Handelshochschule Leipzig

The service productivity literature has grown remarkably over the last two decades and has gathered substantial knowledge. However, with the gradual acceleration of knowledge production about service productivity, the collective evidence becomes more fragmented and interdisciplinary. The purpose of this literature review is to systematically identify and analyze 190 publications focusing on service productivity to link previously dispersed studies as a next step in theory development. By clustering existing service productivity research into macroeconomic, mesoeconomic, and microeconomic dimensions, our review reveals that much progress has been made in advancing the open-ended theory of optimal service productivity. Reviewing key insights from the existing literature, we show that the majority of service productivity research adopts a one-sided industrial perspective that primarily focuses on firm productivity. Although valuable, these studies most often leave out consumers’ time and effort, neglecting the value of consumer-generated input. Thus, the present research offers a new conceptualization of service productivity by emphasizing it as an open and customer-inclusive process that transcends the service producer–customer divide. Finally, we contribute a set of propositions. Within these propositions, we identify beneficial conditions and means for firms to improve service productivity. In sum, the article provides policymakers, researchers, and practitioners with valuable guidance for developing means to generate positive effects in a service economy that lacks productivity.

Innovation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is often the result of technology-driven or market-pull entrepreneurship activities. So far, although its importance in practice, as well as in academia continues to grow, extant research exhibits little theory about the process of technology-driven entrepreneurship in SMEs. The study aims to better understand how technology-driven entrepreneurship processes transform business in SMEs in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, we developed a technological entrepreneurship (TE) process framework by utilizing the flexible pattern matching approach (FPMA). We iteratively compared a priori pat- terns from existing theoretical knowledge to empirical findings that emerged from in-depth interviews with corporate executives in the manufacturing industry. The framework highlights the TE process in SMEs leading to four output components: (1) corporate-function-related, (2) business-model-related, (3) competitiveness-related, and (4) customer-related. This study makes a unique contribution to academia by being the first that develops a TE process framework tailored to SMEs from the manufacturing industry. We point out that sustainable growth and competitiveness of SMEs depends on appropriate TE process management, and we underline the strategic importance of TE-driven transformation for SME managers. Our study expands the scope of TE and SME research and provides empirically grounded insights into technology-driven innovation.

Innovation‐focused co‐creation between companies and individual external contributors is accompanied by the challenge of managing intellectual property (IP). The existing literature presents scattered evidence of various elements of the arrangements adopted by companies to manage their IP (such as a high or low degree of IP control, monetary or non‐monetary compensation, non‐disclosure agreements, additional agreements and the waiver option) in different co‐creation settings (including crowdsourcing contests, virtual communities, single expert sessions and lead user workshops). However, the existing literature exhibits little understanding of how particular IP arrangements influence co‐creation project performance in specific settings. Drawing upon contingency theory and configurational theory, we provide a framework that explains both the effectiveness of different IP configurations and the moderating role that co‐creation settings may have on the relationship between IP arrangements and project performance. By the means of fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 116 co‐creation projects, we determine the impact of various IP arrangements on project performance in different co‐creation settings, and we show how this effect differs across those settings. Our study also demonstrates that IP matters for success in co‐creation, while highlighting the interdependence of multiple elements of IP arrangements and their joint influence on co‐creation project performance. Our study thus fills the gap in the literature where previous research failed to embrace the context‐dependent and multidimensional effect of IP arrangements on co‐creation project performance. Additionally, this study offers best‐practice guidelines for managers for designing IP arrangements to meet the specific characteristics of their co‐creation projects and to ensure their success.

To adapt their competitive advantages for successful strategic renewal, established companies must apply suitable innovation activities. One way to achieve this is the establishment of corporate venturing units that create organizationally consequential new business innovation for their parent company. However, the understanding of the distinctive organizational characteristics for such strategic corporate venturing is limited. To address this gap, our abductive study develops a conceptual organizational framework by linking key concepts of strategic renewal with corporate venturing. This framework is subsequently compared with insights emerging from the qualitative data of 29 corporate venturing units. This comparison allows us to define six types of units with different possible roles for the strategic renewal of the parent company, and a final exploratory organizational framework with distinctive organizational characteristics for strategic corporate venturing. These include a set of dynamic capabilities with corresponding resources as possible enablers for a planned innovation logic that requires interlinked-ambidextrous structures. These findings provide a foundation for an empirical model of strategic corporate venturing, as well as novel insights for establishing dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity within inter-linked organizational entities. Practitioners can build on these findings to leverage corporate venturing units as a systematic and organized innovation activity for strategic renewal. K E Y W O R D S continuous innovation, corporate innovation, corporate venturing, corporate venturing units, dynamic capabilities, innovation management, new business innovation, organizational ambidexterity, strategic corporate venturing, strategic renewal

Marketing has become accepted and proven in science and practice over the past decades. Many principles of marketing have become self-evident, but have led to gross generalizations and simplified thought patterns. This article examines myths and metaphors in marketing. A distinction is made between myths of managerial marketing and of behavioral marketing. In both sub-disciplines, we are often dealing with complex and invisible phenomena that occur in a variety of contexts. Attempts to explain these phenomena are therefore particularly prone to the emergence of myths or misconceptions. From a managerial perspective, topics such as the philosophy and leadership role of marketing, the generation of innovation success, the development of strategic competitive advantages, and brand management are reflected. Since the change from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market, consumer behavior research and marketing have been closely intertwined. Therefore, findings from consumer behavior research form a central basis for successful decisions in marketing management. Based on this background, the second part of the article focuses on myths of consumer behavior research, here addressing unconscious phenomena in consumer behavior, mainly the discussion of subliminal priming (and its impact on manipulation) and unconscious perception as well as of unconscious motives, and approaches to implicite attitude measurement. Finally, implications are derived as to what extent the presented phenomena and the unveiling of myths have an impact on marketing management and on consumer behavior research and what roles these disciplines should take in the future. In the era of climate change and digital transformation, particular challenges are emerging. Thus, facts and not myths should determine the future path of the marketing discipline.

Corporate accelerators have become a relevant intermediary that connects startups and corporations. Their strategic goal is to establish close relationships between startups and corporations that add value for both parties in the long term. While in principle startups go through an acceleration phase successfully, they may struggle to build meaningful relationships with the accelerator's corporate parent thereafter. In research, the post-acceleration phase and its challenges for corporations and startups has not been adequately addressed to date. Therefore, the goal of this article is to shed light on how corporations and startups collaborate after startups leave an accelerator programme, and which factors hinder successful relationship-building. Grounding on 21 corporate accelerator cases containing data from 99 semi-structured interviews with corporate accelerator managers and startup alumni of accelerator programmes, we present different forms of post-programme collaboration and outline obstacles of post-programme relationship-building. Our results emphasise a key role of business units in successful relationship-building and indicate legitimacy problems of accelerators within its corporate organisation. We also provide guidance for corporations, accelerators, and startups on how to increase the success of post-programme collaboration by demonstrating manifold challenges of post-programme collaboration and showing ways how to overcome them.

Heuristics are often characterized as rules of thumb that can be used to speed up the process of decision-making. They have been examined across a wide range of fields, including economics, psychology, and computer science. However, scholars still struggle to find substantial common ground. This study provides a historical review of heuristics as a research topic before and after the emergence of the subjective expected utility (SEU) theory, emphasising the evolutionary perspective that considers heuristics as resulting from the development of the brain. We find it useful to distinguish between deliberate and automatic uses of heuristics, but point out that they can be used consciously and subconsciously. While we can trace the idea of heuristics through many centuries and fields of application, we focus on the evolution of the modern notion of heuristics through three waves of research, starting with Herbert Simon in the 1950s, who introduced the notion of bounded rationality and suggested the use of heuristics in artificial intelligence, thereby paving the way for all later research on heuristics. A breakthrough came with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the 1970s, who analysed the biases arising from using heuristics. The resulting research programme became the subject of criticism by Gerd Gigerenzer in the 1990s, who argues that an ‘adaptive toolbox’ consisting of ‘fast-and-frugal’ heuristics can yield ‘ecologically rational’ decisions.

Despite service productivity’s scholarly prominence and practical relevance, past research in marketing has primarily adopted isolated perspectives from which disjointed empirical findings reign supreme. As the acquisition of knowledge about service productivity accelerates, the collective evidence becomes more interdisciplinary but also more fragmented. This study uses a meta-analysis to integrate the substantial empirical record on service productivity. We formulate hypotheses on the moderators of service productivity-determinant relationships and meta-analyze 77 articles, relying on 81 independent samples with a cumulative sample size of 30,238 participants to test our predictions. Our meta-analysis provides empirical evidence that service quality and internal efficiency must be considered jointly, not in isolation, to maximize profitability. Thus, relying on one aspect in isolation is less appropriate for measurement purposes and might not lead to positive outcomes. This important finding should concern service scholars and managers because falling profit margins require service firms to move beyond the traditional manufacturing productivity that separates service quality from internal efficiency and consider service productivity as a profitability concept. In sum, our findings provide a viable model to explain the main service productivity determinants and moderating variables, offering valuable insights for practitioners that aim to deliver cost-efficient service quality and promising future research directions.

Introduction In this qualitative study, we examine digital leadership (DL) capabilities and their positive influence on the management of technology-driven change by leveraging service innovations. The context of digital transformation (DT) has triggered a new leadership paradigm, among others referred to as digital leadership (DL). However, despite its practical relevance, leadership research has yet paid little attention to conceptualise DL as an approach to digitally transform organisations. Methods Drawing on mid- and top-level mangers’ experiences with service innovation projects, and based on Grounded Theory, we develop a taxonomy of DL-related capabilities and a conceptual framework which exemplifies their influences on dynamic service innovation capabilities (DSICs). DSICs build on the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) and represent the “organisational muscle” to repeatedly deliver service innovations indicating an effective management of technology-driven change. Results and Discussion Taxonomy results show that aggregated dimensions in terms of a digital leader’s personal, social, and organisational capital serve as underpinnings (DL-related capabilities) to drive strategic change in DT contexts. The conceptual framework further reveals that especially the personal and organisational capital of a digital leader owns several strong and moderate influences on DSICs which demonstrates DL’s “long arm” on the management of technology-driven change. Our findings contribute to leadership research by advancing the conceptualisation of DL and by adding a novel micro-foundational perspective towards the DCV discourse. As organisations struggle to realise the full benefits of DT initiatives, our results also provide a valuable contribution for practitioners by supporting them to strategically prepare for the human-related challenges of DT.

First offers play a significant role in negotiations as they anchor negotiators’ perceptions and influence negotiation outcomes in favor of the first-offer proposer. However, negotiation is a joint decision-making process in which a first offer is typically succeeded by a counteroffer. The impact of a counteroffer has not yet been systematically researched. We propose that a counteroffer influences negotiation outcomes like a first offer. In addition, we conceptualize the “anchor zone” as the distance between the first offer and the counteroffer. We theorize that the anchor zone influences negotiation outcomes because it captures additional information compared to a single offer. To test our hypotheses, we conducted two studies: Study 1 was a vignette study (n = 190) in which participants reacted to a counteroffer that they received based on their first offer as part of a simulated negotiation. Study 2 was an online experiment (n = 212) in which participants negotiated by exchanging offers with no further communication. Our analysis suggests that the counteroffer is a significant predictor of economic outcomes. Thus, it works like a first offer, but with a lower impact. In addition, the anchor zone predicted how far the final agreement was from the first offer. Furthermore, we found that the third offer, the average concessions, and the number of offers mediated the effects of the counteroffer and anchor zone on economic outcomes. Finally, we discovered that a more aggressive counteroffer reduced the subjective value of both negotiators.

Earnings management decisions and ineffective monitoring activities have contributed to financial accounting scandals and reduced confidence in firms’ reporting quality among potential investors, lenders and other creditors. The implementation of an effective top management team (TMT) is considered essential in this context. It is well known that top managers have considerable discretion over firms’ financial reporting since they choose whether and how to manage earnings. However, research has yet to establish the relationship between top managers’ diversity attributes and firms’ earnings management levels. Therefore, this study analyses whether and how top managers’ nationality, gender and age diversity are associated with accounting quality. Based on a sample of German DAX 30 listed firms from 2011 to 2018, we found that diversity in TMT nationality and gender have a positive impact on accounting quality. This relationship is context-dependent and negatively moderated by the tenure of the chief financial officer. Our findings provide novel insights on accounting quality for practitioners such as investors, regulators and stock corporations. The implications of this study further advance the academic debate on diversity in TMTs and its effects on earnings management.

Due to the trend towards more frequent and multiple crises, it is essential for enterprises as well as for states and entire economic areas to develop strategies to improve resilience. In this article, existing challenges and conceivable strategies for improving resilience will be outlined from a microeconomic as well as from a macroeconomic perspective. To mitigate vulnerabilities of Supply Chains in the last decades, drivers for improving Supply Chain resilience have been explored. They are presented as contributing to building resilience on the micro level. On the macro level, opportunities and limits of current approaches for strategic independence are discussed. In terms of a new regulatory policy, a rescue of honour for global cooperation and free trade is proposed by the authors.

Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly in business products and processes, with innovations that bring great benefits to society; however, significant risks also arise. AI-enabled systems make decisions autonomously and influence users and the environment, presenting multiple ethical issues. This work focuses on the ethics of AI use in business. We conduct a survey of business journal articles published between 2000 and mid-2021 to identify the most influential journals, articles, and authors, the most influential ethical schools, and the main ethical issues of AI in business. It describes the state-of-the-art in the field and identifies trends in ethical issues arising from AI. Thus, we present maps and trends of the ethics in AI in business literature.

Zusammenfassung Ziel Über die Qualität des Pandemiemanagements in Deutschland existiert ein kontroverses Meinungsbild. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es angezeigt, Fehler und Versäumnisse des Pandemiemanagements sachlich zu reflektieren und konstruktiv Maßnahmen zur Stärkung der Resilienz ausgewählter Bereiche des Gesundheitssystems (Lieferketten, Digitalisierung, Fachkräfteverfügbarkeit, Versorgungsstruktur, Refinanzierung) zu entwickeln. Methode Durchgeführt wurde eine Meta-Analyse verschiedener Studien über die medizinische Versorgungssituation während der Pandemie, ergänzt durch eine Analyse von Lieferabrissen bei Medizinprodukten und Arzneimitteln sowie eine Recherche über die Arbeitssituation und Arbeitszufriedenheit von „am Bett tätigen Berufsgruppen“. Die Datenerhebung erfolgte durch Literaturanalyse, anonymisierte Fragebogen und strukturierte Interviews mit Entscheidern unterschiedlicher Funktionsbereiche (z. B. Einkauf/Logistik, Medizin/Pflege). Ergebnisse Die Resilienz von Lieferketten steigt durch teilweise Rückverlagerung systemkritischer Produkte und verstärkte Orientierung am Kriterium „Liefersicherheit“ bei der Auswahl von Partnern und Standorten. Telemedizinische Dienste zur Betreuung von Patienten im häuslichen Bereich und digitale Behandlungs-Plattformen für virtuelle Arztbesuche bewirken Kontaktreduktion im Pandemiefall, verhindern medizinische Spätfolgen und volkswirtschaftliche Kosten unterlassener Vorsorgeuntersuchungen, nutzen knappe Arzt-Ressourcen effizienter und erhöhen die Verfügbarkeit medizinischer Leistungen in der Fläche. Die Vergütung medizinischer Leistungen sollte auf die Prinzipien des Value-Based Health Care-Ansatzes umgestellt und durch eine funktionsabhängige Finanzierung von Vorhaltekosten ergänzt werden. Die Schaffung attraktiver Arbeitsbedingungen in Verbindung mit arbeitgeberseitigen Unterstützungsmaßnahmen wie z. B. kostenfreie 7/24-KiTa-Plätze und einer angemessenen Vergütung stellt ein wirksames Maßnahmenbündel zur Begegnung des Fachkräftemangels dar. Schlussfolgerungen Es besteht dringender Handlungsbedarf, um die Krisenresilienz des Gesundheitssystems für die Zukunft zu stärken. Krankenhaus-Manager haben die Aufgabe, die Arbeitsbedingungen familienfreundlicher zu gestalten und die Entgeltsituation für „am Bett tätige Berufsgruppen“ nachhaltig zu verbessern, um dem Fachkräftemangel entgegenzuwirken. Politik und Verbände sind gefordert, die Finanzierung von Vorhaltekosten in das Vergütungssystem einzubauen, die Digitalisierung voranzutreiben und für den Aufbau von heimischen Reserve-Produktionskapazitäten bei systemkritischen Medizinprodukten sowie Arzneimitteln zu sorgen. Der Beitrag der Medizinindustrie liegt in der Verkürzung globaler Lieferketten, um deren Steuerbarkeit zu erleichtern sowie deren Versorgungssicherheit zu erhöhen. Die Entwicklung von nachhaltigen Produkten verringert den Ressourcenbedarf, senkt die Kosten der Betriebsbereitschaft, unterstützt die Klimaziele und reduziert das Risiko von Lieferabrissen.

Corporate venture capitalists (CVCs) have shorter lifespans than independent venture capitalists (IVCs), but the reasons for this are not well understood. This paper identifies influencing factors affecting lifespans of CVCs and IVCs. Based on a sample of 190 articles, this systematic review identifies 41 factors that influence VC performance across four dimensions: decisions about strategies, the exploitation of venture capital resources and characteristics, active involvement in the venture capital environment, and limited underlying room for maneuvering. These dimensions show differences in the decision-making of IVCs and CVCs and impact lifespan. CVCs yield greater financial performance than IVCs. However, our results suggest that five CVC-specific factors are significant influencing factors which can explain lifespan differences: investment objectives , organizational autonomy and structure, interorganizational relationships, commitment of corporate parent, and parent company size. Overall, the longevity of CVCs is largely determined by a number of internal decisions made between the CVC and its parent company. Limiting the influence of corporate parents is suggested to enhance the success and lifespan of CVCs. ARTICLE HISTORY

Venture capital (VC) often involves complex equity contracts with so-called preferential rights affecting the allocation of exit proceeds among different share classes and investors. We structure exit-relevant preferential rights in a two-dimensional framework and develop a contingent claims model that allows for ex-ante valuation of separate shareholdings. The model generates insights on the valuation effects of varying setups in VC financing and indicates considerable mispricing potential of VC investments when applying commonly used heuristics such as the most recent funding round. Applying the model to a sample of ventures indicated an average ’overvaluation’ on a per-share basis of 26.7%\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$26.7\%$$\end{document}, with common stocks and early-stage investments being the most affected. In addition, our analysis provides different implications regarding the effects of preferential right structuring for early and late stage investors.

We study the asymptotic stability in replicator dynamics derived from TU games using the dual Lovász-Shapley value and the Shapley² value for non-negatively weighted games. In particular, we provide a complete description of asymptotically stable population profiles in both dynamics. In the dual Lovász-Shapley replicator dynamic, for example, asymptotically stable populations for simple monotonic games correspond to their minimal blocking coalitions.

A single machine scheduling problem with assignable job due dates to minimize total late work has recently been introduced by Mosheiov et al. Mosheiov, Oron, and Shabtay (2021). The problem was proved NP-hard in the ordinary sense, and no solution algorithm was proposed. In this note, we present two pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithms and an FPTAS for this problem. Besides, we introduce a new single machine scheduling problem to minimize maximum late work of jobs with assignable due dates. We develop an O(nlogn) time algorithm for it, where n is the number of jobs. An optimal solution value of this new problem is a lower bound for the optimal value of the total late work minimization problem, and it is used in the FPTAS.

Using a sample of 18,225 global buyouts, we find that management buyouts (MBOs) are significantly more likely to occur if economic policy uncertainty (EPU) increases. This finding is consistent with the idea that EPU provides an opportunity for insiders to capitalize on private information and time the market. Further results suggest that market timing pays off on average. We find that MBOs achieve more favorable buyout prices and greater post-buyout operating improvements than institutional buyouts during times of high EPU. Our results hold when exploiting close national election races as a quasi-natural experiment for EPU.

The scale of freight forwarding to the hinterland becomes an issue from the perspective of both – transport policy and cost efficiency of service providers. This problem is sharply visible in areas where ports, depots, inland intermodal terminals, exporters and importers are located, and full and empty containers satisfying demand and supply are frequently distributed creating a lot of traffic. Therefore solutions meeting the challenges of sustainable transport, responding to climate change and regulation of CO2 emissions are in need. In this paper, a variant of a Mixed Fleet Heterogeneous Dial-a-Ride Problem is proposed for optimal routing of trucks carrying full and empty 20-foot and 40-foot containers, with multiple pick-ups and deliveries. Transportation is performed by alternatively fueled vehicles (AFVs) for environmental reasons which causes a constraint of a limited driving range and a need of refueling. The main objective is minimising the total distance subject to matching the empty container demand and supply, necessary refueling of the trucks, and service time windows.