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Der Verfasser widmet sich dem Thema, wie die öffentliche Verwaltung eine dauerhaft positive Beziehung zum Bürger handhaben kann. Beim Praktizieren des Citizen Relationship Management (CRM) sind Anleihen beim Customer Relationship Management hilfreich: Verstehen der Kunden und des Marktes, Entwickeln des Angebotes etc.
Der Verfasser widmet sich dem Thema, wie die öffentliche Verwaltung eine dauerhaft positive Beziehung zum Bürger handhaben kann. Beim Praktizieren des Citizen Relationship Management (CRM) sind Anleihen beim Customer Relationship Management hilfreich: Verstehen der Kunden und des Marktes, Entwickeln des Angebotes etc.
Lehrerbildung
Das computergestützte Repetitorium der Elementarmathematik wendet sich an Studierende, die ihre Kenntnisse in der Schulmathematik auffrischen und überprüfen wollen. Die Entwicklung des Repetitoriums geschah in der Absicht, Schwächen handelsüblicher Lernprogramme zu überwinden.
Anstelle von Untersuchungen zum fachbezogenen professionellen Handeln und zur fachlich-didaktischen Expertise der Lehrkräfte offenbart sich ein 'weißer Fleck' auf der Landkarte. In dieser Arbeit wird die These vertreten, dass sich an dieser Stelle ein besonderer 'Ansatzpunkt' findet, Unterricht zu verbessern. Das mag zunächst nur für einen Teilausschnitt aus dem Spektrum von Schule und Unterricht gelten: Für den Mathematikunterricht in der vierten Klasse der Grundschule. Aber aus der Beschäftigung mit diesem Teilausschnitt dürften sich Schlussfolgerungen ziehen lassen, die auch für die von den genannten interkulturellen Vergleichsstudien betrachteten Zusammenhänge durchaus Schlussfolgerungen für Gründe und Verbesserungschancen ermöglichen.
This paper develops the concept of converging institutions and applies it to nanotechnologies. Starting point are economic and sociological perspectives. We focus on the entire innovation process of nanotechnologies beginning with research and development over di_usion via downstream sectors until implementation in final goods. The concept is applied to the nano–cluster in the metropolitan region of Grenoble and a possible converging institution is identified.
This paper examines the effects of credit market imperfections and idiosyncratic risks on occupational choice, capital accumulation, as well as on the income and wealth distribution in a two sector heterogeneous agent general equilibrium model. Workers and firm owners are subject to idiosyncratic shocks. Entrepreneurship is the riskier occupation. Compared to an economy with perfect capital markets, we find for the case of serially correlated shocks that more individuals choose the entrepreneurial profession in the presence of credit constraints, and that the fluctuation between occupations increases too. Workers and entrepreneurs with high individual productivity tend to remain in their present occupation, whereas low productivity individuals are more likely to switch between professions. Interestingly, these results reverse if we assume iid shocks, thus indicating that the nature of the underlying shocks plays an important role for the general equilibrium effects. In general, the likelihood of entrepreneurship increases with individual wealth.
Against the background of the dependence of cultural institutions on public funding and the increasing pressure on public budgets, this thesis aims to make a contribution to the economic analysis of the German cultural sector. For this purpose, three empirical studies focusing on the German cultural sector are conducted, using different methods to quantify the analyzed effects. Chapter 2 describes an application of the contingent valuation method (CVM) for assessing public approval of the amount of subsidies spent on cultural facilities. For our analysis, we conducted a contingent valuation study to capture the willingness to pay (WTP) for the municipal cultural supply in Lüneburg, Germany. To identify the factors associated with the respondents’ WTP, we supplemented an ordinary least squares (OLS) and a Tobit regression model with a quantile regression (QR) model. The findings suggest the existence of non-use values. Since the QR analyzes the coefficients at different points of the distribution of the dependent variable, it accounts for the heterogeneity of preferences. Overall, the results indicate that the QR can provide useful information in deriving implications for cultural policy. In contrast to the consumption-oriented approach of chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4 focus on the production of performing arts in public theaters. Data were taken from the theater reports published by the German Stage Association (Deutscher Bühnenverein) from 1993 to 2007. Chapter 3 uses a stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyze the efficiency of German public theaters. Whether the assumption of cost-minimizing behavior is reliable in the case of public theaters is of particular interest. Thus, in addition to the input distance function model, we employ a cost function model in order to evaluate whether the cost-minimizing behavior can be maintained. We also applied several panel data models that differ in their ability to account for unobserved heterogeneity to evaluate the impact of unobserved heterogeneity on the efficiency estimates. The results indicate that the cost-minimizing assumption cannot be maintained. We also find a considerable unobserved heterogeneity across the theaters that causes a significant variation in the models’ efficiency estimates. Taken together, our results suggest that there is still space for improvement in the employment of resources in the area of performing arts production in Germany. The third study, presented in Chapter 4, discusses the development and sources of productivity in German public theaters. As labor costs increase, productivity decreases over time; this phenomenon is referred to as ”Baumol’s cost-disease”. However, productivity is not influenced only by technological change; technical efficiency and scale efficiency also play a role. Thus, which of the three factors are positive or negative drivers for productivity change in the case of German public theaters is of particular interest. Using a stochastic distance frontier approach to decompose the total factor productivity into the three different sources of productivity the findings indicate that there is no significant technological progress that can countervail the negative productivity trend caused by increasing wages and, thus, support the cost-disease hypothesis. Furthermore, increasing returns to scale for the majority of theatres were found. Chapter 5 summarizes the main results of the three empirical analyses. This is followed by concluding remarks on the need for further research.
Systemprotest! Die Arbeit handelt von Kommunikation. Über Systeme, Schemata, Qualität, Nachhaltigkeit, Erziehung und Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung. Die Arbeit handelt von der Frage, was gute Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung ist. Die Arbeit handelt von den vielen Problemen die auftreten, wenn man solche Fragen stellt. Die Arbeit handelt von Auswegen aus den vielen Problemen, die sich aber erst dann zeigen, wenn man nicht nach ihnen sucht.
Cut,-Copy-and-Paste-Verfahren gelten in Kreisen der Hochkultur immer noch als verschrien und trennen "echte" Kunst eindeutig von Nicht-Kunst. Das Werk Glenn Goulds zeigt beispielhaft, dass solche Festschreibungen nicht immer gelten. Nach dem Ende des auratischen Kunstwerks entsteht keine in und durch die Medien neu vergesellschaftete Kunst, sondern ein neuer Mythos. Nach dem Mythos der High Fidelity folgt der Mythos der Produktionstechniken und ihrer Magier, ein Mythos, an dem Gould - neben seinen Kollegen aus der "populaeren Musik", den Beatles, den Beach Boys und ihren Studioingenieuren - als einer der Ersten kraeftig mitstrickt.
Turings Maschine ist, wie man weiß, nie gebaut worden, und dies wäre auch nicht möglich. Dennoch und gerade deswegen kann sie als das Vorbild eines jeden Computers gelten, der bislang gebaut wurde oder es je werden wird. Denn sie, Turings Gedanken- oder Papiermaschine, wurde mit Vorbedacht als ein so simpler Mechanismus entworfen, daß an ihrer prinzipiellen Realisierbarkeit und daran, dass sie ohne menschlichen Eingriff zu funktionieren imstande wäre, kein Zweifel bestehen kann.
Wir haben es bei unserem Thema also mit einem Phantasma zu tun, dem der Beseelung, der Unterstellung von Odem, von Atem, bei toter Materie, bei den Maschinen. Und auch der Eindruck, die Maschinen machten sich nach und nach selbständig, und sie hätten so etwas wie Autonomie, ist natürlich nicht von der Hand zu weisen. Niemand könnte mehr behaupten, etwa das Internet noch zu beherrschen, wie man ein Werkzeug beherrscht. Unbeherrschbarkeit ist ja geradezu ein notwendiges Charakteristikum selbstorganisierender Systeme. Aber ist es denn so, dass wir unsere Computersysteme nicht mehr direkt programmieren können, bleibt uns, wie bei Kontrollversuchen an autopoietischen Systemen nur die Handlungsoption, Bedingungen für Möglichkeiten zu schaffen, und sind wir dann zum Zusehen und Abwarten verurteilt, ob manches dann auch so kommt, wie wir es intendieren?
Recent discussions about the evolvement of nanotechnologies criticize that the notion ‘risk’ is too abstract and an all-inclusive category. Moreover, the concept of risk is not precise enough to describe the potential issues related to the development of nanotechnologies. Instead, experts of technological development speak more about risk communication. Within the field of nanotechnologies, they even redefined this expression in February 2005 and related it to the question of the societal acceptance of nanotechnologies. Risk communication is about to gain stakeholder acceptance of policy decisions, whereas public and stakeholders are encouraged to participate actively in the communication process through public consultations, hearings, etc. Thus on the one hand, the category of risk has been pragmatically nuanced in order to better highlight the vulnerability of the communication on nanotechnologies. On the other hand, this vulnerable communication is not the result of a deficit of information. It is based on the idea of participation, where the vulnerability relies on the social groups specialized in the design, the application, and the diffusion of nanotechnologies within society. How is this participation possible, and what does it mean? We develop this question in the framework of a comparative survey on experts that are involved in the deployment of nanotechnologies in Grenoble (France) and Hamburg (Germany).
Fostering socio-economic development throughout all Member States is a fundamental goal of the European Union. With one third of its budget, the EU tries to support regional development in lessdeveloped regions and improve the life of its citizens. To reach its goal, a shift can be observed from a single sided focus on factor mobility and thus transportation and other infrastructure facilities to a higher diversity in approaches, including culture, the arts and creativity. Here, creative industries and innovation are keywords within Structural Funds, the main instrument of EU regional policies. However, very little is known on how cultural operators in the form of artists, opera houses etc. contribute to regional development by implementing Structural Funds projects. The framework conditions set on EU level are very open, allowing the sector to contribute in their own way to socioeconomic development. To improve the understanding of how cultural operators access Structural Funds this dissertation was guided by the question: What kind of strategies do cultural operators use to access Structural Funds in Poland? Or on a more abstract level: What are the formal and informal norms within the application process for cultural operators, and in which way do they impact the application strategies of cultural operators in Poland? By working on those questions, this dissertation is providing an insight into how cultural operators on the ground approach Structural Funds. The case study on cultural operators in Poland serves as a concrete example and gives a clearer picture of access strategies, barriers and facilitators within this process. Because research is scarce on this subject, a choice for an in-depth case study analysis within one country was taken. With a theoretical framework of sociological Neo Institutionalism, especially a model developed by Victor Nee and Paul Ingram (1998), the research focusses on different levels of interaction and the role of formal and informal norms. The model was modified to support the analysis of actors’ strategies, and explain the application process of cultural operators. Here, the focus was on the micro level (cultural operators) and its interaction with the meso level (national). The model was enriched at the end of the research with elements of Bourdieu’s theory of practise, namely his concepts of fields and capital. Poland was selected as case study country due to its unique position as the biggest new Member State with its long cultural tradition at the heart of Europe and a very positive formal framework for cultural projects within Structural Funds. The focus was on the years 2004-2007 and thus covered mainly the first funding period for Poland. As empirical evidence, 27 expert interviews were carried out with cultural operators and their environment in Poland. They were analysed on a qualitative basis, using Atlas.ti, and co-occurrence network views. The author conducted all interviews within a period of two months, and most of the interviews were conducted in English. Important steps within the analysis were the emergence of a project idea, the ‘melting’ of this idea into a project application, different challenges linked to the application process and information gathering as a crucial factor within this process. In the end, the findings were validated by three EU experts from the Commission and the European Parliament. Conclusions: Findings show that the application strategy is driven by a set of formal and informal norms. Among them one can find elements linked to financing and co-financing, access and distribution of information and capacity building in the form of knowledge gathering and experience. The informal channels proved to be especially valuable. Further, the organisation resources have a significant impact when applying for Structural Funds. This is not limited to sufficient financial means but also related to existing networks and knowledge of whom to ask for information and support. Here, reference can be made e.g. to Bourdieu’s concept of capitals. Based on those findings, a typology of three different actors’ groups with different challenges and project profiles was developed. It can be shown that their positions and strategies are influenced, not only by formal rules and norms, but also to a high level, by informal norms and structures. As a result, projects were generally implemented by rather big and well-established organisations. Most of them focussed on the conservation of cultural heritage or the construction of new, ‘classical’ cultural infrastructure such as museums and opera houses. However, innovation and creativity are thought to grow especially in smaller, often younger and ‘different’ settings. As the EU is interested in those elements to find a region-tailored solution to socio-economic development needs, a nearly exclusive focus on rather traditional flagship projects implemented by well-established organisations appears insufficient: In other words, there is a discrepancy between proclaimed possibilities and attempts within political statements and Structural Funds rules on one side and the picture on the ground on the other side. Thus, if the fostering of socio-economic development through innovation and new approaches is to emerge, attempts need to be taken to increasingly support cultural operators with less favourable given capital. The thesis presented enhances knowledge within these processes and therefore contributes to the improvement of the situation. Because only if conditions are analysed and known, processes on national and EU level can change and alternatives be considered. As a conclusion for the micro level, a strong networking and gathering of know-how independently from formal structures seems the most promising short-term approach. From a long-term perspective, a formalisation of networks and stronger lobbying, especially on national level but also on EU level will be needed if framework conditions are to change in favour of a more diversified and flexible approach.
The principle of sustainability contains two objectives of justice regarding the conservation and use of ecosystems and their services: (1) global justice between different people of the present generation ("intragenerational justice"); (2) justice between people of different generations ("intergenerational justice"). International sustainability policy attaches equal normative importance to both objectives of justice. Accordingly, environmental philosophers ethically justify that people living today and people living in the future have equal rights to certain basic goods, including ecosystems and their services (e.g. Feinberg 1981, Visser’t Hooft 2007). Whereas ideal theories of sustainability and justice do not recognize interdependencies between intragenerational and intergenerational justice, conflicts in attaining the justices possibly arise in policy implementation. Identifying and preventing such conflicts is fundamental to devise an ethically legitimate, politically consistent and actually effective sustainability policy. This dissertation systematically investigates conflicts between intragenerational and intergenerational justice in the use of ecosystem services. Human wellbeing depends on the services provided by ecosystems. Yet, humans substantially degrade world’s ecosystems, and therewith cause the loss of important ecosystem services (MEA 2005: 26ff.). The idea of sustainability demands to use ecosystem services in accordance with the two objectives of intragenerational justice and intergenerational justice. Reality, however, is far from attaining these objectives: Both today’s global poor and future persons are, resp. will be, disproportionately affected by the loss of vital ecosystem services (MEA 2005: 62, 85). Especially severe affected are the rural poor who directly depend on local ecosystem services for food, income and health. The political discourse on the relationship between the objectives of intra- and intergenerational justice in the use of ecosystem services (‘justice-relationship’) is blurred. Further, the political discourse lacks a common understanding of justice in ecosystem-use and a systematic reflection on the actual ‘justice-relationship’, such as on the factors that cause conflicts between the two justices. In this dissertation, I investigate the ‘justice-relationship’ along three central questions: • What conception(s) of justice can adequately address the distribution of access rights to ecosystem services? • How must sustainability policy be designed to enhance both intragenerational and intergenerational justice in the use of ecosystem services? • (How) Can economics be helpful for characterizing and assessing trade-offs between the two justices? I approach these questions both generally and by the example of a case study, the MASIPAG farmer network in the Philippines. Methodologically, I combine a normative and a positive analysis of the relationship between intra- and intergenerational justice in the use of ecosystem services: The normative analysis serves the explication, justification and reflection of the norms underlying the ‘justice-relationship’; the positive analysis serves the description of the ‘justice-relationship’ in the sustainability discourse and in practical contexts, as well as the provision of explanations on the determinants of the ‘justice-relationship’. As methodological approach, I apply the “comprehensive multi-level approach” as developed by Baumgärtner et al. (2008) – investigating the ‘justice-relationship’ simultaneously on the three levels of (i) concept, (ii) model and (iii) case study.
The postal sector has a long monopolistic tradition in many countries; however, since the 1990s it has undergone considerable changes. At the beginning of that decade, the European Commission abolished exclusive rights within the postal system and opened up the market to new private postal providers and changes have continued to accelerate after two important European directives. Both directives were intended to improve the quality of service in the industry and to open up the market to competition. What has changed since the opening of the German postal market? A look at market shares measured by volumes of processed postal items, or by revenue, quickly reveals the prevailing dominance of the former monopolist Deutsche Post AG (DPAG). Despite an increasing number of market entries by private postal providers, it seems the German postal market is still characterized by the old monopolistic structures and that the aim of creating a competitive environment has not been fully achieved. This thesis deals with different competition issues from an economics perspective. The analyses are based on self-collected data and in-depth interviews conducted during on-site visits and thus provide first empirical evidence regarding the status quo in the German postal market.
Prospective students´ choice of their university is a topic of rising relevance worldwide. As competition on the higher education market and the resultant fight for students increases, universities need to deal with questions of how, when, and why young people decide where to study. This knowledge forms the basis for developing adequate and effective communication strategies enabling university marketers to recruit the best and most suitable students for their institutions. Despite extensive research on these questions, there still are fundamental gaps like the nonobservance of sense making activities, the neglected role of emotions and higher education policies, the suboptimal choice of research methods as well as problematic theoretical assumptions previous research is based upon. In this dissertation, I address all of these gaps in three complementary articles. In the first paper, I compare American with German research on university choice by focusing on the three aspects of theoretical approaches applied in previous studies, choice factors, and information sources prospective students use. On the basis of this literature review, I identify major research gaps with a focus on, but not limited to, the German context. In the second article, by using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), I identify mental models of prospective students that represent their sense making activities. Through this, I get a profound understanding of which rational and especially emotional issues are relevant for the students when they try to make sense of the marketing messages they are confronted with during their university choice process. In the third paper, I challenge the theoretical approaches previous research is based upon by identifying two very different types of decision-makers with their respective choice strategies and logics. Overall, this dissertation contributes to a much more detailed understanding of prospective students´ university choices by identifying their sense-making activities and choice styles, highlighting the role of emotions and context factors, and refining the theoretical foundations university choice research is based upon.
Fragestellung und Kontext: Inwieweit lässt Strafe im Rahmen einer pädagogischen Intervention in der öffentlichen Erziehung heute erziehungswissenschaftlich und rechtlich Legitimieren? Im Verlauf der 70er und 90er-Jahre verschwand der Begriff ´Strafe´ weitgehend aus der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Diskussion. Rückblickend lässt sich nachvollziehen, dass u.a. Impulse aus der ´Stigmatisierungsdebatte´ wie auch die Erkenntnisse, die unter dem Stichwort ´Schwarze Pädagogik´ Eingang in die Debatte fanden. Parallel etablierten sich engagierte Initiativen, antiautoritär mit Kindern umzugehen, gar, ´antipädagogisch´ ganz auf Erziehung zu verzichten. Formeln wie ´Therapie statt Strafe´ initiierten bis in das Strafrecht hinein den Willen, Begriff und Praxis des Strafens zu überwinden. Der bisherigen Debatte, im historischen Zusammenhang sind zwei Aspekte bemerkenswert: Erstens: Das, was objektiv als Strafe gewollt war oder subjektiv so empfunden wurde, hat nicht aufgehört zu existieren. Das heißt: Auch wenn der Begriff Strafe (Sanktion, Konsequenz, sachlogische Folge) tabuisiert und aus dem Fachvokabular gestrichen wurde, wird im Erziehungsalltag weiterhin gestraft, wie die Studie von Günder, Reidegeld, Müller-Schlotmann (2009), treffend nachweisen. Zweitens: Es hat bisher keine systematische Auseinandersetzung in den Erziehungswissenschaften mit dem Phänomen ´Strafe´ gegeben. Erst im Jahr 2013 (ZJJ Heft 3/2013 und 01/2014) gab es einen Versuch aus aktueller Perspektive ´Erziehung´ und ´Strafen´ mehrperspektivisch zu diskutieren. In diese Lücke (Theorie und Handlungslogik) stößt die vorliegende Untersuchung. Auf der Grundlage eines historischen Überblicks wird ein Ansatz entwickelt, mit der Intention und der Fragestellung, wie das Strafproblem in der Erziehung, zumal der öffentlichen, fachlich beantwortet (gelöst) werden könnte. In der interdisziplinär angelegten Untersuchung, ausgehend von der Beobachtung, das Strafe ein fester Bestandteil der Erziehung sei. Dieser Logik selbstverständlichen, ja fraglosen Verhaltens wird in der vorliegenden Erörterung nachgegangen. Zu klären ist die Bedeutung sowie der Einfluss der ´Alltagstheorien´ auf mögliche punitive Tendenzen im Erziehungsalltag, welche durch die oben erwähnte Studie aus dem 2009 zweifelsfrei begründet werden. Diesen Ergebnissen soll mit Hilfe wissenschaftlicher Theorien entgegengetreten werden. Aus dem dafür in Betracht kommenden Bezugswissen nimmt die Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie einen zentralen Stellenwert ein. Des Weiteren wird die Bedeutung des Rechts: Grundgesetz, Familienrecht sowie das SGB VIII betont. Zu klären ist, welche Sanktionen noch vom gegenwärtigen Recht und dem Stand der Fachdiskussion in der Pädagogik gedeckt seien. Das aus dem gesellschaftspolitischem Erziehungsauftrag und den Hilfen zur Erziehung (§ 27 SGB VIII) ablesbar normative Erziehungsverständnis, sei durch einen hohen Anspruch an Funktionalität, Disziplin und soziale Anpassung geprägt. Die Handhabung des ´Strafproblems in der Pädagogik´ sei, trotz der Reformen in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren nach wie vor wesentlich von Alltagstheorien geprägt (Luedtke 2009). Design: Die vorliegende Erörterung ist eine interdisziplinär angelegte, literaturgestützte Untersuchung, die sich ausschließlich auf vorhandenes Wissen/Theorien bezieht.
Die kumulative Dissertation ´CSR-Berichterstattung als Teil unternehmerischen Kommunikationsmanagements und als Beitrag zur Unternehmensreputation´ stellt dar, wie CSR-Berichterstattung als Kommunikationsinstrument einen Beitrag zur Unternehmensreputation leisten kann. Zwei Artikel befassen sich mit CSR-Berichterstattung im deutschen bzw. im weltweiten Bankensektor. Die Ergebnisse des ersten Artikels zeigen, dass die zehn größten deutschen Banken in vier verschiedene Kategorien von Berichterstattern eingeteilt werden können. Der zweite Artikel zeigt, wie die 106 weltweit größten Banken ihre Corporate Websites für CSR-Kommunikation und -Berichterstattung nutzen und welche Kommunikationsmuster es gibt. Der dritte Artikel diskutiert CSR-Berichterstattung anhand von Theorien zum Signalling und zur Wahrnehmung durch Stakeholder. Sein wichtigster Beitrag ist ein konzeptionelles Framework für CSR-Berichterstattung, das zeigt wie ein CSR-Bericht als Kommunikationssignal zwei Filter passieren muss, sodass sich hierdurch die CSR-Reputation vorteilhaft oder unvorteilhaft verändern kann.
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.
In this dissertation, a multi-proxy study, which included palaeoecological, lithological, geochemical and geochronological methods, was carried out to investigate climatic and environmental changes and their interaction during the Quaternary in formerly glaciated and non-glaciated areas. The information obtained will be used to provide a better understanding of the regional stratigraphic framework and to establish broader regional terrestrial correlations within the global marine isotope stage (MIS) framework. This study was conducted on two key drillings, the Garding-2 research drill core in the German North Sea coastal area of Schleswig-Holstein and the GBY#2 archaeological core at the Gesher Benot Ya´aqov (GBY) site, in the Upper Jordan Valley in Israel. The results of this study are presented in three papers. Papers I and II focus on the study of the Garding-2 core, while the multi-proxy study of the GBY#2 core is presented in Paper III. The results of a variety of analyses conducted on the 240 m long Garding-2 sequence show interglacial-glacial cycles that are mainly controlled by variations in temperature. This sequence is composed of mainly fluvial-shallow marine sediments intercalated by muddy-peaty deposits. Based on the palynological and lithological findings, the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition was observed at 182.87 m. It is overlain by Praetiglian and the subsequent sediments of the Waalian and Bavelian Complexes. The boundary of either the second or third Cromerian Interglacial with younger sediments, which still belong to MIS 19, is marked by the last occurrence of Tsuga at 119.50 m and the development of mixed-deciduous forests. The palynologically equivalent sediments of the Bilshausen Interglacial were found below two Elsterian till layers, at 89.00 m-82.00 m. These sediments showed high and increased percentages of Pinus and Picea and scattered occurrences of Abies and Carpinus, which are similar to the features of the beginning of the Bilshausen or Rhume interglacial (Müller, 1992). An unconformity occurred at 80.29 m, at the bottom of late Holsteinian deposits, characterised by the occurrences of Fagus and Pterocarya, with low percentages of Abies and Carpinus and the absence of Buxus. These deposits are succeeded by sediments of the Fuhne cold period that shows higher percentages of NAP and occurrences of Ericales, Helianthemum and Selaginella selaginoides, which are unconformably overlain by Drenthian till at 73.00 m-71.00 m. A single peaty sample at 69.25 m with Pinus-Picea-Abies assemblage is correlated with the late Eemian Interglacial. This deposit is overlain by Weichselian glaciofluvial sediments. Middle-late Holocene sediments occurred from 20 m upwards, following a hiatus, which was caused by the Early Holocene transgression. A subsequent thin layer of marine Atlantic sediments is unconformably overlain by marine-tidal flat deposits up to 11.00 m. The first occurrence of Fagus (at 15.97 m) and Carpinus (at 15.03 m), which was optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)-dated to 3130 +/- 260 BP (at 16.22 m, Zhang et al., 2014), gives evidence for a Subboreal age for these deposits. Sandy sediments of the early Subatlantic, which were deposited between 11.00 m and the top of the Garding-2 sequence, indicate that local salt marshes, dunes and tidal flat vegetation expanded during this period. Due to regional features and the peculiarities of the local coastal environment, the expansions of Fagus and Carpinus, which are characteristic for the Subboreal-Subatlantic transition at about 2700 BP in northern Germany, are not clearly reflected in the Garding-2 pollen diagram. In the Mediterranean area, a 50 m long core of GBY#2, was drilled at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya´akov. The GBY#2 core provides a long Early-Middle Pleistocene geological, environmental and climatological record, which also enriches the knowledge of hominin-habitat relationships documented at the margins of the Hula Palaeo-lake. The sediment sequence of GBY#2 is under- and overlain by two basalt flows that are 40Ar/39Ar dated: two samples at the bottom of the core dated to 1195 +/- 67 ka (at 48.30 m) and 1137 +/- 69 ka (at 45.30 m), and another one at the top dated to 659 +/- 85 ka (at 14.90 m). With the additional chronological identification of the Matuyama Brunhes Boundary (MBB) and the correlation with the GBY excavation sites, the sedimentary sequence of GBY#2 provides the climatic history during the late part of the mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT, 1.2 Ma-0.5 Ma). Multi-proxy analyses including those of pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs, macro botanical remains, molluscs, ostracods, fish, amphibians and micromammals provide evidence for lake and lake-margin environments during MIS 20 and MIS 19. During MIS 20, relatively cool semi-moist conditions were followed by a pronounced dry phase. During the subsequent MIS 19, warm and moist interglacial conditions were characterised by Quercus-Pistacia woodlands in this area. The depositional environment changed from an open water lake during MIS 20 to a lake margin environment in MIS 19. This finding is at odds with changing climate conditions from relatively dry to moist. This discrepancy could be explained by the prograding pattern of the lake shore due to the infilling of the basin, which resulted in shallower water. Climatic changes during the Late Tertiary and the Quaternary in the high latitude regions in northwest Europe and during the Early-Middle Pleistocene in the mid latitude regions of the Middle East follow the patterns of global climatic changes, which are mainly controlled by orbital obliquity (+/-41 ka cycle) during the Early Pleistocene and by orbital eccentricity (+/-100 ka cycle) during the MPT (1.2 Ma-0.5 Ma) and the younger periods of the Quaternary. The results of this study also provide reliable evidence for long distance correlation of stratigraphic and climatic events of the Quaternary, which extends knowledge of regional and global impact of climatic fluctuations on the environment.
Over the last decades corporate irresponsibility has gained increasing interest among practitioners and researchers. Corporate irresponsibility is often the result of intentionally irresponsible strategies, decisions, or actions, which negatively affect an identifiable stakeholder or environment. For instance, these range from the violation of the human rights and labor standards to environmental damages. Organizations enacting irresponsible practices rely on different factors upon multiple levels (field, organizational, individual) and its interrelations as well as processes evolving within the organization leading to such behavior. However, reasons for the occurrence of and explanations for corporate irresponsibility so far have been limited, leaving a fragmented understanding of this phenomenon. This dissertation helps to improve the understanding and explanation of corporate irresponsibility by identifying driving patterns of corporate irresponsibility and showing how the interactions across multiple levels add to this phenomenon. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the topic of corporate irresponsibility, the theoretical approaches of this dissertation and an introduction to the chapters. The second chapter offers a review and analysis of the corporate irresponsibility literature. The chapter presents a variance model outlining the concept, antecedents, moderators and outcomes of recent corporate irresponsibility literature as well as the different factors across levels (field, organizational, individual). Chapter 2 offers a critical analysis of what we know by referring to current literature and offers insights on what we don´t know by deriving main implications for future research on corporate irresponsibility. Chapter 3 enlarges the understanding of corporate irresponsibility introducing a process approach to explain how corporate irresponsibility evolves over time and under which conditions. Based on a qualitative meta-analysis findings converge around two distinct process paths of corporate irresponsibility, the opportunistic-proactive, and, the emerging-reactive, subdivided into three phases. Chapter 3 sheds different lights upon the phases of corporate irresponsibility and its underlying mechanisms. The final chapter 4 focuses on different underlying mechanisms driving the final downfall or demise of organizations, organizational failure. Chapter 4 offers an alternative explanation to the competing extremism and inertia mechanisms driving organizational failure in recent studies by suggesting that these explanations are rather complementary. In addition, chapter 4 enlarges the explanation of organizational failure identifying the role of conflict mechanisms and its interplay with rigidity mechanisms. In sum, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of what causes and increases corporate irresponsibility, and a better explanation of how and why corporate irresponsibility and organizational failure emerges, develops, grows or terminates over time. Hopefully all three articles motivate more research on this important topic to prevent such behavior in advance. 4
The topic of the dissertation, entitled ´Cross-national evaluation of the sources of anti-trafficking enforcement´, is highly relevant from the perspectives of global governance and human rights protection. 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.
Does grass-roots civic engagement improve the quality of public services in countries in which formal oversight institutions are weak?´ It is obvious that formal oversight institutions are weak in developing countries, which causes low-quality public services. This weakness is particularly critical in the health sector - a service domain of crucial relevance for development. This observation has led practitioners to believe that the direct engagement of the beneficiaries of public services is a means to compensate the weakness of oversight institutions and to improve the quality of these services. Given that beneficiaries have incentives to demand good quality services, it is indeed logical to assume that their participation in the monitoring of public services helps to improve the quality of these very services. This positive view of grass-roots civic engagement resonates with the idea that an active civil society helps a political system to build up and sustain a high institutional performance In the eyes of the donors of development aid, this idea nurtures the expectation that strengthening civic engagement contributes to increased aid effectiveness. Accordingly, donor countries have increased their efforts to strengthen beneficiary participation since the 1990s, which moved the concepts of voice and accountability center-stage in the international development discourse. However, whether citizens´ capacity to exercise pressure on service providers and public officials really improves the effectiveness of development aid remains an unresolved question. Building upon recent experimental and comparative case study evidence, the thesis examines the role of citizens´ engagement in the effectiveness of development interventions. The focus is on such interventions in the health sector because population health is particularly critical for prosperity and development, and ultimately for democratization. The key question addressed is if and under what conditions ordinary people´s engagement in collective action and their inclination to raise their voice improves the effectiveness of development assistance for health (DAH). I analyze this question from an interactionist viewpoint, unraveling the complex interplay of civic engagement and health aid with three key institutional variables: (i) state capacity, (ii) liberal democracy and (iii) decentralized government. Drawing upon social capital theory, principal-agent theory, and selectorate theory, I provide compelling evidence that health aid effectiveness depends on (a) bo_om-up processes of demand from service users as well as (b) formal processes of top-down monitoring and horizontal oversight arrangements. In other words, the very interaction of behavioral and institutional factors drives the accountability in public service provision and thus the effectiveness of development assistance for health in recipient countries.
Die Energiepolitik in Deutschland hat in den letzten Jahren umfassende Veränderungen erfahren. In den Fokus rücken dabei immer mehr die erneuerbaren Energien. Deren Anteil an der gesamten Energieerzeugung wird in Zukunft weiter ansteigen. Hintergrund ist die Umsetzung der klimapolitischen Ziele der Bundesregierung: Im Energiekonzept für eine umweltschonende, zuverlässige und bezahlbare Energieversorgung von 2010 wird eine Reduktion der Treibhausgasemissionen um 40% bis zum Jahr 2020 und bis zum Jahr 2050 sogar um 80% gegenüber dem Stand von 1990 angestrebt. Neben dem Energiekonzept der Bundesregierung stellen das Reaktorunglück von Fukushima und die damit verbundene Energiewende 2011 eine wesentliche Zäsur für die Energiepolitik in Deutschland dar. Die Folge war ein beschleunigter Ausstieg aus der Kernenergie sowie die sofortige Abschaltung von acht Kernkraftwerken. Neben der Laufzeitverkürzung und Stilllegung von Atomkraftwerken wurde auch das aus mehreren neuen Gesetzen und Gesetzesänderungen bestehende Energiepaket verabschiedet. Dort wurde mit der Einführung der §§ 12a ff. Energiewirtschaftsgesetz erstmalig eine bundesweite Bedarfsplanung für den Bau von Höchstspannungsleitungen festgelegt. Zudem erfolgte mit der Einführung des Netzausbaubeschleunigungsgesetzes Übertragungsnetz (NABEG) erstmalig ein bundesweit gültiges Gesetz für die Planung von Vorhaben auf der Ebene der Höchstspannungsnetze. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht vor diesem Hintergrund die Frage, ob durch die neu geschaffenen Regelungen des NABEG für Höchstspannungsleitungen eine Beschleunigung innerhalb des Planungsverfahrens erreicht werden kann und ob die mit dem NABEG verfolgten Ziele umgesetzt worden sind. Dabei wird aufgezeigt, wie sich die Zielsetzungen des NABEG zu den denjenigen Zielen der im Rahmen der Abwägung der öffentlichen und privaten Belange zu beachtenden, sonstigen fachspezifischen Gesetzen verhalten. Der Beschleunigungsgedanke darf nicht dazu führen, dass umwelt-, immissionsrechtliche und sonstige fachgesetzliche Aspekte an Gewicht verlieren. Dabei werden auch mögliche Probleme der jetzigen Gesetzeslage beim Freileitungsausbau sowie weitere gesetzliche Möglichkeiten, die Beschleunigung des Netzausbaus zu erreichen, aufgezeigt.
Corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (Transparency International, 2013) is detrimental to economic, social and political development. It intensively violates the fundamental principles of democracy such as equality, fairness, transparency and accountability (Sandholtz and Taagepera, 2005). Europe exhibits a wide spectrum of corrupt activities and is characterized by large differences as to the extent and dynamics of corruption. Thus, it is astonishing that there is still little knowledge about the region-specific factors that determine corruption. Considering corruption as a multilevel phenomenon that takes place at the country level and is often measured by certain aggregated indices, this project examines corruption also at the individual level with data from the World Values Survey. The study includes 37 European countries at the macro level and 20 countries at the micro level (1995-2010). For comparative purposes and in order to uncover specific European determinants of corruption, all statistical calculations are run with an additional sample (“non-European country sample”), including countries world-wide. The results of the panel and multilevel analysis indicate that a country’s rate of inflation, international integration, the degree and duration of democracy, anti-corruption policy, the percentage of women in parliaments, religion, society’s history of corruption strongly influence the extent and dynamics of corruption at the country-level. At the individual level, an individual’s employment status, satisfaction with the financial situation, emancipative values, interpersonal trust and the justification of bribery are significant causes of corruption across and within European countries. A comparison of these results with the findings of the “world sample” clearly demonstrates that there are regional differences.
‚Reallabore‘ erleben als junges Format transformativer Nachhaltigkeitsforschung gegenwärtig eine beeindruckende Konjunktur – ohne das bislang hinreichend geklärt ist, was sie konzeptionell Neues bieten. Die Dissertation arbeitet den Reallabor‐Ansatz aus Perspektive der transdisziplinären Forschung methodisch aus. Die Basis hierfür bildet die Erfahrung mit dem Auf‐ und Ausbau von einem der ersten Reallabore in Deutschland: Das langfristig ausgelegte „Quartier Zukunft – Labor Stadt“ in Karlsruhe transformiert in Kooperation mit der Zivilgesellschaft ein Quartier modellhaft in einen nachhaltigeren Lebensraum. Es setzt dabei gleichermaßen auf Bildung, Forschung und Praxis.
Die vorgelegten Texte der kumulativen Dissertation bilden verschiedene Stadien der Entwicklung der Reallaborforschung und der methodologischen Reflexion ab. Die ersten beiden Texte entwickeln eine praxisnahe Definition und ordnen Reallabore ein in verwandte Diskurse. Die folgenden beiden Texte stammen aus der beginnenden Stabilisierung des Reallabordiskurses. Der eine stellt Ziele und Designprinzipien
für Reallabore als Rahmen transformativer und transdisziplinärer Forschung dar, der
zweite greift aktuelle Diskussionen um Lernprozesse konzeptionell auf. Die letzten beiden Texte fokussieren auf die Ebene der Projekte im Reallabor am Beispiel der Transformativen Projektseminare, einmal in analytischer Perspektive, einmal in methodisch‐didaktischer. Der Rahmentext abstrahiert die Ergebnisse der zuvor publizierten Texte entlang dreier Forschungsfragen und integriert sie zu einem Konzeptmodell transdisziplinärer Forschung im Reallabor, dem „Apfelmodell“.
Auf Basis von Diskursen zu Transdisziplinarität, Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften, Bildungstheorie und Didaktik sowie zu Laboren mit sozialwissenschaftlicher oder interdisziplinärer Ausrichtung werden drei Forschungsfragen verfolgt: Was ist neu am Reallabor‐Ansatz? Welches Potenzial hat ein Reallabor für transdisziplinäre Forschung? Und welche Rolle spielt Lernen im Reallabor? Die methodologische
Reflexion führt zu einem Verständnis von Reallaboren als Format zwischen Urban Living Labs und Transition Labs, das sich gegenüber diesen insbesondere durch Langfristigkeit, Bildungsziele und eine klare Trennung zwischen Labor und Experimenten auszeichnet. Aus der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Reallaboren wird eine doppelte Bezugnahme auf Transdisziplinarität herausgearbeitet, einerseits als Infrastruktur für transdisziplinäre Projekte, andererseits als in sich transdisziplinäres Unterfangen. Ausgehend von dieser Unterscheidung wird ein Vorschlag gemacht, an welche experimentellen Methodologien jenseits der klassisch‐naturwissenschaftlichen die transdisziplinäre Forschung, die bislang kaum experimentell arbeitet, anknüpfen kann. Das Reallabor unterstützt solche Experimente durch einen Rahmen aus materieller Infrastruktur, durch Kompetenzen der Beteiligten,
durch Wissensbestände und soziale Vernetzung. Die Vernetzung über Projektgrenzen hinweg, ein weiteres wesentliches Charakteristikum eines Reallabors, dient dazu, parallele Experimente zu vernetzen und iterative Lernzyklen zu unterstützen.
Diese Aspekte werden verbunden zum „Apfelmodell“ transdisziplinärer Forschung im Reallabor, in dem das Reallabor als doppeltes Bindeglied fungiert, einerseits zwischen internen und externen Lernzyklen, und andererseits zwischen wissenschaftlichen, bildungsorientierten und praktischen. Durch die Interpretation der Abläufe im Reallabor als Lernprozesse wird ein Anschluss an Bildungsprozesse
auf unterschiedlichen Skalen möglich. Neben Lernprozessen im Reallabor als Lernumgebung lässt sich das Reallabor als lernende Institution und als Kristallisationspunkt gesellschaftlicher Lernprozesse verstehen. Das Apfelmodell kann gleichermaßen im Kontext theoretischer Fragen im Transdisziplinaritätsdiskurs
herangezogen werden als auch praktischen Zwecken dienen, insbesondere in der Planung von Reallaboren, in der quervernetzten Konzeption von Projekten darin, in der Evaluation und in der Kommunikation.
The wide accessibility of the Internet and web-based programs enable an increased volume of online interventions for mental health treatment. In contrast to traditional face-to-face therapy, online treatment has the potential to overcome some of the barriers such as improved geographical accessibility, individual time planning, and reduced costs. The availability of clients’ treatment data fuels research to analyze the collected data to obtain a better understanding of the relationship among symptoms in mental disorders and derive outcome and symptom predictions. This research leads to predictive models that can be integrated into the online treatment process to assist clinicians and clients.
This dissertation discusses different aspects of the development of predictive modeling in online treatment: Categorization of predictive models, data analyses for predictive purposes, and model evaluation. Specifically, the categorization of predictive models and barriers against the uptake of mental health treatment are discussed in the first part of this dissertation. Data analysis and predictive modeling are emphasized in the second part by presenting methods for inference and prediction of mood as well as the prediction of treatment outcome and costs. Prediction of future and current mood can be beneficial in many aspects. Inference of users’ mood levels based on unobtrusive measures or diary data can provide crucial information for intervention scheduling. Prediction of future mood can be used to assess clients’ response to the treatment and expected treatment outcome. Prediction of the expected treatment costs and outcomes for different treatment types allows simultaneous optimization of these objectives and to increase the cost-effectiveness of the treatment. In the third part, a systematic predictive model evaluation incorporating simulation analyses is demonstrated and a method for model parameter estimation for computationally limited devices is presented.
This dissertation aims to overcome the current challenges of predictive model development and its use in online treatment. The development of predictive models for varies data collected in online treatment is demonstrated and how these models can be applied in practice. The derived results contribute to computer science and mental health research with client individual data analysis, the development ofpredictive models, and their statistical evaluation.
The aim of this paper is to determine how a carbon footprint label for grocery products can be designed to facilitate a sustainable consumption behaviour. Therefore, a mixed-method approach was used consisting out of a review of relevant literature and an explorative quantitative survey with n=158 participants. It was found that consumers generally have a positive attitude towards carbon labelling, but they lack understanding of the term, its underlying concepts and the emissions caused by grocery products. In regard to the design criteria of a carbon label, labels with a coloured scale are preferred most by consumers. Also, the mechanisms of consumer behaviour imply that not all parts of the behaviour are visible and controllable for individuals themselves. The concluding concept proposal summarises important criteria of a carbon labelling system that has the goal to educate consumers and facilitate a lower carbon consumption behaviour, such as a simple visual design, the use of a colour scale, a design enabling a comparison, the provision of a link to further information, the public enforcement of the system and overall uniformity.
"Torpedoklagen" sind seit vielen Jahren ein Thema im europäischen Zivilprozessrecht. Dabei handelt es sich um die Erhebung einer Klage vor dem Gericht eines EU-Mitgliedstaates, um damit ein Klageverfahren in einem anderen EU-Mitgliedstaat zu blockieren. Obwohl es verschiedene Entscheidungen, Aufsätze und Dissertationen zum Thema gibt, sind bisher nicht alle Fragen aufgeworfen worden. Diese Arbeit soll versuchen, das Licht auf eine bisher nicht ausreichend beachtete Fallkonstellation zu werfen. Dabei wird nicht nur eine, sondern es werden mehrere Torpedoklagen erhoben. Die Masterarbeit zeigt zunächst die Grundlagen von Torpedoklagen auf. Sie beginnt daher mit der Entstehungsgeschichte des heutigen Art. 29 EuGVVO. Sodann werden die bisherigen wichtigsten Entscheidungen des Europäischen Gerichtshofs (EuGH) bzgl. einfacher Torpedoklagen dargestellt. Nachfolgend wird grundlegend das Prinzip von Torpedoklagen samt möglicher Intention erläutert und anhand eines Beispielsfalls dargestellt. Dass die Verfahrensverzögerung ein wichtiges Ziel von Torpedoklagen ist, kann an dieser Stelle schon vorweggenommen werden. Daher werden vorab in einem Exkurs die Verfahrensdauern in den EU-Staaten dargestellt. Das ermöglicht die Einschätzung, über welche Zeiträume man bei der Verfahrensverzögerung spricht. Den Abschluss bilden dann Ausführungen zu Kosten der Torpedoklagen, da insbesondere aus Sicht des Mandanten und des Praktikers die wirtschaftlichen Umstände von Torpedoklagen in den allermeisten Fällen dafür ausschlaggebend sein dürften, ob eine solche erhoben wird oder nicht. Im Anschluss an diese Grundlagen wird zunächst untersucht, wie zu verfahren ist, wenn mehrere Torpedoklagen erhoben werden. Es wird die These aufgestellt, dass bei mehreren Torpedoklagen ein "Kaskadenprinzip" entsteht. Zur besseren Veranschaulichung der ganzen Thematik wird ein Beispielsfall gebildet. Anhand der Auslegung von Art. 29 EuGVVO wird dann überprüft, ob und wie die Vorschrift bei mehreren Torpedoklagen anzuwenden ist. In der Folge wird untersucht, ob es rechtsmissbräuchlich ist, mehrere Torpedoklagen zu erheben. Dabei wird zunächst die bisherige Rechtsprechung dargestellt und die Ansicht in der Literatur zur Rechtsmissbräuchlichkeit von einfachen Torpedoklagen abgebildet. Schließlich versucht die Masterarbeit eine Prognose anhand des bisherigen Meinungsstandes in der Rechtsprechung und Literatur abzugeben. Schließlich wird erläutert und begründet, welche Argumente nach der hier vertretenen Ansicht überzeugend sind. Nachfolgend soll zudem untersucht werden, ob es alternative Lösungsmöglichkeiten gibt.
Das Allgemeine Verhaltensmodell von March und Simon verknüpft vier fundamentale Konstrukte der Verhaltenstheorie: das Anspruchsniveau, die Belohnungserwartung, die Zufriedenheit und die Suche nach Verhaltensweisen, die Erfolg und Zufriedenheit versprechen. Die Teilmechanismen, die in dem Modell postuliert werden, verknüpfen sich zu einem Gesamtmechanismus, der dafür sorgt, dass das Verhältnis von Ansprüchen und Möglichkeiten zum Ausgleich kommt. Eine wichtige Rolle spielen die Parameter des Modells, die die Voraussetzungen und Stärke der Zusammenhänge bestimmen. Neben formalen Funktionen kommt diesen Parametern auch jeweils eine wichtige inhaltliche Bedeutung zu. Der vorliegende Beitrag trägt zur Erkundung des Modells und seiner Implikationen bei.
Das Modell verdient eine größere Beachtung, als ihm bislang geschenkt wurde. Es beschreibt einen fundamentalen Verhaltensmechanismus, der in praktisch allen Bereichen menschlichen Verhaltens wirksam ist. Das Modell besitzt nicht nur eine große Erklärungskraft, es ist außerdem logisch stimmig, kompakt und elegant. Außerdem erweist es sich als in hohem Grad anschlussfähig für eine Vielzahl von theoretischen Ansätzen und empirischen Erkundungen. Es lässt sich anwenden für die Erklärung von allgemeinen Zusammenhängen, für die Beschreibung konkreter Vorgänge und für die Simulation einer Vielzahl von Handlungskonstellationen.
This research report presents a transdisciplinary student research project on the development of climate resilience of communities on the Caribbean Island Dominica.
The research was conducted through a partnership between the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Sustainable Marine Financing Programme (SMF) of the GIZ.
For the GIZ, the research project aimed at improving the understanding of the socio-ecological resilience framework for tackling problems of Marine Managed Areas and Marine Protected Areas. Also, it enabled new thoughts on how the GIZ and other development agencies can more effectively assists island states to better cope with the challenges of climate change.
The role of the students from the “Global Environmental and Sustainability Sciences” programme of Leuphana University included the design of four transdisciplinary research projects to research aspects of resilience of Caribbean communities.
The developing island states in the Caribbean are extremely vulnerable to more frequent and intense natural hazards while relying on the ecosystem services that are also at risk from extreme weather events, in particular Hurricanes. Low economic stability leads to a dependency of the states on international assistance. To decrease the vulnerability to shocks, counteracting measures that encourage learning and adaptation can increase the resilience against extreme weather events and their consequences.
Concepts that were considered during the design of the transdisciplinary research projects were the adaptation of systems, diversity and stakeholder participation and resilience-focused management systems. Also, the students critically assessed the concept of foreign aid and how it can be successful, mitigating the risk of introducing neo-colonial structures. Flood Management, Biodiversity, Small-Scale Agriculture and Foreign Aid on Dominica were the topics of the transdisciplinary projects. The research methods of a literature review, stakeholder mapping, interviews, scenario development and visioning were used in the projects.
In four scenarios developed in the ‘Flood Management’ project, it became evident that a broad as well as coordinated stakeholder engagement and a variety of measures are required for community resilience. A key finding of the ‘Biodiversity’ project was the identity dimension of community resilience, underlining the importance of the relationship between individuals and nature. The interlinkage of social identity processes and a resilient disaster response was also stressed by the project ‘Foreign Aid’, which highlighted that financial support is similarly important to inclusivity and reflexivity in the process of resource distribution. To recover from extreme weather events, the social memory also plays an important role. The project on ‘Small-scale Agriculture’ concluded, that the memory-making of local communities is as vital to community resilience as formal plans and trainings.
The research project was based on the research approach of transdisciplinarity because of its solution-orientation. It links different academic disciplines and concepts, and non-scientific stakeholders are included to find solutions for societal and related scientific problems. In the four projects, principles of transdisciplinary research were party applied, but some challenges arose due to the geographical distance, time constraints and a strong focus on the scientific part in some phases. Nonetheless, the findings of the projects provide valuable learning lessons to be applied in practice and that can prove useful for future research.
Der menschengemachte Klimawandel und seine Folgen erfordern zügiges, entschlossenes und zielgerichtetes Handeln. Mit dem Pariser Klimaabkommen hat sich die Staatengemeinschaft zum Ziel gesetzt, die Klimaerwärmung bei 1,5°C zum vorindustriellen Niveau aufzuhalten. Deutschland hat daher beschlossen, bis 2050 klimaneutral zu werden. Die selbstgesteckten Zwischenziele werden jedoch verfehlt. Der überwiegend auf fossilen Energieträgern beruhende Verkehrssektor ist einer der wenigen Sektoren deren Emissionen steigen statt sinken. 95 % der Emissionen in diesem Sektor werden durch den Straßenverkehr emittiert. Insofern ist es relevant, die Verkehrsmittelwahl im Individualverkehr genauer zu betrachten. Das Auto ist – im Gegensatz zu Fuß-, Rad- und öffentlichem Personennahverkehr (ÖPNV) – positiv konnotiert mit „Fortschritt, Modernität und individueller Freiheit“. Zudem wird das Auto seit Jahrzehnten in unserer Gesellschaft finanziell und räumlich bevorzugt. Daraus sind Privilegien und Probleme erwachsen: unverhältnismäßige Raumnahme und
die Degeneration des öffentlichen Raumes Verursachung von hohen externen Kosten, die nicht durch die Verursachenden sondern durch die gesamte Gesellschaft getragen werden, gesetzliche Bevorzugung sowie staatliche und kommunale Subventionen. Aufgrund dieser strukturellen Privilegierung ist es kaum möglich, eine Änderung des Mobilitätsverhaltens von Individuen zu erwarten, solange sich die Rahmenbedingungen nicht ändern.
Extracting meaningful representations of data is a fundamental problem in machine learning. Those representations can be viewed from two different perspectives. First, there is the representation of data in terms of the number of data points. Representative subsets that compactly summarize the data without superfluous redundancies help to reduce the data size. Those subsets allow for scaling existing learning algorithms up without approximating their solution. Second, there is the representation of every individual data point in terms of its dimensions. Often, not all dimensions carry meaningful information for the learning task, or the information is implicitly embedded in a low-dimensional subspace. A change of representation can also simplify important learning tasks such as density estimation and data generation. This thesis deals with the aforementioned views on data representation and contributes to them. We first focus on computing representative subsets for a matrix factorization technique called archetypal analysis and the setting of optimal experimental design. For these problems, we motivate and investigate the usability of the data boundary as a representative subset. We also present novel methods to efficiently compute the data boundary, even in kernel-induced feature spaces. Based on the coreset principle, we derive another representative subset for archetypal analysis, which provides additional theoretical guarantees on the approximation error. Empirical results confirm that all compact representations of data derived in this thesis perform significantly better than uniform subsets of data. In the second part of the thesis, we are concerned with efficient data representations for density estimation. We analyze spatio-temporal problems, which arise, for example, in sports analytics, and demonstrate how to learn (contextual) probabilistic movement models of objects using trajectory data. Furthermore, we highlight issues of interpolating data in normalizing flows, a technique that changes the representation of data to follow a specific distribution. We show how to solve this issue and obtain more natural transitions on the example of image data.
Rangelands are the most widespread land-use systems in drylands, where they often represent the only sustainable form of land-use due to the limited water availability. The intensity of the land-use of such rangeland ecosystems in drylands depends to a large extent on the climatic variability in time and space, as on the one hand it influences the growth of biomass and therefore the grazing intensity, but on the other hand it can also destroy entire herds through extreme climatic events. Rangeland systems are seriously threatened by climate change, because climate change will alternate the availability of water in time and space. This is dangerous in that we have not yet fully understood how grazing affects vegetation under different climatic conditions. Inadequate rangeland management can quickly lead to serious degradation of the grazing grounds. This dissertation therefore deals with the question which role climatic variability plays for the effects of grazing on vegetation in dry rangelands. The relatively intact steppes in central Mongolia were chosen as a model system. They are characterised by low precipitation and high climatic variability in the south (100 mm annual precipitation), and comparatively high precipitation and low climatic variability in the north (250 mm). The effects of grazing on vegetation on 15 grazing transects were investigated along the climatic gradient. The central elements were the plant species and their abundances on 10 m x 10 m areas, for which functional characteristics such as height, affiliation of functional groups or leaf nutrients were recorded. The main hypothesis of this dissertation is that grazing has a greater impact on vegetation communities with increasing rainfall. To test this hypothesis, three studies were carried out. In a first study, we found that the vegetation communities in the dry area differ strongly along the climatic gradient, while the plant communities in the wetter area differ more strongly along the grazing gradient. The results of the second study suggested that this difference can be explained by a functional environmental filter that becomes weaker from south to north as the niche spectrum increases. The third study has shown that this is likely a function of the higher availability of resources, which at the same time leads to higher grazing pressure, therewith stressing the vegetation especially in years with droughts. In summary, I conclude that the climate gradient also represents an environmental filter that filters species for certain characteristics, thus having a significant influence on the vegetation. Climatic variability influences the effect of grazing on vegetation, which is particularly problematic where the grazing intensity is high and the species are less adapted to strong climatic fluctuations. Future scenarios predict increasing productivity and therefore increasing livestock density. This may lead to an increase in floristic and functional diversity across the climate gradient, but also to increasing grazing effects and therefore threads for overgrazing. Increasing climatic variability is likely to intensify this thread, especially in the moister regions, whereas the dry rangelands are likely to be more resilient due to the adaptation of the plants to non-equilibrium dynamics. The fate of Mongolia’s rangeland systems therefore clearly lies in the hand of the rangeland managers. The sustainable use of Mongolia’s vast steppe ecosystems might depend on a flexible livestock management system which balances the grazing intensity with the available resources, while still considering climatic variability as a key for the management decisions. A potential link-up for future studies might arise from the shortcomings of the studies presented. This dissertation suggests that long-term observations are necessary to better understand the effects of climatic variability. In addition, grazing gradients must be selected more carefully in the future in order to be able to ensure better comparability, and functional analyses should have a stronger relationship to forage quality. With these points in mind, a comparative study of several rangeland ecosystems on a global level must be the ultimate goal. This could be an important step for the sustainable use of drylands in the context of global climate and land use change.
This research report presents a transdisciplinary student research project on developing climate resilience of communities in Marine Protected Areas in the Lesser Antilles. For the second time, the Leuphana University Lüneburg and the Sustainable Marine Financing Programme (SMF) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) partnered up. The first project on the Caribbean Island Dominica showed that community resilience is a complex concept that is not yet well understood. Building on these findings, this year’s project broadened the scope in addressing the effect of varying local conditions on climate resilience on four different Caribbean islands: Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. For the GIZ, the research project aimed at improving the understanding of the socio-ecological resilience framework for tackling problems of Marine Managed Areas (MMA) and Marine Protected Areas (MPA). Also, it enabled new thoughts on how the GIZ and other development agencies can more effectively assist island states to better cope with the challenges of climate change. The role of the students from the “Global Environmental and Sustainability Sciences” programme of Leuphana University included the design of four transdisciplinary research projects to study the effect of varying local conditions in disaster-prone regions in the Southern Caribbean on climate resilience. The developing island states in the Caribbean are extremely vulnerable to more frequent and intense natural hazards while relying on ecosystem services that are threatened by extreme weather events, in particular Hurricanes. After such adverse events, low economic stability leads to a dependency of the states on international assistance. To decrease the vulnerability to shocks, counteracting measures that encourage learning and adaptation can increase the resilience against extreme weather events and their consequences. Concepts that were considered during the design of the transdisciplinary research projects were the adaptation of systems, diversity and stakeholder participation and resilience-focused management systems. Building on the results from last year in Dominica, the establishment of a four islands design allowed for greater comparison to better understand community approaches to solve a concrete sustainability problem: securing livelihoods while protecting natural and cultural resources. The research methods of a literature review, stakeholder mapping, semi-structured interviews, scenario development and visioning were used in the projects. A comparison of the four TD projects revealed four overarching lessons. First, all countries recognise a need for restoration and conservation projects, i.e., nature-based solutions implemented and managed by the local community in the MPA. Furthermore, all four cases show that the limited participation of local people in the management and organisation of the MPA is a factor constraining community resilience. Third, this TD project highlights the importance to distinguish climate change as an event or as a process. When climate change occurs as a series of disaster events (e.g., hurricanes, floodings, and heatwaves) in combination with s gradual degradation of natural ecosystems (e.g., coral bleaching and ocean warming), people in MPA communities show highly adaptive and restorative behaviour. Finally, this project was an attempt to realize a cross-cultural and virtual transdisciplinary project. The research approach of transdisciplinarity links different academic disciplines and concepts, and non-scientific stakeholders are included to find solutions for societal and related scientific problems. A major learning was that in virtual TD projects particular attention needs to be paid to setting clear boundaries and be explicit about success criteria. Nonetheless, the findings of the projects provide valuable learning lessons to be applied in practice and that can prove useful for future research.
Ein- und Zweifamilienhäuser sind in Deutschland die meistgefragte Wohnform und werden gemäß Prognosen auch in naher Zukunft fester Bestandteil der Neubautätigkeit bleiben. Gleichzeitig mahnen Ökologen und Stadtplaner seit längerem die Schwachpunkte der Typologie an und kritisieren beispielsweise die Zerschneidung der Landschaft, den hohen Flächenbedarf und die damit einhergehende Bodenversiegelung. Entgegen dieser Kritikpunkte zeigen andere Studien jedoch auch ökologisches Potenzial von Ein- und Zweifamilienhäusern auf. Beispielsweise können Hausgärten bei entsprechender Gestaltung zum Erhalt der Biodiversität beitragen und die Konnektivität von Habitaten verbessern. Vor diesem Hintergrund analysiert die vorliegende Arbeit die Potenziale der Typologie Ein- und Zweifamilienhaus auf Basis des Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Prinzips. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die Umsetzbarkeit eines positiven Fußabdrucks nach C2C zu untersuchen.
Als Betrachtungsgegenstand werden Ein- und Zweifamilienhäuser in Holzfertigbauweise gewählt, da sich durch die vertragsrechtliche Sonderstellung des Fertighausherstellers als Generalunternehmer und deren interne Entwicklungsabteilungen die Möglichkeit zur ganzheitlichen Umsetzung eines positiven Fußabdrucks ergibt. Zudem nahm der Anteil von Fertighäusern unter den genehmigten Ein- und Zweifamilienhäusern in den letzten Jahren stetig zu und betrug im Jahr 2019 circa 21 Prozent. Davon entfällt der weitaus größte Teil auf Holzbauweisen.
Darüber hinaus wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit untersucht, ob durch die Anhebung der Ziele des nachhaltigen Bauens C2C Gebäude geschaffen werden können. In Verbindung damit wird diskutiert, ob gesetzliche Anreize zur Änderung des Bewusstseins aller Baubeteiligten – weg von der Minimierung negativer Auswirkungen im Sinne der Ökoeffizienz hin zu einem positiven Fußabdruck im Sinne der Ökoeffektivität – führen können. Die Untersuchung des Zusammenhangs zwischen nachhaltigem Bauen und C2C im Bauwesen erfolgt anhand eines Vergleichs verschiedener C2C Leitfäden und der C2C Produktzertifizierung mit Nachhaltigkeitsbewertungssystemen für kleine Wohngebäude. Wie auch bei der Frage nach dem positiven Fußabdruck, stehen dabei die Themen kreislauffähige Materialien, Rückbaupotenziale, Innenraumluftqualität, Wasserkreisläufe, Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien und Förderung von Biodiversität im Vordergrund. Die Umsetzbarkeit eines positiven Fußabdrucks wird anhand verschiedener Fallstudien untersucht. Diese umfassen C2C inspirierte Einfamilienhäuser sowie Ein- und Zweifamilienhäuser in Holzfertigbauweise, die nach dem Bewertungssystem
Nachhaltiger Kleinwohnhausbau (BNK) zertifiziert wurden. Für eine vertiefte Analyse der Themen kreislauffähige Materialien und Rückbaupotenziale werden der Rückbau eines Einfamilienhauses in Holzfertigbauweise und die Versetzung eines Zweifamilienhauses in Holzfertigbauweise begleitet und ausgewertet. Die Untersuchung wird durch die Zerlegung eines Außenwandelements in Holztafelbauweise und die Bewertung dessen Trennbarkeit und Verwertbarkeit
ergänzt.
This cumulative dissertation "Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication: Four empirical studies on the German banking industry" presents how commercial banks in Germany communicate their ambitions and commitment regarding corporate responsibility - i.e., CSR. The results of the first article show that the quality of mandatory non-financial reporting needs to be improved and that certain characteristics (e.g., previous reporting experience, reporting format and standard) have a positive influence on reporting quality. The second article shows that the CSR reporting scope on bank websites also has room for improvement and that various banking characteristics such as size, capital market orientation, media visibility or public ownership have an influence on communication. The third article illustrates that credit institutions in Germany are increasingly using social media for CSR communication, but that CSR communication strategies differ (Facebook vs. Twitter). The fourth article discusses CSR communication using advertisements and shows that the conceptual design of advertisements should be in line with the credit institution's business model and is therefore beneficial.
This book is the result of committed individuals coming together around a shared interest: community-supported (CS) entrepreneurial narratives – existing ones and those which want to be told from now onwards.
While each chapter, i.e. author collective tells different stories, what they have in common is the finding that so-called “alternatives” or solutions do not necessarily need to be invented but to be seen and experienced.
This book is an invitation to learn from practice – to learn from the emerging future – and imagine and feel into new narratives. May this book be useful to both: those of you who first get in touch with the concept of community-supported economy (CSX); and the entrepreneurs among you who want to take ‘economy’ literally. ‘Oikonomia’ originally means household management. Therefore, economy is actually an act of caretaking. Let us do take care of what lies in our hands, e.g. the transformation of economic systems, hence the way we relate to each other.
This chapter is structured into two sub chapters, studied and written by two research-groups, titled: (1) Tales of Challenge (2) Tales of Success. The chapter concludes with a common summary of all findings. In both sub chapters the same approach was applied. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed according to Mayring (2000) to collect perspectives from practice and research. Some interviews were conducted by each research group separately and some together. Also, a method inspired by Photovoice was used to gain a deeper understanding of specific challenges and drivers in the respective projects. Inspired by the Photovoice method (Wang and Burris, 1997), interviewees were asked to share a picture and short description answering a question posed by the researchers to gain a deeper understanding of specific challenges and drivers in the respective projects. Our shared main character, Joice, will keep popping up during this chapter to share her experience.
The concept of CSX allows us to envision how the idea of collaborative problem-solving and non-competitive change-making could be brought to life. The participation at the CSX meets Lüneburg event fueled the vision to find out more about how the CSX framework could be transferable and applicable to the consulting industry and sustainability consulting in particular. The encouraging kick-off led to the research question of: “Can sustainability consulting better fulfill its purpose in a CSX context as opposed to the conventional way?” The aims connected to this research question were to determine the status quo of community-supported approaches in sustainability consulting and to increase the visibility of existing organisations. Goals were also to find out how community-based work can lead to fruitful results in sustainability consulting. This was ought to be done by assessing the embodiment of CSX aspects in existing examples from practice.
Aufbauend auf einem interdisziplinären Modell, das sowohl kognitionspsychologische als auch mathematikdidaktische Fähigkeiten beim Schätzen von visuell erfassbaren Größen (Längen, Flächeninhalte, Fassungsvermögen, Rauminhalte) beinhaltet, und einem Modell zur Systematisierung verschiedener Aufgabenmerkmale wurde im Rahmen dieses Dissertationsprojekts ein schriftlicher Schätztest entwickelt. Der Schätztest beinhaltet insgesamt 48 Items, deren Merkmale zwischen den Größen parallelisiert und gleich verteilt sind (12 Items pro Größe).
Die Daten des Tests werden genutzt, um verschiedene Arten der Ermittlung und Bewertung von Schätzgenauigkeit zu untersuchen, die Schätzgenauigkeit von Kindern der vierten, fünften und sechsten Klasse zu ermitteln und um den Zusammenhang der vier Größen zu beschreiben.
Die Untersuchung verschiedener klassischer Fehlerberechnungs- und Bewertungsarten zeigt wesentliche Unterschiede in Testleistung und Testgüte. Die Berechnung des logarithmischen Fehlers in Verbindung mit einem logarithmischen Scoring wird als ein alternatives Verfahren genutzt.
Die Analyse der Schätzergebnisse von 900 Kindern zeigt, dass sich die Schätzgenauigkeit von Kindern der vierten und sechsten sowie fünften und sechsten Klassen signifikant unterscheidet: Kinder aus höheren Jahrgängen schätzen genauer als Kinder aus niedrigeren Jahrgängen. Es konnte kein signifikanter Unterschied bei der Schätzgenauigkeit zwischen Kindern der vierten und fünften Klassen festgestellt werden. Darüber hinaus unterscheidet sich Schätzgenauigkeit signifikant zwischen den Größen: Längen werden am genauesten geschätzt, gefolgt von Fassungsvermögen, Flächeninhalten und Rauminhalten. Alle Größen korrelieren bezüglich der Schätzgenauigkeit moderat miteinander. Die Schätzgenauigkeit von Längen kann als Prädiktor für die Schätzgenauigkeit der anderen Größen herangezogen werden.
Companies are invited to contribute to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability management accounting (SMA) has an important role to play in achieving them. However, if companies are to address the SDGs and linkages beyond organizational boundaries, SMA needs a broader scope than is conventionally assumed. Therefore, I advance a multi-level framework that addresses context, action-formation, and transformative contributions (CAT) in the following directions: first, an innovative systematic method that allows screening company-related SDGs and assessing corporate contributions to selected SDGs is introduced; second, management control systems are integrated to support managers in guiding employee behavior to make contributions to the SDGs; and, third, self-reinforcing mechanisms of the path-dependence theory are incorporated to serve as a guide to identifying barriers to individuals and groups becoming involved in SMA. This advanced CAT framework contributes to corporate practice and research by providing a multilevel framework that offers concrete management guidance for SMA to address the SDGs. It also facilitates analysis of both enabling and inhibiting factors at the organizational level. The advanced CAT framework has several implications for SMA: it promotes backcasting from the SDGs for benchmarking purposes, integrates different social, environmental, and economic issues, facilitates future-oriented action and transformation planning, addresses different layers such as the company as well as individuals and groups within it and enables to identify barriers hindering individuals and groups from becoming involved in SMA.