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This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis about the growing popularity of Korean pop music (K-pop) worldwide in recent years. On one hand, the international expansion of K-pop can be understood as a result of the strategic planning and business execution that are created and carried out by the entertainment agencies. On the other hand, external circumstances such as the rise of social media also create a wide array of opportunities for K-pop to broaden its global appeal. The research explores the ways how the interplay between external circumstances and organizational strategies has jointly contributed to the global circulation of K-pop. The research starts with providing a general descriptive overview of K-pop. Following that, quantitative methods are applied to measure and assess the international recognition and global spread of K-pop. Next, a systematic approach is used to identify and analyze factors and forces that have important influences and implications on K-pop’s globalization. The analysis is carried out based on three levels of business environment which are macro, operating, and internal level. PEST analysis is applied to identify critical macro-environmental factors including political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological. On the industrial level, major forces that shape the music industry in which K-pop’s business operates are evaluated based on the framework of Porter’s Five Forces. External environmental analysis is followed by the review of the global strategies of major Korean entertainment companies in achieving their organizational objective of turning K-pop into a successful global business. We identify all the key value-creating activities ranging from talent acquisition to customer relationship management in the value chain of K-pop’s industry, and analyze how each of these activities have contributed to K-pop’s success in the global market. In conclusion, the recent success of K-pop on the global stage can be understood as the rewards for the capability of its internal strategy to anticipate and capitalize new opportunities in external environment.
Rising globalization and digitization resulted in crises for the fashion industry. High competition and the interconnectedness of the consumers rule the market and put it under pressure. Owing to the growing power consumers possess, the requirements towards the fashion players are increasing. Customer experience is frequently discussed these days by academics as well as practitioners and emphasized as a competitive advantage. Yet, it is difficult to measure and to track its consequences.
Since customer experience is elusive and no industry specific measurement scale is defined, at first this work aims to identify relevant touch points of customer experience in the fashion industry by dint of a focused interview. The further objective of this paper is to enhance the comprehension of the touch points’ effects or rather the relationship of customer experience with brand loyalty. This is approached by a questionnaire based on the preceding qualitative analysis and the resulting model. This model defines the customer experience touch points as the independent variables while brand loyalty is examined as the dependent variable. The conducted linear regression analysis reveals a moderate effect of customer experience on brand loyalty and the touch points concerning the products as most relevant in this relationship. Additionally, the digitization aspect is addressed by the examination of the relationship in the offline and online channels separately. With respect to this, the present study recognizes that the extent of the customer experience’s impact on brand loyalty and the significant touch points vary across channels to a certain degree.
Mobile diagnostics – or mobile health in general – is highly appealing, not only for clinicians, but also for patients. It implies empowerment, in particular of those who are really in need, such as inhabitants of less developed regions within the world who have limited access to healthcare. It also implies simplification: Easy data management – a continuous flow of information. Therefore, development of miniaturized and highly integrated diagnostic systems allowing near patient “instant” diagnostics gain a lot of momentum since more than a decade. However, system integration requires time and a significant amount of investment. In addition, there is strong competition on resources from other emergent technologies, such as next generation sequencing which made the collection of e.g. human genome data less expensive and much faster. A more severe challenge is that mobile diagnostics require a change in healthcare management, e.g. towards integrated practice units. This, in turn, requires implementation of adequate reimbursement, standards of interoperability, training of staff, quality control. In 2010, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched the grant initiative Mobile Diagnostic Systems (MD, 2011─2015) as part of its high-tech strategy. MD aimed at generating knowledge on how microsystem technologies fit into German healthcare environments. On the basis of interviews with multidisciplinary MD actors, this thesis evaluated retrospectively how the publicly funded innovation network managed to overcome pre-defined external barriers of diffusion, including technology, regulatory affairs and market access. Retrospectives reveal internal barriers involving knowledge and technology transfer, negatively influencing generation of innovation. In particular, financing still represents a high hurdle for biotech innovators in Germany: Larger firms look predominately for market-ready or in-market technologies rather than prototypes and venture capitalists are rare or extremely risk-averse. Another important finding was, that actors involved were highly focused on individual work packages. This risks of not seeing the whole environment embedding MD. Consequently, potential opportunities may be missed, e.g. synergies with relatively close (DIALOC) or more distant initiatives (Global Health Delivery Project-based discussion rounds). This could be partly due to the fact that publicly funded networking activities provide less freedom-to-operate because of pre-defined milestones. In addition, further development of actors with respect to role playing (e.g. boundary spanning or innovation selling) is often not included in such “innovation packages”, but can help to maneuver change. Internal barriers need to be addressed first before targeting the major remaining external hurdle: Reimbursement. Although the latter was covered within MD, standardization of technology evaluation is still an unmet need which strongly influences the willingness-to-implement novel mobile diagnostics. Thus, the value added is to be demonstrated to justify adequate reimbursement. Achieving this goal can be successful, when innovation networking finds its path towards a common vision, e.g. towards value-based integrated healthcare. Pathfinding and visioning can be facilitated by process promoter with excellent network management capabilities. In addition, such a promoter could help to further develop engagement, openness and commitment of collaborators. Therefore, transfer of MD activities to established “top” networks or clusters is recommended for securing valuable knowledge generated. In this environment, an important next step – globalization of MD for ensuring future return on investment – could be triggered as well.
Since MD innovation was found to involve both product and service innovation, maneuvering change is particularly challenging for small and medium sized enterprises. These could benefit from engagement in innovation networking. Findings of this case study can help all direct and indirect actors in the field of MD innovation or in other high complex environments to reconsider pathfinding as well as role playing in networking.
This thesis investigates the effect choice options in e-commerce applications have on consumers’ decision making. Previous research showed that a large number of options
can affect consumers negatively. However, the conditions for such choice overload are unclear. After reviewing the existing research, the amount of information (entropy)
contained in a choice set and individual differences were determined as possible influencing factors in an online environment. In a choice experiment, choice sets with
varying information loads and an assessment of the Big Five personality traits were used to test the impact of the two identified factors on choice avoidance behavior. Results from chi-square-tests and a logistic regression model suggest choice overload but without entropy having an effect. A logistic regression model revealed that extraverted consumers are easier overloaded. A low Neuroticism score was found to be related to less occurrence of a too-much-choice-effect. Consumers with a high Openness score on the other hand choose one of the presented options more often and were therefore less often
overwhelmed by the assortment. An interaction effect between personality and the amount of entropy was not found. These findings extend the research on choice overload and offer valuable input for marketers targeting consumers online.
Subject of the thesis at hand is the analysis of symmetric block ciphers with a block length of 32 bit. It is meant to give a comprising overview over the topic of 32 bit block ciphers. The topic is divided in the examination of three questions. It contains a list of state of the art block ciphers with a block length of 32 bit. The block ciphers are being described, focussing on the encryption function. An SPN-based cipher with 32 bit block length is being proposed by rescaling the AES cipher.
The 32 bit block length results in certain security issues. These so called risk factors are analysed and mitigating measures are proposed. The result of the thesis is, that 32 bit block ciphers can be implemented in a secure manner. The use of 32 bit ciphers should be limited to specific use-cases and with a profound risk analysis, to determine the protection class of the data to be encrypted.
The aim of this study consists oftwo main objectives: First,to investigatethe penetration and preferences of fintech solutions from the payments sector within the studied population, as well as the elaboration of a forecast for the upcoming years.Second, to examinethe main elements that influence the intention of young customers when deciding to adopt fintech-basedpayment solutions. Existing research has tested several factorsfrom which the variables of trust, transaction efficiency and ease of use are included onthis paper. Additionally,the value-added propositionfrom this studyis represented by the incorporation of sustainability-related purposes into thisanalysiswith the intention of reflecting the increasing presence of efforts to integrate this component within thefinancial industryin recent years.A research model is proposed and tested by including elements based on theTechnology Adoption Model (TAM). By exploring the results of primary data through asurvey with 463 responses from university studentsandexamining secondary sourcesof information, the findings of this study demonstratethat all four tested variables have a positive impact on the intention of using fintech-based payment solutions.Sustainability-related purposes do not play a major role in the decision of using these apps, however, even with a minimal influence, theeffect on intention is positiveand statistically significant. The findings of this study pose important implications for stakeholders within the fintech spectrum whose purposes are related to increasing the intention of young consumers towards using these productsandto provide enoughevidence of the importance of designing incentives that fuel sustainability stewardshipwithin the financial sector.
Population growth, urbanization and climate change are regarded as the megatrends of today's society. This goes hand in hand with a high consumption of resources and pollution. Indeed, these megatrends are mutually reinforcing. A significant part of this is due to mobility in daily life. Technological change such as digitalization, creates innovative concepts to improve mobility and to deal with these changing circumstances. A comprehensive concept in this respect is mobility as a service. This thesis focuses on the identification of the mobility ecosystem and thus on the various stakeholders. First of all, it deals with the definition of mobility as a service in order to identify the ecosystem in particular in the second step. Mobility is classified and analyzed by working on the basis of secondary literature and a quantitative as well as qualitative methodology in expert interviews. This allows conclusions about the relationships, prerequisites and obstacles within the ecosystem and stakeholders.
The results of the thesis suggest that collaboration within the ecosystem is a prerequisite for the implementation of mobility as a service. Furthermore, that mobility as a service should ensure adaptability, since local infrastructures differ between Germany, USA and China, but also within these countries. This adaption process is iterative. The obstacles are interoperability and the willingness to cooperate. Moreover, the results imply that mobility as a service will assert itself more quickly in urban areas due to factors such as the pressure to act and the availability of mobility services as well as the number of customers.
Prostate segmentation is an essential part of brachytherapy treatment planning, in order to perform the procedure with required accuracy. Nowadays, segmentation of the prostate is still carried out manually during the planning steps, therefore it is a process that can be tedious, time-consuming and prone to inter-observer error. Much effort has been made in development of an computer-based algorithm that can perform prostate segmentation automatically, but only with appearance of deep learning methods, more promising algorithms emerged. So far, convolutional neural networks demonstrated excellent results in fully automatic prostate segmentation. Development of such an algorithm and training an efficient deep learning model is a challenging task, and requires a lot of optimizations. The objective of this study is development and evaluation of an algorithm for image processing based on deep learning methods that can perform fully automatic segmentation of the prostate gland in transrectal ultrasound images. Additionally, we made an overview of the development process, along with challenges and their solutions and demonstrated an algorithm implemented using Python and Tensorflow library, consisted of preprocessing, augmentation, training and validation, postprocessing and validation steps, which is able to successfully carry out fully automatic prostate segmentation with expert level of accuracy. Finally, we presented our implementation of fully convolutional neural network model and results that are encouraging to continue with model improvements and potential clinical application.
Entrepreneurship research faces a crossroads and a new approach is needed to better understand entrepreneurial behavior. Incorporating neuroscience to comprehend the entrepreneurial mindset seems promising. Nevertheless, the potential of neuroscience for entrepreneurship research is only slowly being realized. Based on an extensive literature review, this thesis examines the emerging role of neuroscience with respect to entrepreneurship. Referring to the model of the entrepreneurial process, this thesis investigates how entrepreneurs discover, exploit, and finally capture opportunities. In this context, explanations regarding trait, expertise, adaptation, and mindset of the entrepreneur are relevant for further examination. Moreover, decision-making in uncertain situations is analyzed. In this context, the dynamic interplay between the reflective and reflexive system is considered. Ultimately, this thesis provides recommendations for organizational innovation to enhance entrepreneurial
activity.
Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing amount of academic literature recognizing the significance of innovation systems. Entrepreneurship is an important component of an innovation system, contributing to the enhancement of regional as well as national innovation. The transfer of knowledge and technology between science and the economy has become particularly important to reinforce overall innovation performance. Today, universities and other institutions of higher education play a crucial role in the system of innovation and have evolved as active and highly relevant participants in the innovation system. Therefore, various supportive measures have been developed to increase the level of innovation at universities and to drive entrepreneurial activities. However, due to the ever-growing entrepreneurial support environment and the great variety of support programs,the distinction between support measures has become unclear. Consequently, the main objective of the present research work is to contribute to the overall understanding of supportive measures at German universities and other institutions of higher education.
Eight experts were interviewed to ensure the compilation of meaningful data. The research findings highlight the importance of a solid network of external experts as well as collaboration with other entrepreneurial institutions. Moreover, the research results indicated that an organizational structure with decentralized decision-making processes and a greater scope of actions enhances operational efficiency. While considering the indistinctness of different support programs and specific terms, although some significant differences were evaluated, overall, the results present a clear tendency toward a more cautious use of specialist terms, therefore substantiating the missing preciseness.