Myopic Marketing Management – Whom to Blame? (Marketing)
We examine short-term oriented management with regard to cuts in marketing expenses. We find top marketing managers’ compensation incentives (but not those of the CEO) to be responsible. This result contradicts suggestions in marketing literature that the presence of a chief marketing officer can help to maintain a long-term orientation with regard to marketing spending (taught by Martin Artz)
The Impact of Financial Incentives on Customer Value (Marketing)
Firms often use financial incentives (promotions, referral rewards, loyalty programmes, etc.) to attract new or re-activate existing customers. The impact of such incentives on customer value is important, yet poorly understood. We investigate how their effect depends on incentive type, customer type, or the competitive environment to help firms spend their marketing budgets more effectively. (taught by Christian Schulze)
Strategic Decision-Making (Management)
Professor Ronald Klingebiel examines why and how firms with different decision-making patterns achieve different levels of success. He explores, for example, the conditions under which firms that keep their options open achieve higher performance than peers that might fully commit to uncertain innovation projects. His research often involves data from technology-intensive industries, particularly all things telecom.
Does Accreditation Count? (Management)
Accreditation is a typical external approach for patient safety and quality management in hospitals worldwide. But the evidence of the benefits of these systems is still lacking. The main objective of the research project is to discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages of accreditation and to analyse the relationship between accreditation and hospital quality. (taught by Rainer Sibbel)
Effective Outsourcing Strategies and Management (Information Systems)
We analyse organisational, social, and technical determinants that contribute to the effective governance of IT outsourcing relationships, e.g., by ensuring that service providers sufficiently invest in innovation and knowledge exchange or by supporting decisions about and management of relationships with multiple vendors. Research approaches include qualitative and quantitative field research, social network analyses, and the development of software artefacts. (taught by Daniel Beimborn)
Weight Jacket or Life Vest? Inventories in the Presence of Major Production Disruptions (Operations)
Severe production disruptions due to quality breakdowns have the potential to ruin performance over the complete life cycle of a highly profitable product. The project uses system dynamics modelling to investigate the interplay between different forms of customer adaptation to varying service levels, the availability of a substitute product, and the economic characteristics of the product. (taught by Jürgen Strohhecker)