clothing. In general, it can be concluded that there is a foundation to improve the fashion industry towards more sustainability. However, all stakeholders, i.e., customers and fashion brands, as well as the government, need to work together to change the industry in the long run.
This thesis refers to Western multinational corporations (MNCs) that expanded their business activities in China significantly within recent years. These organizations operate in highly complex cultural environments, based on the infinite number of teachings drawn from past dynasties. The culture scope is difficult to assess, which explains the limited research available. The thesis examines whether classic performance evaluation systems in German MNC’s operating in China prove to be efficient. Furthermore, reference is drawn to the influences of controversial discussions on performance appraisals in German headquarters, whereby it is examined if Western alternatives would be compatible within a Chinese setting. Underlying cultural concepts; Confucianism, face dynamics, etc., and their implications are studied due to their high impact on the regulation of social interactions between German expatriates and Chinese business leaders. As part of the research, qualitative expert interviews were conducted with expatriates in China originating from both German SME’s and corporations. The results showed that hierarchies largely dominate corporate culture, which is partly due to partisan influences on the organization. Traditional performance appraisal systems largely prove to work efficiently. Lateral collaboration is evaluated as close to non-existent. Praise is rarely expressed. Furthermore, Chinese leaders and cultural, political underpinnings consolidate companies within their strict hierarchy and largely prevent the introduction of agile approaches, therefore alternative approaches can only be partially implemented.