Enabling disruptive innovations through the use of customer analysis methods

The theory of disruptive innovation has had a profound effect on academic literature and management mindsets. Nevertheless, the processes that are required to develop disruptive innovations are not yet well understood. An essential part of creating disruptive innovations is gathering the right information on potential and current customers. The research questions that are addressed in this paper deal with the suitability of customer analysis methods for providing this information. The customer analysis model that is formulated in this paper summarizes the results of a literature review regarding the requirements of customer analysis for the success of disruptive innovations. With insights on context, customers, constraints and effects, the model reveals what information is needed to successfully shape the disruptive innovation process. Following the literature on disruptive and radical innovation, a group of eight customer analysis methods is selected and assessed. The analysis reveals that none of the existing methods can generate all of the required information. By combining and modifying the associated methods, the requirements of the proposed model and, by extension, the market can be met. Managers who follow the suggestions of this paper will develop a better understanding of current and potential customers and, therefore, unveil the potential of disruptive innovations.     

MVE, MCD, and MZE: A simulation study comparing convex body minimizers

Summary: In a recent work (Paris Scholz, 2002), a new robust estimator for convex bodies has been proposed, based on the estimation of a zonoid of a distribution. This so–called minimum volume zonoid estimator (MZE) is similar in type to the well–known robust approaches of the minimum volume ellipsoid (MVE) and the minimum covariance determinant (MCD), all three seeking for a subset of given data for which some criteria are minimized. We investigate the similarity between these three concepts by comparing which subsets are chosen to be the optimal ones.     

Aspects of Change for Management in the Internet Environment

This paper will explore the challenge that technology will deliver to management at both the tactical and strategic level. Changes in communication, content of communication, globalization of communication, are critical to these changes. The environment will support a greater degree of discontinuities in planning which is brought about by the globalization of management activities. Successful management must encompose the management of these discontinuities but use information in an artificial intelligence environment. The integration of these data and the actions that come from that integration must be understood within a moral framework. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Differential Overeducation in East and West Germany: Extending Frank's Theory on Economic Returns Changes the Picture of Disadvantaged Women

We test the theory of differential overeducation which predicts that women and particularly partnered women are more affected by overeducation than men. Our OLS and FE estimations based on German SOEP data confirm that women indeed exhibit more years of excess education in both regions. Women's higher educational mismatch accounts for 5 pp of the West German pay gap. However, women suffer lower wage penalties from overeducation than men in both regions and, for partnered people, higher female wage penalties vanish in the FE estimations. Hence, women are more rationed than men concerning overeducation magnitude, confirming Frank's theory, but rather less disadvantaged with respect to economic returns.     

Belastungs- und Preiswirkungen der Missbrauchsbesteuerung bei Anteilsveräußerung nach Sacheinlage in eine Kapitalgesellschaft

In cases of contribution of assets into a corporation and subsequent sale of the participation by the shareholder within a retention period of seven years, the anti-abuse provision of article 22 paragraph 1 UmwStG is applied. Underlying the effects of the anti-abuse regulation on marginal share prices, the analysis shows no tax induced disadvantage in comparison with conventional law, provided that the present value of tax savings resulting from the increase in depreciation caused by the anti-abuse regulation is high enough and compensated in the purchase price. In terms of transparency and tax-law simplification, rejection of this anti-abuse provision is required.