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The ever-increasing consequences of climate and environmental changes across the planet could have a lasting impact on civilization that many still underestimate. This study presents an analysis of the development of international climate agreements and their current standings, focusing on potential governmental instruments available to decouple economic growth from emitting further greenhouse gases. The author focuses on the area of electric mobility and its importance for reaching certain environmental targets. The prevailing consensus among experts in the field is that Norway is the leading nation of electromobility. Drawing on Norway´s successful approach of the matter, the author seeks to assess the viability of implementing certain Norwegian strategies in the German automotive environment. Proven successful strategies such as (a) introducing effective and numerous purchase and tax benefits for electric vehicles, (b) closing the gap of misinformation within society and actively promoting electric vehicle use, and (c) constructing a well-functioning infrastructure with the combined effort of the government, municipalities and energy and automotive companies can be directly transferred to and applied in Germany´s electric mobility market. Moreover, the presented study entails a set of recommendations for the German automotive industry regarding possible future courses of action in the field of electromobility. Concluding, Germany has not succeeded in being a leader of electromobility yet but has the unique possibility to focus on its strengths: the capability of developing high-quality, premium products and thus noticeably improve the standards of electric vehicles, their battery technologies and charging infrastructures.
The fight against global warming and the challenge of reducing CO2 output are critical issues for emitters, such as the fossil fuel sector. Many governments, acting in concert, will heavily regulate emissions in the future to not exceed a 2°C increase in temperature, as agreed on in the Paris Agreement in 2005. Heavy investments in renewables, research and development, and carbon storage are signs of the beginning of this progress to energy transition.
Due to the increases in CO2, measured in the atmosphere, many environmental organizations and scientists have studied the matter carefully. Their results show that if nations continue on their current path and do not decrease their CO2 output, it will take no longer than 26 years to exceed the 2°C limit.
The fossil fuel industry, as the main emitter of CO2, will have to depreciate many of their reserves, because CO2 containing fossil fuels listed on stock exchanges exceed the amount absorbable by the earth. This means, that if the content of CO2 recorded on worldwide stock exchanges would be extracted, an increase beyond 2°C is foreseeable. The bubble, similar to the Lehmann Brother case in 2008, will burst someday and cause high losses when extraction limits are implemented.
The impact of climate change related emission regulations on entities´ financial statements is identified as a research gap. This study focuses on the accounting standards and depreciation of minerals as it is an important matter for the current and future economic situation. Depending on current actions taken by extracting entities and governing power the future for the energy industry will look very different from today.
This research is exploring how companies can create the right brand image through marketing activities and brand management. We will determine all the components needed in luxury goods industry for a successful brand image establishment and how important this is in the luxury industry. We will start by discussing about the important aspects of brands, luxury and the luxury industry leading to a more practical chapter of the brand image creation methods in luxury goods industry with real life examples and finally concluding the brand image being a main ingredient in consumer-based brand equity creation. The conclusion is formulated with Aaker´s (1991) model of brand equity and Keller´s (2013) dimensions of brand knowledge and finally supported by Na et al. (1999) model of brand power.
In order to address the many challenges that the global population is currently facing, effective policies and therefore effective measurement concepts of development are necessary. However, disagreement regarding the methods to create and implement measurement concepts prevails. Furthermore, the abundance of development indicators makes it difficult to keep a clear overview of available measurement options. Therefore, this study clarifies the current status of the discussion regarding development. It also provides a comprehensible summary of the criteria that a valid development indicator should fulfill as well as a clearly structured overview of the most important development measures – divided into single and composite measures, then further broken down according to whether the components are aggregated and whether they are weighted. To make the results more tangible, this study assesses the Human Development Index and the World Happiness Report in greater detail and applies both to Germany and Bhutan. This is concluded by a set of general recommendations regarding the sensible application of development indicators.
Cultural considerations for Germans working with Japanese in virtual teams for project management
(2019)
In today’s globalized and multinational working world, being part of a team that uses technology in order to cross distance, time zones and even organizations, a so-called virtual team is becoming increasingly common. While extensive research on this topic is available, most of the current research is very theoretical and only in part useful for a member of a virtual team in order to enhance performance. A clear guideline on how to effectively work in an intercultural virtual team is not existent at this point.
This research, aims to produce a clear guideline for Germans working in virtual teams with Japanese in the style of the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide. Identifying the key challenges of virtual teams and the specific cultural differences of Germans and Japanese, based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions model are the starting point for this research. Due to the specificity and the novelty of this research a grounded theory approach has been taken and in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 Japanese employees, who regularly work in virtual teams with Germans. Grounded in the experiences and challenges of the participants, the findings help construct a guideline for Germans working with Japanese in virtual teams.
Results are structured according to 4 of the key challenges virtual teams face: trust, communication, leadership and technology/knowledge sharing. The guideline addresses the different communication styles of Japanese and Germans, differences in hierarchical thinking as well as the more collectivistic point of view of many Japanese. The guideline, that has been produced, is intended as a quick guide including recommendations for Germans to enhance their virtual team work with Japanese.
Resulting from the rapid technological advancement in the field of artificial intelligence and its implementation in the business world, intelligent systems are gradually adopted in recruitment. As this development is fast evolving and recent, there is comparatively little research about artificial intelligence in conjunction with recruitment. Hence, this thesis aims at exploring the effects of intelligent algorithms on the recruitment process and the biases involved.To investigate the topic, existing literature was analysed and primary research in form of expert interviews was conducted.The thesis describes the current state of implementation, effects on recruiters and bias as well as potential drawbacks. Overall, it was identified that artificial intelligence cannot prevent bias in personnel selection.The findings imply the need to further research the topic, particularly the implications of algorithmic bias.
The main focus of this thesis will be to shed light on the existence of cognitive biases. As many researchers, such as Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, have proven in the last five decades, people are not always as rational as they would like to believe. It is important to understand the origin of this irrational behaviour as well as its implications on judgements and decisions. Furthermore, cognitive biases also have a significant influence on consumers’ buying behaviour and decision-making. Through extensive research in secondary as well as primary data it will be shown how much of an influence the cognitive biases anchoring, hyperbolic discounting, loss aversion, endowment effect and decoy effect have on consumer buying behaviour. Additionally, recommendations of how these influences can be used in marketing will be given.
Creating effective cross-cultural advertising campaigns is one of the most challenging ongoing topics in international marketing. This paper aims to apply the insights of cross-cultural neuroscience of emotion to advertising in China and Germany.
Examining the differences in cross-cultural perception of emotions will be instrumental for models used in advertisements across China and Germany, help understand the role of consumer age for the emotional reaction to advertisements and elucidate the influence of emotions on cross-cultural prejudices and memory.
Based on an expert interview conducted with the neuroscientist Dr. Henning Beck, several hypotheses were generated. In order to investigate the hypotheses, a cross-cultural survey in China and Germany was conducted testing the influence of the own-race bias on emotional advertising using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). The results of the primary research suggest that the perception of emotions is culturally trained and can lead to a different emotional experience of advertising for Chinese and German citizens.
Many articles claim that the structure of a self-organizing team achieves the highest level of agility. Therefore, this paper examines the assumption about the agility of self-organizing teams. This is done through a qualitative secondary research which answers the following questions:
1. What are the required attributes for a workforce to be agile?
2. What are the characteristics and attributes of self-organizing teams?
3. Do self-organizing teams fulfill the requirements of an agile workforce? If yes, how?
Through literature reviews the requirements that make a workforce agile and the characteristics of self-organizing teams are observed. It is considered that if the characteristics (which makes up the structure) of self-organizing teams fulfill the requirements of an agile workforce, this claim is then believed to be valid.
The results of such an examination shows that an agile workforce needs to be empowered, capable and competent, adaptive and flexible, team oriented, cooperative and collaborative and continuously given feedback and trained. Similarly, the observed characteristics of self-organizing teams describe them to be autonomous, communicative and collaborative, redundant and reconfigurable, cross-functional, team oriented and capable of learning.
Through an analysis of the findings, it is confirmed that self-organizing teams fulfill the basic requirements of an agile workforce. Therefore, self-organizing teams are considered to be agile. Finally, companies that seek agility are advised to adopt the structure of self-organizing teams.
Globalisation has significantly shaped the way international organisations operate nowadays. The increased connectivity is continuously raising the number of global virtual teams, connecting employees across borders for project work. With cultural diversity, geographic dispersion and virtuality increasing the complexity of collaboration, the leadership of virtual teams constitutes a critical challenge. Consequently, the topic of leadership and its behavioural implications is progressively gaining businesses’ attention. However, due to limited research in this field, this thesis aims at identifying whether and how leadership behaviour affects virtual team collaboration, specifically between German leaders and Chinese team members.
After outlining behavioural characteristics of virtual leaders as presented by literature, the empirical research focuses on expert interviews with German virtual leaders. Here, a specific focus is put on their perceptions of their Chinese teams, the emerging challenges, their behaviours and the creation of a new virtual culture.
The results show the importance of leadership behaviour in this setting. They emphasise the effect it has on the virtual team members and provide recommendations with regards to behavioural adaptation to master this challenge.