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Global warming provokes our climate and the world how we know it today to change severely. The production of food together with its consumption is responsible for 19-29% of world’s greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities and further rises are
expected. As a response to this phenomenon, the assessment of a product’s carbon footprint has awaken huge interest with the purpose of controlling food’s environmental impact during its life-cycle. In order to involve individuals in the target of reducing harmful emissions, besides governmental and business efforts, CO2 labels have been developed to communicate a product’s carbon footprint and enabling consumers to make more climate-friendly purchase decisions. However, it has been shown that a successful
implementation of CO2 labels on grocery products still confronts barriers from the consumer side.
For a better understanding of the meaning of mentioned labels, this thesis deepens the theoretical backgrounds of greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon footprint related to the food industry. In a second step, the acceptance and effectiveness of carbon labels on
groceries will be analysed critically by using contextual literature reviews and a case study on German purchase behaviour.
Islamic banking is the new trend emergent within the modern-day banking industry, yet minimal literature is written about it. Most of the literary content today is regarding conventional banking, especially in non-Muslim countries and continents, Europe and U.S. included. Lack of literature is a threat to the operationalization of both modes of banking, due to lack of information and market analysis data. One of the fields where minimal literature coverage exists is market regulation – which is basically information as to how these two types of banking are regulated according to legislative structures. In light of this literature gap, this study emerges to explore the market regulative structure of both Islamic and conventional banks. The methodology to collect primary data is through interviews of selected players in both Islamic and conventional banks, such as bank managers, consultants, and personnel in the IT and finance department. The results of the interviews demonstrate that Islamic banks are faced with shortage of market regulation structures while conventional banks, on the other hand, are overwhelmed with over-regulation. The study provides several feasible solutions for these challenges.
Based on the history of office design, the changing technological environment and current business challenges, the physical workplace is an important aspect of the employee experience. The aesthetics of the work environment are one aspect that influences well-being and satisfaction on many different levels. This thesis provides a holistic and comprehensive perspective on the topic, including important influential factors from several scientific disciplines.
Two main dimensions of influence on the employee experience are considered. The direct- affective dimension deals with findings mostly from environmental psychology and neuroscience, which includes the impact of internal environmental quality and other psychological effects. Despite not always being consciously recognized, aesthetics and sensual perception have strong implications for the psychological well-being of organizational members.
The indirect-cognitive dimension deals with the work environment as an expression of organizational culture and the resulting implications of aesthetic considerations and the related symbolic and functional dimensions of the physical work environment. Common organizational artifacts and themes are explored as examples of the influence of aesthetic considerations for workplace design.
Next to the employee perspective, the managerial perspective and important implications, restrictions and issues for organizations in the creation and operation of workspaces are also considered.
Empirical research has been conducted to evaluate the application of aesthetic considerations and related issues in practice. Four expert interviews provide insight into the perspective of workplace design professionals on the aesthetics and related aspects of design, implementation processes and employee experience.
The aesthetic dimension of workplace design is often not actively considered by organizational members and management, but the research conducted in this work provides far-reaching evidence for the potential benefits of more considerate design choices for the aesthetics and beauty in the workplace. Using measures on both the direct and indirect levels of influence, the well-being and satisfaction of employees can be increased, and the attitudes and feelings held towards the organization can be improved. The importance of the interrelated fields of organizational culture and cultural change is explored. In addition, practical recommendations for the optimization of the aesthetical dimension of workplace design are offered at the conclusion of this work.
Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es zu erforschen inwiefern Führungskräfte den gesundheitlichen Zustand ihrer Mitarbeiter beeinflussen können. Macht falsche Führung krank? Wie kann man gesunde Führung umsetzen und warum ist das wichtig? Hierbei wird negativer Stress am Arbeitsplatz als Hauptfaktor für Burnout und psychische Erkrankungen näher analysiert. Traditionelles Führungsverhalten wird kritisch betrachtet und begründet folglich wichtige Ansätze gesundheitsförderlichen Führens. Die Bedeutung gesunder Führung und der Einfluss des direkten Vorgesetzten auf die eigene Zufriedenheit werden anhand aktueller Studien gezeigt. Gesundheitsmaßnahmen der leitenden Organisation und Personalentwicklung bilden zusätzlich wichtige Komponenten.
Jene Erwartungen, die heutzutage an die Führungspositionen gestellt sind, werden im weiteren Verlauf der Thesis hinterfragt. Welche Herausforderungen entstehen für Führungskräfte und Geschäftsleitung? Die Bedeutung von Führungskompetenzen und Führungskräfteentwicklung nimmt seit Jahren zu.
Als praktisches Beispiel dafür wurden zu den Forschungsfragen Interviews mit der jeweiligen Leitung des betrieblichen Gesundheitsmanagements zweier Unternehmen aus der Region Südschwarzwald geführt. Die qualitative Befragung ergab einen eindeutigen Bedarf an psychischem Gesundheitsmanagement. Die Rolle von Führungskräften wird in beiden Fällen als höchst bedeutend angesehen und in der Studienanalyse näher erläutert.
After the Second World War and especially in the early 70s a new phenomenon arose – today widely known as globalization. It eliminated barriers and thus increased international competition. Companies such as Siemens, General Electrics and Procter & Gamble were forced to act globally in order to stay competitive and therefore they had to redefine their businesses in a strategic and internationally oriented manner. As one of a company’s most essential departments, human resources was tremendously forced to adapt to the changed business environment. Language skills, cultural awareness and global mobility were only a few new requirements in human resources.
Early in the beginning of globalization, large companies recognized the opportunity to outsource specific departments with the goal of cost-saving and resource bundling. Manufacturing was and still is a predestined department to make use of outsourcing, whereas the situation for other departments including IT, procurement and human resources is more complex. The main fear is losing control to the outsourcing partner. Main departments with a strategic importance for the overall success are therefore only conditionally suitable for outsourcing. Companies need to ask themselves, how much control over their human capital they are willing to sacrifice for saving costs and staying competitive. With the purpose to evade this conflict of objectives, companies seek for a hybrid model, which allowed them maintaining control and cutting costs at the same time.
In the early 70s, first companies found the solution in the Shared Service Center model, which then rapidly spread throughout a number of countries and industries. Human Resources Shared Service Centers can be defined as a hybrid model, combining advantages and avoiding disadvantages of outsourcing and decentralization of Human Resources. The Shared Service Center model is expected to lower costs, improve efficiency and service quality, and enable organizations to better focus on core functions. Although the strategy seems only having advantages, there are many aspects to consider in the pre-implementation phase. Moving to the Shared Service Center model represents an immense strategic project, including high risk, costs and impact on the overall success. For this reason, the project needs to be well planned, designed, implemented, monitored
and evaluated from the right people, at the right time and at the right place. Any small mistakes made during the project might have an unpredictable and irreversible impact and prevent the company from benefiting of the Shared Service Center model or might even force the organization to stop the project completely. Before deciding to implement Shared Service Centers, companies need to accept that there is neither guarantee for success nor a universally valid success strategy. Best and worst practices will be discovered during the transition at the earliest and a success evaluation can only happen in the post-transition phase. Although the Shared Service Center model is not a recent trend as it found first-time application many decades ago, the topic remains relevant as many companies still hesitate implementing this risky strategy. Some organizations succeeded, others failed and returned to their old approach while some are currently in the transition phase.
Before deciding to move to the Shared Service Center model, one of the top pharma company’s was facing the same issues as other companies on such a scale. The management increasingly felt the pressure to offer the same or an even better service quality at a lower price. Changing the strategy and implementing Shared Service Centers across the globe was seen as the most promising solution. The large pharma company with employees of many nationalities worldwide offers a huge variety of cultures, which can be seen as a chance, but also as an obstacle on the way to a successful Shared Service Center implementation. Primarily, the company has to consider that the project might not work in the same pace, quality and method for all countries. Finding best practices for all countries is a desirable goal, yet not easy to achieve.
Purpose – To empirically examine the impact of a set of influencing factors on B-to-B sales call success from a buyer, salesperson and neuroscientific perspective
Design/methodology/approach – A literature review was conducted to find potential non-economic influencing factors and a set of hypotheses was generated. Subsequently, findings were verified through an expert interview. Then two surveys examining the buyer and sales perspective were carried out and hypotheses were tested. Lastly, results were aimed to be explained from a neuroscientific perspective.
Findings – The results show that trust, emotion and empathy are positively correlated to sales call success. However, communication, listening skills, empathy, appearance and personality variables were on average still perceived as somewhat important for sales call success by both survey groups. Neuroscientific literature could provide insights into the effects of trust, emotion, appearance and extroversion on sales call outcome.
Research limitations – The sample size permits only a general analysis and conclusions. Buyers participating in the survey tended to evaluate sales calls as rather successful, leading to an underrepresentation of “unsuccessful” sales calls in the data set. Neuroscientific literature provided insights but could not fully explain the suggested model.
Practical implications – Emotional and non-economic factors including trust, positive emotion and empathy should be part of a successful sales methodology so that the effects of these factors are considered to improve the outcome of sales calls
As the business environment is constantly changing, development in the leadership area is also needed. What works just fine a few years ago cannot longer be used as effective leadership skills. Therefore this thesis deals with the changing requirements for future leader focusing on coaching as a leadership instrument.
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.
With information on corporate ethical behavior now more accessible than ever, consumers have become increasingly socially and environmentally aware, which has translated into a growing demand for ethically made products. For ethically minded consumers, certification labels such as fair trade or organic are simple indicators of whether a product meets their ethical standards. For companies that wish to become certified, which is a lengthy and sometimes expensive process, there are several pertinent questions to consider, such as how much customers really value particular labels and whether multiple labels yield significant added competitive benefits. One should also consider how best to collect this information, because simply asking customers via surveys isn’t guaranteed to return results that actually reflect or predict real-life behavior (Carrington et al. 2010). For this paper, we collected information on consumers’ willingness to pay for products with the organic and fair trade labels (both individually and in combination) using two different methods: a traditional questionnaire and a reaction-time based electronic research method designed to reveal subconscious value perceptions. The factors involved were product type and number of labels. We found little evidence to suggest that additional ethical labels significantly increase willingness to pay.