Publication records

In this joint study, the Hidden Champions Institute (HCI) of ESMT Berlin and IDG Research Services look into the question of whether the hidden champions are leading the digital transformation of the German economy. More precisely, the study compares the digital transformation among hidden champions to other companies and analyzes their challenges. The result shows that the German hidden champions take the digital revolution seriously and are working vigorously on positioning themselves more digitally, both regarding internal processes and in relation to new business models. In the process, they are considerably quicker and more successful than many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are not market leaders. However, in comparison to large corporates, the digital transformation of the hidden champions frequently lags behind, requiring them to learn from companies within their own ranks that are among the global leaders in the digital transformation. There are indeed such “hidden digital champions”, as the study shows.

With permission of IDG Business Media German edition of the study: Hidden Champions - Champions der digitalen Transformation?.

In its 2018 coalition agreement, the German federal government has set itself the goal of adopting a "Blockchain strategy" in this legislative period. As part of the planned promotion of Distributed Ledger and Blockchain technologies, the government wants to create a framework for the development and application of these technologies and test them in public administration. The Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and the Federal Ministry of Finance are jointly in charge of developing the strategy. On this occasion, in a workshop on 3 July 2018 at the Digital Society Institute of ESMT Berlin, 35 experts from politics, business and science discussed how a national blockchain strategy can be practically organized. The discussion focused on the questions of what goals such a strategy should have, what the central enablers and appropriate framework conditions for the development and application of Distributed Ledger technologies such as blockchain can be in Germany, and what role the state plays in promoting the technology and managing risks in this technology field. Sarah Basic and André Eid (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy), Dr. Christian Hampel (Ernst & Young GmbH), Dr. Jürgen Kohr (Fujitsu), Dr. Manfred Lochter (Federal Office for Security in Information Technology) and Kai Wagner (Jolocom) gave input speeches to the debate. Based on the workshop discussion, this paper outlines requirements for a national blockchain strategy. [Die Bundesregierung hat sich in ihrem Koalitionsvertrag das Ziel gesetzt, in dieser Legislaturperiode eine „Blockchain-Strategie“ zu verabschieden. Im Rahmen der geplanten Förderung von Distributed Ledger und Blockchain Technologien sollen die Rahmenbedingungen für Entwicklung und Einsatz der Technologien verbessert und diese auch in der öffentlichen Verwaltung erprobt werden. Mit der Erarbeitung der Strategie sind federführend das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) und das Bundesministerium der Finanzen (BMF) betraut. Aus diesem Anlass erörterten in einem Workshop am 3. Juli 2018 am Digital Society Institute der ESMT Berlin 35 Experten aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft, wie eine nationale Blockchain-Strategie praktisch organisiert sein kann. Im Zentrum der Diskussion standen die Fragen, welche Ziele eine solche Strategie haben sollte, was zentrale Ermöglicher und geeignete Rahmenbedingungen für die Entwicklung und Anwendung von Distributed Ledger Technologien wie Blockchain in Deutschland sein können, und welche Rolle dem Staat bei der Förderung und Bekämpfung von Risiken in diesem Technologiefeld zukommt. Impulsvorträge für die Diskussion hielten Sarah Basic und André Eid (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie), Dr. Christian Hampel (Ernst & Young GmbH), Dr. Jürgen Kohr (Fujitsu), Dr. Manfred Lochter (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) und Kai Wagner (Jolocom). Auf der Grundlage der Workshop-Diskussion skizziert dieses Papier Anforderungen an eine nationale Blockchain-Strategie.]

We study the impact of exogenous funding shocks to German savings banks during the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis on the labor decisions of 30,000+ private and public firms in Germany. We find that firms with credit relationships with affected banks experience a significant decline in labor demand relative to firms with credit relationships with healthy banks, manifested in a simultaneous reduction in firm‐level employment and average wages. The employment effect is more pronounced in larger firms, while the wage effect is stronger in smaller firms. Both employment and wages go back to pre‐shock levels three years after the shock.

With permission of Elsevier

Merton often envisioned status growth as a process of stepping across a boundary between one status grade and another more elite status grade. Such boundaries include the border between graduate school and a top academic department that young researchers try to traverse, or the frontier between scientists outside the French Academy and scientists inside the French Academy. As it is now common to measure status continuously using network data, the behavioral ramifications of status boundaries have been understudied in recent research. In this essay, we focus on competitive behaviors that emerge near a status boundary because of the desirability - as well as the “double injustice” - of the Matthew effect. Offering insights for future research, we discuss how these competitive behaviors are likely to delay, or even derail, status growth for those who are near a status boundary.

With permission of SAGE Publishing

Consumers often do not have complete information about the choices they face and therefore have to spend time and effort in acquiring information. Since information acquisition is costly, consumers trade-off the value of better information against its cost, and make their final product choices based on imperfect information. We model this decision using the rational inattention approach and describe the rationally inattentive consumer’s choice behavior when she faces alternatives with different information costs. To this end, we introduce an information cost function that distinguishes between direct and implied information. We then analytically characterize the optimal choice probabilities. We find that non-uniform information costs can have a strong impact on product choice, which gets particularly conspicuous when the product alternatives are otherwise very similar. There are significant implications on how a seller should provide information about its products and how changes to the product set impacts consumer choice. For example, non-uniform information costs can lead to situations where it is disadvantageous for the seller to provide easier access to information for a particular product, and to situations where the addition of an inferior (never chosen) product increases the market share of another existing product (i.e., failure of regularity). We also provide an algorithm to compute the optimal choice probabilities and discuss how our framework can be empirically estimated from suitable choice data.

Book review of Paul Voigt, “IT-Sicherheitsrecht”, (IT security law), 2018

Betting on right technologies, selecting meaningful fields of application and thus steering technology developments with suitable properties in the right direction is crucial for the sustainable success of technology companies. However, due to the worldwide increase and rapid acceleration of research and development activities as well as the increasing integration of value chains, it is becoming increasingly difficult to correctly assess technology developments. At the same time, access to data and information has dramatically improved powered by the developments of the world wide web. Powerful information and telecommunication devices as well as software make large data sets easier to access and complex data analyses with new types of indicators possible. Thus, the possibilities of indicator-based technology assessments have also improved for companies that have very limited resources for technology analysis. In order to provide an up-to-date overview of which indicators and methods for technology analysis are currently used in practice and in science, the Chair of Innovation Management of the Free University Berlin conducted a survey of German-speaking experts* from business and science in November and December 2017. The results are presented in this report.