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Maximizing the value from data has become a key challenge for companies as it helps improve operations and decision making, enhances products and services, and, ultimately, leads to new business models. While enterprise architecture (EA) management and modeling have proven their value for IT-related projects, the support of enterprise architecture for data-driven business models (DDBMs) is a rather new and unexplored field. The research group argues that the current understanding of the intersection of data-driven business model innovation and enterprise architecture is incomplete because of five challenges that have not been addressed in existing research: (1) lack of knowledge of how companies design and realize data-driven business models from a process perspective, (2) lack of knowledge on the implementation phase of data-driven business models, (3) lack of knowledge on the potential support enterprise architecture modeling and management can provide to data-driven business model endeavors, (4) lack of knowledge on how enterprise architecture modeling and management support data-driven business model design and realization in practice, (5) lack of knowledge on how to deploy data-driven business models. The researchers address these challenges by examining how enterprise architecture modeling and management can benefit data-driven business model innovation. The mixed-method approach of this thesis draws on a systematic literature review, qualitative empirical research as well as the design science research paradigm. The investigators conducted a systematic literature search on data-driven business models and enterprise architecture. Considering the novelty of data-driven business models for academia and practice, they conducted explorative qualitative research to explain "why" and "how" companies embark on realizing data-driven business models. Throughout these studies, the primary data source was semi-structured interviews. In order to provide an artifact for DDBM innovation, the researchers developed a theory for design and action. The data-driven business model innovation artifact was inductively developed in two design iterations based on the design science paradigm and the design science research framework.
This doctoral thesis contributes to the vibrant discourse on boundary-crossing collaboration in the German teacher education system. It offers theoretical advancements, programmatic guidelines, and empirical findings which advocate for a transdisciplinary perspective. In order to do so, the framing paper critically links persistent challenges and current reform processes in the teacher education system with theoretical foundations and conceptual positions of transdisciplinarity. Against this backdrop, four articles provide further insights on: a) how to expand the prevalent systematic of innovation and transfer approaches (top-down, bottom-up, cooperative) by a transdisciplinary perspective, b) outlining guiding principles for the realization of transdisciplinary collaboration in the context of a boundary-crossing research and development project, c) providing empirical findings on effect relationships between transdisciplinary dimensions of integration characteristics, and d) identifying empirical types of actors based on specific assessment patterns towards these characteristics.
Exploring artful possibilities: a transdisciplinary research on culture, arts and sustainability
(2021)
The texts gathered in this manuscript offer a largely congruent set of insights on the cultural dimension of sustainability and on the important functions of the arts in relation to the cultural dimension of sustainability, not only in society – more particularly in cities – but also more self- reflexively in transdisciplinary sustainability research itself. The introduction paper (original text for the Cumulative Habilitation) presents all the published texts included in the cumulative habilitation manuscript, and discusses the challenges of transdisciplinary research, differentiating two schools of transdisciplinarity (the so-called the ‘ETH’ and ‘CIRET’ approaches) to which the author’s postdoctoral research relates. The four texts in the first part (PART 1 - Culture(s) and Aesthetics of sustainability)articulate the relations between culture and sustainability. They focus on a theoretical dimension of the author’s postdoctoral research that further developed an understanding of “cultures of sustainability” and of “aesthetics of complexity” that was initiated in the author’s PhD, bringing them in a dialogue with other ongoing and emerging discourses about “cultural sustainability” and “queer ecologies”. The four texts in the second part (PART 2 - The Arts in Relation to Culture(s) and Aesthetics of Sustainability) represent the part of the author’s research that constituted a closer examination of specific artistic practices: ecological art, musical practices, and contemporary interdisciplinary arts in urban arts organizations.
The ten texts in the third part (PART 3 - Creative Sustainable Cities) share the insights gained in the parts of the author’s research work that focused on urban cultural and arts-related phenomena in their relationships to urban sustainability. Several of the texts lay out a critique of the “Creative City” and demonstrate an effort to develop an alternative understanding of the Creative City that would deserve to be also named a “Sustainable City”. Later texts share the insights from the author’s co-leading of the “Stadt als Möglichkeitsraum” (“City as Space of Possibilities”) research project (2015-2018).
The nine texts collected in the fourth part (PART 4 - Towards Artful Sustainability Research)reflect how the author’s ongoing research work included a transdisciplinary reflection and development in terms of epistemology and methodology, incorporating increasingly more elements of arts-based research and of phenomenology and integrating them with systems thinking and qualitative social-scientific research. This development brought the author to reflect further upon the imaginaries and research practices of sustainability researchers, and to advocate for an “artistic turn” in sustainability research (including the more specific field of sustainability science).
The conclusion paper (original text for the Cumulative Habilitation) summarizes the insights from all the published texts included in the cumulative habilitation manuscript, and suggests ways to address the transdisciplinary challenges presented in the introduction paper, suggesting ways to articulate the ‘ETH’ and ‘CIRET’ approaches to transdisciplinarity.
This thesis analyses how European merger control law is applied to the energy sector and to which extent its application may facilitate the liberalisation of the electricity, natural gas and petroleum industries so that only these concentrations will be cleared that honour the principles of the liberalisation directives. After having discussed the complex micro- and macro-economic considerations which accompany any concentration of business activities, this thesis discusses the merger control regime of the European Community (EC) so as to establish whether the merger control under either Art. 66 Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steal Community (ECSCT), the case law under Art. 101 and 102 Treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and (Art. 81 and Art. 82 Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (ECT), as it was introduced by the Commission and reviewed by the CJEU, the original Merger Regulation (MR1989) or the amended Merger Regulation of 1997 (MR1997) or the amended Merger Regulation of 2004 (MR2004) facilitate the liberalisation of European electricity and gas markets. Said liberalisation was introduced by the Internal Electricity Market Directive (IEMD), the Hydrocarbons Licensing Directive and the Internal Gas Market Directive (IGMD). The paper focuses on the contestable idea that regulatory amendments - especially the introduction of third party access by means of the directives - only form a first necessary condition for attaining economic alterations whereas pro-active conduct of the marketers is the second and decisive one in order to increase the competitive performance of the European energy supply industries. The analysis is supported by a second argument which relates closely to the ambivalent nature of concentrations: A concentration may be used to increase the process of market opening and the expansion into new markets by pooling of scarce resources. It may also be used as a retro -active means so as to create national champions, increase barriers to market entry of new competitors, enable cross-subsidisation so as to expand dominant positions on heretofore competitive up- and downstream markets.
Since the early 2000s, ecosystem services strongly gained significance as a research topic. However, the temporal dimension of ecosystem services has not been taken into consideration, although this should be the basis for a sustainable long-term management of ecosystems and their services. Therefore, the author presents three articles in this thesis that deal with temporal aspects of ecosystem services. In two of them she also present a proposal for a framework for the classification of ecosystem services based on their temporal dynamics. In this dissertation she differentiates between two types of temporal aspects, both of which have in common that change takes place over a certain period of time. The concepts of transformation, transition and regime shift are used to describe changes in social or ecological systems as a whole, for example the transformation towards a more sustainable society. The temporal dynamics, on the other hand, relate to the temporal changes in ecosystem services themselves. The first article focuses on how the literature on ecosystem services incorporates social and ecological change. The second and third articles deal with the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services. While the second article presents a preliminary framework for categorizing the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services, the third article uses this framework to test how the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services are represented in the literature. Based on the insights from the three articles, the author concludes that most of the studies on ecosystem services only focus on one point in time. One reason for this is that most studies are conducted over a maximum of a four-year time span which does not allow to monitor dynamics over longer time spans.
Misophonia in the workplace
(2021)
This paper uses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’ inclusion of human well-being and disability rights as a base to examine the work experiences of individuals with the syndrome misophonia who have been employed in white-collar office jobs in the Global North, and how these experiences fit into the current discourse on making offices more inclusive and sustainable. It reports on common workplace triggers, coping mechanisms, and the condition’s perceived effects on misophonics, as well as the perceived barriers and carriers to making workplaces more accommodating to those with the condition. A mixed-methods approach was used to address these points. First, a survey was distributed virtually and 203 responses from misophonics who work(ed) in white-collar office jobs in the study region were collected. Next, ten of these survey takers participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, which were then analyzed using qualitative text analysis. The results showed that many misophonics frequently encounter intense triggers (such as mouth sounds) at the office and that self-perceived levels of productivity, well-being, and workplace sociability can be adversely affected. Though opinions on bans of certain behaviors and items and on certain terminology were diverse, there was consensus on desiring more flexible policies, understanding from others, and quiet or private working spaces, including working from home. Lack of misophonia awareness within the general populace, human resources (HR), upper management, and to some degree, the medical community was identified as a persistent barrier to misophonic employees disclosing or asking for reasonable accommodations even when they felt their misophonia was severe, negatively affected them, and there were provisions that could support them. These experiences were similar to those of other invisible conditions and pointed to the need for workplaces striving to be more sustainable and inclusive to adapt their policies and office design decisions.
The worldwide decline of plant and insect species during the last decades has far-reaching consequences for the functionality of ecosystems and their inherent processes. Pollination as one of them is an indispensable ecosystem service for human wellbeing. However, an increasing number of pollinator and plant species are threatened by multiple, interacting, and sometimes synergistic causes that are becoming a growing threat to ecosystem functioning. Given the loss of plant species diversity, it is increasingly difficult for pollinators to find food throughout the year. Therefore, this study analyses the influence of plant diversity on pollinators. The study was conducted in the course of the Jena Experiment, which is a long-term biodiversity experiment (since 2002) with 60 plant species, common to Central European Arrhenatherum grasslands. With a plant diversity gradient of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 60 plant species per plot, time-series data resulted from a wide range of ecosystem processes, ranging from productivity, decomposition, C-storage, and N-storage to herbivory, and pollination. These were studied to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Chapter 2 studies the spatio-temporal distribution of pollinators on flowers along an experimental plant diversity gradient. In particular, the spatial pollinator behaviour was examined. Chapters 3 and 4 continues on the chemical composition of flower nectar (nectar) of various plant species. The chemical composition of the nectar was analysed for the two most important macronutrients, carbohydrates (C) and amino acids (AA), using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Subsequently, their contents were analysed in terms of concentration, proportional content and the ratio of carbohydrates to amino acids (C:AA). In Chapter 3, the nectar of 34 plant species from the grasslands of the Jena Experiment was compared. In Chapter 4, nectar was investigated in the context of diversity effects on the example of the plant species Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis. It was analysed to what extent the nectar quality (nutrient content) differs between plant individuals of one species. Overall, these studies indicate how fragile plant-pollinator interactions are but also how important plant species-rich grasslands are to support plant-pollinator interactions. Increased plant species diversity is essential to ensure the availability of flowering resources throughout the year. Pollinators, such as honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, and hoverflies can use the niches in time and in vertical space complementarily. However, in plant species-poor grasslands there may be more niche overlaps, which is probably due to a reduced availability of resources. This points to the need to include different plant species belonging to different plant families, whose nectar may have evolved in response to morphological flower traits and metabolic pathways. Therefore plant species diversity can supply pollinators with nectar differing in carbohydrate and amino acid content and thus differing in quality. Also C-AA ratios have proven to be a useful measurement to reveal differences between plant species. In addition, C:AA ratios were not differing in nectar of K. arvensis individuals growing in different plant species richness levels, although their nectar seemed to be more attractive in mixtures with 16 plant species, likely due to higher content of essential and phagostimulatory amino acids than in plant species-poor mixtures.
Crowdfunding is considered a promising instrument for transforming existing socio-technical regimes by financing radical innovations of such entrepreneurs. However, this potential has not yet been fully explored. Therefore, this dissertation addresses the overarching research question of how sustainable entrepreneurs can exploit the full potential of investment-based crowdfunding to develop from niche operators to actors in the socio-technical regime. Five journal articles and one book chapter are included in this PhD project, which use a wide range of quantitative methodologies. In the framework paper, the findings are conceptually evaluated on a meta-level by applying the multi-level perspective. The key insights can be assigned to four categories, including the financing and marketing function, the target group, and the project presentation. The analysis shows that investment-based crowdfunding is suitable to equally fund and market the business ideas of environmental entrepreneurs, since the quest for entering the mass market is highest for such ventures. In contrast, purely social entrepreneurs tend to conduct crowdfunding projects on a smaller scale and probably aim to stay in the niche. Nevertheless, profit-oriented social entrepreneurs are still encouraged to use investment-based crowdfunding for funding and marketing purposes. The prominent display of environmental effects (e.g. the amount of compensated greenhouse gases) and financial incentives (e.g. high interest rates) has a high impact on the investment decision of individuals on investment-based crowdfunding platforms. The case of fairafric is used as a best practice example to demonstrate how crowdfunding can be a stepping stone for sustainability-oriented niche actors to enter the mass market. The fair-trade and organic chocolate manufacturer has undergone six crowdfunding campaigns which enabled it to grow and build a strong community of supporters. The outcomes of this dissertation clarify how sustainable entrepreneurs can unleash the potential of investment-based crowdfunding for financing and marketing purposes.
Collaborative governance is a promising approach to address the difficult challenges of sustainability through global public and private partnerships between diverse actors of state, market and civil society. The textile and clothing industry is an excellent example where a variety of such initiatives have evolved to address the wicked sustainability challenges. However, the question arises whether collaborative governance actually leads to transformation. In this dissertation, the author therefore questions whether and how collaborative governance in the textile sector provides space for, or pathways to, sustainability transformation. In three scientific articles and this framework paper, the author uses a mixed-methods research approach and follows scholars of sustainability science towards transformation research. First, he conducts a systematic literature review on inter-organizational and governance partnerships before diving into a critical case study on an interactive collaborative governance initiative, the German Partnership for Sustainable Textiles (Textiles Partnership). The multi-stakeholder initiative (MSIs) was initiated by the German government in 2015 and brings together more than 130 organizations and companies from seven stakeholder groups. It aims at improving working conditions and reducing environmental impacts in global textile and clothing supply chains. In two empirical articles, the author then explores learning spaces in the partnership and the ways in which governance actors navigate the complex governance landscape. For the former, he uses a quantitative and qualitative social network analysis based on annual reports and qualitative interviews with diverse actors from the partnership. Then, he uses qualitative content analysis of the interviews, policy documents and conducts a focus group discussion to validate assumptions about the broader empirical governance landscape and the social interactions within. Finally, in this framework paper, he uses theories of transformation to distinguish forms of change and personal, political and practical spheres of transformation, and reflects on the findings of the three articles in this cumulative dissertation.
The question whether representation of travel experience actually leads to personal prestige enhancement has been widely neglected so far. The study of prestige benefits of travel is a necessary endeavour to develop suitable methodological approaches toward the concept, in order to close critical knowledge gaps and enhance scientific understanding. The present thesis lays out the rationale and results of three research projects which shed light onto the relationship between touristic self-presentation and its effects on personal prestige evaluations of the social environment. The empirical studies conclude in the following main findings: (1) Leisure travel is a useful means for people to self-express in a positive way, and material representations of travel are frequently displayed to others. Tourists make use of travel experience to self-present in a positive way by uploading photos on social media, collecting and displaying souvenirs, wearing jewellery and clothing from their last trip, or talking about their trips to others. They express positive self-messages about personal character traits, affiliation to social in-groups and proof of having travelled somewhere. The findings ascertain the utility of travel representations for positive self-expression, showing that travel experience is an effective vehicle for conspicuous consumption and self-expression as an antecedent for personal prestige enhancement. (2) Personal prestige is an element of social relations, and holds capacity to affect perceptions of social inclusion and social distinction, so it has to be conceptualised as a multidimensional construct. In a tourism context, personal prestige is reliably measurable along the four dimensions of hedonism, social inclusion, social distinction and prosperity. The herein developed Personal Prestige Inventory (PPI) is a valid, reliable and parsimonious measurement tool which substantially enhances methodological approaches toward empirical research into personal prestige. (3) The way in which people represent travel experience to others measurably affects how their personal prestige is evaluated by social others. Empirical evidence of a series of experimental studies provides support for the assumption that representation of travel experience has an effect on the social evaluation of tourists' personal prestige. Experimental variance suggests small to moderate effects on personal prestige depending on the amount of leisure information given about a person, participation in tourism, and the destination and type of travel represented. This evidence is reasonable basis to conclude that whether and how people travel, and whether and how they share travel experience with others, does measurably affect social other's evaluation of their personal prestige.