Institute for Economic and Legal Research Frankfurt (IWRF)

Working Paper 33 (10/2024)

As a key competence, data literacy is one of the so-called “future skills” that are needed in a digitalized world in order to successfully participate in science, the world of work and so­ciety in general. Data literacy refers to a wide range of skills in the critical handling of data, such as collecting, managing, evaluating and using data. Universities play a key role in teaching basic and subject-specific data skills. The authors consider the question of how data literacy skills can be integrated into the curriculum and extracurricular activities at uni­versities. There are various approaches in literature and practice, which are presented in an overview of the current state of research on this topic. In addition, a specific case study is used to illustrate the practical implementation at a university.

Working Paper 24 (02/2022)

The world is increasingly characterized by global and national disasters and crises. To cope with these, social cohesion is indispensable—and this in turn requires that young people are taught how to become responsible citizens. Strengthening students’ personal development and social commitment are therefore key responsibilities of universities. Service-learning is one possibility to integrate these into teaching and learning, however studies on the effectiveness of service-learning in Europe—and especially in Germany—are rare. This paper examines the effects of service-learning, whereby three different study groups are compared. The study includes n=132 bachelor and master students, and shows that the groups’ outcomes hardly differ from one another. It can tentatively be said that there are only minor differences between the formats and that service-learning is equal to more traditional teaching-learning formats, but again is not superior with regard to the variables investigated.

Working Paper 23 (01/2022)

Urban area tessellation is a crucial aspect in many spatial analyses. While regular tessellation methods, like square-grid or hexagon-grid, are suitable for addressing pure geometry problems, they cannot take the unique characteristics of different subareas into account. Irregular tessellation methods allow the border between the subareas to be defined more realistically based on the urban features like road network or POI data. This paper studies and compares five different tessellation methods: Squares, hexagons, adaptive squares, Voronoi diagrams, and city blocks. We explain how (open-source) POI data can be integrated into the tessellation process to build what we call “Local Geo-graphic Units” (POI-based tiles). These units are flexible and adaptable to the structure of the studied area and underlying data and could improve the performance of further analyses. The results of the various tessellation methods are demonstrated for the city of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. A simple clustering of Local Geographic Units for the studied city indicates that city blocks perform better than the other methods in the city segmentation in terms of reflecting the structure of this city.

Working Paper 22 (01/2022)

Empirical evidence suggests that international ownership of local firms supports firm performance and growth through various channels such as financing, technology transfer, and improved access to international markets. This is particularly true for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that otherwise may lack access to a variety of vital resources. At the same time small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) formation may promote economic development. The relationship between firm performance and international ownership has been well explored for firms in developed economies but this is not the case for firms – including SMEs – in Africa and the Middle East. Largely due to lack of relevant cross-country financial data, existing literature on African and Middle-Eastern firms has presented survey-based evidence on firm performance while evidence based on detailed financial information remains lacking. The present paper aims at filling this research gap. We identify African and Middle-Eastern SMEs operating in the formal sector and examine the impact of ownership structure on firm performance. We use cross-sectional financial data covering about 25,500 companies – including about 30% SMEs – in 69 African and Middle-Eastern countries for the years 2006 to 2015. Our results indicate that international ownership has significant positive association with firm performance. For internationally-owned SMEs this appears to be true despite lower levels of equity and debt capital, implying that internationally-owned firms use international resources – other than capital – more efficiently!

Working Paper 21 (11/2021) (German only)

Meat substitutes are on the rise. How does the naming of meat substitute products influence their acceptance? In a quantitative omnibus survey, six product names for meat substitute products are evaluated in terms of purchase preference. Respondents are asked about their preferred product names. A distinction is made according to the dietary form of the subjects. The product names are differentiated by the strength of the association with meat products. In addition, the extent to which consumers accept names, typically associated with meat-legged products, for naming meat substitutes was tested. Results showed no preference of product names as a function of the subjects' dietary form. The assumption that products with names reminiscent of meat products lead to lower acceptance among followers of meatless, could not be confirmed dietary forms. The acceptance of name additions such as "sausage" or "schnitzel" was constant for all dietary forms. Moreover, no differences in preference can be found with regard to gender. For companies in the industry, this means that when naming meat substitutes, the association with meat-containing products has little influence on their acceptance.

Working Paper 18 (04/2021)

The aim of this paper, which is positioned within the research domain of logistics and supply chain management, is to present a holistic perspective on the development of an innovative halal air cargo supply chain.
To the best of our knowledge, a fully integrated halal supply chain “from farm to fork” represents a complete novelty, especially in the context of a non-Muslim-dominant country such as Germany. As a matter of fact, although some major European seaports have been certified according to halal standards (i.e. Rotterdam in 2007, and Zeebrugge and Marseille in 2012), they are still unable to guarantee the integrity of halal products across the entire supply chain.

Working Paper 17 (12/2020)

B2C e-commerce is still one of the fastest growing marketing channels in almost all product categories yielding to less bundled direct-to-consumer deliveries. Last mile deliveries cause costs and emissions especially in urban areas with a high density of e-customers. Therefore, stakeholders in the context of last mile parcel deliveries are interested in implementing efficient, innovative and ecological last mile concepts. In our customer-driven central last mile micro depot (CMD) project a potential analysis was carried out for the implementation of a CMD with the aim of environmentally-friendly and bundled last mile delivery. Our paper tries to close a research gap by examining acceptance and willingness-to-pay for an alternative last mile delivery concept from the perspective of the customer. Our empirical results based on a survey among German major city residents indicate that city residential areas are potentially more suitable for the realization of a CMD-project than other areas. Furthermore, younger and employed inhabitants are most willing to use the CMD. Based on our statistical model we are able to predict values for the willingness to pay per parcel for a specific population of urban inhabitants.

Working Paper 16 (12/2020) (German only)

Leadership is changing due to many digital influences. Digitization requires new leadership skills and will increasingly produce automated decisions. Such “management by systems” and more independence of the employees leads to agile forms of organizations. Both managers and employees will use artificial intelligence and bots to interact with one another. The article shows that agility requires more leadership and “cyber leadership” requires more artificial intelligence.

Working Paper 15 (11/2020) (German only)

The current study explores the working conditions of lesbian women in Germany. It compares lesbian women's experiences to those of heterosexual women and examines the level of discrimination during job-application for women who enter professional life. The results of an experimental setting indicate that lesbian women do face discrimination when applying for jobs, as they are less often invited for job interviews. Another important result, based on survey among lesbian and heterosexual women shows that lesbian women experience stronger discrimination on the job due to their gender than their sexual orientation.

Working Paper 14 (10/2018) (German only)

Between 2006 and 2009, the authors studied the role of gender-specific negotiation skills of women for their advancement and obtained salary (Ruppert/Voigt 2009). In 2017, a follow-up study with the same methodological design examined to what extent the results found at that time are still applicable. We see that ten years after the implementation of the original study things are (mostly) as they were: men generally have a much more positive attitude towards negotiation and women are more frequently nervous and fearful in salary negotiations. Neither gender invests a lot of time in preparing for negotiations. And in the end we can note again: men achieve significantly better results.