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Course of studies
In 2008 a white paper called “Bitcoin: A Peer-To-Peer Electronic Cash System” was published by Satoshi Nakamoto. This paper describes an electronic payment system that succeeds where many have failed before. The system is called Bitcoin and it deals with the double spending problem. Also, it is a peer-to-peer decentralized system meaning that it works separately from any government or any financial institution. Bitcoin relies on cryptographic proof-of-work blocks any chance of protocol disruption. Satoshi Nakamoto called Bitcoin an electronic payment system but the public now calls it a cryptocurrency because of its similarities to a currency.
Many pessimists thought that Bitcoin could never be successful and that this technology will not have any value in the future. Despite that, a considerable amount of people believe in the possibilities of cryptocurrencies and in the possible developments that this futuristic technology could inspire, especially in the financial service sector.
This purpose of this thesis is to investigate cryptocurrencies and the financial service industry in order to examine the challenges and opportunities that cryptocurrencies deliver. Section I of the paper will look into cryptocurrencies and their mechanism. Afterwards, an analysis of whether cryptocurrencies are actual currency will be given. The next section of the thesis will cover government regulations on cryptocurrencies. Then, the paper will analyze public perception and why it is important. Section II of this thesis evaluates the current financial service system and the potential benefits of the blockchain. Central banks and moral hazards in the finance sector are examined afterwards. Then, analysis on inflation and wealth is provided. After that, a summary of the advantages and drawbacks of both the cryptocurrency system and the traditional finance service system are given, followed by a section that estimates the utilities and effects of cryptocurrencies in the future. Finally, a conclusion is derived.
Managing employee engagement in high-growth companies: The case of Red Hat in high-growth companies
(2017)
Purpose
This thesis aims to analyze employee engagement in high growth companies with the case of Red Hat.
Methodology
Primary research involved the gathering of a mix of qualitative data in the open- source IT company Red Hat in the United Kingdom. Both an interview and a focus group methodology was applied. Literature from the research fields of employee engagement was reviewed and integrated into the primary research design.
Findings
The findings showed that fast-growing companies encounter many challenges in the fields of employee impact and purpose, recruiting and retaining, career development, leadership and management, and organizational culture. Best practices on how to scale culture were worked out. The findings concluded that actionable solutions such as modifying the recruiting process for cultural fit and giving more autonomy to regional leaders and teams, can help cope with the challenges of employee engagement in a fast-paced environment.
Limitations and implications for further research
One of the main limitations of this study is the lack of literature available to link organizational growth and employee engagement. Contrasting more stable environments with change environments or using a larger sample size may potentially add to this field with further reliable and insightful findings. This issue may be re-investigated in the future as well, as the nature of change environments can affect the findings. Red Hat is a very people-focused company with a flat hierarchy. Thus, investigating this issue in more hierarchical companies could lead to different findings with different challenges and would further complete this research field.
Creating successful teams after an M&A is challenging enough when employees share the same location and the same cultural background, but when the team consists of people coming from different cultures and is working in different locations, social distance can cause misunderstandings, distrust and miscommunication which makes successful M&As even more challenging. After the acquisition of Letrika in Slovenia and Kokusan Denki in Japan, the workforce within MAHLEs mechatronic division became highly diverse. On the one hand, this diversification is regarded as added value, but on the other hand it bears numerous challenges in day-to day business.
This thesis aims to outline cultural differences between Japan, Slovenia and Germany that affect collaboration within this division. Using literature research and an online questionnaire, the author intends to compare theoretical concepts with actual data collected at MAHLE Mechatronics. The questionnaire also includes multiple open questions that allow examining the current situation and supports the findings with real-life examples.
The first part focuses on the theoretical framework for this thesis. In chapter two an understanding for the concept of culture is given. Different models and explanations provide fundamental knowledge to grasp the construct of culture. Chapter 2.1. depicts the Lewis model, a model developed in 1996 categorizing cultures into three groups. In chapter 2.2., the paper continues with the GLOBE model which forms the basis of the empirical research conducted at MAHLE. Afterwards, culture specific characteristics of Japan, Germany and Slovenia are portrayed and compared in order to predict possible clashes that might emerge in work-related encounters (chapter 3). The illustration of the concept of intercultural competence, a skill to manage, understand, decode and interpret behaviors and mindsets of people from different cultures, will conclude the first part of this thesis (chapter 4).
Chapter five describes the methodology used in this paper. The findings of this study are presented in chapter six and are followed by the discussion and reflection (chapter 7). The paper concludes with an analysis and interpretation (chapter 7.1.), recommendations for future action (chapter 7.2.) and limitations of the study (chapter 7.3.) highlighting the main findings of the study and emphasizing the development of intercultural competence at MAHLEs mechatronic division.
“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit” – Milton Friedman.
There has always been, across the history, a human side, an ideology, that people follow with the hope of finding justice and equity in the world. This concept has always been adapting to the culture, time, and situation it faces. In our actual economic system, this concept is known as social responsibility, and to adapt to the market necessities it has evolved to corporate social responsibility, but apparently, when the people want to see results this is not enough.
The markets are expanding, we live in a world where everything and everyone are connected, there is no more privacy, and therefore, no place to hide. Companies need to be honest with the information they share and should follow the international rules for environmental and social protection and development. People are demanding better quality, more innovation, and eco-friendly and socially responsible company. The people verify many factors before acquiring any product, starting with the quality, the suppliers, the factories conditions, the employee’s satisfaction levels, and the corporate responsibility of the company.
The central topic of this thesis is the so called “corporate volunteering” a concept that brings together the business necessities and ties them together with the social responsibility. In this concept, the company participates actively and directly to enhance the social and environmental situation, using their resources, and their human capital. There are many advantages of implementing the corporate volunteering, but also many factors to consider while changing the corporate culture, and transmitting values.
The idea of this text is to present the corporate volunteering as a new concept, highly efficient for the companies and communities, while analyzing its changes, objectives, implementations, benefits and challenges to face while implementing the corporate volunteering.
Incentive Europe Premiums Concepts & Licensing (IEPC) is a Dutch company that specializes in the sales and distribution of premiums and promotional products. Its goal is to support companies all over Europe in terms of boosting sales numbers, increasing brand awareness or attracting new clients. In order to achieve these goals Incentive Europe has a number of assets to assist this endeavour; namely an in-office design department, over a decade of experience and a good relationship with several sourcing and production sites in China, headquarters in Amsterdam and Shenzhen (China) and a dedicated team of regional account managers.
Currently Incentive Europe Premiums Concepts & Licensing is active in several different markets within different business segments. The company has put its main focus in producing branded USB sticks and power banks and is quite successful in this regard in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Italy but now the company is aiming higher.
IEPC is already active in the segments of premiums and merchandising and are presently facing the challenge of entering the German premium market in the best way possible. The competition in the German market is unexplored and Incentive Europe has to find a way to gain traction in the premium market.
For this reason, this bachelor thesis is related to the German market of premiums and merchandising in order to discover and explore entry strategies and analyse the possible options.
Underperforming employees are quickly put into the low performer category and rash decisions and actions need to be taken. Managers “just want the problem to go away” and human resources must find a solution – transfer, change of contract, disciplinary actions are often the only choices. But it doesn’t need to always end in escalation. Early identification and communication is the first step towards a solution and a win-win situation for all parties involved. Followed by a thorough cause analysis and a matched action plan the foundation for improvement is laid. Raising awareness of plausible causes, the right actions to be taken and empowerment of the management level are the next steps towards a performance improvement oriented culture. Focusing on how to improve low performance is a corrective measure, taking actions and measures to prevent low performance to arise, like implementing a holistic performance management system, is the more effective and easier way.
The advertising industry has strongly changed over the past years. Obviously, the coming of digital media has created networking between consumers and revolutionized traditional marketing toward companies building lasting relationship with potential customers and thereby generating an exponential growth in exposure and influence still called viral marketing. Despite the fact that viral marketing is an old topic, its relevancy in the business area is quite recent. However, little research is devoted to the adoption and internal usage of social media in SMEs, which are of high social and economic importance. Findings of numerous researches on this topic have been constructed on the B2C market. For this reasons, the aim of this study seeks to address the gap in knowledge regarding the use of social media in the B2B SMEs in Germany.
Nowadays international businesses are exposed to a constant change of regulations, regularly altering organisational structures and the pressure to continuously improve efficiency to stay competitive. It is no longer a secret for international companies that the ability to adapt, is a key success factor in managing globally connected processes. Facing this challenge, MTU Friedrichshafen, one of the leading manufacturer of diesel engines in the world, set a target of optimising core processes of License Management due to the fast growing number of international projects and related international regulations. This optimisation can be achieved by analysing weak points at all stages of the working processes and developing standardised approaches throughout the partner management cycle. The main purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to analyse and standardise core processes of the MTU License Management with a completely new approach in steering international projects.
After spending ten months at the MTU License Management Department, including mandatory six months internship, I was involved in different working procedures in a form of “internal job rotation” in order to have clear understanding over main processes at License Management. With all this knowledge in mind, a deep research about core processes has been conducted and individual improvement measures for each process were defined. These improvement measures are in line with the Global Strategy Program “Shaping Our Future 2018” that has been determined by Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG, MTU’s holding company. Also, during the research, it was obvious that combining several processes into one core tool was a major challenge. After brainstorming through various ideas with internal IT experts, a standardised approach by using Microsoft SharePoint has been identified as an effective way to enhance various processes.
Only with the proper implementation of the recommended optimisation process and continuous improvement, global organisations will succeed in responding to the increasing pace of changes in the business environment.
In the era of digitalisation, mobile devices are supporting us throughout the day, in any situation, at any place and any time. We purchase goods and services through our phones, communicate with others and can get information about anything we want. The mobile technology is the fastest growing industry the world has ever seen. Mobile technology is the most influential driver of current social and economic change. Therefore mobile marketing is already a major factor in today’s marketing mix. Nevertheless adaption of mobile marketing progresses differently in different parts of the world. China took on a leading role in mobile marketing without many people outside China noticing. The purpose of this paper is to examine and display the major differences between China and Europe when it comes to mobile marketing. Especially, I will focus on WeChat, a relatively new communication application in China that has shaped mobile marketing significantly since 2011, the year of its launch.
However, due to significant differences in market scale, market complexity and adoption of technology in Europe and China it is important for European companies to understand the potential power of WeChat if they want to do successful business in China. Therefore I will give a comprehensive overview on how to use WeChat for business. Additionally I will connect the mobile marketing aspect with Chinese language learning. Chinese language learning represents a global current trend and is building a bridge between China and Europe both culturally and economically. For this paper I conducted practical research in a Chinese language school under European management in Beijing/China. This way I was able to gain first-hand insight in the obstacles a European company faces when it comes to WeChat mobile marketing in China. This paper will cover the theoretical foundation of mobile marketing and will connect it with real recommendations for successful WeChat mobile marketing.
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the impact of Intelligent Automation on individuals, organizations and economy and how organizations can adapt. Within the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the use of new technologies is on the rise and rapidly developing and the world is becoming more and more digital.
Organizations in financial services like banks and insurance companies are reevaluating their processes, however, automation has not been applied yet and their back office processes still contain a huge amount of paper and many repetitive tasks, which make the processes inefficient. In processes like this, there is a huge potential for Robotic Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence, which allow organizations to automate end-to-end processes with humans only handling exceptions and doing small configurations. The results are higher quality and speed at lower cost.
Despite the fact that the implementation of Intelligent Automation can be done fast and simple, companies have to involve the right people, analyze which processes are actually automatable and follow necessary steps in the implementation process in order to successfully implement Intelligent Automation.
Due to fierce competition in the recent decades, focus on customer service is becoming increasingly important in all industries including grocery retail. The purpose of this study is to discover the different services offered by grocery stores in Egypt and Germany, to examine the reasons behind offering different services in the different countries and to learn the effect of the same services being offered in different countries.
The data was collected by conducting an online survey and then analyzed with reference to available literature. Findings and conclusions are presented in the form of lessons learned and suggestions for grocery stores in both countries to improve their consumer’s future shopping experience.
Purpose: The goal of this paper is to develop a technology acceptance model for digital anamnesis and explore the factors that influence individual adoption behavior.
Methods: Through a literature review we identified important factors that influence acceptance. We then conduct an empirical study among patients with 115 respondents. Subsequently, we test the model using partial least squares path modelling.
Results: We found that performance expectancy, social influence, and trust are the most have significant influence on behavioral intention. A group comparison reveals significant differences between young and old patients. The model explained 57.5 % of the variance of behavioral intention.
Conclusions: This study helps us understand the key determinants of patient acceptance behavior, and enables us to give advice to businesses in the early stages of development.
This research paper is about Mobile Banking. Mobile banking is rapidly growing in emerging countries as compared to emerged countries. The research conducted here will help us to understand as to why mobile banking is so successful in emerging countries and the factors that contribute to its success, the regulations behind it and to see if the Technology Acceptance Mobile (TAM) theory can be proved or linked to the success of mobile banking in the countries used for analysis. The analysis was conducted using a qualitative research method of document analysis
As the fourth most populous countries in the world, Indonesia likely has many workforce from various age groups. The latest government demographic survey showed that there are many Indonesians who are in their productive ages. However, some employers have similar perspectives that many potential workers in Indonesia still lack employability.
This thesis attempts to discuss about Indonesians’ lack of employability based on the analysis of cultural background and education. Many researches show that education and cultural values might affect the employability. Therefore, there will be some further analysis on how exactly Indonesia’s culture and education system directly affect the Indonesians’ employability.
Some parts of this thesis also discuss the Tionghoa ethnic group in Indonesia. The discussion is to learn some lessons from the said ethnic group, since many Tionghoa tend to be successful businessmen in Indonesia, despite being minority ethnic group who receive so many discriminations from other Indonesia’s ethnic groups.
As a part of empirical evidence, there was a survey conducted to prove the arguments in this thesis. Six initial hypothesizes about ethnic groups’ perspectives of Indonesia’s education and employability, which formulated the survey’s questionnaires, are proven to be true. That means, it is safe to assume that the theories provided in this thesis were also proven to be accurate. Unfortunately, the reliability of the survey is pretty low, most likely due to the small number of participants and small number of the questions.
Admittedly, Indonesia’s education system and culture still need some developments to improve the employability of its citizens. Therefore, the last part of this thesis tries to give some possible recommendations that might help the Indonesians refining their employability and competitive advantages against the foreign workforce.
In an ever smaller and connected world, the need for instant access and communication is becoming more and more necessary. This is especially true in business, and no one understands this better than the people working at the Global Success Club. This is why they have decided to develop a mobile application specially catered to serve busy executives of innovative manufacturing companies, and help them find the right business partners for their next business venture or innovative collaboration. This thesis was written on the behalf of the Global Success Club to help them determine the optimal way to develop a mobile application that aims to connect innovative manufacturing companies in a global setting by looking at two research questions:
1. How to win B2B users/customers for a mobile application by focusing on smart user interface; and
2. Which method of marketing communication, direct marketing (emails & follow-up calls) or social media marketing, is more successful in winning over users in the internet affinitive US market.
This paper will accomplish its task by first looking over past research done by authors and researchers about how mobile applications are changing the way of the world and the way we communicate. The paper will also explore why businesses are now deciding to adopt new technologies to help them with business processes that were traditionally done offline. In order to answer the questions posed by this thesis, research was conducted on previous studies and what they have suggested pertaining to the research questions. Based on the research, hypotheses were made and those ideas implemented into the final plans by the company for the design and marketing communication strategy. Conclusions were made about the most effective user interface designs based on the hypotheses, and a study will be carried out at a later to judge their effectiveness. A study on the marketing strategy taken by the company was able to show that a more direct marketing message is optimal to win users and would be more effective if combined with wide spread and cost-effective online marketing.
The subject of this bachelor thesis is a review of literature concerning the development of methods for the improved estimation and management of employee relocation costs. According to the reviewed literature, the problems of developing a uniform method are determined including the lack of standard practices, guessing costs rather than estimating them, the lack of metrics for both costs and benefits and the difficulty of collecting all relevant data. Moreover the approaches of creating a uniform process, the expatriate return on investment as the most important one, are discussed.
As a result, this thesis presents recommendations for establishing an improved employee relocation cost management.
Ethnic Marketing Using Confectionery for Consumers of Turkish Origin Under the Age of 45 in Germany
(2017)
This bachelor thesis presents marketing strategies for the targeted address of consumers of Turkish origin between the age of 15 to under 45 by confectionery manufacturers in Germany. Both primary and secondary data are consulted to fulfill the objective of the thesis. This contribution combines the marketing instruments of ethnic marketing, the target group specifics and the product modification options for confectionery with the findings of an empirical study conducted by the author to examine the group’s consumer behavior for confectionery, to deliver an adjusted marketing mix for the forenamed target audience. This thesis determines the target group’s considerable potential for confectionery companies in Germany by confirming the group’s effectiveness for market segmentation through specific tests of Pires and Stanton (2005) and suitability for efficient ethnic marketing through the analysis method of Gerpott and Bicak (2015).
With the help of the culture-boundedness theory, the limited compliance of currently proffered confectionery items with the culture of the target group is evidenced, and solid product modification options are presented for the application by confectionery manufacturers in Germany. The findings of the previously mentioned empirical study reveal the high demand for special “Turkish” product variants and provide a broad range of valuable insights for an efficient implementation of strategies regarding the product, price, distribution, and promotion policy of confectionery companies in Germany.
The paper focuses on the complexity of effective cross-cultural communication and trust building (chapter 2). In chapter 2.1 the cultural and medial impact on communication is discussed. Different tools, their capability of transferring a message and culturally-based preferences are examined. In chapter 2.2 the paper continues with analyzing the importance of trust. High-Trust and Low-Trust Teams are analyzed, outlining the differences that lead to success. Furthermore, cultural implications on the trust behavior and relationship building capabilities are described. The theoretical part of the thesis concludes with chapter 2.3 by connecting effective cross-cultural communication and trust building, pointing out their interdependence.
The second part of the paper is based on the theoretical part one of the thesis. After introducing a focus group in chapter 3.1 from a German automotive company where team members are based across Europe, the virtuality of this HR team is analyzed. In order to derive best practices from the team, structured interviews are carried out in chapter 3.2. The online survey and the subsequent expert interviews with each of the 11 team members analyze their communication and trust behavior. The findings from the survey point out commonalities and differences with what can be found in literature.
The paper concludes with chapter 4, highlighting the importance of the topic and the relevance for today’s companies. Working virtuality becomes increasingly important and, therefore, understanding the communication and trust behavior in a VT is essential for both management and each member in the team. Ensuring accessibility of various tools, encouraging the members to share best practices and provide the team with cultural training, not only to raise awareness but also to strengthen the ties, is highly relevant in making a difference in today’s global and ever changing economy.
Life cycle management of key products (franchises) offered by a company is one of its most strategically important tasks. As their overall ability to capture and use sales data improves, companies have been able to investigate and manage their franchises better than ever before.
This thesis explored the franchise management framework of Nike Inc., a global leader within the sporting goods retail industry. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part explored the current franchise management framework of Nike and its effectiveness. The second part applies this framework to one of Nike’s biggest franchises and prime sources of revenue for the ‘Running’ category. ‘Nike Free’, the franchise in question, suffered a big decline in sales and surgical franchise management had to be applied in order to revive it. The results indicated that this framework delivered positive results and helped improve the performance of this franchise.
Fact based decision making, enabled by effective gathering and processing of sales data was used during this study. Overall, the goal of the thesis is to help understand and lay a foundation for effective franchise management for a sales organization.
The objective of this thesis is to examine the recent rollout of Commercial Excellence, a sales-process standardization and improvement project within the currently ongoing integration of TRW Automotive Holding Corporation into ZF Friedrichshafen AG. Focusing on change management and the challenges posed by resistance to change, the aim is to derive recommendations for action during future rollout phases. Based on leading theories regarding change management, expert interviews delivered mixed results. While it is indicated that resistance to change was only a minor issue throughout the rollout the careful analysis of the collected responses still offered the potential for improvements. Therefore the author was able to identify the inclusion of sales support functions into the project as a solution for resistance to change caused by restrictive data release policies. Additionally, it was found that the diversification of the communication mix as well as centrally offering individualized training programs can further facilitate future rollouts of Commercial Excellence.