Regeln der Managervergütung

Die H?he der Managervergütungen widerspricht seit Jahren dem Gerechtigkeitsempfinden gro?er Teile der Bev?lkerung. Insbesondere die Koinzidenz von Millionengeh?ltern und üppigen Bonuszahlungen einerseits, staatlichen Hilfen für Banken, Lohnkürzungen, Kurzarbeit und Stellenabbau andererseits erregt die Gemüter. Die Politik zeigt sich fest entschlossen, den als unangemessen hoch angesehenen Vergütungen einen Riegel vorzuschieben. Wie dieser Riegel ausgestaltet und wo er angesetzt werden sollte, wird nachfolgend diskutiert.     

When the glass is half full and half empty: CEOs' ambivalent interpretations of strategic issues

Organizational scholars have highlighted the importance of interpretive ambivalence for mindfulness, creativity, and strategic change. Ambivalence occurs when an issue is seen simultaneously as positive and negative. We examine organizational factors that influence the propensity of organizational leaders to evaluate a new strategic issue ambivalently. Data come from a survey of 220 German CEOs confronted with the enlargement of the European Union. We find that CEOs of firms with a more ambidextrous strategic orientation and a moderate sense of organizational control over their environment are most likely to be ambivalent about this issue. Our findings affirm the prevalence of interpretive ambivalence at the executive level and suggest ways for organizations to promote or prevent ambivalence in strategic sensemaking. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competition in fragmented markets: New evidence from the German banking industry in the light of the subprime crisis

Of all of the EU member states, Germany has the largest banking market. However, not all German banking institutions necessarily face fierce competition. Because the industry is highly fragmented, strict separation of the three existing banking pillars may impede competition, with negative effects on financial stability. We assess the competitive stances of 1,888 universal banks from 2001 to 2009 by using the Panzar–Rosse revenue test. We find evidence that measuring competition at an average country level does not necessarily generate valid evaluations of fragmented markets. In addition, we find no clear indication that either the particular objectives of cooperative and savings banks or the legal protection of these institutions impedes competition or discriminates against private banks. Therefore, as long as the relationship between competition and financial stability is dubious, the overall effect and the social costs or benefits of political measures that influence the structure of the German banking market are at least questionable.     

German trade performance in times of slumping euro area markets

While the global financial crisis had a strong impact on economic activity in Germany, the impact of the euro area crisis on economic activity in Germany has so far been relatively mild. Trade flows by region reveal that German firms have recently redirected their exports towards the remaining growth spots of the world economy, in particular to Asia??s emerging economies. However, a continued crisis in the euro area is likely to put a considerable dent in German exports. While market forces have already triggered the rebalancing of intra-European trade flows, German exporters may play a helpful role in this process if firms in distressed countries circumvent high entry costs by integrating themselves into the global value chains of German exporters.     

Trade integration and the EU economic membership criteria

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether the European Union (EU)'s economic membership criteria for the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and Cyprus (the Candidate Countries) are fulfilled. To this end, I examine the actual and potential levels of trade between the Candidate Countries and the EU countries using the gravity model. The results show a high degree of trade integration between all Candidate Countries and the EU, indicating that the Candidate Countries would not face any serious difficulties in coping with the competitive pressure and market forces within the Union in the medium term. The European Commission, however, suggested the contrary for some of the Candidate Countries in its opinions of 1997.     

Biotechnology Firms in Sweden

The purpose of this study is to create an understanding of the strategies that biotechnology firms in Sweden implement, how they manage to keep their competence ahead and how they finance their research. Their main factor of success is the ability to rapidly identify the latest research findings from academia and turn them into commerciable technology. The collaboration with academia is thus an important part of the networking strategy of the biotechnology firms in Sweden. Outsourcing parts of their activities keeps the firms flexible, which is necessary in this high risk business.Whether a firm chooses an intermediary or integrating position is not found to be correlated to age or size. It is instead heavily influenced by the strategies of large pharmaceutical companies, the nature of the firms' core technology, expectations of investors and the overall access of capital. The private capital market in Sweden has undergone a change during the last years. New marketplaces for young, innovative firms have been created in Sweden and their existence is most likely one reason for the increasing presence of venture capitalists in the country. That, in turn, increases the opportunities for new firms within biotechnology to develop in Sweden.     

A socio-technical framework for assessing the viability of carbon capture and storage technology

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is seen as a key technology to tackle climate change. The principal idea of CCS is to remove carbon from the flue gases arising from burning fuels for electricity generation or industrial applications and to store the carbon in geological formations to prevent it from entering the atmosphere. Policy makers in several countries are supportive of the technology, but a number of uncertainties hamper its further development and deployment. The paper makes three related contributions to the literatures on socio-technical systems and technology assessment: 1) It systematically develops an interdisciplinary framework to assess the main uncertainties of CCS innovation. These include technical, economic, financial, political and societal issues. 2) It identifies important linkages between these uncertainties. 3) It develops qualitative and quantitative indicators for assessing these uncertainties. This framework aims to help decision making on CCS by private and public actors and is designed to be applicable to a wider range of low carbon technologies. The paper is based on a systematic review of the social science literature on CCS and on insights from innovation studies, as well as on interviews about assessment of new technologies with experts from a range of organisations and sectors.     

Testing Equilibrium Models of Regional Disparities

The large and persistent regional disparities of most European economies have been explained as a disequilibrium phenomenon; convergence between backward and successful regions is slow because the equilibrating forces are weak. Recently, two models have emerged where regional disparities are seen as an equilibrium phenomenon; the amenity model, which assumes that high unemployment and low wages reflect favourable living conditions, and the matching model, which views high unemployment as the result of labour market congestion in declining regions. The paper derives some key empirical implications of the models and examines whether the regional pattern of migration, unemployment and wages in Norway conforms with these implications. The results are supportive of the matching model but not of the amenity model.     

Efectos de la negociación colectiva e individual en el rendimiento empresarial. Análisis exhaustivo de la incidencia de diversos sistemas de negociación en la productividad laboral

Sobre un conjunto de datos empresariales representativos de todos los Estados miembros de la Unión Europea se analiza la relación entre diferentes procesos y estructuras institucionales de negociación colectiva y la evolución de la productividad laboral. Los resultados muestran efectos de amplio alcance. Algunos procesos y estructuras, en particular los sistemas sin coordinación entre unidades, parecen menoscabar el rendimiento empresarial, mientras que los sistemas coordinados lo mejoran. En consecuencia, lo importante son los procesos y estructuras institucionales en que se inscribe la negociación colectiva y no la cuestión de si la negociación debe ser colectiva o individual.