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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.
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.
Sustainability and Justice: Conceptual Foundations and Cases in Biodiversity and Fishery Policy
(2014)
Sustainability aims at justice in a threefold sense: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, and justice towards nature. However, the justification, specific content and practical implications of justice claims and obligations in the sustainability context often remain underspecified. This dissertation therefore asks: How can the concept of justice be structured systematically? How can justice be specified in the context of sustainability? Which specific problems of justice arise in sustainability policy? And what are the respective contributions of (sustainability) economics and (sustainability) ethics? The five papers of this cumulative dissertation approach these issues from different angles, working at the conceptual level and at the level of cases from biodiversity and fishery policy. In Paper 1, a formal conceptual structure of justice is developed, which lists the conceptual elements of justice conceptions: the community of justice including claim holders and claim addressees, their claims (and corresponding obligations), the judicandum (that which is to be judged as just or unjust), the informational base for the assessment, the principles of justice, and on a more practical level, the instruments of justice. By specifying these conceptual elements of justice, it is possible to analyse and compare different conceptions of justice. In Paper 2, the normative dimension of sustainability is discussed in terms of justice. Based on the identification of certain core characteristics of the concept of sustainability, we determine the specific challenges of justice in the context of sustainability along the conceptual structure of justice (from Paper 1). Inter alia, we show that sustainability calls for the integration of justice claims in the relationships with contemporaries, future humans and nature in a non-ideal context characterized by uncertainty, systemic mediation and limits. Paper 3 addresses the contribution of economics to the assessment of trade-offs between intergenerational and intragenerational justice. Economic analysis can delineate the opportunity set of politics with respect to the two justice objectives and identify the opportunity cost of attaining one justice to a higher degree. While the two justices are primary normative objectives, the criterion of efficiency - when directed at the attainment of these justice objectives - has the status of a secondary normative objective. Paper 4 constitutes a case study, reconstructing the ´biopiracy´ debate from a justice perspective. The paper links to the so called Access and Benefit-Sharing framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and addresses the question, which problems of justice arise regarding the utilization of genetic resources and traditional knowledge, especially if associated with patenting. It is shown that the predominant perspective of justice-in-exchange is insufficient and therefore complementary conceptions, namely of distributive justice, corrective justice and structural justice have to be taken into account. Paper 5 empirically assesses the justice notions of stakeholders in the Newfoundland fishery, building on qualitative semi-structured interviews and a combination of inductive and deductive coding. A central result is that inshore fishers are seen as the main claim holders, with a claim to participate and being listened to, and the opportunity to make a living from the fishery. Recognition, participation and distribution are all important domains of justice in the context of the Newfoundland fishery. The paper also discusses the relationship between normative theorizing and empirical justice research. Overall, this thesis integrates ideal and non-ideal normative theorizing, economic analysis, empirical justice research and hints at institutional implementation in the debate on sustainability and justice.
Auf Grund der stetig wachsenden Menge an Daten gewinnt die automatische Datenanalyse durch Algorithmen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Im Speziellen trägt die Analyse von Texten ohne manuelles Zutun zu einer erheblichen Erleichterung der Extraktion von relevanten Informationen bei. Sprachliche Informationen können neben der Zuordnung zu Kategorien auf Regeln und Muster untersucht werden. Diese Art der Untersuchung fällt in den Bereich des Text Minings, und in der vorliegenden Arbeit geht es darum, eine qualitative Inhaltsanalyse zum Thema Nachhaltigkeit nachzuempfinden. Es soll geprüft werden, in wie weit automatisierte Verfahren in der Lage sind, Ergebnisse einer bereits bestehenden Untersuchung zu erzielen. In der Durchführung werden mit der Open Source-Software RapidMiner vier Prozesse erstellt, die darauf abzielen, Zeitungsartikel auf ihren Inhalt zu analysieren. Unter anderem werden eine Assoziationsanalyse und eine Klassifikation realisiert, deren Ziel es ist, den Kontext und die Verwendung des Begriffes der Nachhaltigkeit in den Medien zu untersuchen. Die vorliegende Studie will prüfen, ob automatisierten Methoden im Vergleich zu manuellen Verfahren hinreichende Ergebnisse liefern können, sodass die hiesigen Resultate an denen der zu Grunde gelegten Studie von Fischer und Haucke gemessen werden sollen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Realisierung einer Inhaltsanalyse mit RapidMiner möglich ist und zu erheblichen Zeiteinsparungen gegenüber konventionellen Verfahren führt. Sie zeigen jedoch auch, dass sich die Minderung des Aufwandes in der Ergebnisqualität widerspiegelt und somit der alleinige Einsatz von Text Mining Verfahren zur Analyse von spezifischen Kontexten noch nicht ausreichend ist.
Sustainability transitions research proposes fundamental changes of societal systems' organisation to overcome persistent societal challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity loss, and allowing systems to become more sustainable. This thesis adresses an underlying tension in sustainability transitions research: between transitions as an open-ended process of fundamental change and the normative direction of this change: sustainability. In doing so, three themes are in the focus of the research: individual agency, normativity and transdisciplinary collaboration. Thereby, the thesis aims to strengthen process-oriented and potentially transformative approaches to sustainability transition research, in contrast to primarily descriptive-analitical approaches. Transition management as a recent and salient example of transdisciplinary transition research is chosen to provide research framework and application context. Based on conceptual-theoretic, empirical case study and reflexive work, three main results are contributed: First, a psychologically enriched understanding of individual and sustainability related agency in conceptual and empirical understandings of transition management is developed. This builds on two perspectives: a psychologically enriched capability approach as well as the analysis of social effects (social learning, empowerment and social capital development) of transition management to capture sustainability oriented agency increases. As second main result, normative considerations, namely sustainability, are included into transition management on conceptual and empirical levels. Therein, substantive, procedural and intentional aspects of sustainability are combined: Substantive aspects are covered by proposing capabilities, behavioral freedoms to live a valuable life, as normative yardsticks to measure developments. Procedural aspects include a detailed understanding of facilitating a learning journey towards making sustainability meaningful in the local transition management cases and setting up experiments for its realiziation. Intentional aspects are addressed by linking social effects of transition management to awareness, motivations and feelings of responsibility towards sustainability. As a third main result, the transdisciplinary collaboration in transition management of creating an arena as an interactive learning space is conceptualized and explored, as well as the roles of the researchers therein. Key issues of this learning space, the community arena, are drawn out and ideal-type roles and activities of researchers in addressing these issues are proposed and empirically analysed. As synthesis of thesis results, ten principles of sustainability transition management are proposed.
This work investigates how managers/consultants (practitioners) of different ranks are engaged in patterns of behavior (practices) in socially situated contexts (practice) attempting to shape preferred shared interpretations of reality to achieve their goals. Following this line of inquiry, the work aims at (1) advancing our understanding of the role of practitioners in shaping managerial realities and (2) investigating how practitioners actually shape managerial realities, particularly focusing on "reality-shaping" practices and their content. The dissertation comprises a set of four complementary articles investigating these research questions empirically based on in-depth, empirical case studies and theoretically within various managerial contexts (client-consultant relationship, CEO post-succession strategic change process, evolutionary initiative development) and considering different actor perspectives (top managers, middle managers, consultants and clients). Resulting from this variety, the articles rely on and contribute to different, at times distant, research fields and therewith scholarly discussions. However, the literature on sensemaking and sensegiving offers a suitable overarching theoretical frame which is used in this work to synthesize the key contributions of the four articles.
'Bildung für das Leben in der Weltgesellschaft' – eine dokumenten- und fallanalytisch gestützte Untersuchung des Bildungskonzepts der UNESCO-Projektschulen Deutschlands. Die vorliegende Studie begibt sich auf die Suche, eine bildungstheoretische Antwort auf die Herausforderungen unserer Zeit zu finden. Schon 1953 hat die UNESCO vor diesem Hintergrund mit dem ASP-net ein Modellprojekt initiiert, das in dieser Dissertation nachgezeichnet und auf deutscher Ebene eruiert werden soll. Im Titel der Dissertation wird bewusst das Bildungsziel der UNESCO-Projektschulen aufgenommen, da die Untersuchung eine Generierung von Leitbildern gelungenen Lernens und Lebens in Schulen einer globalisierten Gesellschaft verfolgt. Es gilt zu untersuchen, inwiefern der anfängliche Auftrag, neue Methoden und Inhalte einer „Erziehung zu internationaler Verständigung“ zu entwickeln, realisiert wird. Hierfür werden die wichtigsten Referenzdokumente der UN und der UNESCO analysiert. Ihre Umsetzung wird anhand von vier Einzelfallstudien und der Auswertung der Jahresberichte von 177 Schulen des deutschen Netzwerks überprüft.
Smartphones make intensive use of precious metals and so called conflict minerals in order to reach their high performance in a compact size. In recent times, sustainability challenges related to production, use and disposal of smartphones are increasingly a topic of public debate. Thus, established industry actors and newly emerging firms are driven to engage in more sustainable practices, such as sustainable sourcing of materials, maintenance services or take-back schemes for discarded mobile phones. Many of these latter efforts can be related to the concept of a circular economy (CE). This thesis explores how CE-related value creation architectures (VCAs) in the smartphone industry contribute to slowing and closing resource loops in a CE. In order to analyze these new industry arrangements, transaction cost theory (TCT) is used as a guiding theory for a make-or-buy analysis. Combining TCT with the concept of a CE is a novel research approach that enables the empirical analysis of relationships between focal actors (e.g. manufacturers) and newly emerging loop operators (e.g. recycling firms) in the smartphone industry. Case studies of such VCAs are conducted with case companies drawn from the Innovation Network on Sustainable Smartphones (INaS) at Leuphana Universtity of Lüneburg and analyzed regarding their involved actors, partnerships, circular activities, motivation and perceived barriers. Evidence from the conducted case studies suggests that asset specificity for circular practices increases for higher order CE-loops such as maintenance or reuse, therefore long-term partnerships between focal actors and loop operators or vertical integration of CE practices are beneficial strategies to reach a sophisticated CE. Similarly, circular practices that go beyond recycling require a strong motivation, either through integration in the focal firm´s quality commitment or through business model recognition. It is further suggested that the circular design of products and services could reduce necessary transaction costs and thus overall costs of a circular economy. Four different integration strategies for circular economy practices have been derived from the conducted case studies. These are: 1) vertically integrated loops, 2) cooperative loop-networks, 3) outsourcing to loop operators and 4) independent loop operators. This work thus provides evidence that circular economy activities do not necessarily have to be managed by focal actors in the value chain. Rather, circular practices can also be put forward by specialized loop operators or even independent actors such as repair shops.
Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation ist eine inhaltliche und institutionelle Querschnittsaufgabe, die in formelle und informelle Bildungsprozesse eingebettet ist. Das Konzept einer Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung bildet den geeigneten theoretischen Rahmen für die Initiierung und Umsetzung entsprechender Kommunikationsmaßnahmen, die darauf ausgerichtet sind, nicht nur nachhaltigkeitsrelevante Informationen zu vermitteln, sondern auch eine aktive Gestaltung zukunftsfähiger, nachhaltiger Lebensformen und -stile zu ermöglichen und zu fördern. In diesem Kontext befasst sich die vorliegende Dissertation mit der Leitfrage, welche theoretische Rahmung sich für den Einsatz von Ausstellungen zur Vermittlung von Nachhaltigkeitsthemen ergibt. Sie untersucht dabei die Bedingungen und methodisch-instrumentellen Voraussetzungen, die die Wahl geeigneter Vermittlungsinstrumente beeinflussen und geht der Frage nach, welche konzeptionellen Voraussetzungen sich für die Entwicklung, Gestaltung und den Einsatz von Nachhaltigkeitsausstellungen in der Praxis ergeben. Anhand von verschiedenen Praxisbeispielen wird schließlich aufgezeigt, wie sich Nachhaltigkeitsausstellungen evaluieren lassen.
In der Forschungsarbeit wird ein Rahmenmodell von Kompetenzen nachhaltigkeitsorientierter Verwaltungsführung in Kommunen und ihrer Förderung entwickelt und beschrieben. Methodische Grundlage hierfür bilden eine systematische Literaturrecherche sowie 25 qualitative, leitfadengestützte Interviews mit 13 verwaltungsexternen und 12 verwaltungsinternen Experten aus drei Fallstädten (Freiburg, Wernigerode, Ludwigsburg). Übergeordnetes Ziel des Modells ist der Auf- bzw. Ausbau nachhaltigkeitsorientierter Prozesse in Kommunalverwaltungen, um nachhaltige Entwicklung auf lokaler Ebene insgesamt zu fördern. Aufbauend auf dem Managementmodell Mintzbergs und drei Sustainable-Leadership-Modellen werden hierfür nachhaltigkeitsorientierte Handlungsbereiche von Oberbürgermeistern, Beigeordneten und Fach- bzw. Amtsleitungen im Verwaltungsalltag aufgezeigt. Ob bzw. inwieweit diese Handlungsmöglichkeiten genutzt werden, hängt unter anderem von der Ausprägung zentraler Kompetenzen nachhaltigkeitsorientierter kommunaler Verwaltungsführung ab. Diese werden u. a. basierend auf Ansätzen von Nachhaltigkeitskompetenzen für Führungspersonen aus der Privatwirtschaft herausgearbeitet. Ferner werden Förderungsmöglichkeiten solcher Kompetenzen in Aus- und Fortbildung sowie in der Organisationsentwicklung und im kommunalen Personalmanagement hergeleitet und beschrieben. Potentielle konkrete Förderungsmethoden werden ebenfalls untersucht.
The dissertation project focuses on empirically investigating consumers' attitudes, motivations and purchasing decisions regarding sustainable products. The focus on this micro perspective, however, does not reflect consumers' roles within the transformation towards sustainable consumption. Therefore, the present framework paper puts the included papers into a greater context and evaluates the findings on a meta-level by applying an enhanced transition management theory. The analysis underlines that consumers' limited personal capabilities are an underlying reason for unsustainable practices. Therefore, the active engagement not only of consumers, but also of companies is required if the transformation is to be successful. If companies actively support consumers in making sustainable choices, consumers can engage in sustainable consumption with only low cognitive efforts. On this basis, genuine sustainable choices are enabled. The dissertation provides practical implications by highlighting potential measures which will help to promote sustainable products from niches to mainstream. In sum, the dissertation project enhances academic understanding of consumers´ sustainable purchasing behavior and reveals the potential of integrating such insights into the management of transformations towards sustainable consumption.
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.
Ökologische und soziale Themen werden für Marken zunehmend erfolgsrelevant. Jedoch können Nachhaltigkeitsversprechen einer Marke zu Vertrauensvorbehalten seitens der Stakeholder führen, weshalb die Glaubwürdigkeit einer Nachhaltigkeitsmarke besonders wichtig ist. Zudem wird die Wahrnehmung einer Nachhaltigkeitsmarke heutzutage verstärkt durch Stakeholder mitbestimmt, da sie mittels Social Media eigene Inhalte verfassen und im Social Web veröffentlichen können. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurde in der Dissertation erörtert, wie ein Unternehmen seine Marke durch ökologische und soziale Themen stärken kann. Außerdem wurde untersucht, wo in diesem Entwicklungsprozess soziale Medien gezielt eingesetzt werden können. In diesem Kontext wurde auch der Frage nachgegangen, wie die von Stakeholdern im Social Web verfassten Inhalte in Übereinstimmung mit einer intendierten Nachhaltigkeitsmarke gebracht und deren Kraft genutzt werden können. Zentrales Ergebnis der Dissertation stellt ein anwendungsorientiertes Modell für die systematische Social-Media-Verwendung zur Unterstützung des Nachhaltigkeitsmarkenmanagements dar.
Business Models for Sustainability Innovation: Conceptual Foundations and the Case of Solar Energy
(2013)
This dissertation deals with the relationships between the increasingly discussed business model notion, sustainability innovation, and the business case for sustainability concept. The main purpose of this research is to identify and define the so far insufficiently studied theoretical interrelations between these concepts. To this end, according theoretical foundations are developed and combined with empirical studies on selected aspects of the solar photovoltaic industry. This industry is particularly suitable for research on sustainability innovation and business models because of its increasing maturity paired with public policy and market dynamics that lead to a variety of business model-related managerial and entrepreneurial business case challenges. The overarching research question is: How can business models support the commercialisation of sustainability innovations and thus contribute to business cases for sustainability? A theoretical and conceptual foundation is developed based on a systematic literature review on the role of business models in the context of technological, organisational, and social sustainability innovation. Further, the importance of business model innovation is discussed and linked to sustainability strategies and the business case for sustainability concept. These theoretical foundations are applied in an in-depth case study on BP Solar, the former solar photovoltaic subsidiary of British Petroleum. Moreover, because supportive public policies and the availability of financial capital are known to be the most important preconditions for commercial success with innovations such as solar photovoltaic technologies, the solar studies include a comparative multiple-case study on the public policies of China, Germany, and the USA as well as a conjoint experiment to explore debt capital investors’ preferences for different types of photovoltaic projects and business models. As a result, the main contribution of this work is the business models for sustainability innovation (BMfSI) framework. This framework is based on the idea that the business model is an artificial and social construct that fulfils different functions resulting from social interaction and their deliberate construction. The BMfSI framework emphasises the so-called mediating function, i.e. the iterative alignment of business model elements with company-internal and external requirements as well as with the specific characteristics of environmentally and socially beneficial innovations. Against this backdrop, it becomes clear that practically-oriented knowledge based on BMfSI research might provide new and effective ways to support the achievement of corporate sustainability.
Befreiung aus dem Kreislauf des Konsums. Über den Beitrag von Yoga zu einer suffizienten Lebensweise
(2014)
Suffizienz ist ein Strategieansatz, dessen Verfolgung für das Erreichen einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung unerlässlich ist. In ihrer praktischen Umsetzung trifft die Suffizienzstrategie jedoch auf vielfältige Hindernisse, die die Etablierung von konkreten Maßnahmen verhindern. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde untersucht, inwiefern die Philosophie und Praxis des Yoga einen Schlüssel für die Umsetzung der Suffizienz auf privater Ebene darstellen kann. Nach der Methodik der qualitativen Sozialforschung wurden Einzelinterviews mit Yogalehrer*innen durchgeführt, deren Auswertung das Transformationspotenzial des Yoga in Richtung einer suffizienten Lebensweise näher erläutert. Die Forschungsergebnisse bestätigen eine Suffizienzorientierung der befragten Personen seit dem Beginn ihrer Yogapraxis und deuten auf eine erhöhte Bereitschaft für die Akzeptanz von Suffizienzmaßnahmen hin. Ein direkter Zusammenhang zwischen Yoga und dem Wissen um die Notwendigkeit einer suffizienten Lebensweise konnte nicht nachgewiesen werden.
Die Ergebnisse dienen der Suffizienzforschung als Ansatzpunkte für die Entwicklung neuer Umsetzungsstrategien.