Die Wirkung ausländischer Direktinvestitionen auf die Beschäftigung im Heimatmarkt: Eine empirische Analyse des deutschen Mittelstands

Outbound FDI of German SMEs is often assumed to have a negative impact on domestic employment due to job replacement into low wage countries. In this context research often disregards, that FDI can be of horizontal or vertical nature and therefore has different effects on domestic employment. We analyze domestic employment effects using a sample of 1.106 German SMEs. The results show, that a differentiated view is appropriate and necessary to generate a more complete picture of the effects of FDI on job development in the domestic market. Whereas horizontal FDI has complementary effects on domestic employment, vertical FDI is linked to substitutional employment effects.     

Zum Einfluss der Inhaberführung auf die Betriebsrat-Geschäftsführer-Beziehung – Eine theoretische und empirische Analyse in mittelständischen Unternehmen

This paper examines the quality of the relationship between business managements and works councils in small and medium-sized enterprises and strives for answering the question, which factors determine the quality. As ownership is an important determining factor of the establishment of works councils in small and medium-sized businesses, especially the impact of ownership on this relationship has been investigated. Agency theory and stewardship theory give hints that the owner management can have different impacts on this relationship. In order to test these contradictory hypotheses we have estimated a Heckman selection model to investigate which factors determine the quality of the relationship between business managements and works councils. Our results based on data generated from a survey in small and medium-sized enterprises conducted by the IfM Bonn in the years 2005 and 2006 indicate that ownership has a negative influence on the establishment of works councils, but a positive one on the quality of the relationship between business management and works council. Thus, the hypotheses predicting the existence of stewardship behaviour among owners and the existence of agency behaviour among managers can be confirmed.     

Kosten und Kostentreiber von unerwünschten Werbemails (Spam) — Eine empirische Analyse auf Provider- und Anwenderseite

Zusammenfassung  In der Literatur wird diskutiert, dass unerwünschte Werbemails (Spam) sowohl auf individueller als auch auf volkswirtschaftlicher Ebene erhebliche Kosten verursachen, deren H?he jedoch unbestimmt ist. Diese Fragestellung wird mit zwei empirischen Untersuchungen adressiert, in denen die Mitarbeiter einer Universit?t zu ihren Spam-Kosten befragt wurden. Die Daten werden mit Hilfe von Finite Mixture Regressions analysiert. In der Betrachtung der Kosten ergibt sich der Befund, dass die auf individueller Ebene entstehenden Kosten die zentralen Kosten auf IT-Ebene deutlich übersteigen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Spam-Belastung bei den Mitarbeitern heterogen verteilt ist und dass ein Spamfilter vor allem bei stark belasteten Nutzern zu einer Kostenersparnis führt. Um die Heterogenit?t in der Spam-Wahrnehmung und die Angst vor Fehlklassifikationen zu berücksichtigen, sollten die Nutzer die M?glichkeit haben, auf einfache Art auf den Filterprozess einzuwirken.

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Costs and cost drivers of unsolicited bulk email (spam) — an empirical analysis

Summary  This paper empirically addresses the often claimed assumption that unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) causes significant costs — on the individual level as well as for the entire society. To shed light on this problem, employees of a large university were interviewed twice in order to determine the individual costs caused by spam and to identify the relevant cost drivers using finite mixture regressions. The results indicate a heterogeneous distribution of spam load and the resulting costs. The panel approach yields the conclusion that spam filters lead to a reduction of costs only for users severely troubled by spam. Furthermore, people tend to become active against spam only when a certain threshold of spam burden is reached. The costs caused by spam for the users exceed the central IT-related expenses by far. For the implementation of spam filters the results suggest a two step procedure to be most efficient: central actions should be taken to block e-mails that can be unambiguously identified as spam. Further, users should be given the opportunity to influence the filtering process in order to account for heterogeneity and their fear of false classification.

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Die Autoren bedanken sich sehr herzlich bei den Mitarbeitern des Rechenzentrums der Christian-Albrechts-Universit?t zu Kiel für die intensive Kooperation. Wir danken zudem Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. S?nke Albers, Christian Barrot, Eva Bl?meke und Christina Schmidt-St?lting für die zahlreichen Hinweise zu früheren Fassungen des Aufsatzes. Auch die beiden Gutachter und das Herausgeberteam der ZfB haben zahlreiche Verbesserungsvorschl?ge gemacht, die zu einer substanziellen Verbesserung des Manuskripts geführt haben.     

Die Wirkung von informellen und internetbasierten Rekrutierungskanälen auf den Rekrutierungserfolg: Eine empirische Analyse in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen

This study analyses the impact of informal and web-based recruitment sources on several dimensions of SME recruitment success. Our results show that informal recruitment sources unfold a different impact on applicant-pool quantity and -quality, and applicant fit than web-based recruitment sources. Informal recruitment sources (recruitment via personal networks, employee referrals etc.) enhance applicant-pool quality, person-organization fit and person-job fit. Web-based recruitment sources primarily increases applicant-pool quantity. HR-recruitment websites also unfold a positive effect on applicant-pool quality. Accordingly, the use of these recruitment sources needs to be planned in a strategic manner, in order to achieve firm specific recruitment goals regarding applicant-pool quantity and –quality.     

Der Einfluss von Neuproduktvorankündigungen auf den Shareholder Value: Eine empirische Untersuchung

This paper analyses 220 preannouncements of new products and their effect on shareholder value on American and European stock markets. Overall, the results show a positive significant reaction of abnormal returns on preannouncements. Additionally, determinants of the strength of the shareholder value effect are analyzed. Whereas market-related (country and industry) and preannouncement-related factors (detailedness of preannouncement, mentioning a launch date, and the preannouncement of multiple products) do not have an influence on the size of the effect, company-related and product-related factors can explain the magnitude of the reaction. Our model extends prior empirical literature by showing a higher explained variance of the strength of the shareholder value effect. In particular, there exists a negative relationship between company size and abnormal returns and return on equity and abnormal returns, whereas the newness of the product for the market has a positive influence on abnormal returns.     

Zur Berücksichtigung von Heterogenit?t versus funktionaler Flexibilit?t in Absatzreaktionsmodellen: Eine empirische Studie auf Basis von Handelsdaten

In this paper, we explore the differences between store sales models that allow for heterogeneity in marketing effects across stores and models that accommodate potential irregularities in sales response through the use of nonparametric estimation techniques. In particular, we investigate the following question: What benefits can we gain from incorporating store heterogeneity versus functional flexibility in sales response models concerning fit and predictive validity, as compared to a simple parametric store sales model? In an empirical study based on store-level data, we also compare the different model versions with respect to estimated price elasticities and resulting shapes for own- and cross-price effects. Our empirical results indicate that addressing heterogeneity is not advantageous in general, as model fit, predictive validity and the accuracy of price elasticities did not improve for many brands. In contrast, estimating sales response flexibly provides much more potential for statistical improvements and leads to different implications concerning price elasticities, too.     

Wirkungsweise von Combined-Currency Prices – Eine theoretische und empirisch experimentelle Analyse

Over the last few years, programs to enhance customer retention have strongly increased in popularity. Thus, a growing number of artificial currencies such as bonus points or miles have been created. In consequence, many products and services today can be paid by using a combination of real (e.g. Euro) and artificial currencies. These combined-currency prices offer marketers many possibilities to design prices. Yet, research dealing with the effects of such combined-currency prices is scarce. Therefore, our study addresses the effect of combined-currency prices on consumers' perception of prices purchase behaviour. Moreover, we analysed how such effects can be explained by taking into account important concepts of the field of price psychology. Our experimental results demonstrate that combined-currency prices strongly influence consumers' perception of price fairness. Particularly if planning to increase prices or when designing prices for bonus programs, marketers should therefore favour combined-currency prices instead of one-dimensional prices.     

Gleichmäßige Bewertung von Mietwohngrundstücken durch das neue steuerliche Ertragswertverfahren? Eine empirische Analyse

This paper deals with the question if the new valuation procedure for rental property established by the German Inheritance Tax Reform Act 2009 provides more consistent tax values than the previous valuation procedure which has been abolished as a result of the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Our empirical findings show no improvement of the valuation results in terms of statistical spread. The only effect of the new valuation procedure is increasing tax values on average, and hence, tax values often exceed market values. But higher tax values could have been achieved with less effort by simply raising the multiplier of the previous valuation procedure. The findings of this contribution and the results of other papers suggest there is no standardised valuation procedure for rental property which provides a proper performance. Valuation of real estate remains one of the unsolved and presumably permanent problems of the inheritance tax in particular and of capital-based taxation in general.     

Quasirentenmodell und Honorare für Abschlussprüfungen in Deutschland – eine empirische Analyse

The model by DeAngelo LE (1981a) Auditor independence, ’Low Balling’, and disclosure regulation. J Acc Econ 3:113–127 suggests, that audit fees do not cover audit costs with the client´s first audit when there is perfect competition in the audit market (low balling). Further, audit fees are supposed to increase with the maturity of the relationship with the client (fee cutting). In order to test the DeAngelo model we perform a multiple regression analysis for the German market of listed clients. The results are: First year audit fees do not significantly differ from audit fees in later periods. Audit fees increase with the maturity of the relationship with the client. Additionally, audit fees are positively associated with non-audit fees and (weakly) with Big4-auditors. These findings partly support the propositions of the DeAngelo models.     

Ist Marktorientierung ansteckend? Der Transfer der Marktorientierung über Hierarchieebenen – Eine empirische Mehrebenenuntersuchung

It is generally accepted that market orientation as a well-established marketing phenomenon influences the performance of companies. However, work investigating how market oriented behaviours of customer-contact employees can be influenced is conspicuous by its absence. This article is the first empirical multilevel study in this area, which simultaneously examines intralevel-effects (effects within the level of customer-contact employees, e.g. length of work experience, job satisfaction) as well as crosslevel-effects (effects which come from superordinate managers). Based on a large-scale three-level study, the results show that the transfer of top-managers’ market orientation via sales managers down to customer-contact employees is definitely not an automatism. In fact this market orientation cascade particularly succeeds, if the market orientation of superordinate managers comes along with intense charismatic leadership. All in all, the entire impact of crosslevel-variables on the market orientation of customer-contact employees is at least as comprehensive as the influence of intralevel variables.     

Auswirkungen der IFRS-Umstellung auf die Risikoprämie von Unternehmensanleihen – Eine empirische Studie für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz

Does an IFRS-adoption reduce the information asymmetry between firms and providers of debt capital and therefore the risk premium of corporate bonds? Contrary to prior empirical studies we examine the relationship between disclosure and cost of capital for debt financing. We analyse the impact of an IFRS-adoption on the risk premium of German, Austrian, and Swiss corporate bonds between 1997 and 2005. Our results indicate that the change in risk premium declines after an IFRS-adoption by 40%. However, the effect occurs with a time-lag.     

Determinanten des Informationsgehalts von Managementprognosen – eine empirische Untersuchung anhand der DAX und MDAX-Unternehmen

In this article the characteristics and determinants of the information content of management earnings forecasts of the German DAX and MDAX companies between 2002 and 2005 are analyzed. As proxy for the information content I use the precision of the wording of a forecast. I can show that the forecasts of MDAX companies are more precisely formulated than those of DAX companies. Furthermore forecasts are formulated more precisely, when companies have, (1) a lower percentage of intangible assets, (2) lower market capitalization, (3) lower volatility of earnings and (4) a higher need for external financing.     

Implizite Theorien über Lernen und Veränderungen durch Coaching in Organisationen – Eine empirische Untersuchung

There are many different ways to understand and use coaching in organization which are influenced by the organizational culture with different basic assumptions about learning and change of humans. The question is on behalf of which implicit theory the members understand and develop their organization. The goal of the following investigation is to describe these implicit theories of change. Therefore a large sample of human resource managers were interviewed about assessment criteria for coaches, coaching topics, expectations on coaching, attitudes on coaching and the impact of coaching in their organization. The results show that there are no distinguishable patterns in the formal coaching processes but clear und different types of implicit theories about coaching. Finally some implication for coaching in organization and for external professional coaches were made.     

Der Einfluss von Kognition und Affekt auf Unternehmensgründungsentscheidungen: Eine vergleichende Analyse von Angestellten und Unternehmern

The relationship between individuals?? entrepreneurial behavior and objective situational characteristics of an entrepreneurial opportunity??individual-opportunity nexus??lies in the focus of entrepreneurship research. The role of subjective appraisals and affective influences in the pre-entrepreneurial process was neglected in this context so far. On the basis of a questionnaire experiment with two different samples of employees and entrepreneurs, our results confirm central assumptions of cognitive appraisal and emotion theories. The subjective appraisals of objective entrepreneurial opportunities better predict entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation decisions than the objective characteristics of the entrepreneurial opportunity. Furthermore, the results show in addition to an inverse direct effect of negative affect that the relationship between the entrepreneurial evaluation and exploitation is negatively moderated by negative affect. Our analyses indicate that the two subsamples show differences in their cognitive processes, but that they are still generally comparable. The affective influences on the pre-entrepreneurial process, however, demonstrate no group specific differences. These results extend the individual-opportunity-nexus-paradigm that is based on objective characteristics by examining the meaning of subjective appraisals and affective reactions and therefore the intersection of individuals and entrepreneurial opportunities.     

Alfred Kuß: „Marketing-Theorie: Eine Einführung“

Rezensionen

Alfred Ku?: „Marketing-Theorie: Eine Einführung“     

Das Reflektierende Team als Methode des „Peer-Coaching“

The Reflecting Team as method of ?peer coaching“ Presented is the employment of coaching in leadership training to grant for the participants a ?peer coaching“ method (collegial case study) for the day by day operations. The scope is the expansion for the problem solving capability. As methodical procedure is a ?reflecting team“, which originally was developped in the systemic psychotherapy and is applied as well as supervisory tool in a modified form. Application possibilities and methodical procedures as frame conditions are described. The feed back by the participants refering to usefullness and practical results are in general of positiv relevance.     

Kann zu viel Kundenorientierung nachteilig sein? Eine Analyse der Wirkung der Kundenorientierung von Verkäufern auf die Kaufentscheidung

Zusammenfassung  In diesem Beitrag wird analysiert, wie das kundenorientierte Verk?uferverhalten auf die Kaufentscheidung der Kunden wirkt. Die Analyse erfolgt auf der Ebene der Dimensionen des kundenorientierten Verkaufens, namentlich Entscheidungsunterstützung, Aufbau eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas und Vermeidung von Abschlussdruck. Die Ergebnisse best?tigen die indirekte Wirkung des kundenorientierten Verkaufens auf die Kaufentscheidung über die Beratungszufriedenheit. Daneben k?nnen sowohl ein direkter umgekehrt u-f?rmiger Effekt der Vermeidung von Abschlussdruck auf die Kaufentscheidung als auch ein direkter negativer Einfluss des Aufbaus eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas auf die Kaufentscheidung nachgewiesen werden. Zudem zeigt sich, dass der Aufbau eines positiven Gespr?chsklimas den st?rksten Einfluss auf die Beratungszufriedenheit ausübt.

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Can too much customer orientation be less effective? An analysis of the effects of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy

Summary  This research investigates the effects of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy. In so doing, the focus of the analysis is on the effects of the dimensions of customer-oriented selling, namely supporting customer decision-making, building a positive interaction climate, and avoiding pressure to close the sale. The findings of an empirical study support an indirect effect of customer-oriented selling on customers’ decision to buy through customer satisfaction with the sales interaction. The results also support a direct inverted u-shaped effect of avoiding pressure to close the sale on customers’ decision to buy as well as a direct negative effect of building a positive interaction climate on customers’ decision to buy. And building a positive interaction climate was found to have the strongest effect on customer satisfaction with the sales interaction.

Der Autor dankt den zwei anonymen Gutachtern für die wertvollen Anmerkungen und Anregungen zu einer früheren Version dieses Beitrags.     

E-Coaching: Prozess- und Ergebnisevaluation des„Virtuellen Zielerreichungscoachings“

The authors present the design and first results of an ongoing research project. The main emphasis of the research lies on observable and mental processes of the coach and the coachee in and between coaching sessions as well as for the coachee after the coaching. The research is based on a particular e-coaching format named “virtual goal attainment coaching”, consisting of telephone-based coaching sessions combined with by internet mediated questions that the coachee answers with support of the coach. The ambition of this particular type of coaching, since based on empirical findings of coaching success factors and combined with modern media, is to generate excellent results within a short amount of time. Preliminary findings confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of this blended coaching program.     

Erwiderung zu den Anmerkungen von Udo Terstege zum Beitrag „Die Haftung des Wirtschaftsprüfers am Primär-und am Sekundärmarkt — eine rechtsökonomische Analyse“

Insgesamt sind die Anmerkungen von Terstege wenig stichhaltig. Der erste Kritikpunkt ist in seinem Kern unzutreffend. Dennoch kommt Terstege zur gleichen Aussage, dass nicht der volle schaden der gesch?digten Massstab für das Design von haftungsregeln für Wirtschaftsprüfer sein sollte. Der zweite Kritikpunkt ist technisch korrekt, ?ndert aber nichts an den ?konomischen Aussagen unseres Beitrags. Die Berücksichtigung dieses Kritikpunkts in unserem Artikel würde das Modell deutlich verkomplizieren, aber zu keinen anderen Aussagen führen. Die grundthese unseres Papiers, dass die haftung für Wirtschaftsprüfer an Prim?rm?rkten sch?rfer als an sekund?rm?rkten sein sollte, wird überhaupt nicht aufgegriffen. Auch werden unsere Vorschl?ge zur Korrektur einer eventuellen überabschreckung am sekund?rmarkt (siehe Bigus/Sch?fer, 2007, s. 29–36) nicht diskutiert.