Einflussfaktoren auf die Bereitschaft von Privatkunden, Ökostrom nachzufragen

The present study investigates impacts of attitudinal and perceptual characteristics of residential electricity consumers on their intention to use a green power tariff/supplier in the future. The work rests on a standardized telephone survey of 267 household electricity consumers of a German power supplier. Multivariate Partial Least Squares analysis indicates that, regardless of a person’s level of actual power consumption in the recent past, the intention to use green electricity is significantly higher among customers who have a positive general attitude towards environmental protection measures and who report an endorsing valuation of green power by their close social contacts. In a subsample of participants with a low actual electricity consumption in the year preceding the survey the intention to use green energy is significantly positively affected by the weight an individual attaches to electricity prices in one’s own supplier selection decisions and the person’s belief that one’s present power company takes over social responsibility. In contrast, in the subgroup of respondents with a high actual electricity consumption customers’ intention to use green energy is significantly enhanced by the degree of perceived dissimilarity among power company offerings. The findings are used to derive suggestions for green energy marketing measures of power companies and future energy consumer research.     

Determinants of the Willingness to Use Mobile Location-Based Services

This article develops 11 hypotheses on impacts of six customer characteristics on an individual’s willingness to use mobile location based services (LBS). Hypotheses are tested in a sample of 217 mobile communications customers in Germany who participated in a standardized online-survey. PLS analysis suggests that reported frequency of “on the move” information needs, perceived assessment of LBS in a customer’s social environment and extent of past use of other mobile data services have statistically as well as practically significant effects on adoption intentions for pull LBS. Data privacy risks and cost/bill size concerns are only weakly or not related to such intentions.     

Markteintrittstiming von Telekommunikationsdiensteanbietern Befunde einer empirischen Erhebung in Deutschland

Die vorliegende Studie analysiert für 87 Neuprodukteinführungen (NPE) und Auslandsmarkteintritte (AME) von Telekommunikations(TK)-Diensteanbietern in Deutschland, zu denen 42 Schlüsselinformanten in einer schriftlichen Befragung Auskunft gaben, (1) inwieweit deren zeitliche Eintrittspositionierung durch Marktcharakteristika und Unternehmensressourcen erkl?rbar ist sowie (2) inwieweit und gegebenenfalls unter welchen unternehmensexternen und -internen Situationsbedingungen deren Markteintrittstiming mit dem wahrgenommenen Eintrittserfolg assoziiert ist. Ein früher Markteintritt wurde dann realisiert, wenn die Wettbewerbsintensit?t im adressierten Gesch?ft niedrig und das Budget für den Expansionsschritt überdurchschnittlich ausfielen. Zwischen dem Markteintrittstiming und der Beurteilung des Eintrittserfolgs bestand ein nicht monotoner, umgekehrt U-f?rmiger Zusammenhang: Frühe Folger wiesen signifikant bessere Erfolgswerte auf als Pioniere und sp?te Folger, deren Erfolgsniveaus nicht signifikant divergierten. In einer Industrie, die durch starke externe Netzeffekte gepr?gt ist, fallen offenbar die Nachteile eines Markteintritts als Pionier oder sp?ter Folger st?rker ins Gewicht als die Vorteile dieser beiden zeitlichen Eintrittspositionierungen. Unabh?ngig vom Markteintrittstiming wurden NPE/AME von TK-Unternehmen als erfolgreicher eingestuft, wenn sie sich in einen Markt mit stark wachsender Nachfrage und aufeinander abgestimmt (re)agierenden Wettbewerbern mit qualitativ überdurchschnittlichen, abw?rtskompatiblen, erprobbaren und wenig erkl?rungsbedürftigen TK-Diensten engagierten.     

Standortindex DIGITAL: Nützlich zum Erkennen von Handlungserfordernissen im IKT-Sektor?

Both the German Federal Chancellor and Minster of Economic Affairs unanimously emphasised at the last “national IT summit” on 18-19 November 2015 that the degree of digitisation in the German economy and society is mediocre when compared internationally, and that in the recent past Germany has even lost ground to other countries regarding the nation’s “ICT isation”. These assessments were justified by the results of a new study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs in which a market research firm construed a so called “location index DIGITAL”. The present article shows that the quality of this measurement instrument is poor. As a consequence, the tenability of the economic policy conclusions drawn from the index by high level government representatives is low.     

Kooperativer Bau von Mehrfasernetzen als Königsweg?

Glasfasernetze bis in Privathaushalte gelten als wichtige Voraussetzung für Wirtschaftswachstum. Doch in Deutschland gibt es sie bislang kaum. Der Bau von Mehrfasernetzen kommt als eine Strategie zur F?rderung solcher Infrastrukturen in Betracht, ohne gleichzeitig monopolistische Angebotskonstellationen entstehen zu lassen. In mehreren Schweizer St?dten wurde mit solchen Projekten begonnen. Der Beitrag stellt das Schweizer Konzept vor und untersucht, ob durch seine übertragung auf Deutschland ein wirksamer Infrastruktur- und Dienstewettbewerb bei Glasfaser-Breitbandanschlüssen gesichert werden kann.     

CAREER ORIENTATIONS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES AND COMPANIES: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF WEST GERMAN,BRITISH AND US INDUSTRIAL R&D PROFESSIONALS[1]

This study examined dimensions and levels of career orientations and their correlation with work-related outcome criteria among industrial R&D professionals. Questionnaire data were obtained in 11 West German, 4 British, and 2 US R&D units of large industrial companies. Respondents were 729 West German, 217 British, and 124 US scientists and engineers. Managerial career orientation and professional/scientific career orientation emerged from factor and scale analyses as two independent orientation dimensions with similar meaning across the three countries and the 17 R&D organizations. Results indicated significant cross-country differences in levels of professional/scientific career orientation, but not in levels of managerial career orientation. Significant differences in levels of both orientation dimensions were detected between R&D units within countries. Distinctive characteristics of West German firms employing R&D staff with particularly strong professional/scientific or managerial career orientations are suggested. Managerial and professional/scientific career orientations were found to be differentially related to objective indicators and self-ratings of research performance. Directions for future research and managerial implications for selecting and rewarding R&D employees with different patterns of career orientations are discussed.     

R&D professionals' reactions to the career plateau: Mediating effects of supervisory behaviours and job characteristics

A career plateau is defined as that point in a person's career which represents a cessation of both lateral and upward movement between jobs. The present study elaborates the idea that a fuller understanding of individual reactions to the career plateau can be achieved by considering supervisory behaviours and job characteristics as variables transmitting the influence of career plateauing to behavioural and attitudinal reaction measures. It is suggested that supervisors invest less attention and resources in plateaued employees and that plateaued employees are assigned to jobs with less motivating potential. Analyses of questionnaire data from 618 R&D professionals in 11 large West German firms show that there are significant differences between plateaued R&D professionals (i. e. those subjects with at least 10 years of job tenure) and a nonplateaued comparison group (i. e. respondents with not more than 6 years of job tenure) controlling for age as a potential confounding influence. Specifically, plateaued R&D professionals indicate less working hours, to be less satisfied with their career and their work, to be less involved in their work, and they tend to produce less publications and patents per year of company tenure. Furthermore, considerable differences are found between one's immediate supervisor's behaviours (e. g. provision of job-related performance feedback) reported by plateaued professionals and their non-plateaued counterparts. However, even after controlling the mediating effects of supervisory behaviours and job characteristics variables plateauing still had a small, but significant detrimental effect on 3 out of 6 reaction measures. Implications are outlined for organizational career management activities.     

Gestaltung von Tarifen für kommunikationsfähige Messsysteme im Verbund mit zeitvariablen Stromtarifen

In Germany too, communication-capable electricity metering systems (CMS) together with time-based differentiation of kWh-rates for energy consumption are increasingly proliferated among household customers. Nevertheless, empirical evidence with respect to preferences of members of this customer group for the design of CMS tariff elements and of time-variant electricity consumption rates is still scarce. The present study captures such preferences by means of conjoint analysis of data obtained in an online survey of 754 German-speaking adults. Examined CMS tariff elements are a one-off installation fee and monthly recurring use charges. The studied characteristics of time-based rates are the number of time/tariff blocks, the maximum spread between kWh-rates for different time windows and the adaptability/predictability of kWh-rates. Most respondents judged multidimensional CMS and electricity consumption tariff offerings mainly in light of the CMS tariff characteristics. The vast majority of the participants perceived kWh-rates, which may change with a minimum lead time of one day as reducing the benefit of CMS and consumption tariff bundles. Tariff preferences on the one hand were only rarely significantly related to customers’ socio-demographic and electricity procurement characteristics as well as their CMS-related expectations/assessments on the other. The willingness to accept CMS-related one-off installation and recurring service charges as well as the propensity to opt for time-dependent electricity consumption tariff variants differing clearly from non-differentiated electricity price schemes appear to be positively affected by customers’ practical application experience with CMS and time-variant electricity consumption rates. Conclusions are drawn for energy suppliers seeking to propagate CMS-based time-variant tariffs among household customers in Germany and for future scholarly research.     

Bewertung von Personalabbauprogrammen aus Aktionärssicht – Eine Bestandsaufnahme der empirischen Ereignisstudien-Forschung –

This paper reviews evidence from 32 event studies on effects of an announcement of a large scale reduction in work force (RIF) program on the share price/equity value of stock-quoted corporations and on factors suited to explain RIF impact variations. All in all the empirical data indicate that on average (Anglosaxon) capital markets do not respond to RIF notifications with significantly positive abnormal returns. Rather, they tend to display negative abnormal share price consequences, i.e. RIF announcements – as typically shaped by corporations – are likely to destroy shareholder value. On the whole, extant work suggests that abnormal returns following RIF disclosures tend to be worse if (1) the stated RIF reason is declining demand, (2) the reduction to total staff ratio is high and (3) the reduction is based mainly on layoffs instead of voluntary separations. Further methodologically improved research is required to explore the extent to which the present review’s conclusions hold in German-speaking countries.