Regionale Beschäftigungswirkungen des demografischen Wandels

Die demografischen Ver?nderungen beeinflussen das Arbeitsangebot in den Regionen Deutschlands. Wie wird sich die Bev?lkerung nach Regionen differenziert bis 2020 entwickeln? Durch welche Faktoren wird die Arbeitsnachfrage beeinflusst? Welche Perspektiven ergeben sich daraus bis 2020 für die Raumordnungsregionen? Prof. Dr. Ulrich van Suntum, 52, ist Leiter des Instituts für Siedlungs- und Wohnungswesen der Universit?t Münster; Karsten Rusche, 26, Dipl.-Volkswirt, ist dort wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter.     

Firm-Specific Characteristics and the Timing of Foreign Direct Investment Projects

This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm’s investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision. We find that total factor productivity is a significant determinant of a firm’s initial and subsequent investments. Parent-firm size does not have a significant influence on the initial decision to invest. Large firms simply have more investments than smaller firms. Other firm-specific characteristics, such as the R&D intensity, export share and keiretsu membership, also play a role in the investment process. JEL no. F23, L20     

Beyond belief: A benchmark for human resources

Many Human Resource (HR) professionals feel and believe that they have made progress during the 1980s. Unfortunately, without data to benchmark progress, assessments must depend on perception rather than evidence. To move beyond belief towards a national HR database, this article reports research on over 10,000 individuals in 1200 businesses in 91 firms. It establishes a benchmark for HR practices and HR professionals. It also highlights areas where HR professionals may focus attention to become more successful as business partners.     

New strategies and a new paradigm for Shariah-compliant portfolio optimization

In this paper we analyze the effects of different strategies to construct Shariah compatible financial portfolios. The difference between conventional and current Shariah portfolio management is the application of sector screens and financial screens by which the asset universe is reduced. Yet, here different schools of scholars define different screening rules leading to significant differences with respect to compliance, but also with respect to performance. After analyzing this discrepancy we propose several new strategies to apply the inconsistent rule systems and a new paradigm for defining Shariah-compliance. Under this new paradigm compliance is attributed to the portfolio and not to the individual assets of the universe. We report results of an empirical study analyzing the potentials of these strategies and of the paradigm. We can show that under the proposed concepts Shariah-compliant portfolios can be realized which have return and risk profiles comparable to the conventional non-constrained portfolios.     

The Role of Champions in the External Commercialization of Knowledge*

Besides applying knowledge in their own products or services, firms may externally commercialize their knowledge assets (e.g., by means of outlicensing). The literature on champions, however, has focused on internal innovation. This gap in prior research is particularly remarkable as the potential for promoting external knowledge exploitation is high. Some pioneering firms realize great benefits, whereas most others experience major managerial difficulties. This paper tests five hypotheses regarding the emergence and impact of champions of external knowledge exploitation with data from 152 firms across industries. The results of the questionnaire‐based study demonstrate the relevance of champions of external knowledge exploitation. Championing constitutes an essential success factor and has strongly contributed to the recent increase in external knowledge commercialization. These findings help to explain the discrepancies between the few successful and the majority of unsuccessful firms. Beyond existing insights, the emergence of champions is affected by external determinants in addition to internal determinants. There is an inverted U‐shaped relationship between championing and the internal determinants, that is, organizational climate and active strategy. Moreover, there is a negative relationship between championing and market imperfection and an inverted U‐shaped relationship between championing and competitive intensity, which both constitute external determinants of championing. In contrast to the traditional understanding, champions tend to emerge in supportive environments, in which internal and external barriers are relatively low. This surprising finding calls for rethinking the role and motivation of champions.     

Opening up the innovation process: the role of technology aggressiveness

Besides acquiring external knowledge, many firms have begun to actively commercialize technology, for example, by means of out-licensing. This increase in inward and outward technology transactions reflects the new paradigm of open innovation. Most prior research into open innovation is limited to theoretical considerations and case studies, whereas other lines of research have focused either on external technology acquisition or exploitation. In an integrative view, we consider inward and outward technology transactions as the main directions of open innovation. Moreover, technology aggressiveness, which constitutes an important dimension of technology strategy, is identified as a major determinant of open innovation. Data from a survey of 154 industrial firms are used to test three hypotheses relating technology aggressiveness, external technology acquisition, and external technology exploitation. In addition, clusters of firms with homogeneous strategies regarding technology aggressiveness and open innovation are identified.