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Course of studies
This thesis deals with the CO2 footprint of the Porsche Taycan. Porsche aims to become a carbon neutral company by 2030 and is therefore looking for potentials of improvement. This thesis intends to find solutions to reduce the carbon footprint of the Porsche Taycan over its entire life cycle.
First, the thesis deals with the theoretical framework of conducting a Life Cycle Assessment based on the DIN EN ISO 14040 and DIN EN ISO 14044 standards. Then, the Porsche Taycan and its battery system are introduced.
A CO2 hotspot analysis is carried out for the entire life cycle of the battery of the Porsche Taycan Turbo S and thus potential for improvement is identified. The main CO2 hotspots are… [DELTED FOR CONFIDENTIALITY REASONS].
Furthermore, an Excel tool is built to model the entire life cycle of the Taycan. This tool is used to carry out a sensitivity analysis for selected parameters. The analysis shows how sensitive the carbon footprint reacts to changes and thus helps making decisions upon where improvements can be made.
Based on the two analyses it is, among other things, recommended that Porsche… [DELTED FOR CONFIDENTIALITY REASONS].
Global warming and its impacts on the environment, the human being and the economy are one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. With the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration being the main driver of global warming, the necessity arises to address the issue of carbon dioxide emissions. Next to the avoidance, the reduction and the compensation of emissions, negative emissions are moving into the focus of decision-makers in politics and in the economy. These can be created using either nature-based methods or negative emission technologies. The paper “Methods for generating negative emissions: Are negative emission technologies a climatically and economically viable alternative to nature-based methods?” aims to answer the research questions whether negative emission technologies are a more effective instrument to create negative emissions than nature-based methods and, under which circumstances an investment in these technologies is reasonable for a company.
The method used to answer the questions is a literature research to perform a comparison of two examples. The afforestation project Bonn Challenge serves as example for a nature-based method to create negative emissions while the Direct-Air-Capture plant “Orca” by the company climeworks AG is used as an example for a negative emission technology. A benefit analysis is conducted to assess the effect on carbon dioxide concentration and a net present value calculation is carried out to enable an investment decision under different scenarios.
The paper finds that Direct Air Capture is a more effective way to reduce the atmospheric carbon dioxide than the afforestation. The crucial advantage of the technology is the permanent storage of the removed carbon dioxide and the immediate carbon dioxide effect. Furthermore, the results of the net present value calculation imply that in the short-term an investment in negative emissions is not economical. In the long run, rising prices for emission certificates and the possibility to sell removed and stored carbon dioxide or to offer carbon dioxide removal as a service can make an investment in negative emission technologies like Direct Air Capture reasonable. A condition for that is that the cost of carbon dioxide removal with Direct Air Capture is reduced to 100 $/tCO2 between 2026 and 2031 depending on the applied interest rate.
Based on the found results, the paper suggests that from a climate protection perspective, negative emission technologies should not be seen as alternatives to nature-based methods but that different approaches to create negative emissions must be combined to meet climate targets. The paper also proposes that prices for emission certificates in the EU-ETS should be increased as soon as possible in order to promote an investment in negative emission technologies. Also, further research using more detailed data and covering more aspects is recommended.
The objective of this paper is to build on well-established theories like extremeness aversion and extend those to a spatial context. Extremeness aversion occurs as disadvantages loom larger than advantages. Therefore decision-makers tend to avoid the extremes and choose the middle alternative, implying that a product that becomes the intermediate alternative becomes more attractive. However, a vast majority of literature seems to neglect spatial aspects. Therefore, we propose that positioning a product in the middle of a choice architecture will lead to a relative increase in likelihood of its being chosen. In a six-week field experiment in a retail market, we displayed three choice sets of different categories. Results are inconsistent with previous research, as there was no increase in choice for the product positioned in the middle of the choice architecture.
This paper reflects the topic of risk regarding an individual’s propensity to engage in risky behavior. Therefore, a survey was conducted among four different cultures to study cultural effects on risk-taking behavior. These contained Germany, France, China, and Latin America with a total sample size of 655. The applied questionnaire covered seven different domains regarding social, recreational, health/safety, ethical, investment, gambling, and business risk for which the participants had to assess the likelihood to engage in theoretical situations on a scale of 1 to 6. Significant cultural differences, as well as domain-specificity, could be confirmed using several one-way ANOVAs for the statistical evaluation. In this case, in comparison with the other cultures, Germany showed the highest risk propensity in the social domain, France for recreational and ethical risk, Latin America in the business as well as health/safety sector, and China in the investment and gambling domain.
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.
The thesis examines challenges of virtual feedback and possible differences to face-to-face communication with the aim of finding out which challenges and advantages employees perceive regarding virtual feedback and virtual communication. Based on the challenges mentioned, recommendations are developed that can be used by companies to counteract the challenges of virtual communication. It is crucial to look at the challenges of virtual communication because the Corona pandemic caused an increase in virtual working and, according to some forecasts, virtual working will continue to gain importance after the pandemic. To find out how the change to home office affects feedback from the employee's perspective, an online survey was created in which 15 employees from different industries were interviewed. The results show that employees in the virtual context receive less feedback, but most employees in the home office still feel sufficiently praised. In addition, there is an increased inhibition threshold to contact others in the virtual context, which means that employees solve problems themselves more often, but employees ask for the same amount of feedback from their manager virtually as they do on site in the company. In addition, spontaneous and informal communication is significantly reduced in the virtual context and new communication tools are sometimes introduced in the virtual context, for example the use of MS Teams has risen strongly in many companies since the corona pandemic.
This bachelor thesis is dedicated to the topic of insurance in the outdoor sports sector. The range of services offered by personal liability insurances, business liability insurances, association liability insurances and accident insurances were examined. For this purpose, all insurance terms and conditions available or obtainable in spring 2021 by companies organized in the German Insurance Association
(Gesamtverband der Deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft e.V.) were compiled and examined for commonalities and differences. Exclusions, inclusions, and special features by the insurance companies were also considered. The results are presented in a tabular overview. As a result, it was possible to determine that in the case of personal liability insurances, coverage for all types of sports is basically provided by all insurance companies without distinction. Deviations can only be found in the areas of horses/riding, water sports and air sports. Only in this spectrum personal liability insurers each make their own offer, which can clearly distinguish them from their competitors. In the case of business liability, no generalized regulations could be identified, except that the respective business purpose is insured.
Thus, specialized outdoor sports companies or outdoor events of other companies are insured. In conclusion, competition among insurance companies is likely to be most pronounced in business liability insurances. Association liability insurances lag behind these major liability areas because sports associations can obtain coverage from a major insurer. The offers by the insurance companies focus on the purpose of the association and are evaluated individually. With the exception of air sports activities, accident insurances indiscriminately insure all bodily injuries that occur as a result of an accident in a private context in outdoor sports. In general, outdoor sports activities of all kinds are always insured or can be insured through appropriate rate or contract negotiations.
When translanguaging, individuals use and combine all their available language repertoires in order to increase comprehension. The use of different languages together
implies that there is no strict language separation. First studied in a school context, the primary purposes of this concept are the complete understanding of subject matter and the simultaneous development of additional languages. Recent studies in different business contexts show the concept’s transferability to other environments. This brings forth questions about, firstly, the implementation of translanguaging in a workplace and, secondly, the possible effects of translanguaging on interpersonal relationships in work teams. The focus of the analysis hereby lies on work teams with intellectual and creative
tasks. The transferability of International High School’s eight core principles, which are meant to improve students’ translanguaging skills, into a business context is discussed. The theoretical analysis results show that the eight principles are, in theory, all applicable
to creative and intellectual teams, but further challenges may arise. No definite answer is presented regarding the effect on interpersonal relationships; both positive and negative effects are possible. Results are all context-dependent, and further empirical research is needed to study the theoretical assumptions made in the present paper.
Important prior studies regarding customers purchasing behaviour proved that customers tend to avoid products showing extreme deflections in attributes and feel more comfortable purchasing articles with a balance in attributes (compromise option). Hence, for marketers, supermarket chains etc., it can be of an advantage knowing whether this effect can also be measured or even be amplified in where the spatial middle of a shelf is occupied with the compromise option. We hypothesized that the tendency towards the compromise option, eventually even higher in the spatial middle position, can also be observed in an in-store experiment with real-life circumstances. In order to fulfil our study, we worked with a hardware store in southern Germany. In total, we sold 610 items consisting of 5 different products with each 3 alternatives. The result corroborated our hypothesis partly as it showed in some cases, the compromise option was indeed preferred when in the middle of a choice set. Nevertheless, in many cases, products on extreme position with “extreme” attributes were preferred. Leading to the conclusion that other factors like the brand may have higher importance in purchasing decisions.
Starting from the direct exchange of goods and services to the first traces of money almost 3,000 years ago to contactless payments with our smartphones and bank cards in the 21st century. Along the way we have recorded a lot of innovation in the field of payments like the invention of the credit card in the 1940s or the implementation of a debit system for debit cards in the 1980s.
Each of those innovations was greeted with skepticism at the time of their introduction. The concerns of the people are understandable since the innovation in this field touches a very important topic to most humans: money.
At first people did not trust physical money when they did not exchange goods and services directly anymore since it did not feel like it is a fair exchange. Then people were not believing that plastic cards will one day substitute cash. Now people are pessimistic about contactless payment methods that don’t even require those plastic cards anymore.
Yet experts agree on the idea that the future of payment is contactless.
In my thesis I am focusing one of the technologies used for contactless payments called NFC.
The goal of this thesis is to give an overview over the usage, chances, risks and the competitors of this contactless technology, highlight the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and answer the following question based on empirical data:
“Is NFC the best method to handle contactless payments?”