Wie die Materialengpässe den Arbeitsmarkt treffen

Wirtschaftsdienst - Although industrial production in Germany picked up again significantly with the recovery from the Corona crisis, supply bottlenecks for raw materials and intermediate products...     

Ideenwettbewerbe als innovatives Markenbindungsinstrument

Onlinebasierte Ideenwettbewerbe mit Web 2.0-Funktionalit?ten bieten neue innovative M?glichkeiten im Online Marketing. Sie tragen dazu bei, die Bekanntheit und positive Wahrnehmung einer Marke in der ?ffentlichkeit zu st?rken. Konsumenten setzen sich intensiver mit einer Marke auseinander, was schlie?lich zu einer st?rkeren Identifikation mit der Marke und Bindung führt. Auch Swarovski, dem Kristall-Weltmarktführer, gelang durch diese Einbindung von Konsumenten der Erfolg.     

Constructing a new leading indicator for unemployment from a survey among German employment agencies

The article investigates the predictive power of a new survey implemented by the Federal Employment Agency (FEA) for forecasting German unemployment in the short run. Every month, the CEOs of the FEA’s regional agencies are asked about their expectations of future labour market developments. We generate an aggregate unemployment leading indicator that exploits serial correlation in response behaviour through identifying and adjusting temporarily unreliable predictions. We use out-of-sample tests suitable in nested model environments to compare forecasting performance of models including the new indicator to that of purely autoregressive benchmarks. For all investigated forecast horizons (1, 2, 3 and 6 months), test results show that models enhanced by the new leading indicator significantly outperform their benchmark counterparts. To compare our indicator to potential competitors, we employ the model confidence set. Results reveal that models including the new indicator perform very well at the 10% level.     

Carrotmob as a New Form of Ethical Consumption. The Nature of the Concept and Avenues for Future Research

A new form of ethical consumption has recently evolved: The carrotmob. As in a flashmob, consumers collectively swarm a specific store and purchase its goods in order to reward corporate socially responsible behaviour. The present paper introduces a conceptionalization of carrotmobs that takes into account the perspective of the three relevant parties: activists, companies, and consumers. First, the paper considers activists?? objectives in initiating such a social movement. It describes how they use guerrilla tactics to foster the participation of companies and consumers. Second, the paper considers the perspective of the target company, stressing the role of corporate social responsibility and describing how companies compete in an auction to become the carrotmob target. Third, the paper highlights the consumer perspective, discussing different views on consumer power and the motivation to participate in a carrotmob. The paper also points out directions for further empirical research for each of these three perspectives.     

Surprise,Surprise. Ambient Media as Promotion Tool for Retailers

Ambient media evoke surprise with the aim of gaining the attention of consumers who are overexposed to traditional types of advertising. No study has yet considered the effects of unanticipated ambient media. To bridge this gap, the present article reports a field experiment entailing the manipulation of three types of ambient media that create different levels of surprise. The analysis combines observation data for 2,464 passersby, survey data from 305 respondents, and sales figures for 730 days. The results show that surprising ambient media draw attention, promote positive attitudes toward the ad, and stimulate word of mouth. Most importantly, ambient media increase purchase intention and sales revenue. Robustness checks ensure that the model is stable across several conditions, such as time of day or weather conditions. Follow-up studies further reveal that surprise elicits positive effects via two processes; the amplification of accompanying evaluations and the interplay of attention and incongruence resolution. The paper provides guidance for retailers wishing to design surprising ambient media that improve consumer attitudes and profitability.     

Mismatch and the Forecasting Performance of Matching Functions

This paper investigates the role of structural imbalance between job seekers and job openings for the forecasting performance of a labour market matching function. Starting from a Cobb–Douglas matching function with constant returns to scale (CRS) in each frictional micro market shows that on the aggregate level, a measure of mismatch is a crucial ingredient of the matching function and hence should not be ignored for forecasting hiring figures. Consequently, we allow the matching process to depend on the level of regional, qualificatory and occupational mismatch between unemployed and vacancies. In pseudo out‐of‐sample tests that account for the nested model environment, we find that forecasting models enhanced by a measure of mismatch significantly outperform their benchmark counterparts for all forecast horizons ranging between one month and a year. This is especially pronounced during and in the aftermath of the Great Recession where a low level of mismatch improved the possibility of unemployed to find a job again. The results show that imposing CRS helps improve forecast accuracy compared to unrestricted models.     

Why co‐creation experience matters? Creative experience and its impact on the quantity and quality of creative contributions

This article introduces ‘virtual design competitions’ as a new means of opening up the innovation process and enriching the companies, ‘design‐ideas’ by utilizing the creativity of a multiplicity of external designers and enthused consumers all over the world. The ‘Swarovski Enlightened^? jewellery design competition’, explored in this study, demonstrates the enormous potential of virtual co‐creation platforms. It further highlights the importance of the co‐creation experience and its impact on the quantity and quality of designs submitted. First, we introduce the idea of virtual co‐creation platforms and the requirements on the design of such a platform. Second, we explore the impact of the co‐creation experience on the content contributed by participants. Our study shows that co‐creation experience significantly impacts the number of contributions by consumers as well as the quality of submitted designs. Our paper contributes to a better theoretic understanding of the impact of a participant's perceived autonomous, enjoyable, and competent experience, as well as participants' perceived sense of community on their experience. From a managerial perspective, it provides guidance in designing successful idea and design competitions. While innovation managers may be interested in creative contributions, for participants, it is the experience which matters. Fully featured community platforms rather than single idea submission websites are required to attract creative users to submit their ideas and designs.