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Through the “Act to Strengthen the Non-financial Reporting by Corporations in their Management and Group Management Reports” (Gesetz zur Stärkung der nichtfinanziellen Berichterstattung der Unternehmen in ihren Lage- und Konzernlageberichten) (CSR Directive Transposition Act, „CSR-RUG“) of 11 April 2017[1], the German Bundestag implemented Directive 2014/95/EU (“CSR Directive”)[2] into German law. Following the European impetus, the CSR-RUG enriches the traditional repertoire of forms of action under environmental law by a further instrument. Already the regulatory context gives an idea of its atypical nature: The centrepiece of the CSR-RUG is the amendment of and addition to the Third Book of the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch, “HGB”), which deals with the “trading books” of undertakings, i.e., accounting and reporting requirements. Since the reporting year 2017, large capital market-oriented corporations must report extensively within the framework of their annual management reports on their activities and effects in certain areas of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This also includes environmental matters. The transparency and publicity this entails is intended to generate positive stimuli for more responsible, sustained and not least of all environmentally friendly entrepreneurial action.
Following a brief presentation of the European legal bases and their implementation in Germany (I.), we will classify the provisions within the underlying concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (II.) and analyse and systemise the governance effects of non-financial reporting (III.). A few remarks on selected aspects of the chosen approach and its implementation (IV.) as well as an outlook summarising our conclusions (V.) will complete this article. By detailing the German approach to transposing the CSR Directive, this paper intends to provide an example of the challenges member state legislators face when complying with modern governance concepts such as Corporate Social Responsibility by way of non-financial reporting obligations.
[1] Federal Law Gazette, Part I 2017, 802 et seq.
[2] Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council 22 October 2014 amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups, OJ EU No. L 330, p. 1.
Critical consumerism is complex as ethical values are difficult to negotiate, appropriate products are hard to find, and product information is overwhelming. Although recommender systems offer solutions to reduce such complexity, current designs are not appropriate for niche practices and use non-personalized intransparent ethics. To support critical consumption, we conducted a design case study on a personalized food recommender system. Therefore, we first conducted an empirical pre-study with 24 consumers to understand value negotiations and current practices, co-designed the recommender system, and finally evaluated it in a real-world trial with ten consumers. Our findings show how recommender systems can support the negotiation of ethical values within the context of consumption practices, reduce the complexity of finding products and stores, and strengthen consumers. In addition to providing implications for the design to support critical consumption practices, we critically reflect on the scope of such recommender systems and its appropriation.
The article contributes to understanding the political economy of implementation of social protection programmes at local level. Current debates are dominated by technocratic arguments, emphasizing the lack of financial resources, technology or skills as major barriers for effective implementation. Describing how chiefs, assistant-chiefs and community elders are routinely at the centre stage of core implementation processes, including targeting, enrolment, delivery, monitoring, awareness and information, data collection or grievance and redress, this study on Kenya argues for the need to look more closely into the local political economy as an important mediating arena for implementing social policies. Implementation is heavily contingent upon the local social, political and institutional context that influences and shapes its outcomes. These processes are ambivalent involving multiple forms of interactions between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ institutional structures, which may support initial policy objectives or induce policy outcomes substantially diverging from intended policy objectives.
This textbook contains and explains essential mathematical formulas within an economic context. A broad range of aids and supportive examples will help readers to understand the formulas and their practical applications. This mathematical formulary is presented in a practice-oriented, clear, and understandable manner, as it is needed for meaningful and relevant application in global business, as well as in the academic setting and economic practice.
Universities, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Africa – Conference Proceedings 2020
(2021)
These proceedings are the outcome of the 8th annual joint conference on "Universities Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Africa" between the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany, held on 19-20 February 2020 on Campus Sankt Augustin, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences.
In March 2020, the world was hit by the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic which led to all‐embracing measures to contain its spread. Most employees were forced to work from home and take care of their children because schools and daycares were closed. We present data from a research project in a large multinational organisation in the Netherlands with monthly quantitative measurements from January to May 2020 (N = 253–516), enriched with qualitative data from participants' comments before and after telework had started. Growth curve modelling showed major changes in employees' work‐related well‐being reflected in decreasing work engagement and increasing job satisfaction. For work‐non‐work balance, workload and autonomy, cubic trends over time were found, reflecting initial declines during crisis onset (March/April) and recovery in May. Participants' additional remarks exemplify that employees struggled with fulfilling different roles simultaneously, developing new routines and managing boundaries between life domains. Moderation analyses demonstrated that demographic variables shaped time trends. The diverging trends in well‐being indicators raise intriguing questions and show that close monitoring and fine‐grained analyses are needed to arrive at a better understanding of the impact of the crisis across time and among different groups of employees.
Many workers experience their jobs as effortful or even stressful, which can result in strain. Although recovery from work would be an adaptive strategy to prevent the adverse effects of work-related strain, many workers face problems finding enough time to rest and to mentally disconnect from work during nonwork time. What goes on in workers’ minds after a stressful workday? What is it about their jobs that makes them think about their work? This special issue aims to bridge the gap between research on recovery processes mainly examined in Occupational Health Psychology, and research on work stress and working hours, often investigated in the field of Human Resource Management. We first summarize conceptual and theoretical streams from both fields of research. In the following, we discuss the contributions of the five special issue papers and conclude with key messages and directions for further research.
Sharing economies enabled by technical platforms have been studied regarding their economic, legal, and social effects, as well as with regard to their possible influences on CSCW topics such as work, collaboration, and trust. While a lot current research is focusing on the sharing economy and related communities, there is little work addressing the phenomenon from a socio-technical point of view. Our workshop is meant to address this gap. Building on research themes and discussion from last year’s ECSCW, we seek to engage deeper with topics such as novel socio-technical approaches for enabling sharing communities, discussing issues around digital consumer and worker protection, as well as emerging challenges and opportunities of existing platforms and approaches.
While academic research on recovery was rather segregated between occupational health psychology and management research at the beginning of the 20s century and streams of research developed independently, recent developments hint at a closing divide and better integration of recovery research across disciplines. This for example becomes evident in publications of researchers across the traditional outlets within both fields, as well as increasing close collaborations of researchers firmly rooted in one of the fields. In preparation of this special issue, the editors were interested in whether this development represents a convergence or even a true merging of research in these different disciplines. We therefore interviewed Prof. Sabine Sonnentag as expert from occupational health psychology research and Prof. Ute Stephan with expertise in management research. Both are excellent and world-famous researchers in their disciplines. We discussed the current state, the advances during the last years, and the future directions of recovery research in their respective fields. We also talked about their perspectives on integrative topics and about specific issues in both domains that might stimulate a new recovery management research agenda.
This article explores the opportunities, challenges, as well as the activities of the Chinese governmental and commercial stakeholders to promote cross-border e-commerce trade between China and Africa, based on the classification and correlation analysis of the literature from 2011 to 2019. The results show that the biggest driver for the development of China-Africa cross-border e-commerce trade is the gap between the rapid growth of the African population, especially the middle class, and the limited local capability to satisfy their demand. The rapid development of the internet and mobile internet is another driving factor. The biggest challenge is the last mile delivery of logistics, and online payment issues in Africa. At the macro-level the Chinese government has promoted measures such as infrastructure investment, e-commerce test zones and the establishment of pilot projects. At the firm level, Chinese companies have focused on solving practical micro-level local operational problems such as logistics, online payment, and talent training. The results also show that the referred literature is still in its infancy, mostly theoretical and less practical, and requires more in-depth domain specific analysis in the future.
Since its advent, the sustainability effects of the modern sharing economy have been the subject of controversial debate. While its potential was initially discussed in terms of post-ownership development with a view to decentralizing value creation and increasing social capital and environmental relief through better utilization of material goods, critics have become increasingly loud in recent years. Many people hoped that carsharing could lead to development away from ownership towards flexible use and thus more resource-efficient mobility. However, carsharing remains niche, and while many people like the idea in general, they appear to consider carsharing to not be advantageous as a means of transport in terms of cost, flexibility, and comfort. A key innovation that could elevate carsharing from its niche existence in the future is autonomous driving. This technology could help shared mobility gain a new boost by allowing it to overcome the weaknesses of the present carsharing business model. Flexibility and comfort could be greatly enhanced with shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs), which could simultaneously offer benefits in terms of low cost, and better use of time without the burden of vehicle ownership. However, it is not the technology itself that is sustainable; rather, sustainability depends on the way in which this technology is used. Hence, it is necessary to make a prospective assessment of the direct and indirect (un)sustainable effects before or during the development of a technology in order to incorporate these findings into the design and decision-making process. Transport research has been intensively analyzing the possible economic, social, and ecological consequences of autonomous driving for several years. However, research lacks knowledge about the consequences to be expected from shared autonomous vehicles. Moreover, previous findings are mostly based on the knowledge of experts, while potential users are rarely included in the research. To address this gap, this thesis contributes to answering the questions of what the ecological and social impacts of the expected concept of SAVs will be. In my thesis, I study in particular the ecological consequences of SAVs in terms of the potential modal shifts they can induce as well as their social consequences in terms of potential job losses in the taxi industry. Regarding this, I apply a user-oriented, mixed-method technology assessment approach that complements existing, expert-oriented technology assessment studies on autonomous driving that have so far been dominated by scenario analyses and simulations. To answer the two questions, I triangulated the method of scenario analysis and qualitative and quantitative user studies. The empirical studies provide evidence that the automation of mobility services such as carsharing may to a small extent foster a shift from the private vehicle towards mobility on demand. However, findings also indicate that rebound effects are to be expected: Significantly more users are expected to move away from the more sustainable public transportation, leading to an overcompensation of the positive modal shift effects by the negative modal shift effects. The results show that a large proportion of the taxi trips carried out can be re-placed by SAVs, making the profession of taxi driver somewhat obsolete. However, interviews with taxi drivers themselves revealed that the services provided by the drivers go beyond mere transport, so that even in the age of SAVs, the need for human assistance will continue – though to a smaller extent. Given these findings, I see action potential at different levels: users, mobility service providers, and policymakers. Regarding environmental and social impacts resulting from the use of SAVs, there is a strong conflict of objectives among users, potential SAV operators, and sustainable environmental and social policies. In order to strengthen the positive effects and counteract the negative effects, such as unintended modal shifts, policies may soon have to regulate the design of SAVs and their introduction. A key starting point for transport policy is to promote the use of more environmentally friendly means of transport, in particular by making public transportation attractive and, if necessary, by making the use of individual motorized mobility less attractive. The taxi industry must face the challenges of automation by opening up to these developments and focusing on service orientation – to strengthen the drivers’ main unique selling point compared to automated technology. Assessing the impacts of the not-yet-existing generally involves great uncertainty. With the results of my work, however, I would like to argue that a user-oriented technology assessment can usefully complement the findings of classic methods of technology assessment and can iteratively inform the development process regarding technology and regulation.
HR Management & Leadership
(2021)
Despite the increasing interest in single family offices (SFOs) as an investment owned by an entrepreneurial family, research on SFOs is still in its infancy. In particular, little is known about the capital structures of SFOs or the roots of SFO heterogeneity regarding financial decisions. By drawing on a hand-collected sample of 104 SFOs and private equity (PE) firms, we compare the financing choices of these two investor types in the context of direct entrepreneurial investments (DEIs). Our data thereby provide empirical evidence that SFOs are less likely to raise debt than PE firms, suggesting that SFOs follow pecking-order theory. Regarding the heterogeneity of the financial decisions of SFOs, our data indicate that the relationship between SFOs and debt financing is reinforced by the idiosyncrasies of entrepreneurial families, such as higher levels of owner management and a higher firm age. Surprisingly, our data do not support a moderating effect for the emphasis placed on socioemotional wealth (SEW).
Data emerged as a central success factor for companies to benefit from digitization. However, the skills in successfully creating value from data – especially at the management level – are not always profound. To address this problem, several canvas models have already been designed. Canvas models are usually created to write down an idea in a structured way to promote transparency and traceability. However, some existing data science canvas models mainly address developers and are thus unsuitable for decision-makers and communication within interdisciplinary teams. Based on a literature review, we identified influencing factors that are essential for the success of data science projects. With the information gained, the Data Science Canvas was developed in an expert workshop and finally evaluated by practitioners to find out whether such an instrument could support data-driven value creation.
Describing the elephant: a foundational model of human needs, motivation, behaviour, and wellbeing
(2020)
Models of basic psychological needs have been present and popular in the academic and lay literature for more than a century yet reviews of needs models show an astonishing lack of consensus. This raises the question of what basic human psychological needs are and if this can be consolidated into a model or framework that can align previous research and empirical study. The authors argue that the lack of consensus arises from researchers describing parts of the proverbial elephant correctly but failing to describe the full elephant. Through redefining what human needs are and matching this to an evolutionary framework we can see broad consensus across needs models and neatly slot constructs and psychological and behavioural theories into this framework. This enables a descriptive model of drives, motives, and well-being that can be simply outlined but refined enough to do justice to the complexities of human behaviour. This also raises some issues of how subjective well-being is and should be measured. Further avenues of research and how to continue building this model and framework are proposed.
Autonomous driving enables new mobility concepts such as shared-autonomous services. Although significant re-search has been done on passenger-car interaction, work on passenger interaction with robo-taxis is still rare. In this paper, we tackle the question of how passengers experience robo-taxis as a service in real-life settings to inform the interaction design. We conducted a Wizard of Oz study with an electric vehicle where the driver was hidden from the passenger to simulate the service experience of a robo-taxi. 10 participants had the opportunity to use the simulated shared-autonomous service in real-life situations for one week. By the week's end, 33 rides were completed and recorded on video. Also, we flanked the study conducting interviews before and after with all participants. The findings provided insights into four design themes that could inform the service design of robo-taxis along the different stages including hailing, pick-up, travel, and drop-off.
Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) is still a fragmented space to design for due to the rapidly evolving hardware, the interdisciplinarity of teams, and a lack of standards and best practices. We interviewed 26 professional AR/VR designers and developers to shed light on their tasks, approaches, tools, and challenges. Based on their work and the artifacts they generated, we found that AR/VR application creators fulfill four roles: concept developers, interaction designers, content authors, and technical developers. One person often incorporates multiple roles and faces a variety of challenges during the design process from the initial contextual analysis to the deployment. From analysis of their tool sets, methods, and artifacts, we describe critical key challenges. Finally, we discuss the importance of prototyping for the communication in AR/VR development teams and highlight design implications for future tools to create a more usable AR/VR tool chain.
Do socio-economic factors impede the engagement in online banking transactions? Evidence from Ghana
(2020)
Researchers have long pondered on the online banking transaction adoption. Some of these studies focus primarily on the motivating factors that affect customers’ intention to adopt/accept these services (technologies). However, research into the constraining factors, in particular socio-economic factors, barely exist in the literature, especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. Against this background, the paper seeks to fill in this gap by: (1) assessing the socio-economic factors impeding the engagement of e-banking transactions among retail bank customers in Ghana, and (2) examining the moderating effect of ‘customer experience of Internet’ on the identified factors that inhibit the engagement in online banking in Ghana. The paper used a quantitative research approach to obtain data from two leading Ghanaian banks. Out of the 450 questionnaires distributed, 393 were valid for analysis. Data were analyzed with the aid of PLS-SEM (partial least squares and structural equation modeling). Findings revealed that perceived knowledge gap and the price of digital devices were directly important to the intention to disembark on e-banking transactions among Ghanaian bank customers. Whilst customer experience (frequent use of the Internet), as a moderator variable, has a significant effect on the interaction between perceived knowledge gap and the intent to disembark on e-banking transactions; and finance charges and the intent to disembark on e-banking transactions. Study implications and directions for future research are discussed in the paper.
Until recently, studies regarding e-banking transactions have focused more on motivational factors that trigger the intention to accept and use the e-banking transaction, rather than the de-motivational factors that propel the action. However, in the developing countries like Sub-Sahara economies, the factors associated with the former have not been explored and are still rudimentary in the literature. Drawing from the Technology Threat Avoidance Theory (TTAT), the study seeks to examine the impact of online identity theft on customers’ willingness to engage in e-banking transactions in Ghana. A quantitative survey of 393 valid responses from retail bank customers amongst two leading commercial banks in Ghana for the analyses. Results from the PLS-SEM showed that the research constructs; perceived online identity theft’ positively and significantly predict “fear of financial loss”, “fear of reputational damage”, and “security and privacy concern” whilst the former has a negative mediated-relationship between perceived online identity theft and the intention to engage in e-banking transaction. This study is the first of its kind that has extended the application of the TTAT framework into the study of e-banking transactions. The study serves as a practical tool that will enable the banks in their quest to assess customers’ restriction/aversion towards the use of Fintech while ensuring sustainable growth of e-banking transactions in an emerging economy context. The study is limited to only banking institutions in Ghana without considering other players in the financial sub-sector. Future research direction has been suggested in the concluding part of the paper.
In 1991 the researchers at the center for the Learning Sciences of Carnegie Mellon University were confronted with the confusing question of “where is AI” from the users, who were interacting with AI but did not realize it. Three decades of research and we are still facing the same issue with the AItechnology users. In the lack of users’ awareness and mutual understanding of AI-enabled systems between designers and users, informal theories of the users about how a system works (“Folk theories”) become inevitable but can lead to misconceptions and ineffective interactions. To shape appropriate mental models of AI-based systems, explainable AI has been suggested by AI practitioners. However, a profound understanding of the current users’ perception of AI is still missing. In this study, we introduce the term “Perceived AI” as “AI defined from the perspective of its users”. We then present our preliminary results from deep-interviews with 50 AItechnology users, which provide a framework for our future research approach towards a better understanding of PAI and users’ folk theories.
Business Management
(2020)
Background: While work-related rumination increases the risk of acute stressors developing into chronic load reactions and adverse health, mental detachment has been suggested as a way to interrupt this chain. Despite the importance of mentally detaching from work during leisure time, workers seem to struggle to disengage and, instead, experience the constant mental representation of work-related stressors, regardless of their absence. Those who struggle with work-related rumination could benefit from an easy-access intervention that fosters mental detachment by promoting recreational activities. Especially during vacations, workers appear to naturally engage in sufficient recovery activities; however, this beneficial behaviour is not sustained. The smartphone app-based intervention “Holidaily” promotes recovery behaviour and, thus, mental detachment from work with the intension of extending the beneficial effects of workers’ vacations into their daily working life.
Methods: This randomised-controlled trial (RCT) evaluates the efficacy of “Holidaily”. The Holidaily app is a German stand-alone program for mobile devices with either Android/iOS operating systems. The sample includes workers, who are awaiting to go on vacation and are randomly assigned to either the intervention (IG) or a waitlist-control group (CG). The IG receives two weeks pre-vacation access to Holidaily, while the CG receives access two weeks post-vacation. On a daily basis participants in the IG are provided with three options promoting recreational activities and beneficial recovery experiences. Online questionnaires are distributed to all participants at several timepoints. The primary outcome measure assesses participants’ work-related rumination (Irritation Scale). A significant difference two weeks post-vacation is expected, favouring the IG. Secondary outcomes include symptoms of depression, insomnia severity, emotional exhaustion, thinking about work, recovery experiences, vacation specifics, work and personal characteristics. To help explain the intervention’s effect, explorative analyses will investigate the mediation properties of the frequency of engaging in recreational activities and the moderation properties of Holidaily users’ experiences.
Discussion: If successful, workers will maintain their recovery behaviour beyond their vacation into daily working life. Findings could, therefore, provide evidence for low-intensity interventions that could be very valuable from a public-health perspective. App-based interventions have greater reach; hence, more workers might access preventative tools to protect themselves from developing adverse health effects linked to work-related rumination. Further studies will still be needed to investigate whether the vacation phenomenon of “lots of fun quickly gone” can be defied and long-term benefits attained.