In the literature, the impact of multinationality on the valuation of multinational companies is heavily debated. To understand this impact on valuation, we need to clarify whether and how multinationality affects systematic risk. For this purpose, we analyze the state of research concerning the impact of corporate multinationality on systematic risk, conducting a systematic literature review of 35 studies and a univariate meta-analysis based on 20 studies. We test the predictions of the upstream–downstream hypothesis and the increasing capital market integration hypothesis on the basis of a meta-regression analysis of 17 studies. Our results provide no empirical support for the upstream–downstream hypothesis. However, they corroborate the capital market integration hypothesis in a more radical manner than expected: whereas multinationality seemed to have a risk-reducing effect until the beginning of the 1990s, since then its impact appears to have shifted. We find a risk-increasing effect for multinationality from 1990 on. Our results have important implications for academic research and managerial practice.

The crew scheduling problem with attendance rates is highly relevant for regional passenger rail transport in Germany. Its major characteristic is that only a certain percentage of trains have to be covered by crew members or conductors, causing a significant increase in complexity. Despite being commonly found in regional transport networks, discussions regarding this issue remain relatively rare in the literature. We propose a novel hybrid column generation approach for a real-world problem in railway passenger transport. To the best of our knowledge, several realistic requirements that are necessary for successful application of generated schedules in practice have been integrated for the first time in this study. A mixed integer programming model is used to solve the master problem, whereas a genetic algorithm is applied for the pricing problem. Several improvement strategies are applied to accelerate the solution process; these strategies are analyzed in detail and are exemplified. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is proven by a comprehensive computational study using real-world instances, which are made publicly available. Further we provide real optimality gaps on average less than 10 % based on lower bounds generated by solving an arc flow formulation. The developed approach is successfully used in practice by DB Regio AG.

Purpose This paper aims to propose and apply a novel risk-based approach to explore whether socio-political theories explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures given inconclusive evidence on the relation between environmental disclosure and environmental performance. Design/methodology/approach Based on content analysis of corporate risk reporting, the paper develops measures of environmental risk to proxy for a firm’s exposure to public pressure in regard to environmental concerns that should be positively associated with the level of corporate environmental disclosures according to socio-political theories. Multiple regressions are used to test the predictions of socio-political theories for US Standards and Poor’s 500 constituents from polluting sectors. Findings The level of environmental disclosures is found to be positively associated with a firm’s environmental risk while unrelated to its environmental performance. The findings suggest that firms tend to provide higher levels of environmental disclosures in response to greater exposure to public pressure as depicted by broad environmental indicators. The results are robust to alternative measures of environmental disclosures, environmental risk and environmental performance, alternative specifications of the economic model and additional sensitivity checks. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to US firms in polluting sectors. The risk-based approach proposed may not be appropriate to cover sectors where corporate risk reporting is less likely to address environmental risk, but it could potentially be adopted in other countries with advanced risk reporting regulation or practice. Practical implications Findings are important to understand a firm’s incentives to disclose environmental information. Cross-sectional differences found in environmental disclosures, risk and performance, highlight the importance of considering industry affiliation when analyzing environmental data. Originality/value This paper is the first to use firm-level environmental risk variables to explain the level of corporate environmental disclosures. The risk-based approach taken suggests opportunities for research at the multi-country level and in countries where corporate environmental performance data are not publicly available.

While the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) considers European national standard-setters (NSSs) as close partners that play a vital role in its legitimacy, empirical evidence on EFRAG’s consultation processes and the involvement of NSSs therein remains scarce. We use a multi-issue/multi-period approach to investigate the formal participation in EFRAG’s consultation processes. By examining 2,102 comment letters submitted to EFRAG in the 2002–2015 period, we find that NSSs typically outweigh other stakeholder groups in terms of level of participation across stages of the consultation process and project topics. Although NSSs’ level of participation is rather stable over time, it significantly varies across European countries. We also provide a recent classification of European NSSs and show that NSSs’ level of participation varies by their institutional status and is the highest for private NSSs. Our findings have implications for aspects of the legitimacy of both EFRAG and NSSs and shed light on the role of intermediaries in international accounting standard-setting.

Liberalisation of energy markets, climate policy and the promotion of renewable energy have changed the framework conditions of the formerly strictly regulated energy markets. Generating companies are mainly affected by these changing framework conditions as they are exposed to the different risks from liberalised energy markets in combination with huge and largely irreversible investments. Uncertainties facing generating companies include: the development of product prices for electricity as well as for primary energy carriers; technological developments; availability of power plants; the development of regulation and political context, as well as the behaviour of competitors. The need for decision support tools in the energy business, mainly based on operation research models, has therefore significantly increased. Especially to cope with different uncertain parameters, several stochastic modelling approaches have been developed in the last few years for liberalised energy markets. In this context, the present paper aims to give an overview and classification of stochastic models dealing with price risks in electricity markets. The focus is thereby placed on various stochastic methods developed in operation research with practical relevance and applicability, including the concepts of: – stochastic processes for commodity prices (especially for electricity); –scenario generation and reduction, which is important due to the need for a structured handling of large data amounts; as well as –stochastic optimising models for investment decisions, short- and mid-term power production planning and long-term system optimisation. The approaches within the energy business are classified according to the above structure. The practical relevance of the different methods and their applicability to real markets is thereby of crucial importance. Shortcomings of existing approaches and open issues that should be addressed by operation research are also discussed.

Das Hauptziel dieser Arbeit ist die Charakterisierung extrem starker Quellen, die höchstwahrscheinlich die kosmische Strahlung beschleunigen. In dieser Arbeit wurden VHE-Gammastrahlenbeobachtungen mit den MAGIC-Teleskopen verwendet, um die Eigenschaften von Blazaren zu untersuchen. Um die Mechanismen zu untersuchen, die zur Breitbandemission von Blazaren führen, wird ein stationärer lepto-hadronischer Code unter Verwendung eines einfachen semianalytischen Frameworks entwickelt. Daher implementiert der Code neben den leptonischen Wechselwirkungen auch die relevanten hadronischen Wechselwirkungskanäle: Protonensynchrotronstrahlung, Photo-Meson-Wechselwirkungen, Proton-Proton-Wechselwirkungen und Paarkaskaden. Die Dissertation präsentiert die Ergebnisse derMAGIC- und Multiwellenlängen-Monitoring-Kampagne des Blazars 1ES 1959 + 650 im Jahr 2016. Im Jahr 2016 durchlief die Quelle eine äußerst aktive Phase und zeigte am 13. Juni, 14. Juni und 1. Juli 2016 drei bemerkenswert helle VHE-Gammastrahlenfackeln. Um die Breitbandspektren der Quelle während der bemerkenswerten Fackelaktivitäten zu untersuchen, wurden drei verschiedene theoretische Modelle übernommen: leptonisch, hadronisch und gemischt lepto-hadronisch. Sowohl das hadronische als auch das gemischte leptohadronische Modell ergaben während der intensiven Aktivitätsperiode Neutrinoflüsse, die unter der Empfindlichkeit der gegenwärtigen Generation von Neutrinoteleskopen liegen. Die Beobachtung eines hochenergetischen Neutrinos durch IceCube im räumlichen und zeitlichen Zusammentreffen mit einem aufflammenden Blazar mit dem Namen TXS 0506 + 056 ergab 2017 erstmals Hinweise auf Identifizierung einer extragalaktischen kosmischen Strahlenquelle. Die Modellierung der elektromagnetischen Daten und des vorhergesagten Neutrinoflusses impliziert, dass die Quelle tatsächlich ein potenzieller Neutrinostrahler und damit ein Beschleuniger für energiereiche kosmische Strahlen sein könnte. / The main aim of this thesis is to characterize extremely powerful sources that are most likely accelerating cosmic rays. Cosmic-ray sources are also believed to produce photons and neutrinos that act as direct tracers of their sources of origin. In this thesis VHE gamma-ray observations by the MAGIC telescopes were used to study the properties of blazars. To investigate the mechanisms giving rise to the broadband emission from blazars, a stationary lepto-hadronic code is developed using a simple semi-analytical framework. Hence along with the leptonic interactions, the code also implements the relevant hadronic interaction channels: proton synchrotron radiation, photo-meson interactions, proton-proton interactions and pair cascades. The thesis presents the results from theMAGIC and multi-wavelength monitoring campaign of the blazar 1ES 1959+650 during 2016. In 2016 the source underwent into an extremely active phase and exhibited three remarkably bright VHE gamma-ray flares on 13th June, 14th June and 1st July of 2016. On two of these nights, signs of rapid flux variability within sub-hour timescales was clearly resolved by the MAGIC observations. In order to investigate the broadband spectra of the source during the remarkable flaring activities, three different theoretical models were adopted: leptonic, hadronic and mixed lepto-hadronic. Both the hadronic and mixed leptohadronic models yielded neutrino fluxes during the intense activity period, that falls below the sensitivity of the current generation of neutrino telescopes. In 2017, the observation of a high-energy neutrino by IceCube in spatial and temporal coincidence with a flaring blazar named TXS 0506+056 yielded for the first time, hints towards identification of an extragalactic cosmic-ray source. The modelling of the electromagnetic data and the predicted neutrino flux implies that the source could indeed be a potential neutrino emitter and hence an accelerator of high-energy cosmic rays.

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

One of the proxies for the success of a corporate strategy is firm performance. This is because “performance is a surrogate for the alignment between an organization’s internal processes (strategy, structure, etc) and the external environment.”1 Business excellence therefore hangs together with the attainment of such an alignment. It is two of the processes that support such an alignment between customer and supplier that are the subject of this paper. The processes in question are so called “Key Account Management” (KAM) and competitive intelligence (CI). [... aus der Einleitung] 1 Subramanian R., IsHak S., Competitor Analysis Practices of US Companies, 1998, S.13

Dans un environnement très compétitif, les entreprises ont besoin de contrôler et revoir constamment leurs positions stratégiques et repenser leurs compétences centrales via de nouvelles pratiques organisationnelles et managériales telle que l’essaimage. L’essaimage, se présente donc, comme un choix stratégique qui doit se faire d'une manière réfléchie dans le cadre de management innovant d’entreprise. Les initiatives d’appui à l’essaimage s’avèrent comme pistes prometteuses pour la création de l’emploi, la création de valeur et la création de richesse.Nous avons ainsi identifié les déterminants manageriels et organisationnels qui favorisent d’avantage le développement de l’essaimage, particulièrement dans le contexte tunisien à travers une recherche combinant une analyse de type qualitatif et longitudinal avec des éléments quantitatifs validant les résultats obtenus dans trois entreprises. / In a highly competitive environment, companies need to constantly monitor and review their strategic positions and rethink their core competencies through new organizational and managerial practices such as the spin-off. Therefore the spin-off presents itself as a strategic choice that must be taken in a thoughtful way in the context of innovative business management. The supporting initiatives of the spin-off appear as promising leads for job creation, value creation and wealth creation. We have identified the managerial and organizational determinants that primary promote the development of spin-offs, particularly in the Tunisian context through a research combining qualitative and longitudinal analysis with quantitative elements validating the results obtained in three different companies.

La crise du disque se manifeste par une baisse conséquente du revenu des artistes. C’est pourquoi, les concerts apparaissent comme une source de revenu importante. Dans ce contexte, le placement de produits durant les concerts est une pratique qui tend à se développer. Ces constats nous ont conduit à formuler la problématique de recherche suivante : quelles sont les opportunités de placement de produits dans les concerts de musique (technique où le public n’a pas forcément conscience de la tentative de persuasion) et quel est l’impact du placement de produits sur l'image de marque ?La revue de la littérature présente trois processus de persuasion expliquant l’efficacité du placement : le concept de congruence entre l’artiste et la marque (Russell, 1998), l’intéressement perçu de l’artiste (Friestad et Wright, 1994) et l’endossement de personnalité (Mac Cracken, 1989). De plus, le cadre théorique de la servuction (Eglier et Langeard, 1987) a permis de mettre en lumière l’importance des interactions entre le personnel en contact et le consommateur. Il nous a permis de proposer une typologie du placement de produits (selon le niveau de participation de l’artiste et du public).La méthodologie de la recherche se décline en trois phases. La première phase est de nature qualitative par le biais d’entretiens semi-directifs. Ces entretiens menés auprès d’artistes de renoms, d’organisateurs de concerts et de responsables d’agences de communication ont permis d’analyser les pratiques de placement de produits d’une part et d’évaluer les motivations et les freins des professionnels vis-à-vis de cette technique d’autre part. La deuxième phase est de nature quantitative. L’efficacité de quatre techniques de placement sur l’image de marque a été comparée au moyen d’une expérimentation. Quatre concerts ont été organisés dans des conditions aussi proches que possibles de la réalité. Les résultats démontrent la supériorité du placement interactif (forte participation de l’artiste et du public au placement) en termes d’image de marque. Enfin, la troisième phase a consisté en une étude quantitative ad hoc durant un concert d’un groupe à forte notoriété utilisant la technique du placement interactif. Les résultats confirment l’influence du placement produits sur l’image de marque.En synthèse, cette thèse décrit les opportunités offertes par les concerts de musiques en termes de placement de produits. Le dispositif méthodologique permet d’évaluer l’efficacité de quatre techniques de placement sur l’image de marque et démontre l’intérêt du placement interactif. Enfin, elle contribue à mettre en lumière le rôle de l’attitude vis-à-vis de l’artiste et de la congruence entre la marque et l’artiste. Les limites de ce travail et les nombreuses voies de recherches offertes par ce champ encore peu étudié sont présentées en conclusion. / Product placement is becoming an increasingly significant communication tool in cultural products. Product placement is traditionally studied in the field of films, but music concerts are also an attractive medium. Indeed, the crisis of the music industry leads the artists to find another way to other sources of financing. Our research takes into account the influence of this technique in connection with congruence, personality endorsement and how the audience copes when they recognize the persuasion attempt. Moreover, we considered the effect of product placement on brand image, because it is one of the most important goals according to the firms which want to use the technique of product placement. We aim to better understand the ins and outs of product placements in music concerts thanks to three studies. The first one is qualitative. We interviewed various artists, companies which deal with product placement, concert music producers and a legwoman. The second one is quantitative, and compares 4 types of product placements thanks to an in situ study. The last one is also quantitative and is linked with the previous study. It aims to focus on interactive product placement in which the interaction between the artist and the audience becomes the medium for new forms of product placement. We are not able to demonstrate significant results of interactive product placement on brand image but there is a trend showing that interactive product placement leads to a better brand image compared with the other kinds of placements. Subsequently, we underline the complex role of congruence. Moreover when the audience identifies the persuasion attempt, it does not influence negatively the brand image contrary to what the Persuasion Knowledge Model indicates. In return, product placement efficiency on brand image is linked with endorsement. Indeed the attitude towards the artist has a positive influence on brand image. The research concerning product placements in music concerts is still in its early stages but this kind of sponsorship offers promising opportunities for brands and artists alike.