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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.
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.
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.
Do Meat-Eating Consumers Use Organic Meat to Rationalize the Consumption of Conventional Meat?
(2021)
This thesis explores how meat-eating consumers may be able to rationalize the consumption of conventional meat by believing to substitute a certain amount of it for organic meat. The underlying rationale is that the positive associations elicited by the organic label and the favorable beliefs consumers have formed about organic meat enable them to use it as a moral license. Building on cognitive dissonance theory, this work specifically investigated whether (1) meat-eaters perceive organic meat better than vegetarians and (2) meat-eaters overestimate how much organic meat they consume. German meat-eating and vegetarian participants were recruited for a study (n=156) to answer these questions. The results show, first, that organic was generally rated as better than conventional meat on all dimensions surveyed, and to a greater extent by meat-eating than by vegetarian respondents. Second, meat-eating participants on average reported estimates of organic meat consumption that were significantly higher than the population mean, indicating that consumers may not eat as much organic meat as they believe. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that organic meat might be used to rationalize unsustainable food choices.
Sustainability, encompassing the economy, the environment, and society in equal parts, is an increasingly prominent topic that is gaining in importance and awareness due to the climate crisis and the resulting urgent need for action. It is essential to simultaneously focus on the global and on the local scale in order to create a paradigm shift. This study addresses the attitude-behavior gap of employees in the daily operations within companies and evaluates how nudges can be implemented to narrow this gap. A literature review was conducted to understand the separate topics of sustainability, the attitude-behavior gap, and nudging. Based on these three topics and their interrelation, exemplary nudges on habits and on infrastructure to be applied in a company and modified to its needs are developed. The method of implementation of nudges cannot be generalized because (1) attitudes and behavior and their interrelation are individual and influenceable factors and (2) the corporate context and how nudges are communicated impact the effectiveness of the interventions. Investing in internal sustainability practices in combination with indispensable external practices leads companies to a holistic, authentic, and successful approach towards becoming a sustainable business.
Keywords: Attitude-Behavior Gap, Nudging, Corporate sustainability
Der Frauenanteil in den Führungsetagen der deutschen Wirtschaft stagniert seit Jahren auf einem niedrigen Niveau und spiegelt nicht im Entferntesten den Anteil weiblicher Beschäftigter wider (vgl. Tonn 2016, S. 11). Vor allem im Top-Management sind Frauen deutlich unterrepräsentiert. Die Grundannahme dieser Bachelorarbeit besteht darin, dass Frauen grundsätzlich motiviert sind, Führung zu übernehmen und die gleichen Potentiale wie Männer besitzen. Um eine Führungsposition einzunehmen, müssen die Rahmenbedingungen passen. Aufgrund biologischer Unterschiede und der Sozialisation präferieren Frauen andere Rahmenbedingungen als Männer. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die Frage untersucht, was sich aus Sicht der Frauen verändern müsste, damit sie ihr Potential entfalten können. Dazu wurden 50 weibliche Probandinnen aus unterschiedlichen Branchen befragt. Die systematische Betrachtung der Aussagen ergab im Wesentlichen folgende sieben Aspekte: Gestaltungsfreiheit, Unterstützung zu Beginn und in der Führungsposition, Vertrauen, eine gute Feedback- und Fehlerkultur, die Vereinbarkeit mit dem Privatleben, Menschlichkeit im Fokus und attraktive Anreize. Des Weiteren konnten durch die Ergebnisse Handlungsoptionen abgeleitet werden, um strukturelle und kulturelle Rahmenbedingungen zu gestalten, die talentierten und motivierten Frauen einen einfacheren Zugang zu mehr Führungsverantwortung verschaffen.
This research examines whether a company's popularity is a determining factor for its attractiveness among employees. For this purpose, two groups of subjects were asked to rate the attractiveness of an identical job advertisement. The only difference between the groups was that one group was led to believe that it was the job advertisement of a well-known company, whereas the other group was presented with the advertisement of a rather unknown, but in terms of activity and prestige comparable company. The results suggest that the familiarity of the company does indeed influence popularity to a significant degree. Implications of this finding are also further explored.
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.
Differences in the perception and their effects on the implementation of organizational agility
(2021)
This thesis paper investigates the differences in organizational agility implementation and links practical approaches to complex theory. Several agile transformations have been studied to provide an overview of the common guidelines that foster agile working. In alignment with the ambivalence of agility, the results show that a symbiotic mixture of bottom- up and top-down features in the application is required. Especially in traditional organizations, where hierarchical structures prevail, the practical implementation requires the approval of managers and the active involvement of employees to be successful. Additionally, companies cannot apply a uniform approach to achieving agile but must alter practices to fit their specific needs. Consequently, this paper can be particularly beneficial to companies attempting an agile change.
Pro-environmental attitude is, on many occasions, a weak indicator for pro-environmental behavior. Personal interests interfere with the human desire to follow normative goals during the decision-making process, which may result in the unpleasant state of attitudinal ambivalence. The more balanced two contrary attitudes are, the higher is the chance for external persuasion as it may decrease the internal ambivalent conflict. However, moral informational interventions seem not to cause the desired behavioral change but may instead increase the sense of resignation and guilt. This paper aims to set focus on the attitude-behavior relationship in the concrete example of plastic-packed food and how post-decisional evaluations vary when either individual (hedonic or gain goal) or collective motives (normative goal) are being followed. Measured indications for actual disengagement or attitude adaption are relatively weak but felt ambivalence in the case of immoral decisions could be demonstrated in the form of response times. Practical conclusions that may facilitate pro-environmental behavior are being presented at the end of the work.