Publication database

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.

The report gives an overview on the current situation on cybersecurity and the political handling of that topic. It also recaps the goals and failures of the last four years and recommends action areas.

The paper summarizes the key elements of business strategies as well as corporate strategies and puts them together as a synchronized framework.

The report shows that a reporting of vulnerabilities used by the state for active measures is likely to have only a minor effect on the increase in overall technical IT security. On the other hand, the value of the work of the security authorities is in many cases considered high, due to the high tactical enablement against potential malicious actors. The demand of some, that state authorities should refrain from pro-actively exploiting vulnerabilities for active measures therefore does not seem to make much sense; the net effect in security would be negative. Nevertheless, processes can be introduced that allow a more precise assessment and an informed, accountable and cautious handling of offensively used vulnerabilities.