Can Private Donations Help Public Universities Build Bridges Over Troubled Waters?: Practical Lessons for Administrators and Donors

With decreasing appropriations, some public organizations seek donations, often from large donors who may want to generate a return on investment by transforming the institution. As such, an interesting question emerges about institutions’ ability to meet donors’ expectations. Long fundraising histories, combined with a political and decentralized nature, make state universities an interesting venue to study the use of donations to create institutional change. Based on two single-state case studies, this research argues that real and perceived organizational barriers must be overcome. It concludes with implications for both administrator and donors.     

Interkulturelles Coaching – eine komplexe,systemische Herausforderung

Intercultural coaching takes place in the highly complex reality of a globalized world. The coachee is an individual acting in the situational context of his assignment and his corporate culture. He has been socialized in his own culture, but is communicating and interacting with people who have been socialized in different cultures. In order to identify and solve problems, all three aspects (person, situation, culture) have to be considered. Some aspects may have more influence than others may, but they combine in a closely interwoven system. The authors outline the theoretical background of intercultural coaching and illustrate the process with case studies.     

Coaching für japanische Migranten in Deutschland

Compared to other minority groups, Japanese migrants in Germany are regarded as privileged and homogeneous. The author argues against the stereotype of homogeneity and closely analyses this particular migrant group and its situational, heterogeneous necessities and objectives which motivate the use of diverse coaching methods. In addition, the author discusses traditional hierarchical values in the home culture which tends to project a role model in a coach. The mixture of Japanese migrants’ heterogeneous needs in coaching and their hierarchically homogeneous values cannot be adequately addressed by the application of conventional coaching methods in Germany.     

Serious Games und ihre Anwendung im E‑Coaching

Compared to Internet and mobile communications, computer and video games are little used for psychotherapy, (psychosocial) counseling or coaching. This also applies to Serious Games, i.?e. interactive computer games that train cognitive or behavioral skills in a digital learning environment. Avatar-based coaching can be relevant for the coaching practice which includes design features and functional principles of Serious Games and whose example can be used to derive usage potential and risks for both coachs and clients.     

Der Team Power Profiler – ein Analyseverfahren für virtuelle internationale Teams

Globalization and contemporary technology have made international virtual teamwork a routine aspect of daily business. The requirements are very complex; the results often disappointing. We have identified nine critical success factors that are crucial to successful international cooperation. Our Internet survey tool, the Team Power Profiler, analyzes both the strengths and weaknesses of international virtual teams, and in doing so offers a framework for effective coaching.     

Bollwerk Zivilgesellschaft? Der Drang zum Extremen und Fanatismus in diesen unsicheren Zeiten

International studies show that the globalization and liberalization of modern societies often are experienced as a profound self-confusion. As an answer to these fundamental attacks on their self-esteem, many people develop extreme belief systems, which help them to regain self-confidence and self-assurance. Based on two examples of radicalization – xenophobia and veganism- some underlying psychological processes are discussed. As some consequences of radicalization for societies can be expected, e.?g. a strong hostile social polarization, a growing incompetence to adjust to a world of permanent change, or the total refusal to engage in dialogue. However, some hope offers the civil society in their resolute concountering radicalism to defend the virtues of democracy.     

David and Goliath: causes and effects of coopetition between start-ups and corporates

Coopetition (collaboration between competitors) among young firms (i.e. start-ups) and larger, more established firms (i.e. corporates) may be beneficial for both partners as each party typically has something to offer that is missing in the other. Start-ups often develop innovative ideas, are flexible and agile, willing to take risks, and aspire to achieve high growth, but they tend to lack the required resources, capabilities, and knowledge due to their newness and smallness. Corporates have resources, routines, and experience that enable them to work efficiently but lack a certain innovation capability. Research has suggested that coopetition represents an opportunity for start-ups facing restrictions in resources, while corporates benefit from start-ups’ innovative ideas. However, it is yet unknown whether start-ups and corporates engage in coopetition with each other and, if so, how and why they do this. This study seeks to fill this void by exploring the motives of coopeting start-ups and corporates, how they manage their coopetitive relationship, and what implications occur including potential benefits and risks. We present a multiple case study based on qualitative data collected through 70 interviews with Austrian-based start-ups and corporates representing 35 coopetitive partnerships. Discussing the findings based on our data, we propose relationships concerning coopetition and its role to enlarge resource- and technology-bases as well as its role in the development of dynamic capabilities.     

International coopetition for innovation: Are the benefits worth the challenges?

International coopetition has rarely been studied in relation to innovation. Further exploration of effects of international coopetition, i.e. the pursuit of simultaneous cooperation and competition, on a firm’s innovation performance is especially important as such a relationship is challenging with a high propensity to fail. This observation formed the point of departure for this study, which aims to increase the understanding of the effects of international coopetition on firm innovativeness and how these effects are conditioned on the magnitude of the organizational adjustments a firm introduces. We use an unbalanced panel of 9839 firms that participated in four waves of the Swedish Community Innovation Survey between 2008 and 2014 as our empirical base. We illustrate that firms that cooperate with competitors internationally are more likely to exhibit higher propensity to introduce radical innovations, yet this effect is conditioned upon the magnitude of organizational adjustments. Overall, our study contributes to the understanding of the implications of international coopetition and what a firm needs to benefit from it.     

Organizational innovativeness and coopetition: a study of video game developers

Collaboration with rivals is viewed as a way to achieve superior performance of firms in terms of innovation output. Yet empirical results show that coopetition may either foster, hamper or be neutral to innovation. The motivation of our study resides in firms’ heterogeneity in terms of their innovative capacity, that is innovativeness, in order to better understand the complex relationship between coopetition and innovation. We explore the interdependency between organizational innovativeness and coopetition. Our study has been conducted in the Polish video game industry. The data has been collected through a survey administered to all 506 identified Polish video game developers, with an effective sample of 84 coopetitors. We run correlation and regression analyses in a multidimensional approach to organizational innovativeness and coopetition. Our findings show that coopetition is a popular strategy for video game developers, and is adopted by 68% of firms. Organizational innovativeness and its particular dimensions are positively and significantly related to both direct and indirect coopetition. Based on factor analysis we find its three components to be reliable: openness and encouragement to innovate; strategic innovative focus; and extrinsic monetary motivation. While extrinsic monetary motivation does not play a role in coopetition of video game developers, openness and encouragement to innovate stimulates especially indirect coopetition, while strategic innovative focus affects especially direct coopetition.