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Fjodor M. Dostojewskijs Werke sind immer wieder Thema der wissenschaftlichen Betrachtung, allerdings liegt der Fokus meist auf Dostojewskijs großen Romanen. "Der Spieler" ist seltener im Fokus. Auseinandersetzungen mit Dostojewskijs Werken im Allgemeinen und dem Roman "Der Spieler" im Besonderen erfolgen in vielen Fällen autorzentriert. Daran anschließend steht das Thema des Spiels und Spielsucht immer wieder im Mittelpunkt. Textimmanente und narratologische Auseinandersetzungen finden sich dagegen kaum. Konkrete Auseinandersetzungen mit einzelnen Umsetzungen von Dostojewskijs Romanen auf der Bühne gibt es ebenfalls nur wenige. Diese Arbeit untersucht vor diesem Hintergrund genau eine solche Inszenierung mit der Fragestellung: Wie werden die narrativen Elemente des Romans "Der Spieler" von Dostojewskij am Thalia Theater Hamburg in der Inszenierung von Jan Bosse auf die Bühne übertragen? Die Premiere dieser Inszenierung erfolgte am 27.11.2016. Zur Beantwortung der oben gestellten Frage werden zunächst die theoretischen und methodischen Grundlagen kurz dargestellt. Thematisiert wird der Unterschied zwischen Epik und Dramatik, das breite Feld der Narratologie sowie Überlegungen zu Romandramatisierungen. Im nächsten Abschnitt folgt die Analyse des Romans mit besonderem Fokus auf den Ich-Erzähler, die Erzählung in Form eines Tagebuchs sowie das unzuverlässige Erzählen. Die Analyse erfolgt nach den von Genette vorgeschlagenen narratologischen Kategorien. Die Inszenierungsanalyse im nächsten Abschnitt beantwortet anschließend die Frage, wie die davor herausgearbeiteten narrativen Merkmale auf die Bühne übertragen werden. Nach einer Betrachtung der grundlegenden Veränderungen sowie des Bühnenbilds liegt der Schwerpunkt also ebenfalls auf der Form des Tagebuchs, dem Ich-Erzähler sowie dem unzuverlässigen Erzählen. Theoretische Grundlagen stammen hierbei vor allem von Horstmann und Lipinski. Das Fazit fasst abschließend die Ergebnisse zusammen.
Der Konflikt um den Braunkohleabbau im Allgemeinen und den Hambacher Forst im Speziellen ist im Sommer 2018 in Deutschland erneut eskaliert und fand eine immer breitere Wahrnehmung in der Öffentlichkeit. Der Protest im und um den Hambacher Forst steht symbolisch für die Auseinandersetzungen um die deutsche Klimapolitik und damit für die Machtverhältnisse zwischen Staat, Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft. Akteure verschiedener Standpunkte mussten in diesem Konflikt ihre Position begründen. Dies führte zu einer Intensivierung der Diskussion um Legalität, Legitimität, Demokratie und Gerechtigkeit. Die scheinbare Diskrepanz zwischen einer rechtsstaatlichen Demokratie und dem zivilen Ungehorsam als einem möglichen Korrektiv führte zu der hier bearbeiteten Forschungsfrage: Ist der Einsatz von zivilem Ungehorsam am Fallbeispiel "Ende Gelände", Rheinisches Braunkohle Revier, legitim, wenn nicht sogar notwendig, um die Grundprinzipien des demokratischen Staates zu wahren? Als Grundlage für die Beantwortung der Fragestellung soll erörtert werden, ob in der rechtsstaatlichen, sozialen und repräsentativen Demokratie Deutschlands die Protestform des zivilen Ungehorsams legitim sein kann und, sofern dies der Fall ist, unter welchen Umständen diese Legitimität gegeben ist.
Fostering sustainable urban mobility at neighborhood-based mobility stations with cargo bikes
(2019)
Das Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht darin, an den im Ursprung der Vergabe- und Vertragsordnung für Bauleistungen (VOB) zugrundeliegenden Kooperationsgedanken anzuknüpfen und eine möglichst für alle an Bauvorhaben Beteiligten nachhaltige und akzeptable Lösung für eine gemeinsame Behebung der nicht vermeidbar auftretenden Bauablaufstörungen herauszuarbeiten. Im Rahmen dieser Lösung soll gewährleistet werden, dass die in der Regel notwendigen, baubegleitenden Fehlerkorrekturen effektiv und unkompliziert auf der operativen Ebene gemeinsam durchgeführt werden. Der sofortige Handlungs- und Entscheidungswille vor Ort soll durch die vereinbarten Vertragsordnungen begünstigt, unterstützt, gefördert und erleichtert werden. Dabei soll sichergestellt werden, dass eine gemeinsame Handlung oder Entscheidung vor Ort immer als grundsätzlich richtig eingestuft wird und durch die allgemeinen Vertragsordnungen im Gegensatz zu einer einseitigen Anordnung präferiert wird. Es muss sichergestellt werden, dass einerseits wieder die Zusammenarbeit und Kooperation im Fokus der Interessen aller Beteiligten stehen und andererseits klare gesetzliche oder vertragliche Regelungen existieren, die eine solche Mitarbeit fördern. Der Raum für eine potenzielle Konfliktentstehung soll maximal verringert werden. Als Ergebnis soll ein Formulierungsvorschlag für den § 19 VOB/B mit der Überschrift “Kooperationspflichten“ herausgearbeitet werden. Aus diesen Pflichten sollen auch Rechte und damit verbundene Vorteile ableitet werden, welche eine Kooperation fördern.
In der transdisziplinären Nachhaltigkeitsforschung sollen mit partizipativen Forschungsansätzen Lösungen für einen gesellschaftlichen Wandel hin zur Nachhaltigkeit generiert werden. Allerdings fehlen bisher Begründungen und Belege für die Erwartungen, die mit der Partizipation verbunden werden, und auch die mangelnden gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen durch die transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung wurden kritisiert. Gleichzeitig legen Forschungen aus dem Feld der governmentality studies nahe, dass partizipative Prozesse auch ein gewisses Risiko bergen, Herrschaftszustände aufrechtzuerhalten. Um einen Wandel hin zur Nachhaltigkeit zu befördern, sollen in dieser Arbeit daher mit der Regierungskonzeption von Michel Foucault die Ausgestaltung der Partizipation in der transdisziplinären Nachhaltigkeitsforschung untersucht werden und insbesondere inwieweit diese stabilisierend für die gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse wirken kann. Dementsprechend wird die transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung auf Übereinstimmungen und Unterschiede zur neoliberalen Gouvernementalität untersucht und die Implikationen des Ergebnisses vor dem Hintergrund eines an den Brundtland Berichts angelehnten Nachhaltigkeitsverständnisses diskutiert. Die Untersuchung zeigt starke Parallelen zwischen der transdisziplinären Nachhaltigkeitsforschung und einer neoliberalen Regierungsweise. Auch wenn diese Regierungsweise durchaus Vorteile mit sich bringt, gibt es doch Anzeichen, dass sie, und damit auch die transdisziplinäre Nachhaltigkeitsforschung, dazu neigt, soziale Ungleichheit zu verstärken und strukturelle Gründe für Armut und die Zerstörung der natürlichen Lebensgrundlage zu vernachlässigen. Dies würde den Hauptmotiven des Nachhaltigkeitsverständnisses entgegenwirken.
Mit der Vergabe- und Vertragsordnung für Bauleistungen (VOB) des Deutschen Vergabe- und Vertragsausschusses (DVA) für Bauleistungen existiert ein verbindliches dreiteiliges Regelwerk, welches allen Bauverträgen zugrunde gelegt werden kann. Teil B beinhaltet die Allgemeinen Vertragsbedingungen für die Ausführung von Bauleistungen und definiert die Abwicklung der beauftragten Leistungen. Auf Grund des hohen Konfliktpotenzials kommt es dabei nicht selten zu Gerichtsverfahren mit hohen Kosten und Risiken. Diese Streitigkeiten behandelt inhaltlich der § 18 VOB/B. Gemäß § 18 Abs. 2 VOB/B wird ein außergerichtliches Verfahren im Umgang mit Meinungsverschiedenheiten beschrieben. Kostenaufwendige Gerichtsprozesse können durch die Inanspruchnahme der Verfahrensarten gem. § 18 VOB/B vermieden werden. Speziell das Verfahren gem. § 18 Abs. 2 VOB/B beschreibt ein Schlichtungsverfahren, welches sich im Vergleich zu gerichtlichen Auseinandersetzungen durch seine Kostenneutralität und verhältnismäßig kurze Verfahrensdauer auszeichnet. Mit der vorliegenden Arbeit wird herausgearbeitet, welche Maßnahmen ergriffen werden müssen, um dieses Verfahren zu stärken. Dazu werden als Erstes die Grundlagen des Bauvertrags dargelegt. Das zweite Kapitel befasst sich umfänglich mit Konfliktursachen und ihre Auswirkungen in Bauvorhaben. Im dritten Kapitel werden die Verfahrensarten nach § 18 VOB/B als Streitbeilegungsinstrumente des öffentlichen Auftraggebers detailliert vorgestellt und im vierten Kapitel die praxisbezogene Anwendung des Verfahrens nach § 18 Abs.2 VOB/B beleuchtet. Die Darstellung der Praxiserfahrungen sowohl der Auftraggeber als auch der Auftragnehmer führt zu den Schwächen und Stärken des Verfahrens. Im fünften Kapitel folgt die Betrachtung der Wiederstände, die eine Weiterentwicklung des Verfahrens entgegenstehen und gleichzeitig werden die Maßnahmen zur Stärkung der Akzeptanz des Verfahrens aufgezeigt.
In dieser Arbeit werden die kuratierten Playlists von Streamingdiensten als Zugang zu Musik und damit Medium der Musikauswahl betrachtet. Die Analyse ihrer Strukturen und Gestaltung wird dabei fallbeispielhaft anhand des Musikstreamingdienstes Spotify vorgenommen. Durch anhaltend steigende Abonnementzahlen und die Etablierung im Massenmarkt wächst der Einfluss der Streamingtechnologie auf Musikkonsum und Musikverständnis. Mit einem Rezeptionskreis von potentiell mehreren hundert Millionen Musikhörenden auf der ganzen Welt ist das kuratierte Angebot und der Rahmen, in den Musik dabei gesetzt wird, von besonderer Bedeutung. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher, ein tiefergehendes Verständnis davon zu gewinnen, wie das Playlistangebot als zentraler Inhalt der Plattform Spotify gestaltet ist, nach welchen Kriterien der Musikkatalog aufbereitet ist, auf welche Weise Musik dabei konnotiert wird und inwiefern die Thematik der Bildung von Filterblasen hierbei von Relevanz ist. Die Forschungsfragen, die in dieser Arbeit dafür explorativ bearbeitet werden, lauten somit: (1) Auf welche Weise wird die durch den Streamingdienstanbieter Spotify kuratierte Musik in Form von Playlists angeboten? (2) Welche Strukturen lassen sich in dem Playlistangebot finden, was wird (nicht) repräsentiert? (3) Wie ist der Künstler- und Titelkorpus in zusammengehörigen Einheiten kuratierter Playlists gestaltet? (4) Besteht durch dieses Angebot die Möglichkeit der Bildung musikalischer Filterblasen?
Kausalitätsnachweise aus baubetrieblicher Sicht anhand konkreter bauablaufbezogener Darstellungen
(2019)
Im Baugewerbe sind auf Grund hoher Kosten im Falle von Bauunterbrechungen eine genaue Bauablaufplanung sowie auch die Sicherstellung der Ansprüche daraus von großer Wichtigkeit. Die aus dieser Situation heraus folgende Diskussion der Vertragspartner über die Vergütung und die Fristverlängerung führt in einigen Fällen zu einer gerichtlichen Auseinandersetzung. Hierbei hat der Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) aufgezeigt, dass eine konkrete bauablaufbezogene Darstellung zum Nachweis der Kausalität notwendig ist. Es ist hierbei nicht eindeutig klar, wie eine vom BGH geforderte Darstellung auszusehen hat. Bei den Baufirmen wiederum liegt der Fokus häufig auf der Ausarbeitung eines monetären Anspruchs. Dabei wird den Kausalzusammenhängen wenig Beachtung geschenkt. Deshalb werden in dieser Arbeit die Kausalitätsnachweise anhand der konkreten bauablaufbezogenen Darstellung untersucht - mit besonderem Augenmerk auf der pluralen Kausalität. Insgesamt liegt der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit auf der baubetrieblichen Sichtweise und juristischen Einordnungen. Dabei werden insbesondere Terminpläne genauer untersucht. Für Ansprüche aus Bauzeitverlängerung werden hier ausschließlich Fristverlängerungen betrachtet. Die monetären Auswirkungen werden nicht bearbeitet.
Zusammenfassung: Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit dem zeitlichen Verlauf von Entscheidungsprozessen in Organisationen. Anhand eines Simulationsmodells werden die zeitlichen Konsequenzen von De-fiziten in der Problemzuwendung aufgezeigt. Gemeint ist mit dem Begriff der Problemzuwendung, die Zuwendung zu Kerntätigkeiten des Entscheidens: der Aufmerksamkeit, der Problemdefinition, der Erarbeitung von Problemlösungen und der Umsetzung der Lösungen. Problematisch ist das Thema der Problemzuwendung, weil Organisationen praktisch niemals mit nur einem einzigen Problem konfrontiert werden, sondern immer viele Probleme gleichzeitig auf Bearbeitung drän-gen. Der zeitliche Verlauf von Entscheidungsprozessen wird allerdings nicht allein von der Prob-lemzuwendung bestimmt, sondern auch von den vielen Hindernissen, die sich in jedem Entschei-dungsprozess ganz unvermeidlich (in mehr oder weniger großem Ausmaß) einstellen. Weitere wichtige Einflussgrößen sind der Problemzufluss, die Problemlösungskapazitäten und die Prob-lemlösungsfähigkeiten. Das Simulationsmodell, das im vorliegenden Beitrag vorgestellt wird, be-schreibt das Zusammenwirken dieser Größen. Es zeigt, dass der zeitliche Verlauf von Entschei-dungsprozessen ganz maßgeblich von strukturellen Parametern bestimmt wird, die sich nur in be-grenztem Maße beeinflussen lassen, die sich also – paradoxerweise – dem willentlichen Entschei-dungshandeln entziehen.
Neither market income nor consumption expenditure provides an adequate picture of individual standard of living. It is time which enables and restricts individual activities and is a further brick to a more comprehensive picture of individual wellbeing. In our study we focus on a prominent part of time use in non-market services: it is parental child care which contributes not only to individual but also to societal well-being. Within a novel approach we ask for multidimensional polarization effects of parental child care where compensation/ substitution of time for parental child care versus income is interdependently evaluated by panel estimates of societys subjective well-being. The new interdependent 2DGAP measure thereby provides multidimensional polarization intensity information for the poor and the rich and disentangles the single time and income contribution to subjective well-being ensuring at the same time the interdependence of the polarization dimensions. Socio-economic influences on the polarization pole risk and intensity will be quantified by two stage Heckman estimates. The analyses are based on the German Socio-Economic Panel with 21 waves and robust fixed effects estimates of subjective well-being as well as the German Time Use Surveys 1991/92 and actual 2012/13 with detailed diary time use data. The empirical results discover the interdependent relations between parental child care and income under a common evaluation frame and contribute to the question of dimension specific targeted policies in a multidimensional polarization approach. Prominent result: compensation between parental child care time and income proved to be significant, but there are multidimensional regions with no compensation, where parental child care time deficit is not compensated by income. Interdependent multidimensional polarization by headcount and intensity increased significantly over the twenty years under investigation with remarkable risk and intensity differences between the polarization poles with different disentangled parental child care time and income contributions to subjective well-being.
Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich, wie zwei vorangegangene Berichte, mit den Arbeits-bedingungen von Unternehmern. Als Analysebasis dienen die Daten des European Survey on Working Conditions aus den Jahren 2000, 2005 und 2010 sowie, nun ergänzend, die Daten aus der Erhebung aus dem Jahr 2015. Über die vier Erhebungswellen hinweg betrachtet ergeben sich, was die Beschreibung der Arbeitssituation der Unternehmer angeht, keine wesentlichen Verän-derungen. Die Unternehmer sind, was ihre Arbeitsbedingungen angeht, zum Teil, aber nicht durchgängig, besser gestellt als die übrigen Erwerbspersonen. Grundlage der Analyse ist ein ein-faches Modell, das positive und negative Aspekte der Arbeitssituation gegenüberstellt. Aus the-oretischer Sicht von Interesse sind die sich wechselseitig verstärkenden Effekte von Belastungs- und Motivationsfaktoren.
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.
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, the author analyzes 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, the author conducts a systematic literature review on spousal influence in entrepreneurship and identifies six recurrent types of influence. Complementing the literature originating from Western settings, she develops propositions on how the sub-Saharan context affects husbands' influence on women entrepreneurship in this region. In Chapter 3, she builds 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, the author explores 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.
Space-related science and technologies affect our daily life. Many countries have already formulated national space regulations to regulate their space activities. China, as one space-faring country, has obtained several 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.
This thesis aims to provide a quantitative, cross-nationally comparative, longitudinal and multilevel study of the drivers and hindrances of national governments' anti-trafficking measures. In this research, both macro-level determinants of anti-trafficking enforcement and micro-level foundations of human trafficking are explored. In the manuscript, large-N comparative research examines how characteristics of countries interact with people's attitudes towards violence to better understand what creates environments that are more or less supportive of governments' anti-trafficking efforts. The results presented in the thesis speak not only in favor of studying this topic systematically and cross-nationally, addressing existing gaps in the literature but also in favor of combining macro- and micro-level evidence for developing more effective policy responses against human trafficking.
This dissertation examines how smallholder farming livelihoods may be more effectively leveraged to address food security. It is based on empirical research in three woredas (districts) in the Jimma Zone of southwestern Ethiopia. Findings in the chapters that follow draw on quantitative and qualitative data. In this research, the author focuses on local actors to investigate how they can be better supported in their roles as agents who have the ability to improve their livelihoods and achieve food security. This general aim is operationalized through three research questions: (i) How do livelihood strategies influence food security?; (ii) What livelihood challenges are common and how do households cope with these?; and (iii) How do social institutions, in which livelihoods are embedded, influence people's abilities to undertake livelihoods and be food secure? Using quantitative data from a survey of randomly selected households, the author applied a number of multivariate statistical analysis to determine types of livelihood strategies and to establish how these strategies are associated with capital assets and food security. Here she views livelihood strategies as a portfolio of livelihood activities that households undertake to make a living. The predominant livelihood in the study area was diversified smallholder farming involving mainly the production of crops. Based on their analyses, the authors found five types of livelihood strategies to be present along a gradient of crop diversity. Food security generally decreased with less crops being part of the livelihood strategy. The livelihood strategies were associated with households' capital assets. The status of food (in)security of each household during the lean season was measured using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). A generalized linear model established that the type of livelihood strategy a household undertook significantly influenced their food security. Other significant variables were educational attainment and gender of household head. The findings contribute evidence to the benefits of diversified livelihoods for food security. Smallholder farming in southwest Ethiopia is beset with process-related and outcome-related challenges. Here, a process-related challenge pertains to the lack of different types of capital assets that people need to be able to undertake their livelihoods, while an outcome-related challenge pertains to lack of food. The most frequently mentioned process-related challenges were associated with the natural capital either as lack in necessary ecosystem services or high levels of ecosystem disservices. Farming households typically faced the combined challenges of decreasing soil fertility, land scarcity, die-off of oxen due to diseases, and wild animal pests. Lack of cash was also common. The findings indicate that when households liquidate a physical asset in order to gain cash, the common outcome is an erosion of their capital asset base. On the other hand, when households drew on their social capital, they tended to maintain their capital asset base. Human capital, for example, in the form of available labor was also important for coping. Protecting and enhancing natural capital is needed to strengthen the basis of livelihoods in the study area, and maintaining social and human capitals is important to enable farming households to cope with challenges without eroding their capital asset base. Smallholder farming in southwest Ethiopia is embedded in a social context that creates differentiated challenges and opportunities. Gender is an axis of social differentiation on which many of the differences are based. The currently ruling Ethiopian political coalition has put important policy reforms in place to empower women. Local residents reported notable changes related to gender in the last ten years. To make sense of the changes, the authors adapted the leverage points concept. Using this concept, the authors classified the reported changes as belonging to the domains of visible gaps, social structures, and attitudes. Importantly, changes within these domains interacted. The most prominent driver of the changes observed was the government's emphasis on empowering women and government-organized interventions including gender sensitization trainings. The changes toward more egalitarian relationships at the household level were perceived by local residents to lead to better implementation of livelihoods, and better ability to be food secure. The study offers the insight that while changing deep, underlying drivers (e. g. attitudes) of systemic inequalities is critical, other leverage points such as formal institutional change and closing of certain visible gaps can facilitate deeper changes (e. g. attitudes) through interaction between different leverage points. This can inform gender transformative approaches. While positive gender-related changes have been observed, highly unequal gender norms still persist that lead to women as well as poor men being disadvantaged. Social norms which provide the basis for collective understanding of acceptable attitudes and behaviors are entrenched in people's ways of being and doing and can therefore significantly lag behind formal institutional changes. Norms influenced practices around access and control of capital assets, decision-making, and allocation of activities with important implications for who gets to participate, how, and who gets to benefit. To more effectively leverage smallholder farming for a food secure future, this dissertation closes with four key insights namely: (1) Diversified livelihoods combining food and cash crops result in better food security; (2) Enhancing natural and social capital is a requisite for viable smallholder farming; (3) Social and gender equality are strategically important in improving livelihoods and food security; and (4) Institutions particularly social norms are key to achieving gender and social equality.
This thesis deals with the influence of sustainability communication on the purchase decision of sustainable tourism products involving German specialist tour operators. Sustainability communication is a challenge, because sustainable tourism is an abstract and vague concept which consumers find it difficult to grasp and about which they are sceptical. The service characteristics of tourism products complicate the decision making stage, which is a high-involvement situation of uncertainty to which sustainable product attributes add complexity. As an introduction, an interdisciplinary theory discussion reveals knowledge gaps in terms of the value-belief-norm theory and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). The first article, which is the first systematic literature review on the topic, reveals that there is a limited theoretical understanding of sustainability communication, a lack of practical understanding of how to design sustainability messages, and an inadequate set of methodologies for its research. It identifies knowledge gaps concerning: the holistic approach to sustainability communication; its role in the attitude-behaviour gap; an interdisciplinary theoretical understanding focusing on belief-based social psychological theories and theories of persuasion; qualitative methods; and experimental design. The second article investigates the role of sustainability communication in the attitude-behaviour gap, employing the value-belief-norm theory to explain how information is processed by special interest customers. Interview findings show that ineffective sustainability communication is the reason for the gap and that customers unintentionally booked sustainably. The study identifies eight groups of beliefs which explain the processing of sustainability attributes. Sustainability information is effective when it is value-congruent, that is, when customers perceive they can make a difference, they begin to ascribe a responsibility to themselves. The third article investigates how to design an effective sustainability message in tour operator advertising. Drawing on the ELM, the study shows that appeal type does not significantly influence persuasion but the topic presented is important. Cultural sustainability is the sustainability topic that is most persuasive for cultural tourists, while consumer prior knowledge and issue-involvement with the topic promote successful information processing.
The smallholder-dominated landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia support a unique biodiversity with great importance to local livelihoods and high global conservation value. These landscapes, however, are severely threatened by deforestation, forest degradation and the adverse effects of farmland management regimes. These changes have fundamentally altered the structure of the landscapes and threaten their biodiversity and ecosystem services. Managing biodiversity and related services in such rapidly changing landscapes requires a thorough understanding of the effects of land use change and the reliance of local communities on biodiversity. This dissertation examines woody plant biodiversity patterns and services and presents several recommendations regarding biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services in smallholder-dominated landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. Using a social-ecological systems approach, the author conducted four studies on the complex interactions of local people and woody plant diversity. First, he investigated the effects of human-induced forest degradation on woody plant species. His results suggest that forest biodiversity has been affected by the combined effects of coffee management intensity, landscape context and history at the local and landscape level. Specifically, richness of forest specialist species significantly has decreased with coffee management intensity and in secondary compared to old growth forests, but increased with current distance from forest edge in both primary and secondary forests. These findings highlight the need to maintain undisturbed forest sites to conserve forest biodiversity. Second, the author examined legacy effects of past agricultural land use on woody plant biodiversity. The results show that historical distance seems to be the most important variable affecting woody plant composition and distribution in farmland sections of the landscapes. The author found evidence for immigration credits for generalist and pioneer species but not for extinction debts for forest specialist species which might be rapidly paid off in farmland. The results suggest not only an unrecognized conservation value of old farmland but also a disturbing loss of forest specialist species. To slow this trend, it is necessary to shift to a cultural landscape development approach and to restore forest specialist species in the landscapes. Third, the author evaluated the supply of potential multiple ecosystem services and the relationships between the diversity of woody plant and ecosystem service in the three major land use types, namely forests with and without coffee management and farmland. The results revealed a high multifunctionality of landscapes and showed that ecosystem services significantly increase with woody plant diversity in all types of land use. These findings suggest that the woody plant diversity and multifunctionality in southwestern Ethiopian landscapes has to be maintained. Fourth, the author explored farmers' woody plant use to assess their dependency on and maintenance of woody plants and also considered the influence of property rights and management in this context. He found that local farmers used 95 species for eleven major purposes from all major land uses across the landscapes. He also found that most of the widely used tree species regenerated successfully throughout the landscapes, including in farmland. Local people felt, however, that their property and tree use rights were limited, especially in forests, and that some of the most widely used plant species, including important timber species, appeared to have been overharvested in forests. The results suggest that many species are important for local livelihoods, but a perceived low sense of property rights also seems to adversely affect the management of woody plants, particularly in forests. By focusing on woody plants and their ecosystem services to local people, this dissertation documents a dramatic loss of native forest biodiversity and rapid changes in the cultural landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. Overall, the findings suggest the need for preservation of intact forest sites and for cultural landscapes development to safeguard biodiversity and multifunctionality of the landscapes in the future. This, in turn, requires holistic and integrated approaches that involve local people and recognize their basic needs of woody plants and their property rights to foster the management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Maintaining primary forests in and using cultural landscape approaches to the rapidly changing rural setting of southwestern Ethiopia would also contribute to the global effort to halt biodiversity loss.
This cumulative thesis extends the econometric literature on testing for cointegration in nonstationary panel data with cross-sectional dependence. Its self-contained chapters consist of two publications and two publication manuscripts which present three new panel tests for the cointegrating rank and an empirical study of the exchange rate pass-through to import prices in Europe. The first chapter introduces a new cointegrating rank test for panel data where the dependence is assumed to be driven by unobserved common factors. The common factors are first estimated and subtracted from the observations. Then an existing likelihood-ratio panel cointegration test is applied to the defactored data. The distribution of the test statistic, computed from defactored data, is shown to be asymptotically equivalent to that of a test statistic computed from cross-sectionally independent data. The second chapter proposes a new panel cointegrating rank test based on a multiple testing procedure, which is robust to positive dependence between the individual units' test statistics. The assumption of a certain type of positive dependence is shown by simulations not to be violated in panels with dependence structures commonly assumed in practice. The new test is applied to find empirical support of the monetary exchange rate model in a panel of eight OECD countries. The third chapter puts forward a new panel cointegration test allowing for both cross-sectional dependence and structural breaks. It employs known individual likelihood-ratio test statistics accounting for breaks in the deterministic trend and combines their p-values by a novel modification of the Inverse Normal method. The average correlation between the probits is inferred from the average cross-sectional correlation between the residuals of the individual VAR models in first differences. The fourth chapter studies the exchange rate pass-through to import prices in a panel of nineteen European countries through the prism of panel cointegration. Empirical evidence supporting a theoretical long-run equilibrium relationship between the model's variables is found by the newly proposed panel cointegration tests. Two different panel regression models, which take both cointegration and cross-sectional dependence into account, provide most recent estimates of the exchange rate pass-through elasticities.
Gegenstand der Wissenssoziologischen Diskursanalyse (WDA) ist der sozialpolitische Diskurs zur Weiterentwicklung der Eingliederungshilfe für Menschen mit Behinderungen in der Zeit von 2005 bis 2016. Im Rahmen der WDA wurden zwei Diskursformationen, die die Weiterentwicklung der Eingliederungshilfe notwendig machen erarbeitet: Der Kapazitätendiskurs, der einen monetären Sachzwang konstituiert, auf der einen und der emanzipatorisch-bürgerrechtliche Diskurs, der die Nichtpassung des gegenwärtigen Hilfesystems mit menschenrechtlichen Bestrebungen einer gleichberechtigten und selbstbestimmten Teilhabe am Leben in der Gesellschaft thematisiert, auf der anderen Seite. Zudem wurde die diskursive Konstituierung des zentralen Reformkonzepts "Personenzentrierung", das produzierte Wissen über dieses Konzept, die Strategien der beteiligten Akteure, die mit dem Konzept verfolgt werden, und die dahinterliegenden Deutungsmuster de- und rekonstruiert. Personenzentrierung konstituiert sich insbesondere durch ihre Abgrenzung zu der nicht mehr gewollten, paternalistischen und tendenziell kostenaufwendigen Institutionenzentrierung. Sie beschreibt einen Steuerungsmodus, der mit der Zentrierung des Individuums als zentrales Steuerungsmoment im Leistungsgeschehen und deren Vorstellungen, ihre Leben zu führen, die je passgenauen Leistungen je individuell komponiert (Hilfe folgt Bedarf). Die doppelte Anschlussfähigkeit von Personenzentrierung an die ausgehenden Problemdiskurse offenbart zwei zentrale Deutungsfiguren: Personenzentrierung wird einerseits zu einem sozialpolitischen Steuerungsinstrument, das bedarfsgerechtere und effizientere Leistungen organisiert und Leistungsberechtigte zur Mitwirkung aktiviert, um damit Kosten zu sparen, und andererseits zu einem Selbstbestimmungskonzept, das Leistungsberechtigte aus paternalistisch-fürsorglichen Strukturen befreit und sie als Experten ihrer eigenen Teilhabebedarfe in den Mittelpunkt rückt.
Polen weist eine kleinteilige Agrarstruktur auf – ein in den Augen der polnischen Agrarpolitik unerwünschtes Phänomen. Entsprechend misst sie der Veränderung der kleinteiligen Agrarstruktur Polens zu größeren Einheiten hin eine hohe Priorität bei. Vor dem Hintergrund vielfältiger sozial-ökologischer Krisenphänomene, die oftmals mit einer intensiven, industriellen und großskaligen Landwirtschaft verbunden sind, stellt sich jedoch die Frage, ob solche Bestrebungen im Hinblick auf Nachhaltigkeit, der sich die polnische Agrarpolitik und die Politik für die Entwicklung ländlicher Räume ebenfalls verpflichtet, zielführend sind. Um dieser Frage nachzugehen, wurde für die vorliegende Dissertation in zwei landwirtschaftlich besonders kleinteilig strukturierten Regionen Polens (Wojewodschaft Lubelskie und Wojewodschaft Podkarpackie) eine empirische Studie unter Betreibern von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben durchgeführt. Ziel der Studie war es zu untersuchen, welche Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen sich in kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben finden und ob diese Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen den vielfältigen landwirtschaftsbezogenen sozial-ökologischen Krisenphänomenen entgegenwirken können. Den theoretischen Hintergrund der Arbeit bilden die Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte, das Konzept der gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnisse der Sozialen Ökologie sowie wachstumskritische Positionen (insbesondere die Ansätze von Suffizienz und Subsistenz). Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studie zeigen, dass die Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen von Betreibern von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben sehr vielfältig sind. Die befragten Landwirte verfolgen in ihren Betrieben unterschiedliche ökonomische Modelle. Doch trotz dieser unterschiedlichen Modelle, die die befragten Landwirte in ihren Betrieben verfolgen, liegen ihrem Handeln gleichermaßen der Wunsch nach Existenzsicherung und der Wunsch nach Autonomie als wesentliche Motivation zugrunde. Insgesamt zeigen die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studie einige der Herausforderungen für Betreiberinnen und Betreiber von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben auf, die aus den gegenwärtigen institutionellen und politisch-wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für die Landwirtschaft resultieren. Ebenso zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass die Wirtschaftsweisen, die in den untersuchten kleinen Betrieben vorgefunden wurden, nur bedingt zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ländlicher Räume beitragen können. Die Ergebnisse zeigen insbesondere die Dringlichkeit auf, die gegenwärtigen politisch-wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für die Landwirtschaft zu ändern und naturerhaltende Wirtschaftsweisen auch finanziell attraktiv zu machen, wenn diese einen Beitrag zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ländlicher Räume leisten sollen.
Der Anteil der Menschen, die persönlich oder familiär einen Herkunftsbezug zu Ländern außerhalb Deutschlands aufweisen, steigt seit Jahren an. Diese Menschen werden in der Bevölkerungsstatistik als Personen mit Migrationshintergrund erfasst, wobei vor allem die eigene Staatsangehörigkeit eine Rolle spielt, sowie diejenige der Eltern. In den Mobilitäts- und Verkehrswissenschaften ist das Wissen über diese Bevölkerungsgruppe in Deutschland sehr gering und fragmentiert. Wenig ist bekannt über das Vorhandensein von Nutzungsvoraussetzungen wie Führerscheinbesitz oder der Fähigkeit Fahrrad fahren zu können, über die Verfügbarkeit verschiedener Verkehrsmittel oder über das alltägliche Mobilitätsverhalten. Auffallend ist diese Lücke vor allem im Vergleich mit den USA, wo sich Verkehrs-, Bildungs- und Gesundheitswissenschaften mit dem Mobilitätsverhalten von Migranten beschäftigen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, diese Wissenslücke für Deutschland zu verkleinern. Dabei stellt sich die Frage, ob sich Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund unter den hiesigen Rahmenbedingungen in ihren Mobilitätsvoraussetzungen und in ihrem alltäglichen Mobilitätsverhalten von den Menschen ohne Migrationshintergrund unterscheiden. Darüber hinaus ist die Identifikation wichtiger Einflussfaktoren zur Erklärung des Verhaltens von besonderem Interesse. Grundlage ist eine - teilweise explorativ angelegte - empirische Studie zum Mobilitätsverhalten von Menschen mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund in Offenbach am Main, die 2010 im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojekts am ILS-Institut für Landes- und Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbH durchgeführt wurde. Die Ergebnisse zeigen sowohl Gemeinsamkeiten als auch Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen. Diese betreffen soziodemografische und -ökonomische Faktoren, mobilitätsbezogene Voraussetzungen wie Führerscheinbesitz oder Verkehrsmittelverfügbarkeit, Fragen zur Mobilitätskultur im Elternhaus, aber vor allem die alltägliche Nutzung verschiedener Verkehrsmittel. Die Ergebnisse werden in dieser Arbeit in Artikelform kumulativ präsentiert und durch einen einrahmenden Text eingeleitet, eingeordnet und im Zusammenhang diskutiert.
Gesundheitlich riskanter Alkoholkonsum und Depressionen führen in Deutschland und weltweit zu großen Lebenseinschränkungen und hohen ökonomischen Kosten. Mit internetbasierten Gesundheitsinterventionen wird ein in Deutschland neuer Ansatz zur Prävention alkoholbezogener Erkrankungen vorgestellt und in einer dreiarmigen randomisiert-kontrollierten Studie mit 428 Erwachsenen mit riskantem Alkoholkonsum erprobt (Studie I). Auf Grundlage der vorhandenen Evidenz für die Wirksamkeit internetbasierter Interventionen gegen depressive Beschwerden wird zudem ein Online-Training zur Bewältigung von Depressionen entwickelt und anhand von 131 Personen evaluiert (Studie II). Aufgrund des relativ neuen Interventionsansatzes beschränkten sich bisherige Evaluationsstudien weitgehend auf die klinische Wirksamkeit als Ergebnismaß. Mit zunehmender Evidenz spielen weitere Evaluationskriterien wie die Nutzerzufriedenheit eine wichtige Rolle für die Etablierung dieses Ansatzes. In der Vergangenheit mangelte es jedoch an validierten Messinstrumenten. Zu diesem Zweck wurde in einer dritten Studie (Studie III) die psychometrische Qualität eines Fragebogens zur Messung der Zufriedenheit mit internetbasierten Gesundheitstrainings anhand von zwei unabhängigen Stichproben im Umfang von 174 (Stichprobe 1) und 111 Personen (Stichprobe 2) untersucht. In Studie I konnte gezeigt werden, dass das entwickelte Online-Training "Clever weniger trinken" nach sechs Wochen zu einem Rückgang des wöchentlichen Alkoholkonsums und damit zu einer signifikant stärkeren Reduktion führte als die Wartebedingung. Selbst nach sechs Monaten konnte noch ein signifikanter Trainingseffekt nachgewiesen werden. Darüber hinaus führte das Training zu Verbesserungen des allgemeinen und des arbeitsbezogenen Wohlbefindens. In Studie II konnte gezeigt werden, dass sowohl das entwickelte Online-Training "GET.ON Mood Enhancer" als auch eine kurze Online-Psychoedukation zur Reduktion depressiver Beschwerden bei Personen mit Depression führte. Das Online-Training zeigte sich der Psychoedukation zumindest kurzfristig signifikant überlegen. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass Personen ohne Psychotherapieerfahrung vom Online-Training, nicht aber von reiner Psychoedukation profitieren. Das Online-Training erwies sich zudem im Vergleich zur Psychoedukation als nebenwirkungsarm. Die psychometrische Analyse des Fragebogens zur Zufriedenheit mit internetbasierten Gesundheitstrainings in Studie III bestätigte die Einfachstruktur des Fragebogens, die sich über zwei unabhängige Stichproben hinweg als messinvariant erwies. Die hohe Reliabilität des Fragebogens zeigte sich in McDonald's Omegas von 0,95 in Stichprobe 1 und 0,93 in Stichprobe 2. Die erwarteten mittleren Korrelationen zwischen der Zufriedenheit mit dem Training und den primären Zielkriterien der jeweiligen Trainings (die Reduktion der Depressivität in Stichprobe 1 und die Stressreduktion in Stichprobe 2) weisen auf die gute Validität des Fragebogens hin. Mit dieser Arbeit konnte erstmals gezeigt werden, dass eine internetbasierte Intervention zur Reduktion des Alkoholkonsums sowohl als Selbsthilfevariante als auch mit Begleitung durch einen Online-Coach wirksam ist. Weiter belegt die Arbeit die kurzfristige Überlegenheit einer internetbasierten Intervention zur Bewältigung von Depressionen gegenüber Psychoedukation, die zudem nebenwirkungsarm ist. Mit dem Fragebogen zur Zufriedenheit mit internetbasierten Gesundheitstrainings liegt nun ein validiertes, ökonomisches Instrument zur Ergänzung klinischer Evaluationskriterien um die Nutzerperspektive vor.
Im Zuge der Einführung inklusiver Schulen verändern sich berufliche Anforderungen. Lehrkräfte sehen sich durch inklusionsspezifische Tätigkeiten zusätzlichen Belastungen ausgesetzt. Diese Belastungen sind häufig negativ konnotiert, weil nicht alle Lehrkräfte über die notwendige Expertise zur Bewältigung derer verfügen. Neue Arbeitsroutinen müssen aufgebaut und etabliert werden. Da sich die Belastungen auch auf das Gesundheitserleben der Lehrkräfte niederschlagen können, ist es wichtig Ressourcen in den Blick zu nehmen, die zur Bewältigung der beruflichen Anforderungen benötigt werden. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Analyse der Gesundheitswahrnehmung von Lehrkräften in Bezug auf inklusionsspezifische Tätigkeiten. Dabei ist von Interesse, wie sich das Konstrukt Gesundheit mit Blick auf konkrete Tätigkeiten empirisch abbilden lässt und wovon das inklusionsspezifische Gesundheitserleben beeinflusst wird (Teilstudie 1). In welchem Zusammenhang die Häufigkeit der Ausführung inklusionsspezifischer Tätigkeiten (Erfahrung) mit dem Gesundheitserleben steht (Teilstudie 2) und inwiefern sich das Gesundheitserleben von Lehrkräften unterschiedlicher Schulformen unterscheidet (Teilstudie 3). Die Arbeit leistet einen Forschungsbeitrag durch die Prüfung eines Instruments zur tätigkeitsbezogenen Gesundheitserfassung sowie in Bezug auf das Desiderat an Daten zur Gesundheitswahrnehmung von Lehrkräften im Kontext schulischer Inklusion.
Climate change and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen affect biodiversity patterns and functions of forest ecosystems worldwide. Many studies have quantified tree growth responses to single global change drivers, but less is known about the interaction effects of these drivers at the plant and ecosystem level. In the present study, the authors conducted a full-factorial greenhouse experiment to analyse single and combined effects of nitrogen fertilization (N treatment) and drought (D treatment) on 16 morphological and chemical response variables of one-year-old Fagus sylvatica seedlings originating from eight different seed families from the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain). Drought exerted the strongest effect on response variables, reflected by decreasing biomass production. However, D and N treatments interacted for some of the response variables, indicating that N fertilization has the potential to strengthen the negative effects of drought (with both antagonistic and amplifying interactions). For example, combined effects of N and D treatments caused a sevenfold increase of necrotic leaf biomass. The authors hypothesize that increasing drought sensitivity was mainly attributable to a significant reduction of the root biomass in combined N and D treatments, limiting the plants' capability to satisfy their water demands. Significant seed family effects and interactions of seed family with N and D treatments across response variables suggest a high within-population genetic variability. In conclusion, the findings indicated a high drought sensitivity of Cantabrian beech populations, but also interaction effects of N and D on growth responses of beech seedlings.
Wind energy is expected to become the largest source of electricity generation in Europe's future energy mix. As a consequence, future electricity generation will be exposed to an increasing degree to weather and climate. With planning and operational lifetimes of wind energy infrastructure reaching climate time scales, adaptation to changing climate conditions is of relevance to support secure and sustainable energy supply. Premise for success of wind energy projects is the ability to service financial obligations over the project lifetime. Though, revenues(viaelectricity generation) are exposed to changing climate conditions affecting the wind resource, operating conditions or hazardous events interfering with the wind energy infrastructure. For the first time, a procedure is presented to assess such climate change impacts specifically for wind energy financing. At first, a generalised financing chain for wind energy is prepared to (qualitatively) trace the exposure of individual cost elements to physical climate change. In this regard, the revenue through wind power production is identified as the essential component within wind energy financing being exposed to changing climate conditions. This implies the wind resource to be of crucial interest for an assessment of climate change impacts on the financing of wind energy. Therefore, secondly, a novel high-resolution experimental modelling framework with the non-hydrostatic extension of the regional climate model REMO is set up to generate physically consistent climate and climate change information of the wind resource across wind turbine operating altitudes. With this setup, enhanced simulated intra-annual and inter-annual variability across the lower planetary boundary layer is achieved, being beneficial for wind energy applications, compared to state-of-the-art regional climate model configurations. In addition, surrogate climate change experiments with this setup disclose vertical wind speed changes in the lower planetary boundary layer to be indirectly affected by temperature changes through thermodynamically-induced atmospheric stability alterations. Moreover, air density changes are identified to occasionally exceed the net impact of wind energy density changes originating from changes in wind speed. This supports the consideration of air density information (in addition to wind speed) for wind energy yiel assumptions. Thirdly, the generated climate and climate change information of the wind resource are transferred to a simplified but fully-fledged financial model to assess the financial risk of wind energy project financing with respect to changing climate conditions. Sensitivity experiments for an imaginary offshore wind farm located in the German Bight reveal the long-term profitability of wind energy project financing not to be substantially affected by changing wind resource conditions, but incidents with insufficient servicing of financial obligations experience changes exceeding -10% to 14%. The integration of wind energy-specific climate and climate change information into existing financial risk assessment procedures would illustrate a valuable contribution to enable climate change adaptation for wind energy.
In response to the challenges of the energy transition, the German electricity network is subjected to a process of substantial transformation. Considering the long latency periods and lifetimes of electricity grid infrastructure projects, it is more cost-efficient to combine this need for transformation with the need to adapt the grid to future climate conditions. This study proposes the spatially varying risk of electricity grid outages as a guiding principle to determine optimal levels of security of electricity supply. Therefore, not only projections of future changes in the likelihood of impacts on the grid infrastructure were analyzed, but also the monetary consequences of an interruption. Since the windthrow of trees was identified a major source for atmospherically induced grid outages, a windthrow index was developed, to regionally assess the climatic conditions for windthrow. Further, a concept referred to as Value of Lost Grid was proposed to quantify the impacts related to interruptions of the distribution grid. In combination, the two approaches enabled to identify grid entities, which are of comparably high economic value and subjected to a comparably high likelihood of windthrow under future climate conditions. These are primarily located in the mid-range mountain areas of North-Rhine Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. In comparison to other areas of less risk, the higher risk in these areas should be reflected in comparably more resilient network structures, such as buried lines instead of overheadlines, or more comprehensive efforts to prevent grid interruptions, such as structural reinforcements of pylons or improved vegetation management along the power lines. In addition, the outcomes provide the basis for a selection of regions which should be subjected to a more regionally focused analysis inquiring spatial differences (with respect to the identified coincidence of high windthrow likelihoods and high economic importance of the grid) among individual power lines or sections of a distribution network.
Die in dieser Sammlung zusammengetragenen Texte reichte der Autor als kumulative Habilitationsleistung bei der Fakultät Kulturwissenschaften der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg zum Zwecke des Erwerbs der Lehrbefugnis für die Fachrichtung „Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften“ ein. Als Einzelveröffentlichungen behandeln die Buchkapitel und Journalbeiträge jeweils unterschiedliche Themen, sind aber alle den Fragestellungen der Game Studies und insbesondere dem Phänomen der Gamification verpflichtet. Seit dem Zeitpunkt der ersten hier zusammengestellten Publikation hat sich das Fachgebiet der Gamification Forschung gewaltig weiterentwickelt. Von verschiedenen Autoren wird das Jahr 2010 als die Geburtsstunde der Gamification Forschung angegeben Yongwen Xu (2011) bezieht sich auf einen Vortrag Jesse Schells aus dem Jahr 2010 auf der D.I.C.E.- Konferenz in Las Vegas. Fast zeitgleich erschien Sebastian Deterdings Vortrag „Pawned. Gamification and its Discontents“ (2010). Der Zeitraum von 2010 bis zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt ist daher bedeutsam für das Verständnis digitaler Formen von lediglich ludisch drapierten oder vollständig ins Spiel implementierten Praxen. Ich möchte allerdings mit den hier vorgelegten Schriften die Behauptung ausführen, dass vordigitale Formen von Gamification entscheidend für das Verständnis zeitgenössischer Verschiebungen ins Ludische sind und den kulturwissenschaftlichen Hintergrund dafür auffächern, wie das Gegenwartsphänomen aus seinen kulturhistorischen, medienwissenschaftlichen, politischen und ästhetischen Rahmenbedingungen heraus begriffen werden kann.
This cumulative dissertation deals with the association between corporate governance, corporate finance and corporate tax avoidance in four scientific articles. The aim of this dissertation is to explain corporate tax avoidance by (a) focusing on corporate governance institutions as determinants of tax avoidance and (b) focusing on financial consequences of tax avoidance. Due to the close association between corporate governance and the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the relationship between CSR and tax avoidance is also addressed. The first article using structured literature review methodology, analyzes extant research on the association between corporate governance and tax avoidance based on stakeholder-agency theory. However, also classical principal-agent theory is taken into account as its classical foundation. The first article identifies a number of open research questions and thereby serves as a theoretical basis for the subsequent articles. The second article also using structured literature review methodology, analyzes extant research on the association between CSR and tax avoidance. This article is also based on stakeholder-agency theory and identifies open research questions. The third article based on results of the first article, investigates tax avoidance by German private family firms as a specific variant of corporate governance, using an empirical quantitative approach. The article finds that (a) German private family firms avoid more tax than non-family firms, that (b) tax avoidance is positively associated with the capital stake of the family and that (c) tax avoidance is positively associated with the number of shareholders in both family and non-family firms. Results reinforce that corporate tax avoidance is associated to conflicts among the shareholders of private firms. The fourth article investigates the cost of debt of German public firms as a function of tax avoidance and tax risk. The article finds that (a) tax avoidance is negatively associated to the cost of debt, that (b) tax risk is positively associated to the cost of debt and that (c) the association between tax avoidance and the cost of debt becomes negative when a high level of tax risk is present.
Global climate change and environmental degradation are largely caused by human activity, thus progress towards a sustainable future will require large-scale changes to human behavior. Human-nature connectedness (HNC) - a measure of cognitive, emotional, spiritual and biophysical linkages to natural places - has been identified as a positive predictor of sustainability attitudes and behaviors. While calls to "reconnect to nature" in order to foster sustainability outcomes have become common across science, policy and practice, there remains a great deal of uncertainty, speculation, and conceptual vagueness around how this ought to be implemented. The overarching aim of this thesis is to advance conceptual and empirical understandings of HNC as a leverage point for pro-environmental outcomes and sustainability transformation. In particular, the thesis attempts to assess the nuances of the HNC-PEB (pro-environmental behavior) relationship by investigating the scalar relationships between where someone feels connected to nature and where someone acts pro-environmentally. This research was conducted through conceptual exploration, systematic literature reviews using hierarchical cluster analysis, and empirical case studies relying on structural equation modeling and two-step cluster analysis. The relationship between HNC and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors was investigated in a small microregion of Transylvania, Romania, where traditional relationships with the land and changing socio-economic characteristics provided an interesting case study in which to explore these connections. The key findings can be organized into three sections: Section A, which addresses HNC and its potential for sustainability transformation; Section B, which addresses HNC as a determinant of PEB outcomes, and Section C, which explores the relationships between human-nature connectedness and energy conservation norms, attitudes, and behaviors. Results cumulatively suggest that HNC is a multidimensional construct that requires greater integration across heterogeneous disciplinary and methodological boundaries in order to reach its potential for meaningful sustainability transformation. Results also highlight the critical need to adopt systemic approaches to understanding how interactions between human-nature connections, norms, attitudes, and behaviors are hindering or promoting sustainability outcomes.
Supporting sustainability transformation through research requires, in equal parts, knowledge about complex problems and knowledge that supports individual and collective action to change the system. Recasting the conditions, characteristics, and modes of research processes that address these needs leads to solution-oriented research in sustainability science. This is supported by systematically analyzing the system’s dynamics, envisioning the desired future target state, and by engaging and designing strategic pathways. In addition, learning and capacity building are important crosscutting processes for co-producing required knowledge. In research, we use sophisticated representations as mediators between theories and objects of interest, depicted as visualizations, models, and simulations. They simplify, idealize, and store large and dense amounts of information. Representations are already employed in the service of sustainability, e.g., in communication about climate change. Understanding them as tools to facilitate processes, dialogue, mutual learning, shared understanding, and communication can yield contributions to knowledge processes of analyzing, envisioning, and engaging, and has implications on the design of the sustainability solution. Therefore I ask, what role do representations and representational practices play in the generation of sustainability solutions in different knowledge processes? Four empirical case studies applying rough set analysis, multivariate statistics, systematic literature review, and expert interviews target this research question. The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to a stronger foundation and the role of representation in sustainability science. This includes: (i) to explore and conceptualize representations for the three knowledge processes along selected characteristics and mechanisms; (ii) to understand representational practices as tools and embedded into larger methodological frameworks; (iii) to understand the connection between representation and (mutual) learning in sustainability science. Results point toward crosscutting mechanisms of representations for knowledge processes and the need to build representational literacy to responsible design and participate in representational practices for sustainability.
Metals fulfill crucial functions in areas as diverse as renewable energy, digitization and life style appliances, mobility, communication, or medicine. In the context of sustainability, achieving a more sustainable metal use means (i) minimizing the adverse effects associated with metal production and use and (ii) sustaining the availability of metals in a way that benefits present and future generations. Urgent need to act to avoid bottlenecks as well as meeting the challenge of possible conflicts of use among those areas of application calls for appropriate strategy making to intervene in the complex field of metal production and use that involves various, often interlinked operating levels, actors, and spatial and temporal scales. This dissertation focuses on strategies as a means to intervene in a system. It pursues the question, which design features could guide future strategy making to foster sustainability along the whole metal life cycle, and especially, how a better understanding of temporalities, i.e. understanding time in a diverse sense, could improve strategy design and help to bridge the assumed "transformation-material gap". This research converges the results from four research studies. A conceptual part explores the role of temporalities for interventions in complex and interlinked systems, which adds to the conceptual basis, on which the empirical part builds up to explore present and future interventions in metal production and use. The research revealed three essential needs that future strategies must tackle: (i) managing the complex interlinkages of processes and activities on various operational levels and spatial and temporal scales, (ii) providing clear guidance concerning the operationalization of sustainability principles, and (iii) keeping activities within the planet’s carrying capacity and embracing constant change as an inherent system characteristic. In response to these needs, the author developed three guidelines with two design features each (one relating to content, and one to the process of formulating and implementing the strategy) to guide future strategy making. The results show that time matters in this respect. If considered in close relation to space and diversely understood in the sense of temporalities, it serves to (i) understand the impact (duration and magnitude) of an intervention, (ii) recognize patterns of change that go beyond establishing linear, one-dimensional connections, and (iii) design interventions in a way that considers the resilience of a system. These findings can contribute to closer considering our understanding of transformation processes towards sustainability in future interventions in metal production and use.
"Sustainable development" evolves along the resolutions, declarations, and reports from international processes in the framework of the United Nations (UN). The consensual outputs from such processes feature global-generalised and context-free perspectives. However, implementation requires action at diverse and context-rich local levels as well. Moreover, while in such UN processes national states are the only contractual parties, it is increasingly recognised that other ("nonstate") actors are crucial to sustainability. The research presented here places the attention on bottom-up initiatives that are advancing innovative ways to tackle universal access to clean energy and to strengthen small-scale family farmers. This means, the focus is on bottom-up initiatives advancing local implementation of global sustainability targets, more precisely, targets that make part of the Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 7 (SDG 2 and SDG7). The research asks how such bottom-up initiatives can contribute to the diffusion of sustainability innovations, thereby also contributing to social change. Three aims are derived out of that central question: (1) To understand the role of bottom-up initiatives in the diffusion of sustainability innovations and in the thereby involved social changes. (2) To contribute with my research to the actual diffusion of sustainability innovations. (3) To outline a research approach that provides a solid conceptual and methodological framework for attaining the analytical and transformative aims. The doctoral research comprises four single studies, in which the notion of diffusion is explored at different scopes of social scales. It begins with a thorough analysis of diffusion programs of domestic biodigesters to rural households in countries of the global south. The focus is on the process by which this specific technical inno0vation results integrated (or not) into the daily realities of single rural households, that is, the adoption process. In the second study, the attention is on energy supply models based on different decentralised renewable technologies. Central to these models is the building of new (or strengthening of existing) local socioeconomic structures that can assume and ensure the proper operation and supply of energy services. The interest in this study is on the strategies that organisations implementing community-based energy projects apply to support the realisation of such local structures. The third study focuses on a network of bottom-up initiatives that have been advancing alternative approaches to family farming in Colombia. The network mainly comprises farmers associations, other organisations from civil society, and researchers who had been collaborating and experimenting with innovations in different innovation fields such as technical, organisational, financial, and commercialisation schemes. The aim of this third study is to provide insights into the challenges and difficulties faced by these actors in broadening the diffusion of the innovations they have been advancing. To perform this study, a methodological strategy is applied that combines a transdisciplinary mutual learning format with qualitative content analysis techniques. The fourth and last study is a conceptual disquisition. It develops a conceptual framework that (a) provides better accounts for the particularities of endeavours aimed at the diffusion of knowledge and practices from the bottom-up across local contexts and social scales, and (b) advances first conceptual steps towards an explicit account for the role that innovation research (and innovation researchers) can assume for the actual realisation of diffusion. The main findings or contributions of the doctoral research can be categorised into four subjects: 1) Bottom-up initiatives contribute to the diffusion of sustainable innovations by mobilising transformative resources for inducing diffusion in their scope of action and creating spaces for experimentation in which interventions can be tested (and if necessary adjusted) in order to ensure the proper deployment of innovations. 2) In their efforts to advance the diffusion of sustainability innovations, bottom-up initiatives contribute to social changes for ensuring the effective deployment of the innovations and building local available storage of transformative resources. 3) A conceptualisation of innovation diffusion, in which the work of academic researchers studying innovation is a constitutive part of transdisciplinary knowledge articulations that promote diffusion. In this way transdisciplinary research alliances can be envisioned in which researchers investigate about, with, and for bottom-up initiatives. 4) Contributions to the consolidation, systematisation, and dissemination of strategies that are applied by farmers associations in order to strength the economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of Colombian family farmers.
Increasingly, researchers are expected to work in collaborative interdisciplinary teams to tackle more complex and interrelated problems. However, the prospect of collaborating with others, from different disciplines, exerts countervailing forces on researchers. There is the lure of transcending the limitations of one's own knowledge, methods and conventions, belonging to diverse intellectual communities and tackling, together, ambitious research topics. On the other hand, there is the risk that collaborating across disciplinary boundaries will be taxing, confounding at times, with no guarantee of success. This thesis is about collaborative interdisciplinary research from the perspective of a formative accompanying researcher. The author accompanied an interdisciplinary research team in the field of sustainability over three years for the duration of a collaborative project. Formative accompanying research (FAR) is an approach to "research into research" that learns about, with and for a collaborative interdisciplinary team. The author found - through immersion in the literature, her own daily experiences of collaborating, and her observations – that interdisciplinary collaboration is very difficult. It requires a basic understanding and appreciation of other disciplines and methods, as well as the skills to integrate research inquiries and findings across diverse epistemologies. It also requires awareness that collaborative interdisciplinary research is more than an intellectual task of knowledge creation. Other factors matter, such as interpersonal relationships, power differentials, different research tempos and a sense of belonging. And these factors have an impact on processes and outcomes of collaborative knowledge creation. Knowing this implies a willingness to keep learning and to tolerate discomfort so as to cultivate deeper levels of collaborative capacity. The author discovered that in these deeper levels lie skills for staying with inevitable tensions, for talking and listening to generate new understanding together, and for applying a researcher's frank curiosity to oneself too. A formative accompanying researcher, who is part of the team she is researching, has to navigate delicate terrain. In this thesis, the author develops a FAR methodology that takes seriously the questions of positionality and relationality, and reflects on the experiences of putting these into practice. A FAR practice involves remaining in dynamic movement between observing and participating, between exercising curiosity and care, and between the researchers' own sense of impartiality and investment in relation to the issues at hand. There is merit in furthering the methodology and practice of FAR on its own terms. This includes attending to the skills required by a formative accompanying researcher to remain oriented within the concentric circles of research, relationship and loyalty that make up a collaborative team. There is also the question of how FAR, and other forms of research into research, can help to advance collaborative interdisciplinary research. The author argues for creating the conditions in research teams that would enable treating collaboration as a capacity to develop, and that would facilitate team members' receptivity to learning with FAR. Furthermore, she explores dilemmas of intervening as a formative accompanying researcher and of sustaining dynamic positionality over the long-term.
To counteract species loss and preserve the remaining biodiversity, with its important ecosystem functioning and services essential to human well-being, there is an urgent need to develop promising and long-term conservation strategies. In order to achieve these goals, extensive research to gain a better understanding of the general mechanisms underlying community diversity is of greatest importance. Especially, the identification of intrinsic ecological and distributional species traits is receiving increased attention in ecology and conservation biology research. Depending on the expression of their traits, species perform particular ecosystem functions and respond in a specific manner to environmental conditions. Although insects make up the largest part of animal diversity, the majority of studies on extinctions have mainly focused on vertebrates. Among invertebrates either charismatic taxa or those targeted by conservation laws have been investigated until now (e.g. butterflies or saproxylic beetles). Being highly species-rich and trait-diverse, ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) should be even more suitable for conducting trait-based analyses. Thus, using ground beetles as a model taxon, four case studies focusing on the analyses of traits form the basis of this doctoral thesis. The work of this thesis was conducted with the aim of gaining general insights on the influence of species traits on ground beetle community compositions, such as habitat occupancy and species vulnerability to extinction, for instance. An important aspect when investigating species traits is the consideration of confounding factors, such as dependent relations between the different traits. Compiling a large dataset of 555 Central European species, the author identified that dependent relations between the six tested traits of ground beetles (distribution range size, habitat specialization, body size, hind-wing morphology, breeding season and trophic level) are highly common. Across all identified dependent trait relations, the relation between body size and hind wing morphology or range size and hind wing morphology showed the strongest significant dependencies. Since the consideration of trait relations is necessary to provide reliable interpretations, all analyses of this thesis tested several traits simultaneously and considered possible trait interactions. Studies on local communities found specific traits characterizing the local species pools of certain habitat types. Here, the species pools of seven different habitat types (coastal, forest, mountain, open, riparian, wetland and special habitat) were used to determine habitat-specific trait filters. The identified traits, characteristic for certain habitat types, were in most cases in accordance with the previous findings on local communities. Across Germany, the species of frequently disturbed habitat types, namely coastal, riparian and wetland habitats were characterized by small body size, high amount of macroptery, intermediate to high habitat specialization, spring breeding, and predatory feeding behavior. The species of stable habitat types (forest, mountain, and open habitats), however, were found to be generally larger in body size and more frequently breeding in autumn, further displaying greater variations in the other traits. The gained knowledge on the habitat-specific filtering of traits improve our understanding of the organization and assembly of communities, and can thereby help to detect alterations in the habitat-specific species pool due to natural or human-induced environmental changes. Furthermore, traits can provide evidence on species occurrences and vulnerability to extinction. Three case studies of this thesis aimed to gain new insights on this topic, through the investigations on the following research questions: (1) Which traits drive species extinction risks of Central European ground beetle species? (2) How traits influence the species occurrences of 28 forest species within a large area in Central Europe? (3) Whether certain traits are related to long-term population trends of the species pool from an ancient forest in northern Germany? The results indicated, that depending on the habitat type and tested species pool, different traits prove to be good predictors for the vulnerability of species. Nevertheless, across different geographical and taxonomical scales, especially species with small range sizes and high habitat specialization faced a greater risk of extinction. Therefore, the two traits distributional range size and habitat specialization emerge as reliable predictors of ground beetles vulnerability to extinction. Interestingly, body size did not display a consistent response; while increasing body size led to higher extinction risk in riparian, wetland and open habitats and large macropterous species showed higher extinction risks across the entire species pool, smaller species showed long-term population declines in an ancient forest.
The timber shortage led to large scale afforestations on previously agriculturally used land in Central Europe during the 19th and 20th century. Widespread afforestation programs created recent forest ecosystems (i.e. young forest systems in terms of their development history). Despite the positive effect of increasing the forest area of Central Europe, the ecological effects of these land-use changes on forest ecosystems remain poorly understood. In order to increase the understanding of ecosystem processes in forests, an assessment of conceivable shifts in ecosystem functions caused by former land-use changes and forest management is required. By analysing aboveground growth rates of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in response to environmental change drivers, such as climate extremes and nitrogen (N) deposition, the presented thesis aims to assess the role of land-use and management legacies in modulating present responses to drivers of environmental change. To this end, annual radial growth rates of individual trees were measured in mature beech stands. The investigated stands differed either in their land-use history (i.e. ancient forest sites versus recent forests) or their forest management history (i.e. managed forest sites versus short-term and long-term unmanaged forest sites). Measurements of radial growth rates were complemented by analyses of the fine root systems, soil chemical properties and crown projection areas to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying alterations in tree growth. Within the projects of the presented thesis, shifts in the climate-growth relationships driven by land-use and management legacies were analysed. In addition, land-use legacy mediated differences in the climate-nitrogen-growth relationships were assessed. The key findings are: (I) Soil legacy driven alterations in the fine root systems cause a higher sensitivity of radial increment rates to water deficits in summer for trees growing on recent forest sites than for trees growing on ancient forest sites. (II) Management legacies (in terms of tree release) enhance the sensitivity of beech’s radial growth to water deficits in spring through changes in crown sizes. (III) Interacting effects of spring water deficits and co-occurring high deposition of reactive N compounds lead to stronger radial growth declines in trees growing in ancient forests. This is likely caused by resource allocation processes towards seed production, which is, in turn, mirrored by decreasing radial growth rates. In this context, high N deposition likely boosts mass fructification in beech trees. Overall, it has been demonstrated that the ecological continuity plays a crucial role in modulating both climate sensitivity and the growth response to interacting effects of water deficits and nitrogen deposition in beech trees. The presented thesis identified a trade-off between the climate sensitivity and maximised growth rates within beech trees, depending on forest history. The results show that the growth of beech in ancient, unmanaged beech forests is less sensitive to water deficits than in recent and managed beech forests. Additionally, interacting effects of spring water deficits and N deposition likely increase the reproductive effort of beech trees, particularly in ancient forests. Thus, the results of this thesis once again underpin the uniqueness of ancient, unmanaged beech forests, whose importance for the conservation of biodiversity has been widely acknowledged. In summary, the presented thesis highlights the need to consider the "ecological memory" of forest ecosystems when predicting responses to current and future environmental changes.
Through the expansion of human activities, humanity has evolved to become a driving force of global environmental change and influences a substantial and growing part of natural ecosystem trophic interactions and energy flows. However, by constructing and building its own niche, human distance from nature increased remarkably during the last decades due to processes of globalization and urbanization. This increasing disconnect has both material and immaterial consequences for how humans interact and connect with nature. Indeed, many regions across the world have disconnected themselves from the productivity of their regional environment by: (1) accessing biological products from distant places through international trade, and (2) using non-renewable resources from outside the biosphere to boost the productivity of their natural environment. Both mechanisms allow for greater resource use then would be possible otherwise, but also involve complex sustainability challenges and lead to fundamentally different feedbacks between humans and the environment. This dissertation empirically investigates the sustainability of biophysical human-nature connections and disconnections from a social-ecological systems perspective. The results provide new insights and concrete knowledge about biophysical human-nature disconnections and its sustainability implications, including pervasive issues of injustice. Through international trade and reliance on non-renewables, particularly higher-income regions appropriate an unproportional large share of global resources. Moreover, by enabling seemingly unconstrained consumption of resources and simultaneous conservation of regional ecosystems, increasing regional disconnectedness stimulates the misconception of decoupling. Whereas, in fact, the biophysically most disconnected regions exhibit the highest resource footprints and are, therefore, responsible for the largest environmental damages. The increasing biophysical disconnect between humans and nature effectively works to circumvent limitations and self-constraining feedbacks of natural cycles. The circumvention of environmental constraints is a crucial feature of niche construction. Human niche construction refers to the process of modifying natural environments to make them more useful for society. To ease integration of the chapters in this thesis, the framework paper uses human niche construction theory to understand the mechanisms and drivers behind increasing biophysical disconnections. The theory is employed to explain causal relationships and unsustainable trajectories from a holistic perspective. Moreover, as a process-oriented approach, it allows connecting the empirically assessed states of disconnectedness with insights about interventions and change for sustainability. For a sustainability transformation already entered paths of disconnectedness must be reversed to enable a genuine reconnection of human activities to the biosphere and its natural cycles. This thesis highlights the unsustainability of disconnectedness and opens up debate about how knowledge around sustainable human niche construction can be leveraged for a reconnection of humans to nature.
Whereas the extant literature discusses what Sustainability-Oriented Innovations (SOIs) are and why firms develop them, little is known about how they are developed. To enable firms to innovate for sustainability, it is essential to know more about the processes underlying SOI development, which are considered as very difficult, with many firms failing. Drawing on several academic papers and relying on qualitative research methods, the thesis uses the Fireworks model to examine how innovation processes unfold at established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main contribution of the thesis is to advance the Fireworks model to the context of SOIs unfolding at SMEs. The findings reveal that SOIs unfold in an emergent, somewhat chaotic way, that duration and outcome are uncertain, that the overall journey is composed of multiple intertwined innovation paths, of which several will likely lead to setbacks. To manage this complex process, the thesis suggests to set four management foci: (1) to create a dedicated organizational unit for exploration, (2) to create conditions allowing intelligent learning for efficient exploration, (3) to carry out in-depth investigation of the related technological innovation systems, and (4) to plan carefully the re-integration of the innovation into the core business for commercialization.
This paper-based dissertation deals with capital structures and tax policies of German family businesses. Family firms as the predominant company form in Germany are mainly characterized by the overlapping of the two spheres family and business, both having different goal systems and preferences. This also has an impact on decision making with regard to corporate finance including the application of tax avoidance policies. In Germany, bank finance is the dominant financing source for family firms but there is a preference for internal finance since it comes along with more external independency. Extant research usually bases its results on samples of publicly listed companies. These studies come up with different results regarding family firms' actual financing preferences and capture their heterogeneity only to a very little extent. In this light, the present dissertation and its three papers examine different research questions in the context of capital structure decisions and tax avoidance in family firms. All the three papers apply a quantitative empirical research design. The first paper is a comparison between capital structures of family firms and non-family firms. The paper examines differences in bank debt and trade credit ratios. Overall, the findings show that family firms have significantly higher overall and long-term debt levels compared to their non-family counterparts. The identity as a family firm, which leads to a leap of faith by banks, can be a possible explanation for these results. The second paper is an in-depth examination of drivers of bank debt levels within the group of family firms. Further, it addresses heterogeneity amongst family firms and combines survey results and corresponding financial information. This represents a first attempt to capture family firm heterogeneity and its link to financial issues. The study shows that the more power in the company is exerted via management or supervisory board by the family, the less bank debt is used. Paper three is an extension of the previous two studies as it sheds light on tax avoidance, a significant instrument to strengthen the internal financing capability of a firm. This also takes up a research gap as there is very little research on taxation in family firms. Contrary to the expectation, the study reveals that private family firms might pay less tax than their non-family peers.