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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The business environment has changed within the past few decades. Growing global competition and the trend of shortening product life-cycle have reshaped the market, coercing companies into reconsidering their business strategies and product development. Higher quality, better time-to-delivery, and cost optimization are crucial factors for firms to compete in this tumultuous market. Therefore, companies are adopting a New Product Development (NPD), which is agile and customer-centric. The path toward change, however, is not identical for every enterprise since companies have their own unique organizational architecture and culture, demanding a thorough consideration of various facets of change, which is the focus of this study. EKU Power Drives, the company case study for this research, is actively involved in innovating electrification solutions and embedded software control for mobile power generation in the oil and gas industry upstream segment. The firm is considering transforming to an agile-based framework to fulfill its vision, which is becoming the most preferred partner for the key players in the target markets. This study aims to investigate the optimal Agile methodology and framework for the case study according to its business context, identify the challenges and how to address them, and outline an implementation procedure.
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.
Improving conditions for economic growth in Colombia, Investment opportunity in Infrastructure
(2015)
The purpose of this thesis is to get a clear understanding of the situation of transport infrastructure of Colombia. Examine the reasons and the current situation of the country´s background that explains the delay in infrastructure development and the poor quality of the transport networks, being able to find objective arguments to suggest certain type of investment for the coming years that will help to improve the conditions for economic growth. The research goes deep in to the evolution of the country and the role of transport infrastructure in Colombia, highlighting the most important facts and types, to get an overall understanding of the actual situation. The objective is to identify which is the line of investment that will best fit the country´s development in the time where globalization and free trade agreements take active part of Colombia´s growth in the last years, however threatening the industries pushing them to a more efficient and productive environment. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that Colombia needs heavy investments in the future years to try closing the breach left behind decades of inefficient policies and strategies. The involvement of the private sector in transport infrastructure projects is necessary to fund the type of investments that the country needs. Furthermore, there has to be continuity in the actual concession programs for the road network plus a big investment to bring back the railroad network into an efficient long lengths transport for both passengers and products.
In this paper, I analyze the position of Indonesia current account during thirty five years from 1980 to 2015. The main findings may be summarized as follows:
(a)The movement of Indonesia CA position which interrelated mainly by the transaction of goods and services, and Ind IIP which interrelated to the getting indebtedness of the country.
(b)Indonesia as an open economy, for running CA position is determined by driving forces in macroeconomic scale, such as saving and investment, financial balance, real exchange rate, and trade balance. Indonesia recently is now more open to the free capital without strong foundation of financial system and human resources, so Indonesia suffers from the competitiveness problem.
In this paper, author was unable to find some data and interpretation. From policy recommendation, author strongly suggests government for some long-term policies.
Industry 5.0 is a new age of production that combines human-machine cooperation with cutting-edge technologies. Despite all of Industry 5.0's advantages, there are new cybersecurity threats that need to be considered in order to maintain the stability and security of networked systems. In the first section of the thesis, Industry 5.0 is introduced, along with its benefits and features. Cyber threats posed by automation, robotics, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and networked systems are also noted.
The thesis delves deeply into the vulnerabilities and possible attack paths that hackers can use in Industry 5.0 settings. It looks at vulnerabilities in IoT devices, human mistakes, unprotected communication protocols, and supply chain vulnerabilities, giving a thorough grasp of the hazards involved. Case examples from the real world illustrate how cyberattacks affect Industry 5.0 systems, highlighting the necessity of strong defenses.
In order to develop recommendations for Industry 5.0 security, the thesis examines a number of cybersecurity best practices and standards, including the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ISO 27001. It highlights how crucial it is to carry out thorough risk assessments and apply efficient risk management strategies in Industry 5.0 settings. The thesis recommends staff awareness and training, incident response strategies, and technology controls as ways to lessen cyber dangers.
The thesis also looks at innovative ways to improve Industry 5.0 cybersecurity, including secure communication protocols, blockchain for supply chain security, artificial intelligence (AI) for attack detection and response, and safe IoT device design. It also takes into account the legal and regulatory sides of cybersecurity, evaluating how well they work to handle privacy and ethical issues as well as lessen cyber threats.
To improve Industry 5.0 cybersecurity, the thesis also looks at cutting-edge technologies including blockchain for supply chain security, AI for threat detection and response, secure communication protocols, and safe IoT device design. It evaluates the efficacy of legal and regulatory measures in mitigating cyber dangers and resolving privacy and ethical issues while taking cybersecurity into account.
The thesis highlights the need of industry cooperation and information exchange in addressing Industry 5.0 cyber threats. It assesses initiatives, partnerships, and networks that support the sharing of best practices, information, and threat intelligence. In the conclusion, the thesis explores Industry 5.0's future orientations and offers academics, policymakers, and business experts’ advice on how to proactively mitigate new risks and guarantee the security of Industry 5.0 ecosystems.
Overall, the thesis contributes to a better knowledge of Industry 5.0 cyber dangers and provides practical solutions through the use of multidisciplinary research, real-world case studies, and examples. Its purpose is to encourage the secure and successful use of Industry 5.0 technology.
As a decisive factor for ongoing corporate success, companies are increasingly concerned with the possibilities of increasing their innovative ability. In connection with factors that can be influenced by internal company decisions, this work deals with the question of which factors are particularly effective in this context. The underlying hypothesis deals with the statement that the innovation performance can be fundamentally influenced by internal company decisions.
From the qualitative survey and study of three medium-sized companies from the districts of Schwarzwald-Baar and Rottweil, company-internal factors for increasing the ability to innovate and their relevance and practical application are examined. These companies are MinebeaMitsumi Technology Center Europe GmbH, Wiha Werkzeuge GmbH, and Hugo Kern und Liebers GmbH & Co. KG. In this context, several employees from the development and innovation teams of the companies were interviewed personally and other employees of one company were interviewed using an online survey. The questionnaire was further expanded on the basis of the information and results obtained. The results of this survey were critically reflected on by the project manager of the company surveyed first.
The seven internal factors identified from the literature are the Generation and Implementation of Ideas, Creativity and Time Pressure, the Use of External Information, Creation of Knowledge, Behavioral Patterns, Organizational Structures and the Composition of Teams. These factors were identified with different relevance and application in the practice of the examined companies. It cannot be conclusively clarified from the study whether the ability to innovate can be positively influenced, in particular by the factors identified. In this context, further investigations are necessary. Based on the literature review and experiences of the companies, this thesis presents a recommendation for measures relating to the positive influence of factors to increase the ability to innovate.
With the ever increasing global competitive business environment, capturing new lucrative markets has taken the forefront for Multinational Entities (MNE’s). In the recent past, emerging countries have gained prominence as a focal growth destination for many MNEs. Despite the business opportunities that they offer, they still remain complex markets in which to do business. Consequently, for the MNEs that have made entry into these markets, adequate growth strategies designed to include sets of activities that deliver a unique mix of value to the organization are imperative.1 This therefore calls for such organisations to adapt their existing growth strategies in emerging markets to various demands. This is in order to maximise performance through well-orchestrated growth agendas that work in concert with the overall corporate strategy. Nevertheless, for overall success, businesses are becoming more aware that operational and control failures can be extremely costly.2 This is because growth comes with increased risks hence a need for new solutions to mitigate and manage the risks. Consequently, the discipline of compliance which is designed to mitigate risks through adherence of; legal requirements, internal and external policies is no longer a second-thought function that requires action down the road. Corporate leaders now recognize that it is important for business expansion and the protection of shareholder value.3 In these markets, compliance related issues have proved to be difficult hurdles for many organisations and they are widely viewed high risk compliance markets. 4 Despite this, many MNEs that venture into such markets fail to integrate their growth strategies and compliance programmes/strategies.
This paper explores the hypothesis that for organisations to optimise performance, their compliance programmes/strategies should work in concert with their broader strategic goals, e.g. growth. This thesis aims to show how the two can be integrated by using Rolls-Royce Power Systems’ AG (RRPS) growth strategy in China and its compliance programme as a case study. The hypothesis is that, if successfully integrated, RRPS can maximise its growth performance in China. Secondly the study seeks to provide a flexible check list or template that RRPS can adapt in its future Integrated Sales Road Maps (ISRMs) in other targeted countries or regions.
Digital Transformation is gradually changing the ways of operating the business. With the advancements and innovations in technology and changing customer preferences, it is essential to adapt to these changes. Digital transformation has the capability to impact nearly every line of business but one of the most significant impact is on Customer Experience. Embracing new technology and processes provides opportunity to create better experience for customers by focussing on automation, self-service, value, quality, customer expectations etc. Advanced systems or solutions that fulfil these requirements can be incorporated in the technology and process landscape of an organization who is supporting customers. This thesis aims at conceptually integrating the Customer Service and Retail Store Support processes at HUGO BOSS into the new Enterprise Service Management (ESM) tool which will in turn drive the digital transformation at HUGO BOSS. Moreover, the purpose of the study is to provide a recommendation if the new ESM tool can replace the existing Retail & Customer Care ticketing tool, thus enabling the Retail & Customer Care team and their respective processes to be fully onboarded and implemented in future into the new tool. This thesis is a qualitative research. At first, qualitative data about the existing ticketing tools used to provide customer service and retail store support is gathered through secondary data collection methods. Secondly, in-depth semi structured interviews with nine respondents from Retail & Customer Care team and IT Support teams were conducted to collect their feedback and analyse the benefits and drawbacks of these tools. Next, the thesis introduces the new ESM tool followed by its evaluation using Fit-Gap Analysis method. Further, the thesis includes the concept of ideal customer service and retail store support processes to be supported by the new tool using process flowcharts. In conclusion, the results of the thesis are presented based on which a future recommendation is provided.
The main objective of this thesis is to investigate and analyze the professional journey of thirteen foreign doctors and the opinion of a German doctor, to explore how their integration process has been into the German labor market, taking into account their personal experiences; especially what they thought was helpful and the obstacles that they encountered during their journey, and to make recommendations for hospitals to help them address the integration of foreign doctors, something that should be done as soon as possible, due to the rising amount of foreign physicians coming to Germany to cover the many open positions that can no longer be filled by the local population.
The thesis is divided in four large sections; the first serves as a basis to understand the problem of the shortage of physicians in Germany; the second one is a literature review taking into account the migration of health professionals, cultural standards, intercultural competence and communication, the different acculturation strategies that immigrants use, inpatriation and integration, and last the management of diversity in healthcare; the third one has to do with the methodology that was used; and the last two parts encompass the findings and recommendations.
In conclusion, it can be said that recruiting foreign physicians is a very good way of approaching the actual shortage of physicians that exists in Germany. However, it is imperative that health care organizations, are aware that the integration process of foreign doctors and the adaptation of the whole organization to this new working environment is of extreme importance to provide the quality care that is expected at any health care institution, and it is imperative that hospitals recognize the need to include diversity management and a Willkommenskultur as vital pillars for the organization.