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The case is set in November 2007. Matthias Rebellius, head of the business unit fire safety and security products, has to make a decision about the China strategy for the fire systems unit. Siemens has a very strong position globally in fire systems. Especially in developed markets, in the so-called M1 segments, Siemens is often number one or two. But worldwide and especially in China, the so-called M2 and M3 markets (Siemens terminology) had strong growth, but Siemens was not very well positioned in these segments of the market. The case begins with a short introduction outlining the situation. It then gives a detailed background on Siemens, especially the operating division Building Technologies (BT), and within BT the business unit Fire Safety & Security Products (FS). The case illustrates that the BT division was mainly active in mature, developed markets with slow growth rates. At the same time, there was an aggressive goal of achieving annual growth rates of more than five percent with an EBIT margin of 7 to 10 percent.

This paper examines the broader effects of the U.S. financial crisis on global lending to retail customers. In particular we examine retail bank lending in Germany using a unique dataset of German savings banks during the period 2006 through 2008 for which we have the universe of loan applications and loans granted. Our experimental setting allows us to distinguish between savings banks affected by the U.S. financial crisis through their holdings in Landesbanken with substantial subprime exposure and unaffected savings banks. The data enable us to distinguish between demand and supply side effects of bank lending and find that the U.S. financial crisis induced a contraction in the supply of retail lending in Germany. While demand for loans goes down, it is not substantially different for the affected and non-affected banks. More importantly, we find evidence of a significant supply side effect in that the affected banks reject substantially more loan applications than non-affected banks. This result is particularly strong for smaller and more liquidity-constrained banks as well as for mortgage as compared to consumer loans. We also find that bank-depositor relationships help mitigate these supply side effects.

With permission of Elsevier

The number of patent applications filed at the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office SIPO grew tremendously over the last decades and the SIPO has become the world's third largest patent office by 2009. In this paper, we provide an overview of the institutional background of patent examination in China. Moreover, we empirically analyze the determinants of the grant lags applicants have to expect at the SIPO. The multivariate duration analysis is based on the population of 443,533 patent applications filed at the SIPO between 1990 and 2002. The average grant lag is 4.71 years with considerable variation across 30 different technology areas. Interestingly, we find that Chinese applicants are able to achieve faster patent grants than their non-Chinese counterparts (even after controlling for various other determinants of grant lags). This might be an indication of a differential treatment of Chinese applicants which would be in violation of Art. 3 (National Treatment) and Art. 4 (Most-favored Nation Treatment) of TRIPS that has been signed by China in 2001.

The case describes the joint venture negotiation between Mr. Hartmut Holgebretsen, vice president of sales at Euroland Motors, in the English-speaking country of Norland, and Mr. Wu Chang, deputy president at Munchao Motors Import (MMI) in Munchao. It serves as information for a negotiation exercise. The negotiation takes place after the agreement on an initial letter of intent. However, MMI wanted to reopen a few issues before signing a final contract on the import of gas and diesel engines. The case contains “General information” that is available to both negotiation parties. In separate case supplements, Supplement (A): “Negotiation brief for Euroland Motors” and Supplement (B): “Negotiation brief for MMI,” the two parties receive confidential information that is exclusively for them and should not be made available to the other party before the negotiation exercise. The case combines three levels of discussion: a) business issues, b) cross-cultural issues, and c) ethical issues (especially “dirty” negotiation tricks, intellectual property rights, confidential information, and corruption).

The case seems to be most effective and popular when used in executive education with culturally diverse groups of managers who have already gained personal experiences in intercultural negotiations. The case can be used to discuss/introduce topics such as: business ethics in general, business ethics in intercultural/cross-cultural negotiation in particular, mechanics of negotiation, increasing the pie in a negotiation, intercultural/cross-cultural management, and B2B sales of technological products.