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Increased international compliance with human rights and democracy standards is a core issue for both human rights and democratizing actors as well as for victims of human rights abuse. International human rights organizations (IHROs) are expected to make positive contributions to this end, even though they possess low levels of authority. This authority has been renegotiated multiple times in various reform processes. An oversimplified expectation would have us assume that democracies would want to strengthen IHROs, and that autocracies would seek to weaken them. As the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was reformed in 2006, 2007, 2010, and 2011, some autocracies strived to abolish parts of the UNHRC. Other autocracies aimed “merely” to weaken them. Democracies displayed an even larger variance. Indonesia and India predominantly favored weakening the UNHRC, whereas Ghana and Spain supported exclusively strengthening of the organization. Additionally, some attitudes towards the UNHRC changed from one year to the next. Autocracies diverge not only in their stances towards the UNHRC, but also across their domestic and international dimensions. Nigeria allows different levels of participation by societal actors than, say, Belarus. Cuba does not have the same domestic institutions as Russia. Iran enters international negotiations from a different position than Thailand. Democracies vary on the domestic and international dimensions as well. The Czech Republic is not the US, and Costa Rica is different from South Africa. The question that drives my research is how we can explain the broad variety of state preferences for strengthening or weakening IHROs. Previous research has mostly concentrated on democracies, leaving autocracies understudied. It also treated countries as black boxes. To account for such shortcomings, first, I systematically test the relationship between the UNHRC and its authoritarian and democratic members by means of inferential statistics. Second, I analyze a bottom-up process inherent to New Liberalism. It scrutinizes the role of domestic societal actors, domestic institutions, as well as pressures on the international stage. The results reveal that societal actors, along with the interplay of wealth and regime type in the international realm, figure as the most important predictors of delegation preferences voiced by autocracies and democracies during the reform of the monitoring bureaucracy Special Procedures of the UNHRC. Societal actors play a more important role in democracies than in autocracies. Institutionalized domestic oversight mechanisms help societal actors to conduct effective lobbying at the domestic level. Oversight mechanisms are more important than the rule of law and electoral institutions. Regarding international coalition building, authoritarian regimes turn out to be better organized than democracies. I conclude that supporters of strong IHROs shall 1. empower domestic societal actors; 2. disrupt cohesive delegation preferences of authoritarian regimes; and 3. invest in independent domestic oversight mechanisms.

The issue under investigation in this study is to explore the drivers and suggest methods for environmental managers to integrate environmental issues in the top management strategic decision-making. In order to make the reading easy the whole study has been written following the principle of providing the minimum information to clarify the point under discussion, no more, no less. The conclusions, the analysis, the implications and the limitations are discussed on a chapter by chapter basis, making it easier for the reader to remember the issue under discussion. The closing chapter brings together the conclusions of each chapter of the study. The study is divided into two parts. Part I: Planning describes the planning and preparation for the research and consists of the following chapters: Chapter 1 provides an overview of the interest, relevance and importance of this study. Also it proposes, through the introduction of the relevant literature, an exact wording for the research problem and a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of each process step. Chapters 2 and 3 describe and justify the chosen framework that prompts managers during interviewing and organises the resulting contents in a way that will support effective decision making. This is the end of the planning part of the study and we now move into the action part where the case studies are explained in full. Part II: Intervention comprises the following chapters: Chapter 4 is where the action begins, the first phase of the process. This chapter discusses the reasons selection and participation in the research and the process for choosing a business unit. Chapter 5 details, justifies and discusses the choices of who to interview. It outlines how the interviews were conducted and summarises the resulting contents. In Chapter 6 the general issue of who to involve in interviews is explored further for the specific case of the environmental manager. The main objective is to discuss whether and why the environmental manager had more/less/different ideas from the rest of the management team. Chapter 7 deals with the first time that the people meet as a group. For this process step the choices were about how to display and generate discussion on the contents gathered during the interviews. Chapter 8 focuses on the environmental manager’s contribution to the objective Fine-tuning discussion. Chapter 9 describes the Indicator Building process and how this may be relevant for the environmental manager. Concluding Remarks wraps up the results and discusses the need for extending this research further.

Space-related science and technologies affect our daily life dramatically. Many countries have already formulated national space regulations to regulate their space activities. China, as one space-faring country, has obtained impressive achievements in space science and technologies. In recent years, Chinese private space companies have sprung up quickly, which requires a stable and foreseeable legal framework to ensure development. However, compared to the other space powers, China is the only one that has not enacted any formal national space laws. Against the background of strengthening the rule of law in China, research on China´s domestic space legislation is valuable and significant. The purpose of this thesis is two-fold. First, to find the legal basis and necessity of national space legislation and to extract the basic content of the existing national space legislation, simultaneously, to identify the new developments in the content of other States´ legislative practices. Second, based on the study of national space legislation, to propose the essential content of China´s space legislation.

The choice to continue working until or even beyond retirement is a function of the interplay of factors on micro, meso, and macro levels. Research within this area has grown significantly over the last years. I contribute to this line of research with the studies conducted within the scope of this cumulative habilitation thesis. More specifically, the aim of the research presented here is to add to the literature on later life work with the investigation of individual (micro level) as well as job and organizational (meso level) factors that have the potential to contribute to prolonged working lives. I was guided by the general research interest on how individual, job, and organizational factors contribute to later life work, and more specifically to retirement timing and work-related activities beyond normal retirement age. My research was directed by the following research questions: (1) What is the work activity potential of older people in Germany and what characterizes different types of later life work potential? (2) Which role do individual psychological factors such as personality, values, and beliefs play in the context of later life work? (3) How do specific job characteristics interact or align with individual psychological factors with regard to later life work? (4) What characterizes a holistic organizational approach to later life work that helps the alignment of the work environment to older workers’ (individual) needs and abilities? Following an introduction, I give an overview on the theoretical framework of my research in Chapter 2 (“Theoretical Background”). I describe the conceptualization of later life work before I go into multilevel antecedents of later life work and present key theoretical approaches to a person-environment fit perspective of later life work. In the following four chapters, I present ten studies corresponding to the ten scientific publications that constitute the basis of the cumulative habilitation thesis. In Chapter 3 (“Later Life Work: Work Activity Potential”) I present research on the extent as well as different types of later life work potential in Germany to describe the context for most of my research. With the two studies presented here (Büsch, Zohr, Brusch, Deller, Schermuly, Stamov-Roßnagel, & Wöhrmann, 2015; Mergenthaler, Wöhrmann, & Staudinger; 2015), I also intend to provide answers to the research question on the later life work potential in Germany and the characteristics of different later life work potential constellations. In Chapter 4 (“Later Life Work: Individual Psychological Factors”) the role of stable as well as malleable individual psychological factors for later life work is explored in two studies (Fasbender, Wöhrmann, Wang, & Klehe, 2019; Wöhrmann, Fasbender, & Deller, 2016). Thus, with the studies presented in this chapter, I contribute to the research question on the role of individual psychological factors in the context of later life work. In Chapter 5 (“Later Life Work: Job Characteristics Corresponding to Older Workers’ Needs and Abilities”) I present three studies exploring the interplay of individual factors and job characteristics for later life work to address the research question on the interaction or alignment of specific job characteristics with individual psychological factors with regard to later life work (Pundt, Wöhrmann, Deller, & Shultz, 2015; Wöhrmann, Brauner, & Michel, 2020; Wöhrmann, Fasbender, & Deller; 2017). Chapter 6 (“Later Life Work: A Holistic Organizational Approach”) reports the development of the Later Life Workplace Index (LLWI) as a multidimensional tool to holistically assess organizational practices and working conditions targeted at the promotion of later life work through the maintenance and enhancement of older employees’ health, work ability, and motivation (Wilckens, Wöhrmann, Adams, Deller, & Finkelstein, 2020; Wilckens, Wöhrmann, Deller, & Wang, 2020; Wöhrmann, Pundt, & Deller, 2018. With the LLWI, I intend to provide an answer to the research question on the characteristics of a holistic organizational approach to later life work that helps the alignment of the work environment to older workers’ (individual) needs and abilities. Finally, in Chapter 7 (“General Discussion”) I discuss the contributions, implications, and limitations of my research presented here.

In sub-Saharan Africa, women own or partly own one third of all businesses, thereby having a large potential to contribute to the economic development and societal well-being in this region. However, women-owned businesses tend to lag behind men-owned businesses in that they make lower profits, grow more slowly, and create fewer jobs. To identify reasons for this gap and effective means to promote women entrepreneurs, large parts of the entrepreneurship literature have compared male and female entrepreneurs with regard to individual characteristics, paying only limited attention to the underlying environmental conditions. This is problematic as women entrepreneurs operate under different conditions than men, with particularly pronounced differences in sub-Saharan Africa. Against this backdrop, the goal of this dissertation is to contribute to a more profound understanding of women entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa and its promotion through training by examining critical context factors. Specifically, I analyze two context factors that influence women’s entrepreneurial performance and the success of training interventions: 1) women entrepreneurs’ husbands and 2) the entrepreneurship trainer. These analyses are embedded in considerations of the cultural, social, and economic conditions women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa are facing. In Chapter 2, I conduct a systematic literature review on spousal influence in entrepreneurship and identify six recurrent types of influence. Complementing the literature originating from Western settings, I develop propositions on how the sub-Saharan context affects husbands’ influence on women entrepreneurship in this region. In Chapter 3, I build on a cultural theory and an economic theory of the household to develop and empirically test a theoretical model of husbands’ constraining and supportive influences on women entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical results point to three distinct types of husbands that differ significantly in their impact on women entrepreneurs’ business success. In Chapter 4, I explore the influence of the trainer on the effectiveness of entrepreneurship training in sub-Saharan Africa by drawing on an unsuccessful training implementation. Qualitative analyses indicate that the use of adequate teaching methods is critical towards training success. Overall, this dissertation makes an important contribution towards a better understanding of women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa and their promotion by shifting the perspective from a purely individualist to a more contextualized view of women entrepreneurship.

In spite of growing interest in companies’ contribution to sustainable development, the implementation of corporate sustainability, i.e. the integration of environmental, social, and economic issues, is not well understood. This cumulative PhD thesis aims to answer the research question whether sustainability management is only a transitory management fashion, or whether an effective implementation is actually taking place. The thesis consists of five papers, which are either published in refereed academic journals, accepted to be published, or planned to be resubmitted. The papers analyze three important elements of the implementation of corporate sustainability: motivation (why?), organizational units (who?) and management tools (how?). Combining these three elements supplies a framework for discussing the implementation of corporate sustainability management. The results, which are mostly based on surveys of large German companies, reveal that companies predominantly manage corporate sustainability because they seek legitimacy, rather than a competitive advantage, and because they follow acknowledged standards, guidelines, or ratings (institutional isomorphism) – possibly out of uncertainty on how to best handle a concept so complex and novel. Public relations is the organizational unit engaging in sustainability management most strongly, whereas accounting, finance, and management control engage the least. Hence, corporate sustainability is currently not implemented as a crossfunctional approach. Yet, there is indication of a growing strategic relevance of corporate sustainability. This is also reflected in the awareness and application of sustainability management tools, which have been increasing continuously between 2002 and 2010 – especially in terms of integrative tools serving to balance environmental, social, and economic issues. Furthermore, market incentives are gaining in importance over time. The thesis relates these results to management fashion theory. Although there is some indication that sustainability management might in fact be a transitory fashion, an analysis over time reveals an ongoing development of the elements analyzed. Thereby, the thesis demonstrates that corporate sustainability management can be considered more than a management fashion. One implication of the analysis is that both companies and researchers are called upon to foster the implementation of corporate sustainability, with positive incentives, e.g. by markets and consumers, turning out to be promising starting points. As opposed to pressure and expectations by stakeholders, focusing on opportunities might be more suitable to induce actual change of processes, products, services, or even business models in companies. In conclusion, the author hopes to make a significant contribution to the discussion on the implementation of corporate sustainability and to stimulate the development of new theoretical approaches.

When presidents try to expand their tenure in office, are protesting social movements, or even youth movements, able to stop them from candidating unconstitutionally and thus to prevent a democratic backslide? So far, the literature on term bids by presidents tends to focus on the institutional arrangements to hinder such term bids in the first place, on presidential strategies to circumvent the constitutional law, or on counteractions of political elites. Mobilizations against such attempts by presidents to run for office again, after reaching the end of their last allowed term, are often solely included as “pressures from below”. To address these shortcomings, this dissertation explores the issue of term amendment struggles through the lenses of contentious politics systematically combined with insights of revolution theories and democratization studies. Its conceptual perspective therefore lies on the interactions of actors and their constellations to each other as well as to institutions. The author deduces three diverse pathways to promote institutional change and prevent democratic backslidings – through political elites, (political) allies, and security forces. By selecting two cases that are most similar in terms of institutions and youth movements at the forefront, Senegal (2011-12) and Burkina Faso (2013-14), this analysis offers insight in the divergence of the struggles and their outcome. Because in both cases, the announcement of the presidents to run for another term in office led to broad mobilization led by youth movements against such tenure amendments, the political system in general and socioeconomic inequalities - but with diverging results. In Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré eventually resigned while Abdoulaye Wade in Senegal candidated again, legitimized by the Constitutional Court. Based on extensive fieldwork, including interviews with movement leaders and their allies, as well as a comprehensive media analysis and the SCAD databank for the analysis of protest events, the author differentiates and reconstructs the various phases of the conflict. The results of the dissertation point at two dimensions most relevant to comprehend the dissimilar pathways the struggles took – the reach of mobilization and, closely interlinked to the first, the refusal of soldiers to obey orders. It shows further that these differences go back to the respective history of each country, its former protest waves, and political culture. Although both presidents faced mass mobilization against their unconstitutional candidature, only in Burkina Faso it eventually led to an ungovernable situation. The dissertation concludes by reflecting on lessons learned for future democratic backslidings by presidents to come and avenues for future research – and thus offers fruitful insights not only for academics but for those who aim to save democratic norms and institutions.

Expatriate success divided into two criteria, expatriate adjustment and expatriate job performance, is analyzed in relation to extraversion and its facets. Measurements of the Big Five and scales of adjustment as well as job performance were used by interviewing a sample of 80 German, Austrian and Swiss expatriates working in Costa Rica. The overall extraversion trait, gregariousness, assertiveness, and activity show meaningful effects on expatriate job performance. By analyzing expatriate adjustment and its relationship with extraversion and corresponding facets moderate effects were found between activity and interaction adjustment. Positive emotions with interaction adjustment as well as positive emotions with general adjustment show the largest effects. Furthermore, small effects were found for activity and warmth in respect to expatriate adjustment. Finally, suggestions for further research concerning extraversion in expatriate management are given.

Does the presentation of travel experience affect personal prestige of tourists? Prestige enhancement has been considered a motive for travel by tourism researchers for decades. Yet, 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 conducted in the frame of this dissertation conclude in the following main findings: 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. 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. 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. By providing qualitative evidence for positive self-presentation through leisure travel, and the subsequent development and experimental application of the Personal Prestige Inventory (PPI) in a tourism context, the present dissertation enhances scientific understanding of personal prestige in the context of leisure travel and provides useful methodological advancements for further research into the topic.

This dissertation, entitled “How to Embed Sustainability in the Core of Higher Education Institutions: Drivers of, Barriers to, & Patterns behind the Implementation Processes of Sustainability Curricula – Insights from a Quantitative Meta-Study with Data from around the Globe,” addresses the question of how sustainability curricula1 can be implemented and established in higher education institutions2. This research question is based on the assumption that sustainable development requires new ways of thinking and acting in the world. Accordingly, universities – as hubs for knowledge generation, innovation, and education – provide a central leverage point for sustainably developing society at large. Therefore, the institutionalization of sustainability curricula is not only socially demanded, but also stipulated in numerous political statements from the international community (e.g., those of the UN and UNESCO) and operationalized via Sustainable Development Goal No. 4: “Quality Education”. Previous findings on how such implementation can be successful and what factors support or inhibit the process have come primarily through case studies of individual higher education institutions. These studies provide important insights but have been largely descriptive rather than analytical and leave open questions about the generalizability of their findings – for example, the extent to which other universities can be guided by the experiences of the respective higher education institutions. The present dissertation addresses this research gap. Through a meta-study (i.e., an analytical comparison of existing case studies), generalizable findings on the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are explored. In the first step, a case universe was collected in order to provide a database for deeper analyses. In two further analysis steps that built on the case universe from Step 1, certain factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula (Step 2) and specific implementation patterns (Step 3) were examined. The following paragraphs provide greater details and an overview of the respective findings. In the first step, a database of peer-reviewed English-language case studies from around the globe that report on such processes was created. A total of 230 case studies were identified, 133 of which focus on the implementation processes of sustainability curricula.3 A bibliometric analysis of the 230 case studies revealed that this field of research is growing, although the discourse is primarily dominated by authors from North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia, with South America and Africa being underrepresented. In addition, a citation analysis demonstrated that some universities incorporate findings from other countries whereas other universities act in isolation. This observation leaves open the question of the extent to which universities learn from one another in order to advance the implementation of sustainability curricula. In the second step of the analysis, the qualitative data of the collected case studies (sample of 133 case studies) were compared using the case survey method, which is a specific type of a meta-1 Sustainability curricula include courses, programs, and certificates from all fields of study that deal in some form with sustainability topics. For a more-detailed discussion of what education for sustainable development (ESD) entails, see Section Error! Reference source not found.. 2 Higher education institutions (HEIs) include universities, universities of applied sciences, and other institutions that offer at least a bachelor’s degree. 3 A detailed explanation of the case sample and subsamples can be found in Section Error! Reference source not found.. analysis. The focus of the comparison lay on the drivers of and barriers to the processes of sustainability curriculum implementation at higher education institutions. Driving- and inhibiting factors have been thoroughly examined theoretically in the discourse on education for sustainable development (ESD), especially those pertaining to higher education institutions. However, no large body of data has yet been created to empirically test these hypotheses. The present meta-study found that the following factors lead to the deep-rooted and comprehensive establishment of sustainability curricula: strong leadership support; the establishment of sustainability curricula in the areas of education, research, campus operations, and outreach activities; formal participation of internal (including students) and external stakeholders; and engagement by sustainability champions (change agents), who are often the first to implement sustainability curricula and can face strong resistance. Other enabling factors include strategic planning, coordination, communication, having a vision, external political influence, the presence of a window of opportunity (e.g., an environmental disaster, a change in presidency), and the availability of interdisciplinary meeting spaces. On the other hand, the strongest cited barriers to the implantation of sustainability curricula were found to be the lack of interdisciplinary meeting spaces, the lack of a vision, the lack of incentives, the lack of resources, an overly full curriculum, and an unsupportive / overly bureaucratic organizational structure. The third step of the analysis also built on data from the 133 case studies and explored whether certain types or patterns of implementation processes occur. Through the analysis, six implementation patterns were identified that share similar driving- and inhibiting factors. The respective interplay between factors leads to various degrees of sustainability curriculum implementation in terms of how deeply rooted and comprehensive this implementation is. As discussed in greater detail below, in descending order of the level of achieved deep-rooted change, these patterns are (1) a collaborative paradigm shift, (2) bottom-up institutional change, (3) top-down institutional change, (4) the presence of many barriers that hinder institutional change, (5) externally driven initiatives, and (6) initiatives that are scattered due to a lack of coordination. Across all patterns, two phases could be identified: First, the impetus to implement ESD may be initiated not only by internal actors, but also by external ones. This initiation can take hold from the “bottom-up” (i.e., by students or faculty), from the “top-down” (i.e., at the presidential level), or in both directions simultaneously. The following key factors appear to be important in driving the initial implementation forward: a culture of open communication between all stakeholders in which feedback and reflection are welcome and even actively solicited, the development of a shared understanding and vision that further create a sense of ownership and long-term success, a high level of collaboration among all stakeholders, and existing initiatives that lead to knowledge sharing and other resources. In this regard, informal collaboration and cooperation can partially compensate for a lack of presidential-level support and/or a formal communication structure. Furthermore, developing a strategy with individual steps and shared responsibility leads to more-successful implementation of ESD at higher education institutions. The presented findings add a complementary empirical perspective to the discourse on the establishment of ESD at higher education institutions. First, the case studies that specifically address the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are reviewed and analyzed here for the first time as part of a research landscape. This research landscape reveals where research on such implementation processes has been or is being conducted. On this basis, both researchers and funders can reflect on the status quo and plan further research- or funding endeavors. Second, this dissertation offers the opportunity to compare a multitude of individual case studies and thus to develop new and generalizable insights into the implementation of sustainability curricula. The empirical analysis uses 133 case studies to identify key factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula and to add a complementary perspective to the discourse, which has thus far been dominated by theoretical considerations and individual case studies. The analysis thereby offers a new perspective on generalizable influencing factors that appear to be important across different contexts. Thus far, specific patterns of implementation processes have been infrequently studied, and with few datasets. This dissertation analyzes the complex interplay between over 100 variables and provides one of the first research attempts at better understanding the processes that lead to the deep-rooted and comprehensive implementation of sustainability curricula. Internal and external practitioners of higher education institutions can find examples and evidence that can be useful in planning the next steps of their sustainability curriculum implementation. In the future, higher education institutions will play an even greater role in the journey toward sustainable development. This dissertation offers generalizable empirical findings on how universities can succeed in recognizing their own responsibility to that end and in realizing this transformation through the implementation of ESD.

Reviewing the development of network access charges in the German electricity market since 2002 reveals significant variation. While some firms continually increased or decreased their access charges, a variety of firms exhibited discontinuous behavior with price changes in both directions. From an economic viewpoint this price setting turbulence is astonishing because grid operators are non-contestable natural monopolists, which in this time period were regulated by Negotiated Third Party Access (NTPA). Depending on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of NTPA, expected behavior would be either regulated average cost prices or monopoly prices, but not the observed turbulence. Although in 2005 NTPA scheme was replaced by a Regulated Third Party Access (RTPA) scheme with a regulator, an analysis of the factors influencing the price setting behavior within this period offers valuable information for the new regulator and the still discussed new incentive regulation, which is expected to start in 2009. Using multivariate estimations based on firm data covering the years 2000-2005, we test the hypotheses that asymmetric influence of regulatory threat, different cost and price calculation knowledge, strategic use of structural features and the obligation to publish specific access charges have influenced the electricity network access charges in Germany.

The EU electricity directive (96/92/EC) established the right of the member states to choose between Regulated and Negotiated Third Party Access (RTPA and NTPA). The interest group theory is able to explain whether the introduction of NTPA in Germany had been an interest group equilibrium under the restriction of EU-directive. Using the NTPA associations of electricity power suppliers, network monopolists and industrial consumers negotiated three agreements. The last one (AA VVII+) in December 2001 introduced a market comparison scheme with three structural features: “East-/West-Germany”, “consumption/population density”, and “cable rate”. These features are variables which are supposed to reflect cost differences between network suppliers. The theoretical analysis will derive the hypothesis that this conception allows to introduce a cost irrelevant factor and therefore to increase prices without harming firms which do not hold this factor. This hypothesis could be tested by analyzing the German low and medium voltage network suppliers in 2002 and 2003. Our estimations show that the use of structural feature “East-/West Germany” and “consumption/population density” could be explained by this hypothesis. But because we have no firm specific information about cost differences other explanations could not be excluded: Monopoly prices differ with marginal costs, and regulation could reflect real cost differences. The third structural feature “cable rate” has no influence in low voltage networks, but has an impact on access charges levied in medium voltage networks. This relationship is only given if we use the borderlines given by AA VVII+. Hence, we are not able to reject the interest group theory: The feature “cable rate” was introduced successfully to increase access charges for medium network suppliers which have high cable rates without having higher costs.

Economic globalization has not only reinforced the power of global firms, but also the sustainability challenges we are facing today on global and regional levels. Against this background, an increasingly broad range of governance efforts has aimed at fostering more sustainable business practices. At the national level, in addition to regulatory policy instruments, market-based and network instruments as well as self-regulatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives have emerged. These instruments differ not only in their degree of bindingness between compulsory and voluntary, but also involve a greater diversity of actor groups like government, business, and civil society organizations. In addition, international instruments like the UN Global Compact principles, the GRI Reporting Guidelines or the

The present doctoral dissertations seeks to shed theoretical and empirical light on how complexity and different approaches to manage it affect perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes in integrative negotiations. Chapter 1 summarizes the following five chapters, describes their individual contribution to the present thesis, and outlines avenues for future research. In Chapter 2, a theoretical model comprising of task- and context-based determinants of complexity in negotiations is developed. In Chapter 3, the effects of the number of issues (high vs. low) as one essential determinant of complexity on parties’ trade-off behavior and joint outcomes are investigated in a series of four experiments. Furthermore, negotiators’ cognitive categorizing of issues (i.e., their mental-accounting approach) is examined as the underlying psychological mechanism. Results reveal that more issues lead to a higher risk of scattering the integrative potential between cognitive categories (i.e., mental accounts), reducing trade-off quality and joint outcomes. In Chapter 4, the generalizability of the detrimental effect of the number of issues on joint outcomes is tested across varying numbers of issues in a meta-analysis. Moreover, boundary conditions for the effect are investigated. Results confirm the generalizability of the number-of-issues effect, but no relevant boundary conditions are identified. In Chapter 5, the effects of different mental-accounting approaches on negotiators’ judgment accuracy, trade-off behaviors, and negotiation outcomes are examined in a series of five experiments. Results demonstrate that categorizing a moderate number of issues into each mental account leads to a higher judgment accuracy, trade-off quality, and joint outcomes, but only if negotiators manage to pool the integrative potential within these accounts. Finally, Chapter 6 takes a broader perspective on different integrative strategies in negotiations (i.e., expanding the pie, logrolling, solving underlying interests), thereby laying the groundwork for future research. Keywords: integrative negotiation, complexity, number of issues, mental accounting

PeTAL (Picture Text Annotation Language) is proposed as an XML-standard for digital documents containing text, images, and videos with heavy cross-referencing, esp. from clickable parts of images to other parts of the material. A browser capable of interpreting the PeTAL code shown here is under construction.

Using unique new data and a recently introduced non-linear decomposition technique this paper shows that the huge difference in the propensity to export between West and East German plants is to a large part due to differences in firm size and human capital intensity.

This paper contributes to the flourishing literature on exports and productivity by using a unique newly available panel of exporting establishments from the manufacturing sector of Germany from 1995 to 2004 to test three hypotheses derived from a theoretical model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992): (H1) Firms that stop exporting in year t were in t-1 less productive than firms that continue to export in t. (H2) Firms that start to export in year t are less productive than firms that export both in year t-1 and in year t. (H3) Firms from a cohort of export starters that still export in the last year of the panel were more productive in the start year than firms from the same cohort that stopped to export in between. While results for West Germany support all three hypotheses, this is only the case for (H1) and (H2) in East Germany.

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This papers surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 45 microeconometric studies with data from 33 countries that were published between 1995 and 2004. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non-exporters, and the more productive firms self-select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.

Using panel data from Spain Farinas and Ruano (IJIO 2005) test three hypotheses from a model by Hopenhayn (Econometrica 1992): (H1) Firms that exit in year t were in t-1 less productive than firms that continue to produce in t. (H2) Firms that enter in year t are less productive than incumbent firms in year t. (H3) Surviving firms from an entry cohort were more productive than non-surviving firms from this cohort in the start year. Results for Spain support all three hypotheses. This paper replicates the study using a unique newly available panel data sets for all manufacturing plants from Germany (1995 – 2002). Again, all three hypotheses are supported empirically.

Due to increased life expectancy, a growing number of retirees are spending more and more time in retirement. Life satisfaction in later life therefore becomes an increasingly important societal issue. Good work ability and health are prerequisites for a self-determined transition to retirement, for example allowing for a continuation of gainful employment beyond retirement age. Such continued employment is one way of dealing with the consequences of a historically unique long retirement phase: a self-determined continued employment can have a positive effect on individual well-being, on societal level relieve the burden on the pension insurance system, and on meso-level provide companies with urgently needed human capital. The self-determination of life circumstances is postulated by Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a basic psychological need with effects on individual well-being. This dissertation investigates work ability as a concept that supports workers, employers, and societies in the extension of working lives, and how work ability is related to the level of self-determination in the transition to retirement, and ultimately life satisfaction. In the first study of this dissertation, the Work Ability Survey-R (WAS-R) was translated from English into German and then evaluated regarding its psychometric properties and construct validity. The WAS-R operationalizes work ability as the interplay of personal and organizational resources and thus allows companies to derive targeted interventions to maintain work ability. In the second study, the WAS-R was examined together with the questionnaire Work-Related Behavior and Experience Pattern (Arbeitsbezogenes Verhaltens- und Erlebensmuster, AVEM) regarding its construct validity. A striking feature of this study was the high number of participants with the answering pattern indicating low work-related ambitions and protection. Persons with this pattern are in danger of entering the risk pattern for burnout in the future. The findings support the validity of the WAS-R. In the third contribution, two studies examined the experience of control (i.e., autonomy) in the transition to retirement as a mediator between previous work ability, health, and financial well-being, and later life satisfaction in retirement. Control was found to partially mediate the relationship between work ability and later life satisfaction. Different mechanisms on later life satisfaction of work ability and health, and the subjective and objective financial situation were found. This dissertation contributes to research on and practice with aging workers in two ways: (1) The German translation of the WAS-R is presented as a useful instrument for measuring work ability, assessing individual and organizational aspects and therefore enabling employers to make targeted interventions to maintain and improve work ability, and eventually enable control during later work life, the retirement transition and even old age. (2) This dissertation corroborates the importance of good work ability and health, even in old age, as well as control in these phases of life. Work ability is indirectly related to life satisfaction in the long period of retirement, mediated by a sense of control in the transition to retirement. This emphasizes the importance of the need for control as postulated by the SDT also in the transition to retirement.

The majority of empirical studies that centre on exporter performance and the determinants of export performance have focused mainly on the manufacturing sector, largely because there are very few datasets that facilitate a detailed investigation into the service sector. In 2008, however, the German Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Federal States released the German business services statistics panel (this dataset is described in more details in Chapter 2). Thus, for the first time, appropriate panel analyses of the export behaviour of German business services firms became possible. This thesis uses this panel dataset and contributes to the literature on the microeconometrics of international trade by providing evidence concerning the German business services sector. Overall, the results noted for exporter performance in the German business services sector correspond with those from the manufacturing sector. Chapter 3 shows that, similar to the manufacturing sector, exporting German business services firms are more productive and clearly larger (in terms of turnover and number of employed persons) than non-exporters, even when it is controlled for size and industry. Further, business services enterprises that export pay higher average wages (even when controlling for size and industry). When controlling for unobserved, time-invariant characteristics, the significant differences between exporters and non-exporters relative to productivity or average wages disappear, while significant export premia associated with the size variables continue to exist, but on a much smaller scale. Concerning the hypothesis that better performing enterprises self-select into export markets, the results indicate that in the business services sector as in the manufacturing sector, enterprises that begin to export are larger than non-exporters, even two years before they commence exporting operations. Regarding productivity (in terms of turnover per employed person) and average wages, the results were statistically significant only for business services enterprises in Germany’s western region. Aside from these similarities with the manufacturing sector, Chapter 4 presents evidence which suggests that, contrary to firms in the manufacturing industries, German business services firms do not benefit from exporting in terms of higher rates of profit. Chapter 4 documents a negative profitability differential of services exporters compared to non-exporters, and finds that export-starters in the business services sector are less profitable than non-exporters, even two years before they begin to export. Further, the estimated dose-response function, which is used to investigate the causal impact of exports on profits, shows an s-shaped relationship between profitability and firms’ export-sales ratio. Enterprises with a very small share of exports in total sales have a lower rate of profit than non-exporting firms. Then, with an increase in export intensity, the rate of profit increases as well. However, even at the maximum, the average profitability of the exporters is not, or is only slightly, higher than the average rate of profit of the non-exporting firms. Chapter 5 investigates the question which factors determine the export performance of German business services firms by estimating a model of the firms’ export intensity decision. Overall, the results support most of the explanations of export behaviour found in the literature for both service firms and manufacturing firms, such as the positive effects of size, human capital, and productivity. Yet when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, the picture changes; notably, in the model with fixed effects, the significance of productivity and human capital disappears. This indicates that these variables are not positively related to the export performance per se, but are related instead to unobserved time-constant characteristics. Size still has a significant positive effect on exporting when controlling for unobserved effects. Finally, Chapter 6 considers the impact of the 2004 EU enlargement on service enterprises close to Germany’s eastern border by using regression-adjusted difference-in-differences estimators. The results suggest a small negative impact associated with the EU enlargement on export intensity and the turnover of large enterprises with an annual turnover of €250,000 or more, and no effect on the share of exporters and the turnover profitability of these enterprises. For small enterprises close to Germany’s eastern border, an increase in turnover and a decrease in profitability relative to other small enterprises are noted.

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been widely used since 1950 in various consumer products as well as in industrial applications owing to their unique properties, e.g. being hydrophobic and lipophobic at the same time. Nowadays, some of these persistent and man-made PFASs can ubiquitously be found in humans, wildlife and various environmental media. One prominent representative of concern, belonging to the subgroup of perfluorocarboxylates (PFCs) and their conjugate acids (PFCAs), is perfluorooctanoat (PFO) and its conjugate acid (PFOA). Because of its adverse effects on human health and its persistency in the environment industry has started to replace PFO(A) and related long chain chemicals (with seven and more fully fluorinated carbon atoms) with so-called short chain PFASs (less than seven fully fluorinated carbon atoms), including precursors of PFC(A)s. Also these short chain PFC(A)s are persistent and can already be found in humans, ground- and drinking water and in remote regions. However, knowledge gaps exist in understanding the partitioning and the resulting mobility of short chain PFC(A)s in the environment. This is due to the fact that partitioning data of PFC(A)s from standardised experiments can easily be biased by various artefacts, e.g. self-aggregation of the molecules. Therefore, the objectives of this thesis are (i) to quantify the partitioning of PFC(A)s into mobile environmental media, (ii) to show how results from non-standard tests can be used to assess substance properties of concern and (iii) to conclude on whether the environmental exposure to short chain PFC(A)s is of concern from a regulatory point of view. In the first part of this thesis, the environmental mobility of short chain C4-7-PFC(A)s was investigated by quantifying their partitioning under non-standardised semi-environmental conditions into mobile environmental media, focusing on water and air, and comparing it to long chain PFC(A)s. Results are: Partitioning between water and particles in the aeration tank, primary and secondary clarifier of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) showed no distinct differences for short chain PFC(A)s compared to their long chain homologues (Paper 1). In a water-saturated sandy sediment column short chain PFC(A)s were not retarded, whereas long chain homologues were retarded by sorption to the sediment (Paper 2). Atmospheric particle-gas partitioning showed a lower fraction sorbed to particles for short chain PFC(A)s compared to long chain ones in samples from a WWTP (Paper 3). Air-water concentration ratios based on samples from the tanks of a WWTP were found to be higher for short chain PFC(A)s compared to long chain PFC(A)s (Paper 1). Additionally, in a newly developed experimental set-up the water to air transfer was used to derive that the pKa of C4-11-PFCAs must be <1.6 instead of up to 3.8 as reported in the literature (Paper 4). Overall, in the investigated systems short chain PFC(A)s showed a higher mobility due to a more pronounced partitioning into mobile environmental media compared to long chain PFC(A)s. In the second part of the thesis it was shown how PFO(A) - owing to its persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT-)properties – was in the context of this thesis successfully assessed as a substance of very high concern according to the criteria of the European REACH Regulation (EC No 1907/2006) by using data from non-standard tests (Paper 5). In conclusion, based on the knowledge of the high environmental mobility of short chain PFC(A)s and taking into account the argumentation of the PBT-concern of PFO(A), environmental exposure to short chain PFC(A)s is of concern and existing knowledge is already sufficient to initiate measures to prevent emissions of short chain PFC(A)s and their precursors into the environment.

Contemporary liberal-democracies are under stress and traditional political parties have become detached from their electorates. Since the 1980s, parties have been experiencing a crisis of legitimation, whose effects have become intensive especially in the early twenty-first century. New populist challengers have tried to fill the representative void left by mainstream parties; at the same time, technocracy has become one of the most prominent form of representation. Political responsibility and responsiveness appear often incompatible in the eyes of voters. Moreover, political personalization and processes of presidentialization have led to a situation where single political leaders have become the crucial political actors, to the detriment of party organizations. This Habilitation thesis investigates the linkage between representative democratic institutions in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems and political elites, trying to understand how this linkage has been affected by the change of party democracy. In particular, the thesis analyzes political institutions’ functioning in democratic contexts as well as parties’ responses and elites’ paths to power as indicators of a process of adaptation. Four main research questions inform the analysis: what structural opportunities and constraints do political elites meet when it comes to exercising political power?; how have the decline of party government and political personalization modified opportunity structures?; how do parties and elites cope with democratic change?; has democratic change produced new criteria for successful political careers? The institutional focus is on political executives and representative assemblies at different levels of government. Findings highlight that political elites adopts strategies of resistance and respond to democratic change through incremental steps. In other words, rather than anticipatory, political elites appear reactive, when they are confronted with substantial modifications of the political opportunity structure. Overall, the study contributes to the debate about the changing role of parties and political elites as connectors between the state and the society and provides insights about future developments.

Over 25 years after the UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, agriculture in the European Union (EU) has below the line not come much closer to being sustainable. By now, efforts to promote sustainability in agriculture have predominantly been based on “mainstream science”. This has resulted in strategies directed mainly at agricultural production, measures targeted at individual farms, and a major focus on technology-centered solutions. Yet, there have been many claims emphasizing that such approaches are insufficient to deal with wicked, sustainability-related problems. Rather, it has been argued, we need to question the governance of sustainability issues, i.e. who makes which decisions in which way. A central aspect of sustainability governance is collaboration, which has been lauded for its benefits but also criticized for its challenges. The potential benefits of collaboration have apparently been recognized also in the context of EU agriculture. Yet, there has been a lack of holistic consideration of how collaboration can be systematically integrated and promoted in the governance of EU agriculture. Sustainable agriculture cannot only be encouraged through changes in the overall governance system but also through the support of existing and emerging small-scale collaborative initiatives for sustainable agriculture. Indeed, there has been substantial research on the conditions that influence success of similar collaborative initiatives. However, the knowledge resulting from this research remains rather scattered and does not allow for the identification of overall patterns. Additionally, little of this research specifically focuses on sustainable agriculture. What is more, the promotion of collaboration for sustainable agriculture is further complicated by the lack of clarity of the meaning of sustainable agriculture, which is an inherently ambiguous and contested concept. This cumulative dissertation aims to address these gaps by contributing to a better understanding of how collaboration can be facilitated and designed as a means to govern for and advance sustainable agriculture. For this purpose, the dissertation addresses three sub-aims: 1) Advancing the understanding of the concept of sustainable agriculture; 2) scrutinizing the current governance system regarding its potential to facilitate or hamper collaboration; 3) assessing conceptually and empirically how actor collaboration can be facilitated as a means to govern for sustainable agriculture, both from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. In doing so, this dissertation focuses on EU agriculture and applies a mix of methods, ranging from qualitative to quantitative dominant. The findings of this dissertation highlight that collaboration has been underappreciated and even hampered as an approach to governing for sustainable agriculture. In contrast, this dissertation argues that collaboration offers one promising way to promoting and realizing agriculture and emphasizes the need to integrate different approaches to collaboration and to sustainable agriculture. Thus, the findings of this dissertation encourage and justify more research, discussion, and action around collaboration in the context of sustainable agriculture. Additionally, the dissertation provides first tangible insights both on principles for systemic change to promote governance for sustainable agriculture and on factors that are crucial for the successful management of small-scale collaborative initiatives. Most importantly, this dissertation advocates an ‘integrative attitude’ among and between scientists and practitioners which could enable more collegial, collaborative and hopefully more constructive research, discussion and action for sustainable agriculture.

Combinatorial optimization is still one of the biggest mathematical challenges if you plan and organize the run-ning of a business. Especially if you organize potential factors or plan the scheduling and sequencing of opera-tions you will often be confronted with large-scaled combinatorial optimization problems. Furthermore it is very difficult to find global optima within legitimate time limits, because the computational effort of such problems rises exponentially with the problem size. Nowadays several approximation algorithms exist that are able to solve this kind of problems satisfactory. These algorithms belong to a special group of solution methods which are called local search algorithms. This article will introduce the topic of simulated annealing, one of the most efficient local search strategies. This article summarizes main aspects of the guest lecture Combinatorial Optimi-zation with Local Search Strategies, which was held at the University of Ioannina in Greece in June 1999.

The academic literature holds high expectations of crowdfunding to foster sustainable development by closing the funding gap for sustainable entrepreneurs. In particular, 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. Large knowledge gaps exist especially in the area of investment-based crowdfunding. 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 findings also suggest that the typical supporter of sustainability-oriented crowdfunding projects is younger than 50 years, has achieved at least a university degree and holds low levels of self-enhancement and conservative values. 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.

Algae-bacteria-based biotechnology has received more and more attention in recent years, especially in the subtropical and tropical regions, as an alternative method of conventional multistep wastewater treatment processes. Moreover, the algal biomass generated during wastewater treatment is regarded as a sustainable bioresource which could be used for producing biofuel, agricultural fertilizers or animal feeds. Although this technology is attractive, a number of obstacles need to be solved before large-scale applications. The main purposes of this work are to find more effective biomass harvesting strategies and develop high-effective algal-bacterial systems to improve wastewater treatment performance, biomass generation rate and biomass settleability. A wastewater-borne algal-bacterial culture, cultivated and trained through alternate mixing and non-mixing strategy, was used to treat pretreated municipal wastewater. After one month cultivation and training, the acclimatized algal-bacterial system showed high carbon and nutrient removal capacity and good settleability within 20 minutes of sedimentation. Algal biomass uptake was the main removal mechanism of nitrogen and phosphorus. The biomass productivity, nitrogen and phosphorus accumulation in biomass during the wastewater treatment process were investigated. The characterization of the microbial consortium composition in the enriched algal-bacterial system provided new insights in this research field. Aerobic activated sludge which already showed good settleability was used as bacterial inoculum to enhance the wastewater treatment performance and biomass settleability of algal-bacterial culture. The influence of different algae and sludge inoculum ratios on the treatment efficiency and biomass settleability was investigated. There was no significant effect of the inoculation ratios on the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal. But algae/sludge inoculum ratio of 5 showed the best nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiencies (91.0 ± 7.0% and 93.5 ± 2.5%, respectively) within 10 days. Furthermore, 16S rDNA gene analysis showed that the bacterial communities were varying with different algae and sludge inoculation ratios and some specific bacteria species were enriched during the operation. Four commonly used and high-potential microalgae species including one cyanobacteria (Phormidium sp.) and three green microalgae species (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus rubescens) were cultivated and trained through alternate mixing and non-mixing strategy for tertiary municipal wastewater treatment. After one month of cultivation, the four microalgae species were compared in terms of biomass settleability, nutrient removal rates and biomass productivity. The three green microalgae showed good settleability within 1 h sedimentation and had higher biomass generation rates (above 6 g/m2/d). The nutrient removal efficiencies were 99% for the four selected microalgae species but within different retention time, resulting in 3.66 ± 0.17, 6.39 ± 0.20, 4.39 ± 0.06 and 4.31 ± 0.18 mg N/l/d (N removal rate) and 0.56 ± 0.07, 0.89 ± 0.05, 0.76 ± 0.09 and 0.60 ± 0.05 mg P/l/d (P removal rate) for Phormidium sp., Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus rubescens, respectively. A mixed algal culture composed of three selected high-effective green microalgae (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Chlorella vulgaris and Scenedesmus rubescens) was used for tertiary municipal wastewater treatment. The key biotic factor (algal inoculum concentration) and abiotic factors such as illumination cycle, mixing velocity and nutrient strength were studied. Based on the nitrogen and phosphorus balance, it was found that assimilation into algal biomass was the main removal mechanism.

Sustainability aims at justice in a threefold sense: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, and justice towards nature. However, the justification, specific content and practical implications of justice claims and obligations in the sustainability context often remain underspecified. This dissertation therefore asks: How can the concept of justice be structured systematically? How can justice be specified in the context of sustainability? Which specific problems of justice arise in sustainability policy? And what are the respective contributions of (sustainability) economics and (sustainability) ethics? The five papers of this cumulative dissertation approach these issues from different angles, working at the conceptual level and at the level of cases from biodiversity and fishery policy. In Paper 1, a formal conceptual structure of justice is developed, which lists the conceptual elements of justice conceptions: the community of justice including claim holders and claim addressees, their claims (and corresponding obligations), the judicandum (that which is to be judged as just or unjust), the informational base for the assessment, the principles of justice, and on a more practical level, the instruments of justice. By specifying these conceptual elements of justice, it is possible to analyse and compare different conceptions of justice. In Paper 2, the normative dimension of sustainability is discussed in terms of justice. Based on the identification of certain core characteristics of the concept of sustainability, we determine the specific challenges of justice in the context of sustainability along the conceptual structure of justice (from Paper 1). Inter alia, we show that sustainability calls for the integration of justice claims in the relationships with contemporaries, future humans and nature in a non-ideal context characterized by uncertainty, systemic mediation and limits. Paper 3 addresses the contribution of economics to the assessment of trade-offs between intergenerational and intragenerational justice. Economic analysis can delineate the opportunity set of politics with respect to the two justice objectives and identify the opportunity cost of attaining one justice to a higher degree. While the two justices are primary normative objectives, the criterion of efficiency - when directed at the attainment of these justice objectives - has the status of a secondary normative objective. Paper 4 constitutes a case study, reconstructing the ´biopiracy´ debate from a justice perspective. The paper links to the so called Access and Benefit-Sharing framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and addresses the question, which problems of justice arise regarding the utilization of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, especially if associated with patenting. It is shown that the predominant perspective of justice-in-exchange is insufficient and therefore complementary conceptions, namely of distributive justice, corrective justice and structural justice have to be taken into account. Paper 5 empirically assesses the justice notions of stakeholders in the Newfoundland fishery, building on qualitative semi-structured interviews and a combination of inductive and deductive coding. A central result is that inshore fishers are seen as the main claim holders, with a claim to participate and being listened to, and the opportunity to make a living from the fishery. Recognition, participation and distribution are all important domains of justice in the context of the Newfoundland fishery. The paper also discusses the relationship between normative theorizing and empirical justice research. Overall, this thesis integrates ideal and non-ideal normative theorizing, economic analysis, empirical justice research and hints at institutional implementation in the debate on sustainability and justice.

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. Keywords Boundary-Crossing Collaboration; Innovation and Transfer Strategies; Integration; Teacher Education; Theory-Practice Interrelation; Transdisciplinarity

This dissertation deals with the investigation of success factors in the field of entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurship training, from a psychological perspective. In particular, I argue that the identification of certain psychological aspects helps to better understand the underlying mechanisms for successful entrepreneurship trainings and thus, enables successful entrepreneurship. In the second chapter I theoretically examined planning as a fundamental action an entrepreneur hast to undertake in order to succeed. Scholars are in disagreement about the question if planning is crucial for the entrepreneurship. Thus, I provide a comprehensive overview of the advantages and disadvantages of planning in entrepreneurship from a psychological perspective. I explain negative aspects (e.g., lack of knowledge, difficulty to predict the future, and inflexibility) as well as positive aspects (e.g., legitimating, action-regulatory, and learning function) about planning in entrepreneurship. Furthermore, I develop a theoretical model that combines both the positive and negative aspects of planning in entrepreneurship. With this theoretical model, I integrate different types of planning (e.g., formal and informal plans) as well as positive and negative functions of planning (e.g., learning or stickiness, inflexibility) to provide a first approximation for a theory of entrepreneurial planning. In the third chapter, to focus on the field of entrepreneurial trainings, I empirically examine the under-researched field of the relation between trainer and trainee. I use the transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985) and a theory of learning outcome (Kraiger, Ford, & Salas, 1993), to hypothesize that the trainers´ charisma has a positive effect on the trainees´ entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Additionally, I search for possible moderators for the hypothesized trainer-trainee-relationship in an explorative manner, using insight from different research areas (e.g., pedagogy, philosophy). To test the hypotheses, I conducted a 12-week entrepreneurship training by which I had 12 measurement waves across four classes with 161 students and 12 trainers, which lead to 919 observations. In the fourth chapter, to broaden the perspective on the mechanisms within entrepreneurship training, which lead to a successful outcome, I empirically examined the short- and long-term effects of entrepreneurship training on life satisfaction. To do so, I developed a theoretical model based on theories of life satisfaction, that explain the underlying mechanisms of the short- and long-term effects of the entrepreneurship training on life satisfaction. With this model I hypothesize, that entrepreneurship training has a positive short- effect on life satisfaction, which is mediated through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. I furthermore hypothesize, that the long-term effect of the entrepreneurship training is mediated through self-employment. The short term-effect acts like a boost and vanishes over time, whereas the long-term effect holds in the long run. To test these hypotheses, I conducted entrepreneurship training as part of a randomized controlled field experiment with five measurement waves over a total period of 2.5 years. Using discontinuous growth modeling to take into account the temporality of our hypothesized effects we statistically analyzed the 1,092 observations from 312 students. Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation with general discussion of the three chapters.

Over the last two decades, online advertising has become one of the most important dimension of corporate communications. Nowadays, companies promote their products and services through multiple online marketing channels, for example newsletters, display and video advertising, and most notably, search engine advertising. In this context, statistical models developed in research and practice can be used to measure the effectiveness of advertising activities. The results from these kinds of analyses can, for instance, be used to attribute marketing success (sales, registration, etc.) to individual advertising activities and, thus, to support budget planning for future advertising campaigns. In recent years, a new form of advertising on the Internet has emerged: real-time advertising. Among others, it allows companies to identify potential customers and target them with respect to their interests. In this way, real-time advertising can increase advertising effectiveness and it could, at the same time, improve user experience. With the emerge of this new form of advertising, statistical models have become even more important because they are now being increasingly used to predict online user behavior. The articles included in this dissertation analyze user-level clickstream data generated during multi-channel advertising campaigns (including TV advertising) and during real-time auctions. The goal of the analyses conducted here is to better understand advertising effects and to support decision-making in this context. Most of the analyses are based on Bayesian models. These models allow for a very flexible structure, which enables researchers to model, for instance, heterogeneity across different types of users or non-linear parameters such as users´ reaction times and exponential decay of advertising effects. In addition, these models allow for the inclusion of prior knowledge of parameter distributions, and, therefore, they are well suited for iterative analyses based on clickstream data. Bayesian models can be evaluated in different ways. Instead of only relying on statistical metrics, the articles included in this dissertation aim to estimate the economic value of these models based on their predictive performance. Although this measure can only approximate their true economic value, this approach can be used to compare and evaluate different models and to illustrate the impact of predictive analyses for companies in the context of big data. This dissertation contributes to both information systems research and marketing research and has many managerial implications. First, a process is developed to determine optimal sample sizes representing the best balance between computational costs and predictive accuracy in e-commerce in particular and big data contexts in general. In practice, this process can be used to reduce infrastructure and computational costs. Second, the articles included here describe models that can be used to measure the impact of television ads on users´ online shopping behavior. The models can provide insights concerning the effectiveness of individual television ads, the interactions between different advertising channels and the difference in user behavior of TV-induced customers and their non-TV-induced counterparts. Thereby, the models could support decision-making with respect to future advertising campaigns and targeting. Third, the articles describe several possibilities to extend and improve decision support systems currently used in e-commerce and marketing. These improvements enable practitioners to predict users´ interests for arbitrary products and services by using corresponding websites as dependent variables. This approach can be used to improve the effectiveness of real-time advertising campaigns, especially those intended to raise brand awareness among customers. In addition to these contributions, the articles describe possibilities for future research projects at the intersection of information systems and marketing. These kinds of projects could aim to develop methods to take advantage of new possibilities resulting from technological progress, to increase profits from advertising campaigns and selling ad inventories, to provide deeper insights concerning the effectiveness of multi-channel advertising campaigns, and to improve targeting of individual consumers by considering their interests and privacy concerns.

In this dissertation the relation between time headway in car following and the subjective experience of a driver was researched. Three experiments were conducted in a driving simulator. Time headways in a range of 0.5 to 4.0 seconds were investigated at 50km/h, 100km/h, and 150km/h under varied visibility conditions and at differing levels of driver control over the car. The main research questions addressed the possible existence of a threshold effect for the subjective experience of time headways and the influence of vehicle speed, forward visibility, and vehicle control on the position of time headway thresholds. Furthermore, the validity of zero-risk driver behavior models was investigated. Results suggest that a threshold exists for the subjective experience of time headways in car following. This implies that the subjective experience of time headways stays constant for a range of time headways above a critical threshold. The subjective experience of a driver is only influenced by time headway once this critical time headway threshold is passed. Speed does not influence preferred time headway distances in self- and assisted-driving, i.e. time headway thresholds are constant for different speeds. However, in completely automated driving preferred time headways are influenced by vehicle speed. For higher speeds preferred time headways decrease. A reduction of forward visibility leads to a shift in preferred time headways towards larger time headways. Results of this dissertation give credence to zero-risk models of driver behavior.

This dissertation includes an introduction and five empirical papers focusing on the educational and career decision-making process of individuals in Germany. The five papers embrace different determinants of educational and career decisions including school performance, social background, leisure activities as well as professional expectations, and contribute to the existing literature in this research area. Chapter 2 of this dissertation (written jointly with Christian Pfeifer) begins by analysing the nexus between students’ time allocation and school performance in terms of grades and satisfaction with their own performance in mathematics, the German language and a first foreign language, as well as overall achievement. While previous studies have primarily focused on isolated activities, this chapter looks at the heterogeneity of three important extracurricular activities: student jobs, sports and participation in music. Moreover, the heterogeneity of each activity is addressed by accounting for different types of the particular activity and differences in the number of years the activity has been pursued. For this purpose, data from the German SOEP, as a representative panel survey of private households and people in Germany, in particular cross-sectional survey data of 3388 students who are about 17 years old and enrolled in a German secondary school, were used. The main findings are that having a job as a student is negatively correlated with school performance, whereas participation in sports and music is positively correlated. However, the results reveal heterogeneity in each activity, especially with respect to intensity. Chapter 3 addresses the concrete post-school decision of school students, in particular whether to study or to enter the German VET system. It focuses on individual risk preferences and the social background of individuals and how these determinants affect the ultimate decision to enrol in university or to start an apprenticeship given the same level of qualification. For the empirical approach data from the German SOEP were used, in particular information on individuals’ educational decisions between 2007 and 2013. The results indicate that (i) individual risk preferences do not have an overall effect on the real transition; (ii) privileged individuals are more likely to take up higher education; and (iii) compared to highly educated parents, parents without an academic background are less likely to guide their children into tertiary education, regardless of how much they support their children with their school work. Chapter 4 deals with the reconsideration of educational decisions in terms of early contract cancellations in VET (Vocational Education and Training). In particular, the effects of a second job on the intention to cancel a VET contract early are analysed for apprentices in Germany. To date, the literature in this research area mainly focuses on income as a determinant of early contract cancellation in VET, but is lacking in investigations of the consequences of low income during an apprenticeship, such as the need for a second job. For the empirical approach the representative German firm-level study ‘BIBB Survey Vocational Training from the Trainee’s Point of View 2008’, conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), is used. The survey contains 5901 apprentices that were interviewed during their second year of apprenticeship (205 schools, 340 classes, and 15 common occupations). Furthermore, it includes the design, procedures, basic conditions, and quality criteria of apprenticeships. The applied probit regressions show a higher intention to quit if apprentices require a secondary job to cover their living costs. In Chapter 5, new data on 191 apprentices from a vocational school, located in a northern German federal state, are used to validate the empirical results of Chapter 4. This chapter presents new insights into secondary-job-related burdens during apprenticeship. Due to limitations in the data, the applied empirical approach in Chapter 4 lacks to analyse how holding multiple jobs increases the intention to leave an apprenticeship early. Therefore, Chapter 5 includes the investigations of burdens related to the second job. The results indicate a lower intention to quit the apprenticeship if an apprentice holds a second job to cover living costs. However, secondary jobs are linked to lower quality of training, which, on the other hand, increases the intention to leave the apprenticeship early. Furthermore, the probability of secondary-job-related burdens increases with the number of working hours. Chapter 6 concludes the thesis by investigating subjective determinants of early contract cancellations in VET. It examines ten questions on what apprentices want to achieve and how unfulfilled expectations affect the intention to leave the apprenticeship early. To date, research on early contract cancellation in VET has concentrated on objective determinants, such as income, schooling level, age, gender, or migration background. Hence, the findings of this investigation contributes to the existing research on early contract cancellation. The questions considered include information on the performance, personal development, career development and prospects or position in society and their meaning to apprentices. For the research approach, the ‘BIBB Survey Vocational Training from the Trainee’s Point of View 2008’ is considered again. The probit and ordered probit regressions applied show significant effects of job characteristics that represent job security. The expectation of being retained after an apprenticeship and the encouragement to consistently train further decrease the intention to leave the apprenticeship early. Furthermore, women appear to be more affected by job security signals than men, but they also sort more often into occupations with lower retention probabilities. Consequently, this result may be an indication of occupational segregation rather than a sign of differences between sexes.

Western organizations increasingly organize work in team-based structures. Members of these teams often differ in various diversity attributes (e. g., gender, age, cultural background). In response, research aims to provide evidence-based recommendations on how to effectively manage diversity in teams. Within diversity research, the diversity faultlines approach has been particularly fruitful. It considers the impact of the alignment of multiple diversity attributes in teams. Strong diversity faultlines are associated with the emergence of relatively homogeneous subgroups in teams and have an overall negative impact on team processes and outcomes. This dissertation investigates factors that mitigate the detrimental consequences of strong diversity faultlines in teams, namely pro-diversity beliefs. It extends faultline literature beyond the conventional focus on processes and outcomes related to team members by emphasizing the leaders´ perspective. The three empirical papers included in this dissertation systematically examine how strong pro-diversity beliefs can help unleashing the positive effects of team diversity despite strong faultlines. The first paper highlights the role of leaders´ pro-diversity beliefs in mitigating the negative impact of diversity faultlines on two team processes: perceived cohesion and social loafing. Moreover, it compares the impact of socio-demographic faultlines (based on gender and age) and experience-based faultlines (based on team tenure and education level). Data was collected in a multisource field sample with 217 team members nested in 44 teams and the corresponding leaders. We found that socio-demographic, but not experience-based faultlines were negatively related to perceived cohesion and positively to perceived loafing. Path analysis further revealed that these relationships were mitigated when leaders held strong pro-diversity beliefs. The second paper extends these findings by additionally taking the impact of members´ pro-diversity beliefs into account. It examines whether the impact of sociodemographic faultlines on performance is contingent on leaders´ and members´ pro-diversity beliefs. Moreover, we assumed that aggregate LMX would mediate this relationship. In a multisource data set obtained from 41 teams with 219 members and the corresponding leaders working for the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we found partial support for our hypotheses. As expected, the impact of strong socio-demographic faultlines on diplomats´ performance was least negative when both leaders and members held strong pro-diversity beliefs. However, neither the two-way interactions of faultlines and leaders´ or members´ prodiversity beliefs nor aggregate LMX had a significant impact in our research model. The third paper zooms into processes and outcomes related to team leaders. It investigates how leaders´ pro-diversity beliefs and their perceptions of members´ prodiversity beliefs in teams with strong socio-demographic faultlines impact leaders´ task role assignment, performance expectation, and motivation. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two experimental studies with students, one in Germany (N = 55) and one in the US (N = 134). Findings showed that strong pro-diversity beliefs held and perceived by leaders made them assign task roles that cross-cut rather than aligned with the subgroup structure created by faultlines. Moreover, leaders´ perceptions of members´ pro-diversity beliefs, but not their own beliefs, had a positive impact on their motivation, mediated by their performance expectation. In sum, findings of these three papers extend the literature on diversity faultlines and leadership by systematically demonstrating the mitigating impact of pro-diversity beliefs on faultlines´ detrimental consequences on processes and outcomes related to team leaders and members. Based on various samples, we showed that it is worthwhile to distinguish between pro-diversity beliefs held by leaders, pro-diversity beliefs held by members, and leaders´ perceptions of members´ pro-diversity beliefs. Fostering strong pro-diversity beliefs among leaders and members should thus be a crucial element of effective diversity faultline management in organizations.

This thesis makes an important contribution to better understanding biodiversity and ecosystem function relationships across trophic levels in forests - aspects that are still underrepresented in BEF research. Ongoing biodiversity loss can be expected to change important trophic interaction pathways in these ecosystems, making increased efforts in exploring the mechanisms underlying, and the drivers determining, the impact of trophic complexity on the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning a crucial objective for holistic approaches to BEF research.

An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that union density fell substantially in western Germany from 1980 to 2004 and in eastern Germany from 1992 to 2004. Such a negative trend can be observed for men and women and for different groups of the workforce. Regression estimates indicate that the probability of union membership is related to a number of personal and occupational variables such as age, public sector employment and being a blue collar worker (significant in western Germany only). A decomposition analysis shows that differences in union density over time and between eastern and western Germany to a large degree cannot be explained by differences in the characteristics of employees. Contrary to wide-spread perceptions, changes in the composition of the workforce seem to have played a minor role in the fall in union density in western and eastern Germany.

In recent years, both scientists and practitioners have become interested in the affectivemotivational concept of work engagement and research on work engagement has strongly accumulated. Engaged people invest physical, affective, and cognitive resources in their work tasks and activities (Sonnentag, Dormann, & Demerouti, 2010) and high levels of work engagement involve positive consequences both for the individual and the organization (Rich, Lepine, & Crawford, 2010). The objective of this dissertation is twofold. The first and second empirical studies help to advance knowledge on antecedents of work engagement and to extend theoretical models in which work engagement is embedded. The third study aims at expanding present knowledge of the role of specific work events as proximal antecedents of distinct affective states and as distal antecedents of job attitudes and affective consequences such as work engagement by developing a taxonomy of work events. This dissertation suggests ideas for future research and provides practical implications regarding work design and human resource practices that are based on the empirical findings reported. Study 1 investigates the cognitive-motivational concept of focus on opportunities (i.e. the number of goals, plans, and possibilities employees believe themselves to have in their future) as a predictor of work engagement and a personal resource that buffers for low levels in employee’s job control. By using a cross-sectional survey study based on a sample of bluecollar workers (N = 174), and a daily diary study based on a sample of administrative employees (N = 64), this study revealed that job control was less strongly related to work engagement when people’s focus on opportunities was reported to be high. Employees with a high focus on opportunities compensated for low job control. This finding refines theoretical models of antecedents of work engagement by supporting the role of focus on opportunities as a motivational resource. The goal of Study 2 was to examine self-efficacy regarding a person‘s work role as a personal resource that helps employees to effectively regulate affective states in a way to show high levels of work engagement. The study was conducted based on a sample of 111 full-time employees who completed daily online questionnaires on affective experiences and work engagement twice a day over ten working days. Results of multilevel linear regression analysis showed that self-efficacy acted as a moderator on the relationship between daily negative affect and daily work engagement. Self-efficacy enabled people to show high levels of work engagement on days when they experience negative affective states. Moreover, the relationship between self-efficacy and work engagement was mediated by an increase of positive affect during the day. Through the mechanism of up-regulating positive affect, people high in self-efficacy succeed in maintaining daily work engagement. These results extend existing theoretical frameworks of work engagement by indicating that self-efficacy is an important personal resource that enables people to effectively regulate affective states and show high levels of work engagement. Study 3 addresses the development of a comprehensive taxonomy of daily work events that provides a frame of reference for future studies to more systematically test propositions of Affective events theory (AET) (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). AET provides a theoretical framework that emphasizes the role of work events as proximal antecedents of affect but does not formulate specific propositions about which kind of work events elicit distinct affective states. Based on 559 positive and 383 negative work events mentioned in three daily diary studies by an overall of 218 employees, the qualitative concept mapping methodology was used to establish the taxonomy on work events. Explorative statistical analyses resulted in four positive and seven negative work events clusters. The study provides evidence for the validity of the taxonomy by testing the relationships of the events clusters with distinct positive and negative activating and deactivating affective states.

The world wide population growth and the increasing water scarcity endanger more and more the human society. Water saving measures alone will not be sufficient to solve all associated problems. Therefore, people in arid countries might come back to any kind of water available. In this context the way people regard wastewater must change in terms that it has to be recognized as a water resource. The reuse of wastewater, treated and untreated, for irrigation purposes in agriculture is already established in some semi-arid and arid countries. Countries with absolute water scarcity like Israel might not only be forced to reduce their water consumption, but even to transfer reused water to other sectors. Concerns of authorities and the general public about potential health risks are completely understandable. The health risks of wastewater are mainly originating from pathogens which are negatively correlated with its treatment. Therefore, the quality of a wastewater effluent derived from mechanical-biological treatment can be further improved by additional treatment steps like soil aquifer treatment (SAT). This process is adopted at the Israeli Shafdan facility in the south of Tel Aviv. Conventionally treated wastewater is applied on surface basins from where it percolates into the coastal plain aquifer which supplies approximately one quarter of Israel ́s drinking water. After a certain residence time in the subsurface the water is recovered by wells surrounding the recharge area. Although the pumping regime creates a hydraulic barrier to the pristine groundwater, concerns exist that a contamination of the surrounding drinking water wells could occur. So far, little is known about the removal of organic trace pollutants during the SAT process in general and for the Shafdan site in particular. Consequently, the need arose to study the purification power of the SAT process in terms of the removal of organic trace pollutants. For this purpose reliable wastewater tracers are essential to be able to differentiate between degradation and sorption processes on the one hand and dilution with pristine groundwater on the other hand. Based on their chemical properties, their worldwide usage in a variety of foodstuffs and beverages, and first data about the fate and occurrence of sucralose, artificial sweeteners came into the focus as promising tracer candidates. Thus, in the present work an analytical method for the simultaneous determination of seven commonly used artificial sweeteners in different water matrices, like surface water and wastewater, was developed (see chapter 2). The method is based on the solid phase extraction (SPE) of the analytes by a styrene-divinylbenzene (SDB) copolymer material, and the analysis by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass-spectrometry (LC-ESI- MS/MS). The sensitivity in negative ionization mode was considerably enhanced by postcolumn addition of the alkaline modifier tris(hydroxymethyl) aminomethane. In potable water, except for aspartame and neohesperidine dihydrochalchone, absolute recoveries >75 % were obtained for all analytes under investigation, but were considerably reduced due to matrix effects in treated wastewater. The widespread distribution of the artificial sweeteners acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate, and sucralose in the aquatic environment was proven. Concentrations in two German wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influents ranged up to 190 μg/L for cyclamate, several tens of μg/L for acesulfame and saccharin, and about 1 μg/L for sucralose. For saccharin and cyclamate removal rates >90 % during wastewater treatment were observed, whereas acesulfame and sucralose turned out to be very persistent. As a result of high influent concentrations and low removal rates in WWTPs, acesulfame was the dominant sweetener in German surface waters with concentrations up to 2.7 μg/L. The detection of acesulfame and sucralose in recovery wells in the Shafdan SAT site in Israel in the μg/L range was a promising sign for their possible use as anthropogenic markers. As acesulfame and sucralose showed a pronounced stability in WWTPs and were detected in recovery wells of the SAT site in Israel it became worthwhile to assess their tracer suitability compared to other organic trace pollutants suggested as anthropogenic markers in the past (see chapter 3). Therefore, the prediction power of the two sweeteners was evaluated in comparison with the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine (CBZ), the X-ray contrast medium diatrizoic acid (DTA) and two benzotriazoles (1H-benzotriazole (BTZ) and its 4-methyl analogue (4TTri)). The concentrations of these compounds and their ratios were tracked from WWTPs with different treatment technologies, to recipient waters and further to river bank filtration (RBF) wells. Additionally, acesulfame and sucralose were compared with CBZ during advanced wastewater treatment by SAT in Israel. Only the persistent compounds acesulfame, sucralose, and CBZ showed stable ratios when comparing influent and effluent concentrations of four German WWTPs with conventional wastewater treatment. However, by the additional application of powdered activated carbon in a fifth WWTP CBZ, BTZ, and 4-TTri were selectively removed resulting in a pronounced shift of the concentration ratios towards the nearly unaffected sweeteners. Results of a seven months monitoring program along the rivers Rhine and Main showed an excellent correlation between CBZ and acesulfame concentrations (r2 = 0.94), and still good values when correlating the concentrations with both benzotriazoles (r2 = 0.66 - 0.82). In RBF wells acesulfame and CBZ were again the compounds with the best concentration correlation (r2 = 0.85).

Many plant-level studies find that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. This paper uses a large set of linked employer-employee data from Germany to analyze this exporter wage premium. We show that the wage differential becomes smaller but does not completely vanish when observable and unobservable characteristics of the employees and of the work place are controlled for. For example, blue-collar (white-collar) employees working in a plant with an export-sales ratio of 60 percent earn about 1.8 (0.9) percent more than similar employees in otherwise identical non-exporting plants.

Who is taken into consideration when we talk about the citizens, about the people or the activists? Often it is a rather unquestioned privileged positionality, which is taken to be the standard that most of the time it is actually not. In this quote, the activist Madjiguène Cissé, from the transnational Sans-Papiers movement, raises that just because someone or something is not visible—to the broader public or a particular public—it does not mean that they have not been there for a long time. Migrant rights activism is not a new phenomenon but has intensified and become more networked and visible over the past years (Eggert & Giugni, 2015). This study explores group contexts of activism by, with and for refugees and migrants in Hamburg, the claims, interactions, challenges and processes that activists experience, discuss and deal with. I have approached activists experiencing political organizing in this context from a constructivist grounded theory perspective. This allowed me to develop conceptual perspectives grounded in activist groups’ realities and was advanced through existing literature on this social movement but also theories from other research fields. Solidarities emerged throughout the research process as a more concrete focus. This research sets out to answer the questions: What does solidarity mean in social movements, and how do migrant rights activist practices result in negotiating, enacting and challenging it? This publication is a revised version of my dissertation thesis.

Both practitioners and researchers alike assign considerable importance to innovation. However, the process of how innovation unfolds over time is still not well understood. It is the aim of this dissertation to introduce an elaborated picture of innovation processes over time and to discuss the implications of the dynamics of the innovation process for individuals working in innovative contexts, that is, leaders and team members of innovative teams. The first paper of lays the theoretical and empirical groundwork of my dissertation in demonstrating that within the boundaries of the gradual development of innovation activities over time innovation processes are recursive and highly dynamic. These dynamics make the innovation process a challenge for everyone involved in it. In the second and third paper of my dissertation, I discuss this challenge in greater detail for leaders and team members of innovative work teams. Thus, with this dissertation I do not only to give a more elaborate picture of how innovation projects unfold over time, but also describe the challenges attached to the innovation process and give first answers to the question of how individuals involved in this process may be able to master these challenges.

The dissertation consists of three scientific papers and a synopsis. The synopsis addresses the relevance of the dissertation and lists the key factors for the sustainability transition in the electricity system as a common denominator of the three papers. The relevance of the dissertation results, on the one hand, from the urgency of the sustainability transition in the electricity system and an insufficient transition willingness of the eastern European Member States. On the other hand, the Multi-Level-Perspective as one of the most important scientific frameworks to grasp transitions does not provide a sufficient explanation of its mechanisms. Moreover, Demand Response aggregators as new enterprises on the European electricity market and potential reform initiators are still under researched. The following key factors for the sustainability transition of the electricity system have been identified: supply security concerns, Europeanisation, policy making and the dominance of short-term oriented economic evaluation. Paper 1 The underlying factors in the uptake of electricity demand response: The case of Poland Author: Katarzyna Ewa Rollert Published: Utilities Policy, Volume 54, October 2018, 11-21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2018.07.002 Demand response (DR) is considered crucial for a more reliable, sustainable, and efficient electricity system. Nevertheless, DR’s potential still remains largely untapped in Europe. This study sheds light on the roots of this problem in the context of Poland. It suggests that unfavorable regulation is symptomatic of the real, underlying barriers. In Poland, these barriers are coal dependence and political influence on energy enterprises. As main drivers, supply security concerns, EU regulatory pressure, and a positive cost-benefit profile of DR in comparison to alternatives, are revealed. A conceptual model of DR uptake in electricity systems is proposed. Paper 2 Gaining legitimacy for sustainability transition: A social mechanisms approach Authors: Ursula Weisenfeld and Katarzyna Ewa Rollert Review and re-submit: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions / August 2021 Applying a social mechanisms approach to the Multi-Level Perspective, we conceptualize mechanisms of socio-technical transitions and of gaining legitimacy for transitions as co-evolutionary drivers and outcomes. Situational, action-formational, and transformational mechanisms that operate as drivers of change in a socio-technical transition require corresponding framing and framing contests to achieve legitimacy for that transition. We illustrate our conceptual insight with the case of the coal dependent Polish electricity system. Paper 3 Demand response aggregators as institutional entrepreneurs in the European electricity market Author: Katarzyna Ewa Rollert Under review: Journal of Cleaner Production / August 2021 Demand Response (DR) aggregators act as intermediaries between electricity customers and network operators to tap the potential of the demand-based flexibility. This qualitative study reveals DR aggregators as institutional entrepreneurs that struggle to reform the still largely supply-oriented European electricity market. Unfavourable regulation, low value of flexibility, resource constraints, complexity, and customer acquisition are the key challenges DR aggregators face. To overcome them they apply a combination of strategies: lobbying, market education, technological proficiency, and upscaling the business. The study highlights DR aggregation as an architectural innovation that alters the interplay between key actors of the electricity system and provides policy recommendations including the necessity to assess the real value of DR in comparison to other flexibility sources by taking all externalities into account, a technology-neutral approach to market design and the need for simplification of DR programmes, and common standards to reduce complexity and uncertainty for DR providers.

Human activities have become a major driver of global change, so that global society and economy are facing consequences such as climate change, increasing scarcity of resources, environmental pollution and degradation as well as disturbances of ecosystem functioning and services.In order to meet these main challenges in an appropriate way, adequate starting points and solutions must be pursued at all levels to shift the current socio-economic pathway from an unsustainable to a safe operating and thus sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. One of the application concepts in industrial contexts is Industrial Symbiosis (IS), which deals with the set-up of advanced circular/cascading systems, in which the energy and material flows are prolonged for multiple material and energetic (re-)utilization within industrial systems in order to increase resource productivity and efficiency, while reducing environmental impacts. The overarching goal of the research project was to identify and develop approaches to enable the evolution of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) in Industrial Parks (IPs). Industrial Symbiosis (IS) is a collaborative cross-sectoral approach to connect the resource supply and demand of various industries in order to optimize the resource use through exchange of materials, energy, water and human resources across different companies, while generating ecological, technical, social and economic benefits. Many Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools have been developed to facilitate IS, but they predominantly focus on the as-is analysis of the IS system, and do not consider the development of a common desired target vision or corresponding possible future scenarios as well as conceivable transformation paths from the actual to the defined (sustainability) target state. This gap shall be addressed in this work, presenting the software requirements engineering results for a holistic IT-supported IS tool covering system analysis, transformation simulation and goal-setting. This study also aims to present the conceptual IT-supported IS tool and its corresponding prototype, developed for the identification of IS opportunities in IPs. This IS tool serves as an IS facilitating platform, providing transparency among market players and proposing potential cooperation partners according to selectable criteria (e.g. geographical radius, material properties, material quality, purchase quantity, delivery period). Therefore a quantitative indicator system was compiled and recurring patterns were identified to utilize this knowledge in the comprehensive IT-supported IS tool. So this IS tool builds the technology-enabled environment for the processes of first screening of IS possibilities and initiation for further complex business-driven negotiations and agreements for long-term IS business relationships.

Transformative learning is increasingly set to become an essential component in sustainability transformation. This type of learning attracts considerable interest in studying and impulsing a paradigm change to transform our world into a more sustainable one, yet its underlying learning mechanisms have remained overlooked. Although there is an apparent relationship between transformative learning and sustainability transformation, little has been done to systematically explore the contribution to sustainability transformation. This learning theory developed decades ago independently of sustainability discourses; however, it provides an analytical framework for understanding the learning processes, outcomes and conditions in individual and social learning towards sustainability transformation. Against this background, the following research question arises: To which extent can transformative learning lead to sustainability transformation? This doctoral work aims to explore transformative learning processes, outcomes, and conditions occurring and advancing towards sustainability transformation of the textile-fashion industry in Mexico. Taking an exploratory approach, the methods employed were literature reviews to untangle concepts and to construct theoretical pillars to support the empirical research design and data analysis. For data collection, snowball-sampling techniques were used to explore the practice field of the textile-fashion industry in Mexico. Qualitative interviews were employed to gather data about the learning experiences of actors. Qualitative and quantitative methods were required to perform the respective data analysis, the qualitative codification of interviewees’ responses through MAXQDA being the most remarkable one. Analysis of social media content was also utilised to understand the communication and business practices of projects involved in the transformation of the textile-fashion sector. As a result, this work comprises three articles, one a systematic literature review and two empirical research articles, investigating the transformative learning processes of entrepreneurs in the development of sustainability niches. As for the findings of this doctoral work, the use of transformative learning in sustainability transformation requires a careful study of the theory and its conceptual elements. Regarding the case study, transformative learning is inherent in forming and developing sustainability niches as entrepreneurs venture into them: It is individual prior learning, expectations and actions that initiate the path of sustainability transformation while disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, and discourse accelerate them. Through these stages, it is when individual learning turns into social learning. On the other hand, based on the multi-level perspective, the interplay between the niche, regime and landscape levels generates a space for sustainability transformation and transformative learning. This work contributes to deciphering the black box of learning in sustainability transformations. The principal endeavour was to build the theoretical bridges between this emerging area of inquiry and transformative learning theory, as a significant part of this theoretical construction required drawing upon other research fields such as sustainability transitions and sustainability entrepreneurship. The crosscutting feature of learning in those fields enabled the development of an awareness of boundary objects between those fields (e.g., expectations). Furthermore, this study is pioneering in exploring sustainability transformation processes of the textile-fashion industry in Latin American contexts. The findings of this work can also be extrapolated to other sectors in which entrepreneurs participate, such as local food production, sustainable mobility, among others

Smartphones make intensive use of precious metals and so called conflict minerals in order to reach their high performance in a compact size. In recent times, sustainability challenges related to production, use and disposal of smartphones are increasingly a topic of public debate. Thus, established industry actors and newly emerging firms are driven to engage in more sustainable practices, such as sustainable sourcing of materials, maintenance services or take-back schemes for discarded mobile phones. Many of these latter efforts can be related to the concept of a circular economy (CE). This thesis explores how CE-related value creation architectures (VCAs) in the smartphone industry contribute to slowing and closing resource loops in a CE. In order to analyze these new industry arrangements, transaction cost theory (TCT) is used as a guiding theory for a make-or-buy analysis. Combining TCT with the concept of a CE is a novel research approach that enables the empirical analysis of relationships between focal actors (e.g. manufacturers) and newly emerging loop operators (e.g. recycling firms) in the smartphone industry. Case studies of such VCAs are conducted with case companies drawn from the Innovation Network on Sustainable Smartphones (INaS) at Leuphana Universtity of Lüneburg and analyzed regarding their involved actors, partnerships, circular activities, motivation and perceived barriers. Evidence from the conducted case studies suggests that asset specificity for circular practices increases for higher order CE-loops such as maintenance or reuse, therefore long-term partnerships between focal actors and loop operators or vertical integration of CE practices are beneficial strategies to reach a sophisticated CE. Similarly, circular practices that go beyond recycling require a strong motivation, either through integration in the focal firm´s quality commitment or through business model recognition. It is further suggested that the circular design of products and services could reduce necessary transaction costs and thus overall costs of a circular economy. Four different integration strategies for circular economy practices have been derived from the conducted case studies. These are: 1) vertically integrated loops, 2) cooperative loop-networks, 3) outsourcing to loop operators and 4) independent loop operators. This work thus provides evidence that circular economy activities do not necessarily have to be managed by focal actors in the value chain. Rather, circular practices can also be put forward by specialized loop operators or even independent actors such as repair shops.

Despite the great progress that has been made in the prophylaxis of oral diseases over the past decades, dental caries and periodontal diseases remain major challenges in the field of dentistry. Biofilm formation on dental hard tissues is strongly associated with the etiology of these oral diseases. Therefore, the process of bioadhesion and biofilm formation on tooth surfaces is of particular interest for dental research. The first stage of bioadhesion on dental surfaces is the formation of the pellicle layer. This mainly acellular film, composed largely of adsorbed proteins, glycoproteins, and lipids, is distinguished from the microbial biofilm (plaque). As the interface between teeth and the oral environment, the pellicle plays a key role in the maintenance of oral health and is of great physiological and pathophysiological importance. On the one hand, the pellicle shows protective properties for the underlying dental hard tissues. On the other hand, it also serves as the basis for dental plaque and therefore, for the development of oral diseases such as caries and periodontitis. Hydrophobic interactions, which are governed by lipophilic substances, are of high relevance for bacterial adherence. Therefore, pellicle lipids, which are a significant constituent of this biological structure, are an interesting target for dental research, as they could modulate oral surfaces, influence microbial interactions, and potentially impede bacterial adherence. Compared to the extensive work on the pellicle´s ultrastructure and protein/amino acid composition, little attention has been given to its lipid profile. Knowledge of the lipid composition of the pellicle may provide insight into several oral pathological states, including caries, dental erosion, and periodontal disease processes and could contribute to novel approaches in preventive dentistry. The principle aim of this thesis was the comprehensive characterization of the fatty acid (FA) profile of the in situ formed pellicle layer. This includes the influence of pellicle maturation on the FA profile as well as intra- and interindividual differences. Furthermore, investigations on the effect of rinses with edible oils on the pellicle´s FA composition were a focus of this work. For these purposes, an analytical method based on a combination of innovative specimen generation and convenient sample preparation with sensitive mass spectrometric analysis was successfully developed and comprehensively validated within this thesis. Pellicle samples were formed in situ on bovine enamel slabs mounted on individual upper jaw splints. After a comprehensive sample preparation, gas chromatography coupled with electron impact ionization mass spectrometry (GC-EI/MS) was used in order to characterize qualitatively and quantitatively a wide range of FA (C12-C24). The individual FA profiles of pellicle and saliva samples collected from ten research participants were investigated. The relative FA profiles of the pellicle samples gained from the different subjects were very similar, whereas the amount of FAs showed significant interindividual variability. Compared to the pellicle´s characteristic FA profile, higher proportions of unsaturated FAs were detected in the saliva samples, highlighting that FAs available in saliva are not adsorbed equivalently to the pellicle layer. This, in turn, shows that pellicle formation is a highly selective process that does not correlate directly with salivary composition. Additionally, pellicle samples collected after 3, 30, 60, 120, and 240 min of intraoral exposure were analyzed. It could be shown that pellicle maturation has only a minor impact on the FA composition. However, the FA content increased substantially with increasing oral exposure time. Modifying the pellicle´s lipid composition by using edible oils as a mouthwash could alter the physicochemical characteristics of the pellicle and strengthen its protective properties by delaying bacterial adhesion. Therefore, the impact of rinses with safflower oil on the pellicle´s FA composition was determined. The application of rinses with safflower oil resulted in an accumulation of its specific FAs in the pellicle, thus representing a possibility for modifying the pellicle´s lipid profile. The present work is the first to apply a validated method that combines in situ pellicle formation, sample preparation, and the comprehensive determination of FAs via a sensitive analytical method. The results provide valuable information regarding the pellicle´s FA composition which closes an existing knowledge gap in pellicle research. A broader knowledge of the lipid composition of the pellicle contributes to the understanding of oral bioadhesion processes and may help facilitate novel approaches in preventive dentistry.