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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 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.
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.
Zielsetzung der Ausbildung an der Fachhochschule Köln ist es, Studierende auf den Einstieg in die Berufspraxis optimal vorzubereiten. Dazu sind praxisorientierte Unterrichtsformen wie das projektorientierte Lehren und Lernen ein geeignetes Mittel. Im Rahmen des Studienschwerpunktes General Management des Studienganges Betriebswirtschaftslehre (Diplom / Bachelor) haben Studierende in jedem Semester die Möglichkeit, wechselnde Aufgabenstellungen aus der Unternehmenspraxis arbeitsteilig im Team zu bearbeiten. Die Ergebnisse dieser Praxisprojekte werden den beteiligten Unternehmen vor Ort präsentiert und in Form eines Projektberichtes aufgearbeitet und dokumentiert. Der vorliegende Projektbericht zum Thema „Social Media bei der Jobsuche“ ist ein gelungenes Beispiel für ein abgeschlossenes Praxisprojekt. An der Untersuchung haben sich 219 Absolventen eines Studiums und 61 Berufseinsteiger mit Berufspraxis per Online-Fragebogen beteiligt. Zusätzlich wurden ergänzende Interviews mit ausgewählten Partnern durchgeführt.
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”.
On 25 May 2011, the OECD launched a "Green Growth Strategy" and proposed a "Green Growth Diagnostics" approach to identify the binding constraints on green growth. This paper discusses the potential use and usefulness of this approach as a means to identify those binding constraints. It is argued that the approach is best used at the meso level for industries and certain environmental challenges. The paper proposes a modified green growth diagnostics approach for eco-innovations at the meso level that can be useful for informing and organising a rational policy dialogue amongst all stakeholders.
We examine the impact of the existence on an explicit deposit insurance (DI) scheme and its design features on bilateral cross‐border deposits (CBD) in a gravity model setting. We find that both the absolute quality of a country's DI and its relative quality vis‐à‐vis other countries' DI generally affect depositor behavior. However, during systemic banking crises, cross‐border depositors primarily seek countries with the best DI schemes. Similarly, during the 2008–2009 great financial crisis, the emergency actions taken by the governments, which supply and maintain these safe havens, have led to substantial relocations of CBD. (JEL F34, G18)
Während des Kurzvortrags wird auf rückversicherungsrelevante Aspekte von Ökosystemen im Bereich Automotive und Mobility eingegangen. Hierzu werden insbesondere folgende Aspekte betrachtet: Die Definition und Beschreibung der Rollen innerhalb eines Ökosystems unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rolle von Versicherungsunternehmen; Status und mögliche Treiber von sich verändernden Ökosystemen im Bereich
Automotive und Mobility; Möglichkeiten der strategischen Positionierung für Rückversicherungsunternehmen.
This market research paper has been prepared under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Veit of Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Prof. Dr. Carol Scovotti of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the course of the inter-university cross-border collaboration student research project “Export Opportunity Surveys (EOS)”. This study explores organic rye export opportunities to the German and US markets.