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In January 2017, the Digital Society Institute hosted a workshop on the “Crypto-debate: Strategies for responsible dealings with security agencies on matters of cryptography, vulnerabilities and tools.” Dr. Stefan Grosse (Federal Ministry of the Interior), Ralf Koenzen (Lancom Systems), Linus Neumann (Chaos Computer Club) and Stefan Heumann (Stiftung Neue Verantwortung) contributed to the workshop.

This issue contains German text and English translation in one file.

In luxury brand management, most industry players have realized that experiences are essential. However, most of what we know about designing customer experiences originates from work developed with and for mass brands. Luxury brands are an entirely different proposition – and require a very specific approach to brand management and marketing. After extensive research of the market in collaboration with Pernod Ricard, here are the seven things brands need to focus on in order to design and market a true luxury experience.

The world is undergoing a transformation in how it gets its power. In Germany, we have a word for it: Energiewende. It means energy turning point. (We use the same word Wende to describe the fall of the Berlin Wall and all the dramatic changes that came with it.) In this transformation, we are witnessing the decarbonization of power consumption, thanks to the large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Earlier this year, the European Union announced that its climate and renewable energy targets—a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, 20% of EU energy from renewable sources, and a 20% improvement in energy efficiency—are actually on track to realization by the year 2020.

James Reid, the newly appointed GM of Troubled Spain, has been given a mandate by the CEO of Troubled Inc. to turn the subsidiary around within six months. Troubled Spain has experienced several years of poor performance that cannot be explained by either sluggish demand or lagging technology. The case provides information about interviews that James had with several employees, describing the role of the employee and giving insights into the issues that they see the company facing. These interviews are complemented by three charts prepared by consultants that James hired to conduct an internal audit of collaboration, communication and informal leadership in the organization. James needs to transform the organization within six months; however, this implies changing relationships that have been developed over decades and clarifying roles and boundaries that have been blurred over many years. The case challenges students to take James' position and identify the issues of Troubled Spain to develop an action plan in order to address the challenges facing the company. James needs to address: 1) issues concerning Troubled Spain's formal structure, 2) issues regarding its informal structure, including leadership issues, and 3) issues stemming from the combination of both formal and informal features. Case B provides information about what happened next and may be distributed at the end of the session.

Los Andes University Case Collection

James Reid, the newly appointed GM of Troubled Spain, has been given a mandate by the CEO of Troubled Inc. to turn the subsidiary around within six months. Troubled Spain has experienced several years of poor performance that cannot be explained by either sluggish demand or lagging technology. The case provides information about interviews that James had with several employees, describing the role of the employee and giving insights into the issues that they see the company facing. These interviews are complemented by three charts prepared by consultants that James hired to conduct an internal audit of collaboration, communication and informal leadership in the organization. James needs to transform the organization within six months; however, this implies changing relationships that have been developed over decades and clarifying roles and boundaries that have been blurred over many years. The case challenges students to take James' position and identify the issues of Troubled Spain to develop an action plan in order to address the challenges facing the company. James needs to address: 1) issues concerning Troubled Spain's formal structure, 2) issues regarding its informal structure, including leadership issues, and 3) issues stemming from the combination of both formal and informal features.

Los Andes University Case Collection

Building on a unique, multi-source, and multi-method study of R&D projects in a leading professional service firm, we develop the argument that organizations are more likely to fund projects with intermediate levels of novelty. That is, some project novelty increases the share of requested funds received, but too much novelty is difficult to appreciate and is selected against. While prior research has considered the characteristics of the individuals generating project ideas, we shift the focus to panel selectors and explore how they shape the evaluation of novelty. We theorize that a high panel workload reduces panel preference for novelty in selection, whereas a diversity of panel expertise and a shared location between panel and applicant increase preference for novelty. We explore the implications of these findings for theories of innovation search, organizational selection, and managerial practice.

With permission of the Academy of Management

The researchers explored how organizations decide to invest in different innovations by studying a large professional service firm with offices in 37 countries. They analyzed all of the R&D project proposals submitted by its staff, including information about which projects received funding, and found that managers don’t always carefully weigh the pros and cons of each project and that biases can creep into the decision-making process. They found that there is a sweet spot of novelty that makes R&D committees more likely to fund a project, and that certain characteristics of the R&D selection committee can also influence funding decisions.

Researchers agree that replicability and reproducibility are key aspects of science. A collection of Data Descriptors published in Scientific Data presents data obtained in the process of attempting to replicate previously published research. These new replication data describe published and unpublished projects. The different papers in this collection highlight the many ways that scientific replications can be conducted, and they reveal the benefits and challenges of crucial replication research. The organizers of this collection encourage scientists to reuse the data contained in the collection for their own work, and also believe that these replication examples can serve as educational resources for students, early-career researchers, and experienced scientists alike who are interested in learning more about the process of replication.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC-BY.