The 10 most recently published documents
Analyse und Bewertung der Resilienz von Unternehmen und Geschäftsprozessen aus Ressourcensicht
(2025)
Companies can be affected by events that adversely impact their business operations. These events can originate from corporate environments or within companies themselves. The effects of these events may be quite diverse and can threaten the survival of companies in the worst case. To deal with events that can adversely impact business operations of companies, the concept of resilience can be used. The concept of resilience relates to the ability of companies to handle adverse circumstances. It encompasses different aspects from measuring to restoring and strengthening the resilience of companies. This dissertation deals with the concept of resilience within the corporate context. It considers the concept of resilience from a company and business process perspective and provides different research contributions for this contexts. From a company perspective, a concept and a model are presented that serve as the basis to analyse the resilience of companies. The concept shows essential elements that are important for considering the resilience of companies. The model outlines the range that can be used to analyse the resilience of companies. Furthermore, a corporate maturity model is introduced to assess the resilience of companies. It encompasses different attributes and resilience levels to determine and improve the resilience of compannies. From a business process perspective, a lifecycle and metrics for business process resilience are presented. The lifecycle shows different phases relating to resilience considerations of business processes. The metrics are used to measure the resilience of business processes.
Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Forschungsfrage Welche fachspezifischen Faktoren beeinflussen den Einsatz digitaler Medien in der sportlichen Lehre von rheinland-pfälzischen Sportlehrkräften und Lehrkräftebildner:innen? Grundlage der Untersuchung bildet das Will-Skill-Tool-Modell zur Technologieintegration von Knezek et al. (2003), das drei zentrale Einflussfaktoren differenziert: (1) Die individuellen Haltungen und Einstellungen der Lehrperson gegenüber digitalen Medien (Will), (2) die subjektiv wahrgenommenen digitalisierungsbezogenen Kompetenzen (Skill) und (3) der Zugang zu technischer Infrastruktur (Tool).
Im Rahmen der Studie wurden 55 problemzentrierte leitfadengestützte Interviews mit rheinland-pfälzischen Sportlehramtsstudierenden, Lehramtsanwärter:innen, Lehrkräften, Seminarleiter:innen des Unterrichtsfaches Sport und Hochschuldozierenden, welche in der universitären Ausbildung von Sportlehrkräften involviert sind, durchgeführt.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Beteiligten digitale Medien maßvoll einsetzen, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Nutzung von Videos und der Entlastung der Lehrperson liegt. Die Befragten stehen dem Einsatz digitaler Medien in der sportlichen Lehre überwiegend positiv gegenüber, empfinden jedoch häufig ein Spannungsfeld zwischen Mediennutzung und einem potenziellen Verlust an Bewegungszeit. Die erforderlichen digitalisierungsbezogenen Kompetenzen sollen aus Sicht der Be-fragten das Lernen mit Medien als Unterrichtswerkzeuge unterstützen, während kritisch und reflexive Aspekte kaum thematisiert werden. Im Vergleich zu Schulen wird die technische Ausstattung von Sporthallen als verbesserungswürdig wahrgenommen, was den Medieneinsatz hemmt. Die COVID-19-Pandemie hatte laut den Befragten einen signifikanten Einfluss auf den Medieneinsatz, die persönlichen Einstellungen und die individuellen digitalisierungsbezogenen Kompetenzen.
Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass der Medieneinsatz nicht mehr ausschließlich als abhängige Variable betrachtet werden kann, sondern selbst Einfluss auf die Aspekte Will und Skill ausübt. Die spezifische Betrachtung der Modellkategorien legt nahe, dass dem Aspekt Tool für die sportliche Lehre eine besondere Bedeutung zukommt. Handlungsempfehlungen zur Förderung eines nachhaltigen und effektiven Einsatzes digitaler Medien in der sportlichen Lehre umfassen die verbindliche Integration digitaler Medien in Fachcurricula, die Gestaltung niederschwelliger Fortbildungen, die adäquate Ausstattung von Sporthallen und den Ausbau von Unterstützungsstrukturen.
Gender disparities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields remain a significant challenge, with women often underrepresented. Spatial abilities, particularly mental rotation (MR), are crucial for success in STEM, yet significant gender differences in these skills persist. This research aims to explore the factors contributing to these differences, focusing on emotional reactivity, self-concept, anxiety, and their impact on performance in mathematical and spatial tasks among primary school children. This research synthesizes findings from three related studies involving N=303 primary school students, consisting of 146 girls and 155 boys with a mean age=8.70 (SD=1.11) years. Data were collected through standardized questionnaires assessing self-concept, spatial and maths anxiety, and preferences for STEM subjects. Cognitive performance was evaluated using a computerized, novel Mental Rotation Task (nMRT) incorporating gender-congruent and neutral stimuli and various maths tasks correlating with mental rotation. Physiological responses were measured using galvanic skin response (GSR) to assess the impact of emotional reactivity on task performance. All data were collected in the classroom environment to increase ecological validity and generalizability of findings. Across studies, girls demonstrated higher maths and spatial anxiety, lower maths self-concept, and a lower preference for maths as a STEM subject compared to boys. These factors were significantly associated with performance differences in both maths and MR tasks. Higher emotional reactivity, as evidenced by GSR, and increased response time were associated with better scores on difficult items, that is, abstract stimuli rotated in-depth. Emotional reactivity also affected maths task completion times, with girls demonstrating lower physiological arousal linked to shorter processing time. Gender, subject preference, math self-concept and anxiety levels emerged as significant predictors of task performance on both maths and spatial tasks. The results underscore the influence of self concept, anxiety and physiological responses on cognitive performance, highlighting significant gender differences. Girls demonstrated higher subjective anxiety and physiological arousal during maths tasks. However, in the same group, lower emotional reactivity and maths anxiety served as protective influences, leading to improved scores and shorter completion times. Moreover, girls and tweens demonstrated lower maths self-concept and preference for maths, indicating that stereotype effects are already impacting their interest during primary school. These findings suggest that psychological factors play a crucial role in learning outcomes, particularly in STEM subjects. This integrated research contributes to a deeper understanding of how psychological factors such as self-concept, subjective anxiety but also physiological arousal and subject preferences affect mathematical and spatial performance in primary school children. The findings have practical implications for educators and policymakers, advocating for the development of strategies to enhance self-concept, manage anxiety and support emotional regulation, particularly in girls, fostering a supportive learning environment that mitigates the impact of stereotype threat. Enhanced self-efficacy and reduced anxiety thereby increase the likelihood of their engagement with maths, subsequently improving their performance and expanding their future career options
in STEM fields.
Population genetics investigates genetic diversity and its changes within and between populations over space and time. Genetic diversity is important for fitness, adaptive capacity, and the survival of populations and is influenced by several factors, such as mutation, selection, genetic drift and gene flow. Copper butterflies (Lycaena) are suitable for analysing structures influencing population connectivity as they potentially form more or less closed populations. However, very little is known about their genetic diversity and what influences it. Therefore, this thesis (1) provides newly developed microsatellite markers and uses genetic markers (2) to investigate genetic diversity across four different Lycaena species in the European Alps and to determine (3) which geographic and species specific factors influence population structure, (4) which large- and small-scale structures impact the population structure, (5) how natural and anthropogenic structures influence the population structure within an Alpine valley, and (6) whether and how genetic diversity changes over time. It was shown that the postglacial relict species L. helle has a relatively high genetic diversity compared to the other three species investigated. This suggests that L. helle is still able to adapt to environmental changes. Low genetic diversity was found in L. tityrus subalpinus, although high gene flow was found within one population of this species. High mountain ridges and large river valleys can act as dispersal barriers for Copper butterflies and thus have an impact on population structures. Here, dispersal ability as a species-specific factor also plays an important role, as some barriers are less likely to affect the population structure in the more mobile species L. virgaureae. Furthermore, forests, ravines and roads, but not small rivers, represent dispersal barriers for L. tityrus subalpinus within an Alpine valley. Finally, over ten years, the genetic diversity of L. hippothoe eurydame has decreased, whereas that of L. helle has remained stable. Against the backdrop of increasing global changes, it is important to understand the genomic underpinning of population structure and adaptation as well as to investigate and monitor whether populations are able to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
The digital transformation of the public sector and the development of suitable implementation mechanisms are currently major challenges in the area of E-Government. While Germany is one of the leading countries in the private sector in terms of digital offerings, the digital transformation processes in the public sector are progressing only slowly. In particular, compared to other European countries, German administrations offer few digital and interoperable services, which prevents them from catching up with a government-wide dig-ital transformation.
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the reasons for the slow progress of digital transformation in the public sector and to understand why Germany is not making significant progress in the digitization of administrative services compared to other European member states. Furthermore, it aims to gradually build a comprehensive understanding of why digital transformation is not being driven, supported or applied in the public sector and what positive or negative factors ultimately prevent cross-organizational exchange.
The focus of this dissertation is on organizational and interdisciplinary collaboration in socio-technical systems and its influence on the digital transformation of public administrations. The investigation of science and practice is based on the principles of qualitative social research and qualitative content analysis according to Mayring. Deductive categories are systematically derived and supplemented by further inductive categories along the empirical investigation in the five case studies.
The identified phenomena are analyzed in a scientific explanatory model and described with the help of the holistic approach and the actor-network theory. On this basis, solutions are developed that can either prevent or at least reduce the influencing factors. An interdiscipli-nary approach that combines theoretical foundations from business informatics, administrative informatics/e-government and organizational science not only creates a comprehensive understanding of the problem, but also develops approaches for the scientific description of informatics phenomena with the help of social constructivist approaches.
During the development phase of plastic components, simulations are being used to an increasing extent. Against the background of product requirements and the inevitable necessity of conserving resources, the expanded use of simulation tools is an essential part of the solution. Among available methods, but so far underutilized with respect to real-life processes, is the molecular dynamics simulation. By the use of this method it is possible to visualize the physical processes occurring on the microscopic level, as e.g. those that arise during plastics processing. This thesis examines how boundary conditions, which mimic the extrusion blow molding process, affect the behavior of polyethylene on the microscopic level. A mesoscopic model (coarse-graining) is applied to describe the polymer. Initially, this model is verified by determining material properties. The uniaxial tensile test is modeled on the micro-scale to identify parameters such as the elastic modulus, yield stress, and Poisson’s ratio. Additionally, thermal properties, particularly those characterizing the crystallization behavior, are identified. The objective of these investigations is the microscopic observation and quantification of effects that occur during dynamic stretching and crystallization processes. The calculated properties show good agreement with the experimental data, especially regarding the thermal parameters. Qualitatively, the stress-strain behavior is reproduced in alignment with experimentally observed results. However, the short time scale of the simulation models leads to micromechanical behavior that is more extreme than what is monitored on a macroscopic level. By extending the simulation models, biaxial stretching processes are simulated. These stretching processes resemble the situation during the inflation of the parison in the extrusion blow molding process. The examination of various cooling conditions, particularly by the use of mold constraints, is another focus of the investigations. The analysis of the biaxially stretched simulations reveals that disentanglement processes during stretching dominate the further development of polymer systems. It is possible to quantify the dynamics of crystallization processes depending on the degree of stretching and cooling conditions through various parameters (distribution of entanglement points, local orientations). The results indicate that coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations are able to significantly enhance the micromechanical understanding of local events occurring during plastic processing.
The literature contains very few publications on the application of Process Mining methods for the analysis of event logs in Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS). This is not surprising because the analysis of digital support for collaborative work is extremely intricate due to various challenges relating to a lack of data access, poor data quality, unstructured processes and a lack of descriptive models. This article reports on the findings from an Action Design Research (ADR) project. The ADR team had access to a large instance of an operational ECS with more than 3000 users. The event log contains several million entries. Together with the platform’s operating team, intensive research was carried out over a period of six years on ways of analysing user activities on the platform. Several cycles were run to develop new methods and computational techniques to decipher the event logs and meaningfully describe the processes recorded in them. Thanks to the close collaboration between the researchers and the operators of the collaboration platform, it was possible to compare the real-world processes carried out in the platform with the processes discovered using a novel method for Social Process Mining (SPM). The result is a pattern analysis that discovers patterns in processes that have a high degree of correspondence with the real-world scenes of collaborative work. The research work has now reached a point where other software products are included (multi-system analysis) and a catalogue of collaborative work situations (scenes) has been developed to describe the process patterns that result from the Process Mining and graph-based analysis techniques.
Cross Cultural Adaptation of Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Higher Education in Indonesia
(2024)
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education have expanded together, and their conceptual and methodological challenges do not prevent the implementation of entrepreneurial education in educational contexts. The desire for a global workforce that can handle uncertainties and solve problems that cannot be solved by pure analytical inquiry drives the rapidly expanding number of educational programs and activities that are design-based. A growing number of educational programs for entrepreneurs increasingly incorporate design-based methods. However, design thinking-based theoretical assumptions may also be lacking. Despite growing academic interest in design thinking and entrepreneurship education, little is known about design thinking in higher entrepreneurship education, especially in Eastern nations. A Western teaching method, entrepreneurial design thinking may be adapted to many cultures. In this instance, the West has established entrepreneurship education as a respectable study subject and teaching practice in higher education over the past 40 years. The Eastern nations' occurrence varies, including Indonesia. Indonesia is an intriguing research subject since it has over 50% youth due to its abundant natural resources. However, it needs more opportunity-based entrepreneurs and requires assistance in implementing entrepreneurship education with a more innovative, design-based, and successful method. Entrepreneurial design thinking fulfills this demand. Indonesian students and teachers' norm-based attitudes and cultural mindsets towards a new western creative method may hinder entrepreneurial design thinking's acceptance. The literature review found that Indonesian university students are collaborative, compassionate, and practical, like design thinkers. However, they may also be risk-averse, self-restrained, and dependent on teachers as stereotypical Asians. Classroom space, educators' design thinking competence, and university or institution support are further barriers. Additional study into these challenges is needed to adapt design thinking to Indonesian entrepreneurial higher education culturally.
Based on the above research needs, the purpose of this research endeavor is to look into the cultural nuances of the design thinking technique for entrepreneurial higher education and postulate how it could be adapted to other cultures, especially in Indonesia. This thesis uses deductive and qualitative case-study research methods. In particular, the latter used thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Terry & Hayfield, 2021) as the data analysis technique to provide a means and tools for understanding from interviews, class observation, and literature studies. Since this thesis follows the constructivist-relativist research paradigm, it explores contextual and cultural differences in Indonesian entrepreneurship education and its potential and obstacles to adapt the Western teaching methodology of entrepreneurial design thinking in higher education. In summary, this study searches for elements that might aid or hinder the cross-cultural adaption of entrepreneurial design thinking. This research wants to understand how cross-cultural adaptability fits into entrepreneurial design thinking research, especially for Indonesia. This thesis aims to provide new theoretical insights and practical advice on adapting entrepreneurial design thinking from Western to Eastern cultures.
From the findings, this thesis concluded at least seven educational value differentials before adaptation from the exhaustive literature and case study evaluations. For Indonesian entrepreneurship higher education institutions to use entrepreneurial design thinking, they must consider educational culture, technological infrastructure, language, primary audience, learning and teaching style, reasoning patterns, and social-cultural environment. This study provides four practical adaptation recommendations: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. Finally, this research demonstrated that cross-cultural adaption of entrepreneurial design thinking in Indonesia might be difficult but worthwhile. This thesis' case study, "School of Business Management – Bandung Institute of Technology (SBM ITB)", showed that Indonesian entrepreneurial higher education might use design thinking as a teaching approach. All stakeholders must improve internally and publicly. Thus, this study recommended integrating most Indonesian higher education institutions' entrepreneurship teaching approaches with a "student-centered" approach that stresses business mentorship, uses design thinking tools and processes, and links them to students' entrepreneurial initiatives.
To summarize, this research contributes to the field since it draws on and combines the findings of several other fields of study, including entrepreneurial education, design thinking, and cross-cultural adaptation. This study stepped out of the "usual and proper" pedagogical ruts to investigate "non-human" cross-cultural adaptability. It has attempted to apply these ideas to a real-world, unique case study in a developing nation (in this case, Indonesia).
This thesis deals with the conception and implementation of a prototype emulator software that can be used to play a broad range of Game Boy games on a conventional desktop computer. The development of such an application is a technically demanding task defined by various challenges such as the correct interpretation of machine instructions, graphics emulation, as well as playability and correctness. As there is no accessible official documentation of Game Boy hardware, the emulator was developed based on the knowledge amassed by Game Boy reverse engineers. Nevertheless, an emulator was developed that can already run a large selection of games. The correctness of the implemented components was verified using dedicated test programs.
Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS) sind essentielle Werkzeuge für die Unterstützung der digitalen Zusammenarbeit und ad hoc Projektarbeit in Unternehmen. Mit der zunehmenden Nutzung von ECS steigen auch die Bedeutung und der Bedarf an Analysen zur Schaffung eines verbesserten Verständnisses von digitaler Arbeit. Da Kollaboration sich regelmäßig über mehr als ein System erstreckt, stellt die Heterogenität der Daten verschiedener Systeme für Analysen eine Herausforderung dar, insbesondere weil plattformübergreifende Nutzungsmuster nicht ohne Weiteres nachverfolgbar und vergleichbar sind. Daher wurde die „Collaborative Actions on Documents Ontology“ (ColActDOnt) entwickelt, um Konzepte aus ECS (z. B. Events und Dokumente) einheitlich zu beschreiben. Basierend auf der ColActDOnt wurde ein Datastore implementiert, in welchem die Daten verschiedener Systeme in der Struktur der Ontologie gespeichert werden. Durch den ontologiebasierten Datastore stehen die Daten für Analysen in einheitlicher Form zur Verfügung. In die Datenebene wurden Daten aus dem ECS HCL Connections (CNX), welches somit das initiale Quellsystem darstellt, importiert. Mittels der ColActDOnt wurde außerdem eine abstrakte Ontologieebene mit den Elementen der Ontologie geschaffen. Die Elemente beider Ebenen sind über Beziehungen innerhalb einer Graphdatenbank miteinander und untereinander verknüpft.
Der ontologiebasierte Datenzugriff ermöglicht es dem Benutzer ohne Kenntnisse über die Datenstrukturen des Quellsystems, lediglich mit Domänenwissen über die ColActDOnt, Inhalte abzufragen.
Der Datastore ist als Graphdatenbank (Neo4j) implementiert und somit können Abfragen nativ als Graphenstrukturen visualisiert werden. Weiterhin kann der Prototyp an Business Intelligence Tools wie Microsoft PowerBI angebunden werden und bietet somit die Möglichkeit für tiefergehende Analysen. Die erste Version des Datastores stellt einen wichtigen Schritt in Richtung der Harmonisierung von Trace Data aus ECS dar. In Zukunft sollen weitere Kollaborationssysteme an den Datastore angeschlossen werden, um systemübergreifende Analysen von komplexen Kollaborationsplattformen zu ermöglichen.