Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Working Paper (19)
- Study Thesis (15)
- Report (6)
- Article (4)
- Master's Thesis (3)
- Book (2)
- Conference Proceeding (2)
- Periodical (2)
Has Fulltext
- yes (53)
Keywords
- Germany (14)
- USA (13)
- Market Research (12)
- Export Opportunities (10)
- EOS (9)
- Entrepreneurship (8)
- Nachhaltigkeit (5)
- Sustainability (4)
- TH Köln (4)
- Fair Trade (3)
Faculty
- Fakultät 04 / Schmalenbach Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften (53) (remove)
This paper gives an overview of the development of Fair Trade in six European countries: Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. After the description of the food retail industry and its market structures in these countries, the main European Fair Trade organizations are analyzed regarding their role within the Fair Trade system. The following part deals with the development of Fair Trade sales in general and with respect to the products coffee, tea, bananas, fruit juice and sugar. An overview of the main activities of national Fair Trade organizations, e.g. public relation activities, completes the analysis. This study shows the enormous upswing of Fair Trade during the last decade and the reasons for this development. Nevertheless, it comes to the conclusion that Fair Trade is still far away from being an essential part of the food retail industry in Europe.
The increasing public awareness of business related impacts on environmental and social well-being, be it positive or negative, are nowadays key drivers of corporate success. Internal and external business environments exert pressure and force transparency as well as responsible action in terms of resolving environmental and social impacts. In line with this, Porter and Kramer regard business behaviour that addresses societal needs and challenges, as the “new way to achieve economic success”.
However, whereas some companies “remain trapped in an out-dated approach to value creation” and restrict their CSR commitment to the compliance with governmental regulation, others proactively address stakeholder needs. By addressing these needs, companies can benefit from grasping the opportunity of enhanced cost efficiency and lowered risk or gaining competitive advantages through establishing unique value propositions, in a way that meets stakeholder demands. Apart from that, CSR performance can be seen as powerful tool to successfully influence stakeholder perceptions in terms of reputation, and thus an exceptional source of value creation. In addition to this, organisations can profit from win-win-win situations related to syncretic value creation by means of partnering with stakeholders. This, however, implies expanding the focus of cost- and risk-reduction towards increasing competitiveness through creating mutual benefits for environment, society and the economy alike.
Although a growing number of companies have recognised the advantages coming along with Corporate Social Responsibility engagement, the accompanying efforts have not been sufficiently mature yet. Due to the fact that many organizations apply a rather narrow and out-dated approach to value creation, they fail to achieve a balance between environmental, social and economic objectives. This, in turn, implies a restriction in their ability to exploit the full value creation potential that is related to CSR engagement. But even organisations applying a broader perspective of value creation, struggle to internalise the opportunities. This is mainly due the challenge of balancing and integrating economic and non-economic criteria. At the same time, organizations are facing the challenge of getting support from senior management and staff. Thus, in order to profit from adopting a ‘broad perspective’, firms must build a deep understanding of the benefits resulting from mutual value creation. However, the main challenge remains the systematic and strategy related integration of Corporate Social Responsibility strategies into core business processes. In respect to this, organizations have to take into account that “social and environment performance are almost certainly unique to each organization”. Thus, value creation in terms of CSR has to be understood as a highly complex set of cause-an-effect relationships among mediating variables and situational contingencies, which is too specific to rely on poorly structured and generic approaches.
In brief, organisations seem to struggle establishing an understanding that does not consider environmental, social and economic benefits as mutually exclusive. Notwithstanding, that such an understanding is established the complexity of factors influencing Corporate Social Responsibility impedes to balance between economic and non-economic criteria. Furthermore, organisations have difficulties to strategically integrate, manage and measure environmental and social performance drivers as well as outcome measures.
Die Reihe „Basiswissen zur Nachhaltigkeit“ versucht zu verschiedenen Themen der Nachhaltigkeit, z.B. Klimawandel, Abfallwirtschaft, soziale Gerechtigkeit, grundlegende Fakten zusammenzustellen. Zielsetzung ist es ein Grundwissen bereitzustellen, das zum einen als Ausgangspunkt für vertiefende Analysen dient und zudem eine faktenbasierte Grundlage für die eigene Meinungsbildung sein kann.
Der vorliegende Aufsatz behandelt die Problemfelder der Abfallwirtschaft in Deutschland und weltweit. Zunächst werden die grundlegenden Informationen zu den Begriffen Abfallwirtschaft, Abfallarten, Abfallentsorgung, Recycling u.a. zusammengetragen. Es folgt eine Darstellung der aktuellen Situtation der deutschen Abfallwirtschaft unter den Aspekten Deponieraum, Müllverbrennung, Recycling, Mikroplastik, Abfallexporte und nukleare Entsorgung. Den Abschluss bildet die Analyse von weltweiten Abfallproblematiken wie unzureichende Sammlung und Deponierung, Verschmutzung der Weltmeere mit Plastikabfall, Belastung der Ozeane durch die Folgen der Weltkriege und der Globalisierung.
The effects of global warming, the depletion of non-renewable resources, the loss of biodiversity and a growing population, has affected nature and humanity over the past decades. Unless we change course in how we produce and consume, severe consequences for life on this Planet in the future are likely to follow. Based on that background, this paper looks at one area of consumption, namely food, and analyses a particular market within this area which causes high environmental pressures, i.e. the meat market. After having laid the theoretical foundation of sustainable consumption, an overview of the problems arising in the food sector in general and the meat market in particular is given. An in-depth analysis of the consumption of meat in one country, namely Germany, follows. Germany has been chosen as an exemplary for a country showing an excessive consumption of meat. This contributes to the problems linked to the meat market. The past development of the consumption of meat is evaluated and forms the basis for predicting a possible development of meat consumption in Germany until 2025. Based on the findings, conclusions are drawn about a possible trend towards sustainable consumption in the German meat market.
This paper investigates the state, development and drivers of banking market integration in the member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) by employing interest rate data. We first conduct a principal component analysis and find evidence for both increasing monetary integration and banking integration in loan and deposit markets. These integration processes are not developing uniformly and we can identify a convergence club. As banking market integration can be a genuine process or simply be driven by monetary integration, we also investigate the interest rate pass through from national and South African Central bank interest rates onto national retail rates. With respect to the convergence club we find both, genuine and monetary-integration driven processes though the latter dominate. We conclude that a selective expansion of the Common Monetary Area is possible but needs to be complement by efficient financial development policies.
Country rankings with respect to a country’s business environment draw strong international attention. Methods of business environment assessment differ; two competing methods will be described and compared with respect to their results for Rwanda in the years 2008-2010. They do not come to the same results regarding regulatory deficits and hence the demand for regulatory reform. When regulatory cost is considered, demand and supply of reforms are more in line than without cost considerations. The effectiveness of reforms undertaken in Rwanda varies. Based on interviews in late 2010, not all reforms were having the expected impact “on the ground”.
Country rankings with respect to a country’s business environment draw strong international attention. Methods of business environment assessment differ, two competing methods will be described and compared with respect to their results for Rwanda in the years 2008-2010. They do not come to the same results regarding regulatory deficits and hence the demand for regulatory reform. When regulatory cost is considered, demand and supply of reforms are more in line than without cost considerations. The effectiveness of reforms undertaken in Rwanda varies. Based on interviews in late 2010, not all reforms were having the expected impact “on the ground”.
This paper gives a practical approach to the area of business ethics, in particular to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), via analyzing how the retail chain REWE shows its commitment to its social responsibilities as defined by the four-part model of CSR. As Fairtrade offers one way for fulfilling social responsibilities, in particular the ethical and philanthropic responsibilities of CSR, REWE’s participation in selling Fairtrade products is analyzed. This analysis is conducted by applying the criteria for receiving the Fairtrade Award to REWE which allows drawing conclusions about REWE’s commitment to Fairtrade. Information for this assessment is taken from publicly available sources as well as from personal communication with the Fairtrade organization TransFair. The paper further gives an indication about the match between REWE’s communication – as the selling of Fairtrade products is communicated via REWE’s sustainability program – and REWE’s action concerning social responsibility, expressed by its commitment to Fairtrade. Implementing a sustainability program is one way for companies to exercise CSR and thus the analysis conducted concerning REWE’s commitment to Fairtrade is an attempt to answer the question whether companies’ communication about their CSR efforts matches their actions.
Die Arbeit widmet sich einem Thema, das zwar nicht ganz neu ist, bisher aber wenig bedeutsam war und durch das Inkrafttreten der DS-GVO nunmehr auf eine in vielen relevanten Bereichen völlig neue rechtliche Grundlage gestellt und hinsichtlich der spezifischen Fragestellung völlig unbearbeitet ist. Die Arbeit gliedert sich in zwei Hauptteile. Im ersten Teil werden die rechtlichen Grundlagen dargestellt und damit die Relevanz des Themas für das Prüfungsverfahren aufgezeigt. Der zweite Teil widmet sich der Anwendung des neuen Datenschutzrechts auf das Prüfungsverfahren und entwickelt dabei konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen, nach denen Prüfungsämter und sonstige mit Prüfungen befasste Einrichtungen die Anforderungen der DS-GVO erfüllen können.
Der verantwortungsvolle Konsument – Einstellungen von Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftlern
(2015)
An den wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultäten der Technischen Hochschule Köln (TH Köln) und der Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (HBRS) sind im Verlauf des Jahres 2013 Befragungen zu nachhaltigen, zertifizierten Lebensmitteln durchgeführt worden. Ziel war es, die Bedeutung von Fairtrade und Bio auf der Basis von Konsumenteneinschätzungen zu analysieren. Dazu wurden Wahrnehmung, Bekanntheitsgrad und Vertrauen, Kaufverhalten, Zahlungsbereitschaft sowie Glaubwürdigkeit in Bezug auf Fairtrade- und Bio-Produkte abgefragt. Der Kreis der Befragten umfasste die Gruppe der Studierenden, Mitarbeiter/innen und Professor(inn)en. Darüber hinaus konnten Differenzierungen nach Geschlecht, Einkommen und Alter vorgenommen werden. Die Ergebnisse sind in der Reihe „Forum NIL“ veröffentlicht worden. In der vorliegenden Studie sollte untersucht werden, ob Sozialwissenschaftler ein verantwortungsvolleres Konsumentenverhalten aufweisen als Wirtschaftswissenschaftler. Aus diesem Grunde, wurde die gleiche Befragung an der Fakultät für Sozialwissenschaften der TH Köln durchgeführt. Ein Vergleich der Befragungsergebnisse zeigte einerseits, dass Studierende, Mitarbeiter/innen und Professor(inn)en in den Sozialwissenschaften ein teilweise höheres Verantwortungsbewusstsein aufweisen. Dies gilt insbesondere in Bezug auf das bewusste Achten auf nachhaltige Produkte, die Zahlungsbereitschaft und den tatsächlichen Kauf von Fairtrade- und Bio-Produkten. Allerdings war auch bei den Befragten der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften ein durchaus verantwortungsvolles Konsumentenverhalten erkennbar. Darüber hinaus konnte der generelle Vorwurf, dass sich eine Ökonomieausbildung negativ auf die Einstellung zu einem verantwortungsvollen Handeln auswirkt, anhand der Studienergebnisse nicht bestätigt werden. Vielmehr zeigte sich, dass nahezu keine Unterschiede zwischen den Antworten der Studienanfänger und Studierender höherer Semester an der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften feststellbar waren.