Previous research has considered entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty and as a chance to foster economic growth. Moreover, specifically start-ups headed by women have played an important role in the economic development and it has been argued that gender-related issues, amongst others, play a significant role for the performance of a country or region. Against this background, this qualitative study explores desires, reluctances and constraints toward entrepreneurial activities of a comparably homogenous group ...

This dissertation examines stakeholder management in the context of sustainable supply chain management. Since ecological deterioration and social discrepancy keep increasing, sustainability is considered one of the most significant challenges in our current time. Due to the growing public awareness of the environmental and social sustainability issues, multiple stakeholders drive the need to implement sustainability into SCs and hold the focal firms responsible for the actions of the entire SC. Stakeholder management ...

Managers are still floundering when they have to decide on the optimal level of feedback frequency; either when they consider themselves as a source of feedback, but also when they shape the feedback environment of their employees, e.g., by allowing more (or less) frequent customer feedback. Furthermore, given that feedback is a time-consuming task, managers might be reluctant to provide feedback frequently, foregoing a potentially powerful lever for increasing employee creativity. Ultimately, clarifying the ambiguities ...

Based on micro-econometric analyses of survey data, this thesis extends existing research on the determinants of climate-friendly behavior in the energy sector with a special focus on economic preferences and social identity. It contains an overarching introduction and conclusion including a discussion of the policy implications of the results and avenues for future research. The main body of the thesis contains six research articles, organized in two subsections containing three articles each. All six research ...

In the contemporary business world, the real competition is not among individual businesses but rather between supply chains. Companies, which are part of efficient supply chains, are considered destined to outperform their competitors being part of inefficient supply chains. Moreover, performance has been a matter of concern for researchers for decades and is the primary aim of any firm’s existence. The definition of performance includes the performance measurement (PM) concept and further supports the notion that ...

Using a survey experiment among a special sample composed of art house cinema visitors, we investigate whether spatial climate messages increase subjects’ willingness to pay for an inclusion of public transport fares in cinema tickets as well as their willingness to use public transport in case such a combined ticket is introduced. Based on previous findings, we expect emphasizing the positive impact of public transport usage on the local level to have a greater effect on subjects’ preferences for public transport ...

This dissertation analyzes supply chain risk management (SCRM) and sustainability performance in the context of circular supply chains (CSCs). The implementation of circular economy (CE) thinking in firms and supply chains has a crucial role in fostering innovative and efficient ways of producing and consuming. However, CE implementation is not a straightforward process, begetting risks and uncertainties that can impact the overall sustainability performance of CSCs. Therefore, managers need to adopt appropriate ...

This dissertation deals with the institutional environment surrounding the private sector in the various emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) worldwide where most of the global population lives. Its primary purpose is to identify and combine theoretical aspects of new (sociological) institutionalism/neo-institutionalism to better understand the role of institutional environments in shaping business impacts on sustainable development. Institutions shape the behaviour of individuals as well as entire groups ...

This thesis aims to analyze how further take-up of Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) in practice can be encouraged to support sustainable development. To achieve the aim of the thesis, three studies on MFCA are conducted at multiple levels. The first study provides a better understanding of MFCA application at the corporate level in developing countries, which are characterized by rapid structure transformation leading to serious environmental problems. The second study considers the contextual and transformational ...

This thesis contributes to the discussion of the utilization of network-supportive flexibility, in particular in the context of local flexibility markets (LFM). The thesis comprises five articles that are methodologically related but can be read independently. The focus of the investigations is on economic aspects and short- and medium-term market processes. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the topic including the definition of the most important terms. Chapter 2 includes the paper, “Design of regional flexibility ...