China Speaks Out: How and Why Chinese Employees Use Their Voice toward German Managers

Existing management literature on voice has primarily focused on examining who uses their voice and when it is used, ignoring why employees speak out and how they do so. We examine the conditions under which Chinese employees use their voice toward their German managers at German companies in Mainland China. The findings from our empirical study emphasize the importance of Chinese employees' personal identification with their German managers as a precondition for voice behaviors. Our results suggest that Chinese employees utilize indirect voice behavior in addition to direct voice behavior when interacting with their German managers. This indirect guanxi‐voice behavior has neither been recognized nor investigated in the literature. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Robots Don't Get Sick or Get Paid Overtime, but Are They a Profitable Option for Milking Cows?

Mason Dixon Farms, a dairy known worldwide for its adoption and innovation of new technologies, is considering the purchase of forty robotic milking units to service its 2,000 cow herd. The purchase requires a $6 million investment plus any additional buildings and equipment necessary. Their alternative is a $1 million carousel milking parlor. This case asks students to assess Mason Dixon's decision by performing a capital budgeting analysis. One of Mason Dixon Farms' explicit objectives is to reduce its use of milking laborers. The results allow students to draw conclusions about the value of reducing labor management under this scenario.     

Die andere Demenz: Morbus Pick

Frontotemporale Demenzen sind schwer zu erkennen — Im Unterschied zur Alzheimer Demenz bleiben bei einer Frontotemporalen Demenz das Erinnerungsverm?gen und der Orientierungssinn lange erhalten. Diese Form der Demenz ?u?ert sich vielmehr in gravierenden Pers?nlichkeitsver?nderungen, die es vor allem in der Pflege aufzufangen gilt.     

The service climate‐firm performance chain: The role of customer retention

This study examines the role of customer retention as a mediator in the service climate–firm performance chain. Using a predictive design that involves data collected from 1,500 automotive service stores from 12,518 employees and approximately 30,000 customers, a model linking service climate (a concern for employees and customers), customer satisfaction, customer retention, and firm performance was tested. Notably, the results support the overall model and the hypothesized mediating effect of customer retention regarding the relationship between customer satisfaction and firm performance. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

New Biotechnology Firms in Germany: Heidelberg and the BioRegion Rhine-Neckar Triangle

In Germany, in the second half of the nineties, a dynamic development of commercial biotechnology took place, undertaken by a considerable number of new firms. The following article deals with the foundation of biotechnological firms in the BioRegion Rhine-Neckar Triangle (with the center in Heidelberg). For a long time, the development of biotechnology in Germany and in the Rhine-Neckar Triangle was hindered by institutional barriers. The main reasons were the narrowing of company strategies of big chemical and pharmaceutical firms, the low impulses to found biotechnology companies out of academic research, the institutional surroundings not aligned to the needs of biotechnology (e.g. no venture capital market) and finally government restraints concerning the specific and particularly regional concentrated support of biotechnology. These particularities are also reflected by the structure of the population of young companies in the Rhine-Neckar Triangle. The main emphasis of biotechnology firms is placed on technological services (research on demand) and platform technologies, different sub-areas of therapeutics research (pharmaceutical basic materials, finding active substances), on the production for the diagnostics industry and on bioinformatics. These companies do not co-operate much, national and international relations predominate. Only a few scientists of regional research institutions want to found a biotechnology firm, although the region seems to attract a certain number of company founders from other regions.     

Der Vielfalt eine zweite Chance?

Television program diversity has been widely discussed since the introduction of the dual broadcasting system in Germany. «A chance for diversity...» was the title of the program study by Schatz/Immer/Marcinkowsky (1989), who proposed the hypothesis of convergence. This hypothesis postulates that public and private programs converge due to the built-in competition between the public and private television systems. In this paper we discuss the phenomenon of diversity and differentiate between internal (concerning the program content of one channel) and external diversity (related to the program content of several channels within a broadcasting system). We conducted a quantitative content analysis of TV program guides. Based on four different classification systems (program- and audience-oriented, format- and content-oriented), we analysed internal and external diversity in a longitudinal study. Results show an overall constant level of diversity. Especially external diversity is consistently high. Within channels, we found diversity shifts. Public programs show a slightly reduced diversity; specialized channels, on the other hand, increased their diversity. The analytic tools employed in our study and its results can contribute to the development of empirically measurable quality criteria for program development.