Publication database

Although the topic of aging at work is receiving increasing research attention, it remains unclear if aging employees are less innovative at work and what consequences this relation entails. We integrate the literature on aging with research on innovation to gain a better understanding of whether—and if so, when—employees’ aging harms their professional outcomes via decreased innovative behavior. Multi-source, time-lag data on 305 project managers provides support for the idea that age does not always go hand in hand with low innovative behavior and, subsequently, low professional outcomes. Rather, inter-departmental collaboration works as a social buffer for these negative effects. Specifically, aging employees with low inter-departmental collaboration are less innovative and subsequently less successful. In contrast, the “age handicap” vanishes when aging employees collaborate with other members in their organizations. Our results highlight the importance for organizations to foster collaboration among their members, either formally or informally.

With permission of the Academy of Management

Firms in the pharmaceutical industry typically rely on a period of market exclusivity derived from patent protection and data exclusivity to recoup their investments in R&D. The invalidation of patent rights during drug development renders data exclusivity the sole source of protection and shifts the period of market exclusivity at the project level. Invalidation therefore constitutes a natural experiment that allows us to identify how the duration of market exclusivity affects firms' incentives to innovate. Our analysis is based on a novel data set that links the development histories of drug candidates with underlying patent data. We identify causal effects relying on an instrument for the potentially endogenous patent invalidation. Our findings highlight that shorter durations of market exclusivity reduce the hazards of successful drug commercialization.

With permission of the Academy of Management

While we know much about how networks shape organizational performance, we know less about the linkages between networks and performance in the aftermath of exogenous, industry-wide shocks. We examine how the dot-com crash of 2000 affected investment banks’ ability to convert three facets of their positions in inter-firm networks–structural holes, status and fragility–into future performance. We find that the post-crisis performance of banks rich in structural holes does not exceed that of banks in closed networks. Conversely, high-status banks lose their advantage relative to low-status banks, while banks in fragile network positions outperform their robustly positioned peers. External shocks can thus turn the tables–dethroning organizations in typically advantaged network positions, while also opening up new opportunities for their fragile counterparts.

With permission of the Academy of Management

What should a CEO do to increase the social multiplier of a startup? What organizational strategy, in other words, should a manager adopt to shape informal social interactions among employees, so that they perform better in the office than if they telecommuted? We develop a network-based model that contrasts two opposing approaches. The first, consistent with Coleman’s vision of social capital, is embedding. Using an embedding strategy, the CEO fosters strong and dense ties among employees, and thus seeks to raise productivity by facilitating knowledge spillovers and creating social pressure. The second, keeping with White’s theory of social control, is decoupling. Using a decoupling strategy, the CEO promotes weak and sparse connections among employees, and so tries to increase productivity by minimizing distraction. Our findings indicate that, while embedding is generally preferable to decoupling for most kinds of organizations, decoupling is clearly preferable when two conditions are jointly met: the organization’s distribution of human capital is left-skewed and it is populated more by “slackers,” who “look down” in order to self-enhance, than by “climbers” who “look up” to self-improve. Our results also suggest that the zone of network irrelevance–that is, the space of possibilities over which the CEO’s efforts to rewire the network will prove inconsequential–paradoxically contracts as the firm grows: counter to a prevailing picture of small firms as inherently malleable, our model suggests that a CEO achieves less through shaping informal social interactions when the organization is not yet at scale. Implications for future research on networks and organizations are discussed.

With permission of the Academy of Management

The report deals with the current situation of IT security law and the chance that there are going to be changes in the near future. Further, it explains the system classification of IT security law and that definitions and regulations are different in every field of expertise. Finally, it deals with the state of the art and gives recommendations.

This paper analyzes investment policies of German foundations and compares them with U.S. university endowments. In 2017, only 65 % of German endowments expected an investment return above the expected inflation rate. This raises the question if German endowments are prepared for the future. The paper indicates areas of improvement derived from best practices of top U.S. university endowments and relates their endowment performance to German endowment proxy portfolios. The analysis shows that U.S. endowments are characterized by a higher degree of diversification and risk taking as well as a better risk allocation. With estimated total endowment assets of EUR 100 billion, leveraging this potential would lead to an increase in German endowment returns of about 2 % or EUR 2 billion per year.


[Gemäß einer Studie des Bundesverbands Deutscher Stiftungen (BVDS) erwarteten für das Jahr 2017 nur noch 65 % der Stiftungen eine Rendite über der Inflationsrate – in den Jahren 2015 und 2016 waren es noch über 80 %. Daher stellt sich die Frage, ob Stiftungen finanziell für die Zukunft gerüstet sind und somit ihrem gemeinnützigen Zweck in der vorgesehenen Weise nachkommen können.

Am Beispiel US-amerikanischer Universitätsstiftungen werden Optimierungshebel für die Anlagepolitik deutscher Stiftungen aufgezeigt. Während Fonds und Festgeld die häufigsten Anlageformen deutscher Stiftungen sind, zeigt die Analyse der US-amerikanischen Universitätsstiftungen, dass diese eine breitere Streuung, eine bessere Berücksichtigung der Risikoallokation und eine höhere Risikobereitschaft aufweisen. Eine Simulation von Referenzportfolios für unterschiedliche Anlagepolitiken deutscher Stiftungen sowie ein Vergleich mit Yale als dem Spitzenreiter US-amerikanischer Universitätsstiftungen zeigt ein Renditepotential von 2 % oder bei einem geschätzten Stiftungsvermögen von 100 Mrd. Euro von 2 Mrd. Euro pro Jahr auf.

Diese Ergebnisse zeigen die Notwendigkeit einer intensiven Beschäftigung mit der Frage, wie Stiftungen zukünftig ihre Vermögen verwalten und sie dabei mit geeigneten Rahmenbedingungen unterstützt werden können.]

Organizations crowdsource ideas from individuals. Individuals whose ideas are not selected for implementation often stop to interact with the organization and submit not further ideas. We hypothesize that organizations can motivate newcomers to submit further ideas by providing a so far understudied form of feedback: rejections. We draw on theories of interaction rituals and matching to develop theory how rejections foster a bond between individuals and organizations. To test our theory we examine the crowdsourcing of 70,196 organizations who receive ideas from 962,570 individuals. We make use of difference in how rejections are written to disentangle the mechanisms how rejections affect individuals willingness to continue to interact with the organization. We discuss the implications for research on idea crowdsourcing, social bonding, and creative processes.

Research has examined who gains authority in knowledge production communities, but has neglected the community members granting authority. We ask: when do community members engage in the authority granting process and why do they support or oppose a candidate? We theorize that community members willingness to engage in the authority granting process depends on their task similarity. We depart from earlier literature by arguing that task similarity is a two-edged sword as a source of support and opposition, which we explain is related to strategic considerations of the voter. Using a unique dataset of all Wikipedia elections from 2003 to 2014, we study when community members vote and whether they vote in favor or against candidates standing for election for administrator positions.