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Das Lobbying von Interessengruppen zu europäischen Gesetzeshaben ist ein zentrales Untersuchungsfeld politikwissenschaftlicher Forschung. Im Mittelpunkt der Forschung stehen hierbei Fragen nach dem Zugang und Einfluss von Interessengruppen auf europäische Entscheidungsprozesse, aber auch nach den angewendeten Strategien und Taktiken im Lobbyingprozess. Die Auswahl der Strategien und Taktiken, die Interessengruppen in politischen Entscheidungsprozessen anwenden, wird durch verschiedene Einflussfaktoren bestimmt. Ein relevanter Kontextfaktor ist hierbei die Salienz der Gesetzesvorhaben oder Issues, zu denen Interessengruppen Lobbyarbeit betreiben. Die Annahme, dass die Salienz von Themen oder Gesetzesvorhaben einen Einfluss auf verwendete Strategien und Taktiken hat, wurde in verschiedenen Studien untersucht. Gewonnene Ergebnisse weisen allerdings in verschiedene Richtungen und sind widersprüchlich. Diese Arbeit knüpft so an die bestehende Forschung an und untersucht unter Berücksichtigung des Lobbykontextes das Lobbying von deutschen Interessengruppen im Mehrebenensystem der EU bei Gesetzesvorhaben mit einem großen bzw. geringem Grad an Mediensalienz. Ziel der Arbeit ist es zu erfassen, inwiefern die Mediensalienz eines europäischen Gesetzesvorhabens das Vorgehen und die Aktivitäten von Interessengruppen im Lobbying beeinflusst. Daraus ergibt sich folgende leitende Fragestellung der Arbeit: Wie agieren Interessengruppen bei europäischen Gesetzesvorhaben mit einem großen bzw. geringen Grad an Mediensalienz und welchen Einfluss hat die Mediensalienz auf verwendete Lobbyingstrategien und Taktiken von Organisationen? Die Fragestellung wird in dieser Arbeit aus einer deutschen Perspektive heraus untersucht. Der Untersuchungsgegenstand wurde im Rahmen eines Fallstudiendesigns bearbeitet. Hierbei wurden vier Fälle mit einem unterschiedlichen Grad an Mediensalienz ausgewählt. Die Mediensalienz wurde im Rahmen einer Medienanalyse deutscher Zeitungen (Süddeutsche Zeitung und Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) ermittelt. Bei den untersuchten Fällen handelt es sich um die Verordnungsvorschläge zur (1) EU-Datenschutzgrundverordnung, (2) Geoblocking-Verordnung, (3) Dublin-IV-Verordnung sowie (4) EU-Düngemittelverordnung, die jeweils einen unterschiedlichen Grad an Mediensalienz besitzen. Die Datenerhebung erfolgte im Rahmen von 31 Experteninterviews mit ausgewählten deutschen Interessengruppen, die in diesen vier Fällen aktiv waren. Zusätzliche Dokumente, wie Stellungnahmen, Positionspapiere oder Pressemitteilungen wurden hinzugezogen und im Rahmen einer Dokumentenanalyse ausgewertet. Theoretisch eingebettet ist die Arbeit in den tauschtheoretischen Ansatz von Berkhout (2010). Dieser fasst die Lobbyingaktivitäten von Interessengruppen als Teil der Tauschbeziehungen von Interessengruppen mit politischen Entscheidungsträgern, den Medien sowie Mitgliedern und Unterstützern. Gleichzeitig berücksichtigt er in seinem Ansatz Kontextfaktoren und -bedingungen, die diese Tauschbeziehungen bzw. Aktivitäten beeinflussen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit zeigten, dass die Mediensalienz in den untersuchten Fällen insbesondere bei der Beteiligung der Mitglieder und Unterstützer an den politischen Aktivitäten, bei der Medienarbeit und auch bei der Formulierung von Kommunikationsbotschaften gegenüber politischen Entscheidungs-trägern eine Rolle spielen kann. Allerdings wurde im Verlauf der Arbeit deutlich, dass das Konzept der Mediensalienz erweitert werden muss, um die Aktivitäten von Interessengruppen besser erklären zu können. Hierbei stellten sich die konzeptuellen Überlegungen von Kiousis (2004) als guter Ansatz heraus. Dieser weist der Mediensalienz sowohl externe (Aufmerksamkeit, die ein Thema in den Medien hat sowie Platzierung von Themen) als auch eine interne (Valenz der Berichterstattung) Dimension zu. So zeigte sich in den untersuchten Fällen beispielsweise, dass für Wirtschaftsverbände nicht nur die Aufmerksamkeit, die ein Thema in den Medien genießt für die Aktivitäten von Relevanz ist, sondern auch wie das Thema in den Medien dargestellt wird und inwiefern Darstellungen eigene Positionen und Interessen unterstützen. Darüber hinaus zeigte die Arbeit, dass die Fachmedien eine zentrale Rolle für Interessengruppen im EU-Lobbying spielen. Auf Grundlage der gewonnenen Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit wurde der theoretische Analyserahmen von Berkhout (2010) zu den politischen Aktivitäten von Interessengruppen mit den eigenen Mitgliedern und Unterstützern, mit politischen Entscheidungs-trägern und den Medien sowie gegenüber den Fachmedien durch Annahmen erweitert. Die Arbeit suchte so einen Beitrag zur Forschung zur europäischen Interessenvertretung sowie zur Theoriebildung in diesem Bereich zu leisten.

Being a next generation member in an enterprising family is accompanied by a central question: What is my role within the enterprising family and why? Taking a unified systems perspective, this dissertation thesis focuses on the next generation in enterprising families and their entrepreneurial roles within the orchestration of three elements: the individual, the family and the business. Taking into account that those three elements constantly influence each other and change over time, this dissertation thesis introduces a more holistic understanding of the next generation in enterprising families. Using a multiple-role approach conceding that the next generation can have more roles within the enterprising family next to being the successor, this dissertation thesis encompasses three studies on overall 413 next generation members focusing on their entrepreneurial roles within the family business and new venture context. This dissertation thesis uses different methodological (quantitative and qualitative) and theoretical approaches (family, social cognition and organizational behavior science) to address the limited knowledge about the different roles of the next generation within the enterprising family. Study 1 focuses on the family business versus new venture context and aims at understanding how the intentions and actions of entrepreneurial roles of the next generation emerge and develop over time. Study 2 investigates the entrepreneurial roles of the next generation within the family business and how it shapes their strategic decision making within this context. Study 3 researches the role of the next generation as a founder of an own venture, and how the enterprising family shapes the venture creation process. By that, this dissertation thesis contributes to: (1) obtaining a better understanding of the family side in entrepreneurship, which becomes especially well-observable from the (to date) under-researched perspective of the next generation in enterprising families, (2) creating a common understanding that the next generation can have entrepreneurial roles within the enterprising family beyond being the successor in the family business, which offers the opportunity to understand how entrepreneurial behavior develops within life stages and life cycles of a family and how entrepreneurship is transferred through generations, (3) emphasizing the relevance of the next generation within the family as well as the business side in investigating the potential entrepreneurial capacity of enterprising families and their business initiatives contributing to theory building on enterprising families, and (4) providing further research aspirations concerning the next generation and their roles in enterprising families, including ideas for future research on how to assess the entrepreneurial roles of the next generation within the enterprising family.

Die Digitalisierung schreitet voran und verändert unsere Welt. Sie bietet unzählige neue Chancen und Möglichkeiten aber sicherlich genauso viele Risiken und Herausforderungen. In Bezug auf Unternehmen sind diese Chancen und Risiken der Digitalisierung jedoch sehr ungleich zwischen kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) und Großkonzernen zu Ungunsten der KMU verteilt. Gleichzeitig besitzen KMU zudem diverse Nachteile im Bereich der Ressourcenausstattung im Vergleich zu Großkonzernen (Demary u. a. 2016). In Deutschland ist diese Tatsache deswegen von immenser Bedeutung, da mehr als 99% aller Unternehmen der Klasse der KMU angehören und fast zwei Drittel aller Erwerbstätigen innerhalb eines KMU beschäftigt sind (Statistisches Bundesamt 2016a). KMU sind somit zentral für die wirtschaftliche Prosperität Deutschlands. Die Bundes- und Landesregierungen haben in diesem Zusammenhang beschlossen, die KMU bei der unternehmensinternen Digitalisierung zu unterstützen und nicht alleinig die Kräfte des freien Marktes über den Unternehmenserfolg entscheiden zu lassen. Basierend auf dem Governancekonzept (Bevir 2011; Stoker 1998) bietet diese Arbeit dann Einblicke in die politischen Prozesse, Inhalte und die Resultate politischen Handelns (Anheier 2013) im Zusammenhang mit der unternehmensexternen Unterstützung der Digitalisierung in KMU. Die Erkenntnisse basieren zum einen auf inhaltsanalytischen Auswertungen der digitalen Agenden Deutschlands (Bundeskanzleramt und Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Wirtschaft 2016), Baden-Württembergs (Ministerium für Inneres, Digitalisierung und Migration des Landes Baden-Württemberg 2017) und Bayerns (Bayrisches Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft und Medien, Energie und Technologie 2015) sowie auf Primärdaten einer Online-Befragung von KMU in Baden-Württemberg und Bayern. So kann gezeigt werden, dass an den digitalpolitischen Governanceinstrumenten der Bundes- und Landesregierungen neben staatlichen auch mannigfaltige nichtstaatliche Akteure beteiligt sind. Länderübergreifend lassen sich diese Governanceinstrumente den Bereichen Infrastruktur, Bildung, Ordnungs- und Rechtsrahmen, Verwaltung und Wirtschaft zuordnen, wobei die befragten KMU den Bereichen Infrastruktur und Ordnungs- und Rechtsrahmen eine herausgehobene Stellung in Bezug auf die Relevanz für ihr Unternehmen beimessen. In diesem Zusammenhang bewerten die KMU insbesondere den flächendeckenden Breitbandausbau sowie die Verbesserung der Cybersicherheit und Cyberabwehr als relevant für den Erfolg ihres Unternehmens. Jedoch kann über clusteranalytische Verfahren auch gezeigt werden, dass teils erhebliche strukturelle Unterschiede in Bezug auf die Relevanzbewertung der Governancebereiche und Instrumente vorliegen. Zudem kann diese Arbeit auf Basis einer theoretisch, interdisziplinären Synthese politik- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Theoriestränge unter dem Dach des Governancekonzeptes und anschließender Verwendung regressionsanalytischer Verfahren einen ersten Hinweis darauf geben, dass die Relevanzbewertung unternehmensexterner digitalpolitischer Governanceinstrumente innerhalb deutscher KMU teils maßgeblich von der Ausgestaltung der unternehmensinternen Wertschöpfungskette der Unternehmen abhängt. Für diese Synthese ist auf politikwissenschaftlicher Seite die Governanceordnung nach Anheier (2013) maßgebend, wobei im Bereich der Wirtschaftswissenschaften auf die Transaktionkostentheorie (Coase 1937; Williamson 1975; Williamson 1985; Williamson 1996), den Resource-Based View (Barney 1991; Penrose 1959; Wernerfelt 1984), den Market-Based View (Porter 1979; Porter 1980; Porter 1985) sowie die Resource-Dependence Theory (Pfeffer und Salancik 1978; Pfeffer und Salancik 2003; Selznick 1949) zurückgegriffen wird.

Confidence judgments and decision making are part of everyday life. In an ideal world, people would assess their skills and knowledge accurately and base their decisions only on rational deliberations. Yet, this is often not the case. Confidence judgments in own skills or performance are often biased (e.g., Dunning, 2011; Moore & Healy, 2008; Moore & Schatz, 2017; Sanchez & Dunning, 2018; Pikulina, Renneboog, & Tobler, 2017; Michailova & Schmidt, 2016). Also, people tend to deviate from rational decision strategies (e.g., Achtziger & Alós-Ferrer, 2014; Alós-Ferrer, Hügelschäfer, & Li, 2016, 2017; Charness, Karni, & Levin, 2010; Erev, Shimonovich, Schurr, & Hertwig, 2008; Fiedler, Brinkmann, Betsch, & Wild, 2000; Tschan et al., 2009). Therefore, the research aim of the present dissertation was twofold. In the first chapter of the present dissertation I investigated confidence judgments in own skills and the confidence bias, the processes underlying these confidence judgments, and the influences of gender and monetary incentive on confidence judgments. The second aim was to investigate the influence of goal and implementation intentions on rational decision making and how this influence is reflected in the neural correlate of reinforcement learning. A common finding in research on confidence judgments is the confidence bias (e.g. Moore & Schatz, 2017; Moore & Healy, 2008; Pikulina et al., 2017; Sanchez & Dunning, 2018; Lebreton et al., 2018). In most cases, the confidence bias reflects overconfidence, which means that people’s subjective confidence exceeds their actual ability or performance (Fischhoff, Slovic, & Lichtenstein, 1977). In some cases, there is also evidence for underconfidence, suggesting that people underestimate their abilities (Kruger & Dunning, 1999; Kruger & Burrus, 2004). Gender is an important predictor of the confidence bias. Underconfidence is more prevalent in females, whereas males often display overconfidence (e.g., Barber & Odean, 2001; Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2014; Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007). In Study 1, I investigated the processes underlying confidence judgments and the confidence bias by means of response times, and I examined potential gender differences. Participants answered general knowledge questions and judged their confidence on the correctness of each answer. Participants had overall a good sense of whether their answer was correct or incorrect. This was reflected by higher confidence judgments on correct answers compared to incorrect ones. The analysis of response times on the confidence judgments revealed that male participants who took longer to judge their confidence were made more accurate judgments than males who responded quickly. This relationship was not found for females. In Study 2, half of the participants received a monetary incentive for good performance in the general knowledge test. The monetary incentive for performance increased the time invested in both tasks (the knowledge questions and the confidence judgments). However, this increased effort did not lead to better performance on the knowledge questions, nor did it yield more accurate confidence judgments. The response times suggested that males who invested more time in the confidence judgments were more accurate (as in Study 1). However, the opposite was true for females. The more time females invested in their judgment the more underconfident they were. This influence of the response time on the confidence bias was only found for incentivized participants. In Study 3, the accuracy of the confidence judgment was incentivized. Contrary to the expectations, the monetary incentive did not reduce the confidence bias but led both males and females to be overconfident. In this study, the response time on the confidence judgment did not predict the confidence bias. On the whole, the results demonstrate that (a) the processes of confidence judgments differ between females and males, and (b) the effectiveness of monetary incentives for improving the accuracy of confidence judgments depends strongly on the incentive being contingent on the performance in the task at hand. The second chapter of the present dissertation investigated the influence of goal and implementation intentions (P. M. Gollwitzer, 1999) on rational decision making (see also Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2017). The impact of intentions was examined by the neural correlate of reinforcement learning, i.e. the feedback-related negativity (FRN; Holroyd & Coles, 2002). Participants worked on a probability updating task in which the optimal strategy to maximize the expected payoff was to follow Bayes’ rule by integrating new information with prior probabilities (Bayes & Price, 1763). The optimal decision rule conflicted with a simpler suboptimal decision strategy, i.e. the reinforcement heuristic (see Achtziger & Alós-Ferrer, 2014; Charness & Levin, 2005). The goal and implementation intention manipulation was proposed to control the automatic process of the reinforcement heuristic and hence foster rational decision making. The results showed that the goal intention and the implementation intention had no influence on the number of reinforcement errors (in contrast to the findings of Hügelschäfer & Achtziger, 2017). However, both, the goal and implementation intentions increased the amplitude of the FRN which, on the neural level, indicated a stronger reliance on the reinforcement heuristic than in the control group. The findings shed some light on the impact of goal and implementation intentions on rational decision making. They demonstrate that careful consideration of the use of intentions as an intervention for improved decision making is required to avoid undesired side-effects. Taken together, the present dissertation provided new insights into the processes underlying confidence judgments, the confidence bias, rational decision making, and its neural correlates.

People face economic decisions on a daily basis. Quite often, these decisions involve high stakes and some degree of personal risk, as choices produce real consequences that set the course for future actions. Although decades of decision research in the intersection of psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience have much advanced our knowledge about the psychological underpinnings of economic decisions, several academic disputes remain unsettled. Indeed, surprisingly little is known about the role of motivation and volition in guiding economic decisions. Certainly, people’s motives, goals, and their expectations of attractive rewards are important drivers of decision making. Yet, motivation and volition cannot be reduced to goals and incentives. The cognitive mechanisms underlying economic decisions are rather complex, and motivation and volition may impact decisions at the level of these cognitive processes. This dissertation considers the role of motivation and volition in economic decisions by examining the impact of experimentally induced motivational and volitional states of mind on economic choices and decision processes. Using different methods and decision making paradigms, four experiments provide novel evidence that informs the ongoing debates in motivation research, decision science, and psychophysiology. In short, Experiments 1a and 1b explore the possibility of interactive effects between motivation, volition, and financial incentives in determining economic performance. Moving on to the level of decision processes, Experiment 2 examines the impact of motivation and volition on decision processes under risk. Decision times, eye movements, and pupil dilations provide process measures of cognitive effort, pre-decisional information search, and affective arousal, respectively. Finally, Experiment 3 investigates how particular decision attributes relate to affective and motivational processes in decisions under risk. The findings of the present dissertation can be summarized in terms of four main conclusions. First, incentives are effective for improving economic performance when the payment of attractive monetary rewards is contingent on performance. Yet, higher incentives do not further improve performance. Second, the experimental manipulation of motivational and volitional mindsets does not directly affect choices, but notably impacts decision processes. Third, the influence of motivation and volition on economic decisions appears to depend on the appropriate incentivization of the task at hand. Fourth, risky choice attributes that entail no gain at all, i.e., zero-outcomes, elicit high levels of affective arousal and motivational avoidance tendencies that guide selective attention and decision making in the lottery choice paradigm. The implications of these findings are discussed for theory development in motivation research and decision science, as well as in terms of their practical implications for decision making in managerial contexts and other high-stakes decision environments.

While there is a great sense of urgency in the scientific community to act now in order to slow the imminent negative effects of global warming, most organizations continue to run their operations as though the external context has not changed significantly. For the banking sector, in particular not much research has been conducted in the area of their strategic engagement with climate change (CC), despite the fact that the engagement of this sector is crucial for the transition to a low-carbon economy. This is why this thesis focuses on the banking sector. Through an exploratory comparative case study of four banks, this thesis investigates mechanisms that have led to, or have been prevented from, the integration of climate change in the respective bank’s corporate strategies. In particular, it answers the following questions: How are banks interpreting climate change in their organizational context? To what degree does the initial individual interpretation influence the attentional distribution through structures and communication of the issue internally? Can this explain the variance in observed strategic choices? In order to answer those questions, a multi-level analysis was conducted using three different theoretical perspectives: the macro, meso and micro. 1. The macro lens, grounded in institutional theory, is important in order to generate understanding about the perception of current institutional pressures possibly influencing corporate responses. 2. The meso lens, grounded in the Attention Based View of the Firm, serves to analyze how attention structures inside the banks influence the distribution of attention towards the topic and influence the degree of integrating climate change-related aspects across the organization. 3. The micro lens, based on the concept of moral intensity (Jones, 1991), serves as an alternative interpretation model to explore how managers make sense of climate change as individuals. Further, the concept of “issue selling” investigates what language managers use to generate attention regarding climate change while using different attentional structures explored through the meso lens. The findings are based on four case studies of banks located in Europe, each of which show a different degree of climate change integration in their corporate strategy. The case studies drew upon field research including 23 semi-structured interviews with senior managers and members of the executive teams from those four banks, six interviews with stakeholders and a comprehensive analysis of publicly available corporate documents, company-related media releases, videos and further interviews, but also confidential corporate material that was made available to me. Through analysis of the data, the following findings can be made: Most banks perceive climate change in terms of pressure: coercive pressure from clients, very limited pressure from regulators in the area of risk and as mimetic pressure to respond. Some banks, however, also perceive climate change to be a moral issue that demands their contribution to act. In those banks, climate change is regarded as a morally intense issue — this term being defined as a commonly accepted phenomenon with extreme consequences for the future of the society they are embedded in and that they serve. One bank mainly had a scientific view on climate change as a human-induced natural phenomenon. Depending on these first interpretations, the findings suggest that different languages are deployed to further distribute the issue across the organization. In the case of scientific and institutional interpretations, the main language used to sell the issue inside the organization and to justify its incorporation as part of strategy was economic. climate change was translated into financial risk, business opportunity or a potential for cost reduction. Banks that mainly interpreted climate change as a moral imperative to act, communicated this issue differently. They proffered moral arguments that were grounded in the organization’s mission to serve society and based their strategic engagement on this mission. Economic arguments were only deployed at the stage of operationalization of climate change. These different languages influenced the arenas where conversations linked to climate change took place and how widely attention was subsequently distributed across the organization. In the case of a scientific language, climate change was not incorporated into strategy and remained as a topic of general interest, managed by the corporate social responsibility (CSR) function. In the case of an economic language, climate change was strictly contained to a few of already existing governance channels and sometimes even ignored entirely. No further attention to the issue within the companies could be observed. Strategic engagement and change were strictly related to fields where economic impact could be generated at the lowest transaction cost possible. In the instances where moral language was used within governance channels, conversation yielded a different level of engagement. In these cases, governance structures provided a platform for generating a common and more holistic understanding of the phenomenon and its impacts. The attentional engagement with the complexity of the issue grew across the organization and led to creation of new governance communication channels to help address emerging issues. As a result, the strategic integration of climate change was more holistic and comprehensive. The thesis makes theoretical contributions to institutional theory, Attention Based View of the Firm, the issue selling literature and Governance Ethics. Its results also have important implications for practice.

Today, transportation is a central element of a society’s welfare in terms of economic, political and social success. It creates jobs, allows international cooperation between firms and countries, contributes to firms’ productivity, and enables social participation and interaction. It has become an essential intermediate. Consequently, changes in transportation affect many more sectors. Therefore, transportation of goods and persons has been growing immensely within the past decades. Against this background, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) gain importance in improving and changing transport. Technology can cover all modes (e.g. advanced driving systems, cooperative vehicle systems as vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, or mobile and multimodal information and ticketing systems). The deployment of ITS substantially changes our transportation system. These changes concern several elements and stakeholders of mobility, e.g. infrastructure, technology, users, providers, public institutions, or regulatory frameworks. Up to now, research on ITS strongly focused on technical aspects, i.e. technical development and feasibility. However, these aspects can only represent part of a comprehensive analysis of ITS. This dissertation gives systematic analysis of elements that in the end have a strong impact on the successful market introduction of ITS. It discusses different aspects of intelligent transportation systems providing a view on the framework conditions for intelligent transportation systems. This work, hereby, focuses on passenger transportation. It shows that the successful deployment of ITS requires multiple actors. Each of them can positively or negatively influence the success of ITS-deployment. This work specifically analyses the investment decisions of public authorities on the example of socio-economic cost-benefit analysis, the users’ willingness to accept a multimodal information and ticketing system and its impact on modal choice, and finally the municipalities’ role in providing mobility for specific user groups on the example of immigrants showing the potential and limitations of ITS. The work picks up research questions that have not been addressed before and contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay of ITS as a technology and the society.

This study was designed to answer the question of whether resource performance depends more on good governance or rather on effective institutional structures. The specific aim is to make clear the extent to which good governance and institutions promote small scale gold mining businesses, to explain empirically the nature of human rights challenges in the small-scale mining (SSM) industry from the perspective of mining mangers, to investigate the nature, determinants, and frequency of conflicts associated with SSM, and to discuss the challenges facing SSM operations and ways to confront them. The findings show that, in the context of efforts to spur economic development, the exploitation of mineral resources has the potential to bring about far-reaching environmental and social changes. These changes can create opportunities, but they also represent a business risk for corporations and a social risk for communities. There is as a consequence a pressing need to investigate recent threats to mineral resource exploration relating to economic development, peace and stability, and the survival of private businesses. These threats are particularly serious for less-developed countries that are net exporters of natural resources. Such countries could use these resources to drive economic development and decrease their dependence on aid from developed countries. In most of them, however, owing to a lack of strong institutions, mismanagement of mineral and other natural resources has fueled social conflict without producing meaningful development. In addition, there is often the perception in countries such as Ghana, which is the subject of this study, that mining, whatever its benefits, is responsible for significant environmental damage and for Human Rights Adverse Impacts (HRAI), including child labor and exploitation, displacement of rural households, and violence. For these reasons, investment in the mining sector and associated businesses has often faced stiff resistance. Given the right governmental institutions, small-scale gold mining and associated activities can prove beneficial to and be accepted by a society and can attract further investment; under the wrong circumstances, this type of mining can impact society negatively. At the very least, when SSM is poorly managed, the anticipated benefits to the business community and the broader society are unlikely to materialize. The evidence from large-scale mining, particularly in the wake of Ghana’s civil war, indicates a correlation between mineral resources and conflict. Less is known about the nature, frequency, and causes of conflicts that afflict households in Ghana’s artisanal mining communities. There is accordingly a need for research into ways to prevent human rights violations and to create share value in the SSM sector through social development and renewed incentives for investment in it. This thesis represents an attempt to fill this need by exploring whether the capacity of resources—in this case, gold mining—to spur economic development—here, by creating competitive SSM businesses, improving livelihoods, or reducing poverty—depends on governance structures and whether there is a correlation between SSM and conflict outside the context of civil war. This thesis is informed by three broad insights. The first concerns the challenges facing the SSM activities that play a vital role in the Ghanaian economy. Second, there is the importance of the role played by institutions in the development of SSM amid renewed attraction of investment in the sector. Third, changing social expectations are a crucial aspect sustainable mining and the protection of human rights.

Vor dem Hintergrund des Klimawandels, dessen Auswirkungen von Jahr zu Jahr deutlicher zu spüren sind, nimmt die Relevanz des nachhaltigen Handelns in unserer Gesellschaft merklich zu (Seifi et al.2012). Die Einführung einer sogenannten „Green Economy“, um dem Klimawandel entgegenwirken zu können, gewinnt daher zunehmend an Bedeutung (BMBF 2014). Dennoch lassen sich zahlreiche Hürden beim Versuch erkennen, zukünftige Generationen vor den Auswirkungen des aktuellen Umweltverhaltens zu schützen. Auf der einen Seite sind die Produktion und der Konsum von Gütern und Dienstleistungen wichtige Treiber des wirtschaftlichen Wohlstandes (Belz 2005). Die Produktion dieser Güter ist jedoch abhängig von der Natur und dem ökologischen Kreislauf und kann daher auf der anderen Seite gleichzeitig zu sozialen und umweltbezogenen Problemen führen (Nölting 2010, Belz 2005). Zwar gibt es bereits einige Fortschritte und Initiativen für eine nachhaltige Produktion sowie einen nachhaltigen Konsum wie zum Beispiel erneuerbare Energien, Gemeinschaftskonsum oder geltende Umweltstandards, die Entwicklung eines nachhaltigen Konsumverhaltens steht jedoch noch am Anfang (World Economic Forum 2012, Grunwald und Kopfmüller 2006). Die Herausforderungen bezogen auf das Konsumentenverhalten beim Erwerb von nachhaltigen Produkten wurde bisher hauptsächlich aus der Sicht der Konsumenten betrachtet und analysiert. Dazu wurden die Einflüsse unterschiedlicher Determinanten auf die Kaufabsicht und das Kaufverhalten untersucht. Eine Betrachtung der aktuellen Herausforderungen aus Sicht der Unternehmen und eine Gegenüberstellung der Sichtweise der Konsumenten und der der Unternehmen fehlten hingegen bisher in den wissenschaftlicher Untersuchungen. Die vorliegende Thesis betrachtet daher beide Sichtweisen, die zusammen die sogenannte ‚Zielgruppenperspektive‘ innerhalb dieser Arbeit bilden. Neben der Zielgruppenperspektive beinhaltet die vorliegende Thesis die sogenannte ‚Branchenperspektive‘. Da Nachhaltigkeit ein weitumfassendes Thema ist, werden in dieser Arbeit die Branchenschwerpunkte ‚Bio-Lebensmittel‘ und ‚Nachhaltige Mode‘ als Nachhaltigkeitsbeispiele untersucht. Bezogen auf die aktuellen Herausforderungen des nachhaltigen Konsums der vorliegenden Thesis wird das übergeordnete Ziel angestrebt, neue Ansatzpunkte zur Steigerung und Verbesserung des nachhaltigen Handels für Konsumenten und Unternehmen zu identifizieren.

Die vorliegende Arbeit setzt sich mit einer besonderen Form der Implementierung eines Systems des Wissensmanagements im Unternehmen auseinander. Über den Verlauf von mehr als zwei Jahren wurde die Einführung eines Wissensmanagements in einem spezifischen Unternehmen beobachtet. Eine Besonderheit lag im vom beobachteten Unternehmen gewählten Ansatz, der sich im Wesentlichen aus dem Gedankengut des Systemischen Wissensmanagements, der Ansätze der Knowledge Networks und der Wissenskooperation sowie Axiomen der systemischen Organisationsberatung speiste. Das Unternehmen hatte sich gegen eine top-down gesteuerte Einführung entschieden. Sein Vorgehen basierte vielmehr auf der Perturbation des Systems der Organisation zur Stimulierung des Entstehens von Wissenskooperation und Wissensnetzwerken. So sollten schlussendlich die Vorteile eines optimierten Umgangs mit Wissen sichtbar und spürbar werden. Dieser wahrnehmbare Nutzen sollte dann in die Begründung von Projekten und Aktivitäten zur tatsächlichen Verbesserung des Umgangs mit Wissen münden. Mit dem Ziel, Einblick in die inneren Mechanismen des Systems der Organisation zu bekommen, beobachtete der Forscher, welche Form eines Wissensmanagements sich so bilden würde, und ob sich darüber hinaus auf diese Weise ein steuerbares Konstrukt eines Wissensmanagements etablieren lassen würde. Diese Untersuchung gibt Aufschluss darüber, wie eine Organisation mit etablierten Strukturen und eingeübten Prozessen auf Interventionen reagiert, die darauf abzielen, sie zu einer Veränderung in ihrem Umgang mit Wissen zu bewegen. Ferner wird der so beschrittene Weg der Implementierung eines Systems des Wissensmanagements evaluiert.