Michael Eßig’s research while affiliated with University of the Bundeswehr Munich and other places

Major public procurement projects often experience systematic cost deviations. While research has traditionally focused on planning-specific causes, biases in cost-based decision-making remain underexplored. Addressing this gap, this study examines how decision-makers engage with project information through 18 interviews with 29 public procurement professionals. It confirms seven of ten previously observed biases and identifies two additional biases from adjacent research disciplines that inhibit the actual use of cost information in procurement decisions. By offering new explanatory insights, this study advances research on decision biases, provides a pathway for debiasing decision-making, and underscores the critical need for a cost culture approach in public procurement.

In an era of rapidly evolving customer demands and technological advancements, organisations face mounting pressure to enhance their responsiveness. Digital Twins offer novel capabilities by providing comprehensive transparency on customer demands through dynamic and interactive links between real-world entities and their digital counterparts. As a result, Digital Twins have the potential to enable organisations to respond more swiftly and effectively to fluctuating customer demands across volume, process, and product dimensions. However, Digital Twins still lack empirical explorations and theoretical embedment, leading to conceptual ambiguity. Through a case study approach, the study integrates Digital Twins into the framework of Organisational Information Processing Theory (OIPT). Empirical evidence proposes that Digital Twins offer a spectrum of capabilities rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. The findings further emphasise the need for aligning Digital Twin sophistication levels with Information Processing Needs and Constraints, highlighting that the dynamic interplay between Digital Twin advancements, Information Processing Constraints, and Information Processing Capabilities creates a dynamic cycle of adaptation and optimisation. On the whole, the study presents four key implications: (1) Awareness about the versatile application areas of Digital Twins is created. (2) The positive impact of Digital Twins on volume, process, and product responsiveness is outlined. (3) The concept of Information Processing Constraints is introduced to OIPT. And (4) a dynamic cycle of aligning Digital Twin sophistication with Information Processing Capabilities and Constraints is suggested. Therefore, the study contributes not only to a deeper understanding of Digital Twins in demand management but also proposes a new dynamic fit perspective on OIPT.

Fortgeschrittene Algorithmen und Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) werden mittlerweile in zahlreichen Anwendungsfeldern eingesetzt. Während die Ausgabenanalyse, das Risikomanagement, das Vertragsmanagement oder auch die Lieferantenidentifikation und -auswahl als typische Anwendungen im Gebiet der Beschaffungsfunktion gelten, ist die Gestaltung von Vertragsinhalten bisher nur wenig adressiert.

There is an ongoing discussion of whether defence markets are comparable to non-defence markets in terms of a working competition. On the one hand, there are legislative initiatives, e.g. in the European Union to improve competitiveness, despite the tendency to keep markets "closed" due to secure domestic supply of critical equipment and services. In order to maintain a military advantage, defence supply markets seem to play a central role. Both ends, buyers and suppliers are shaping market attractiveness and future potential growth. While market-oriented thoughts experience a vivid discussion in a research context where profit-driven buying organizations meet profit-driven suppliers, an uptake of those thoughts in the defence sector can only be observed in a very limited number of studies. Hence, this research inquiry sheds light on both ends of the market by combining insights from secondary data analysis on contract awarding activities and insights from a survey on suppliers perception of the attractiveness of the buyers' side. The study mainly centres on the German defence supply market. By combining different insights, it is intended to contribute to a more market-driven view in defence supply management.

Research with a focus on Performance-Based Contracting (PBC) often deals with factors enabling PBC, while only some studies evaluate the effects. This surprises, because PBC is intended to achieve outcome effects over time, but only few studies really evaluate such effects. Thus, there is still a lack of empirical evidence and proof of concept. This contribution examines the value proposition of PBC with data from a large and technically complex aircraft fleet. The findings are based on statistical analysis of performance data. The analysis shows that the availability results for spare parts supply are improved in a PBC. Moreover, spare parts availability (SP-Av) has effects on successional system performance. The outcomes of the maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) processes, but also the outcome of the overall fleet operability and even the fleet usage are improved. The implications are not only to recommend PBC implementation but also to realize that PBC can have outcome effects even when it is implemented in a hybrid PBC management approach. Acknowledgement to Colleague Franziska Binder for presenting the paper due to absence of the authors.