 Helmut Max Dietl, S Royer, U Stratmann, Wertschöpfungsorganisation und Differenzierungsdilemma in der Automobilindustrie, Schmalenbachs Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, Vol. 61 (4), 2009. (Journal Article)
 
Wie viele andere Branchen befindet sich auch die Automobilbranche in einem voranschreitenden Modularisierungsprozess. Das betrifft sowohl die Produktion als auch die Distribution. Standardisierung und Modularisierung der Wertschöpfungsaktivitäten und -prozesse führen jedoch zu einem betriebswirtschaftlichen Zielkonflikt: die Erzielung von Effizienzvorteilen einerseits und Differenzierungsmöglichkeiten andererseits. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird am Beispiel der Automobilindustrie dargestellt, wie Unternehmen dem Differenzierungsdilemma entgehen können. Dazu werden markenspezifische Wertschöpfungsorganisationen im Rahmen von Integrationsmessungen systematisiert und verglichen. Anhand der Merkmale unterschiedlicher Organisationsformate wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Wertschöpfungsorganisation und Differenzierungspotential diskutiert. Es zeigt sich, dass diejenigen Hersteller, die sowohl in der Produktion als auch in der Distribution eine hohe Wertschöpfungskontrolle und eine hohe Bindungsintensität der strategisch bedeutenden Lieferanten beziehungsweise Händler aufweisen, Wettbewerbsvorteile gegenüber ihren Konkurrenten erzielen und ein strategisch relevantes Differenzierungspotential erreichen. |
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Peter Zweifel, Ming Tai-Seale, An economic analysis of payment for health care services: the United States and Switzerland compared, International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics, Vol. 9 (2), 2009. (Journal Article)
This article seeks to assess whether physician payment reforms in the United States and Switzerland were likely to attain their objectives. We first introduce basic contract theory, with the organizing principle being the degree of information asymmetry between the patient and the health care provider. Depending on the degree of information asymmetry, different forms of payment induce “appropriate” behavior. These theoretical results are then pitted against the RBRVS of the United States to find that a number of its aspects are not optimal. We then turn to Switzerland’s Tarmed and find that it fails to conform with the prescriptions of economic contract theory as well. The article closes with a review of possible reforms that could do away with uniform fee schedules to improve the performance of the health care system. |
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Tania Singer, Nikolaus Steinbeis, Differential roles of fairness- and compassion-based motivations for cooperation, defection, and punishment, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1167, 2009. (Journal Article)
The present paper briefly describes and contrasts two different motivations crucially involved in decision making and cooperation, namely fairness-based and compassion-based motivation. Whereas both can lead to cooperation in comparable social situations, we suggest that they are driven by fundamentally different mechanisms and, overall, predict different behavioral outcomes. First, we provide a brief definition of each and discuss the relevant behavioral and neuroscientific literature with regards to cooperation in the context of economic games. We suggest that, whereas both fairness- and compassion-based motivation can support cooperation, fairness-based motivation leads to punishment in cases of norm violation, while compassion-based motivation can, in cases of defection, counteract a desire for revenge and buffer the decline into iterative noncooperation. However, those with compassion-based motivation alone may get exploited. Finally, we argue that the affective states underlying fairness-based and compassion-based motivation are fundamentally different, the former driven by anger or fear of being punished and the latter by a wish for the other person's well-being. |
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Nick Netzer, Evolution of time preferences and attitudes toward risk, American Economic Review, Vol. 99 (3), 2009. (Journal Article)
This paper explores a general model of the evolution and adaption of hedonic utility. It is shown that optimal utility will be increasing strongly in regions where choices have to be made often and decision mistakes have a severe impact on fitness. Several applications are suggested. In the context of intertemporal preferences, the model offers an evolutionary explanation for the existence of conflicting short- and long-run interests that lead to dynamic inconsistency. Concerning attitudes toward risk, an evolutionary explanation is given for S-shaped value functions that adjust to the decision maker’s environment. |
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Christian Ewerhart, Nuno Cassola, Steen Ejerskov, Natacha Valla, Optimal allotment policy in central bank open market operations, The European journal of finance, Vol. 15 (4), 2009. (Journal Article)
This paper derives a central bank's optimal liquidity supply towards a money market with an unrestricted lending facility. We show that when the effect of liquidity on market rates is not too small, and the monetary authority cares for both interest rates and liquidity conditions, then the optimal allotment policy may entail a discontinuous
reaction to initial conditions. In particular, the model predicts a threshold level of liquidity below which the central bank will not bail out the banking system. An
estimation of the liquidity effect for the euro area suggests that the discontinuity might have contributed to the Eurosystem's tight response to occurrences of underbidding during the period June 2000 through March 2004. |
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A Muller, Sustainable agriculture and the production of biomass for energy use, Climatic Change, Vol. 94 (3-4), 2009. (Journal Article)
Modern bioenergy is seen as a promising option to curb greenhouse gas emissions. There is, however, a potential competition for land and water between bioenergy and food crops. Another question is whether biomass for energy use can be produced in a sustainable manner given the current conventional agricultural production practices. Other than the land and water competition, this question is often neglected in scenarios to meet a significant part of global energy demand with bioenergy. In the following, I address this question. There are sustainable alternatives, for example organic agriculture, to avoid the negative environmental effects of conventional agriculture. Yet, meeting a significant part of global energy demand with biomass grown sustainably may not be possible, as burning significant quantities of organic matter—inherent in bioenergy use—is likely to be incompatible with the principles of such alternatives, which often rely on biomass input for nutrient balance. There may therefore be a trade-off between policies and practices to increase bioenergy and those to increase sustainability in agriculture via practices such as organic farming. This is not a general critique of bioenergy but it points to additional potential dangers of modern bioenergy as a strategy to meet significant parts of world energy demand. |
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Reto Zenger, Evolizer Metrics, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2009. (Bachelor's Thesis)
Within the analysis of software, metric values can be helpful to quantify certain aspects of the
source code as size or complexity. Therefore we enhanced EVOLIZER and DA4JAVA with metrics.
The metric addition provides a flexible infrastructure administrating different strategies for
metric calculations and handling incoming requests for metric values.In addition an interface for
additive strategies for metric calculations is defined, such as a mechanism making all found implementations
of that interface automaticaly available for calculations. The calculated metrics can
be selected as dimensions in polymetric views provided by DA4JAVA. Such views are helpful for
source code understanding or during the refactoring process. The solution is finally evaluated
with two applications. |
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Pascal Pugatsch, Visualization of Portfolios, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2009. (Master's Thesis)
Visualization helps to overcome the complexity of investing. The metaphor of driving a car is chosen as practical approach to fulfill this task. First of all it is shown how the theory of efficient portfolios, the capital market line and the capital asset pricing model, in combination provide a set of potential portfolios. In a next step behavioral finance has been introduced. The prospect theory, the central message of behavioral finance, measures the risk ability and the risk prefer- ences of an investor. So both modern finance and behavioral finance provide the tools to deliver a fitting asset allocation to the investor. An application has been developed that maps the essential elements from both worlds of finance onto the metaphor. The application provides a wide range of configuration settings and shows possible scenarios of driving the assembled car under various conditions. An extended evaluation with test users was carried out that showed, that the every- day experience of driving a car was a great advantage. Through using the provided analogy, an investor could select a suiting portfolio in a much better way. |
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Equalizer: A Scalable Parallel Rendering Framework., IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Vol. 15 (3), 2009. (Journal Article)
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Florian Spöring, Analyse und Erweiterung eines Anwendungs-Frameworks unter einer konkreten Bedrohungssituation, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2009. (Master's Thesis)
The topic of this paper is security of web application. Therefore a web application will be designed on top of an existing Framework which was not designed for the use over internet. Through the context of that application the security which is needed will be specified and written down in a security policy. In a next step the applications security will be tested according to threat modeling. This results in requirements, which the framework canít comply with yet. Threats and weaknesses are discussed and solutions to mitigate them are presented. The extended framework then should be secure to use it along with that web application. |
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Daniel Dönni, Service Quality Measurement in IP Networks, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2009. (Master's Thesis)
The Internet is a general-purpose network that can be used for a great variety of different applications. Using a particular application is only satisfactory if the application’s Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are met. Finding out whether the QoS requirements of an application are met requires a variety of network characteristics to be looked at. The IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has therefore been working on a framework that allows to describe the characteristics of a network using a set of well-defined metrics. In order to determine the service quality characteristics of their networks, network operators have to measure these metrics. Hence, a measurement system is required that allows them to measure and monitor service quality in their networks. The system must be able to measure as many aspects of the network as possible because the more knowledge about the network is available, the better the needs of customers can be served. In this thesis a measurement architecture is developed and prototypically implemented that allows network operators to capture a wide range of QoS characteristics. The architecture is able to perform active and passive measurements based on the One-Way Active Measurement Protocol (OWAMP) and the Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP). For passive measurements, a packet marking approach is used. The architecture allows network operators to measure general network properties as well as the characteristics of a service and a service class. Furthermore, the behavior of customers using a particular service can be simulated. The measurement architecture can be adapted to the needs of network operators and be extended with arbitrary measurement applications. It complies with the IPv4 and IPv6 standards which allows for a seamless integration in existing networks. The architecture uses the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) to configure the architectural components and the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) protocol to collect measurement data. Experimental results show that the approach produces little overhead and scales well, especially with respect to a large number of flows. |
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Zacharias Sautner, Martin Weber, How do managers behave in stock option plans? Clinical evidence from exercise and survey data, The journal of financial research, Vol. 32 (2), 2009. (Journal Article)
We use unique case study data to analyze the behavior of top managers in an executive stock option plan. We gather questionnaire data on the managers' traits and combine it with exercise data. Managers in our sample expect low volatilities (compared to historical estimates) and are well diversified and modestly risk averse. This implies that the value–cost wedge of options can be smaller than usually assumed. The exercise decisions vary with expected volatility, managerial wealth, and mental accounting. Managers expecting lower volatility exercise earlier. This result is consistent with the predictions of expected utility models using our managers' survey parameters. |
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Matthias Hert, Relational databases as semantic web endpoints, In: 6th European Semantic Web Conference, 2009-05-31. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
This proposal explores the promotion of existing relational databases to Semantic Web Endpoints. It presents the benefits of ontology-based read and write access to existing relational data as well as the need for specialized, scalable reasoning over that data. We introduce our approach for translating SPARQL/Update operations to SQL, describe how scalable reasoning can be realized by using the power of the database system, and outline two case studies for evaluating our approach. |
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Matthias Hert, G Reif, H C Gall, SPARQL/Update for relational databases, In: 6th European Semantic Web Conference, 2009-05-31. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
We present an approach for ontology-based read and write access to existing Relational Databases (RDBs). SPARQL/Update serves as the data manipulation language that is translated to equivalent SQL commands according to mappings between the RDBs and the Semantic Web. This addition of write support enables a full integration of existing relational data into Semantic Web applications. |
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E M Aulich, Philosophisch statt egozentrisch, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 123, p. 73, 30 May 2009. (Newspaper Article)
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J Kirenz, Florian Stahl, H P Wehrli, Customer-Based Brand Equity, Financial Performance and Market Value, In: 38th EMAC Conference, 2009-05-26. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Several studies in the marketing literature show that perceptual brand metrics are related to the intangible value of a firm and improve the ability to predict future cash flows. Using perceptual brand data for the three largest economies in Europe, the authors extend previous research by investigating whether perceived brand familiarity, differentiation and energy are reliable customer-based brand equity metrics for predicting future firm value. Furthermore, they investigate what impact these measures have on financial performance, measured as cash flow volatility. The authors find that notwithstanding the revealed cash flow relevance of energy, only changes in brand familiarity are associated with investors’ expectations of future cash flows. |
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Renato Pajarola, G Cuccuru, E Gobbetti, F Marton, R Pintus, Fast low-memory streaming MLS reconstruction of point-sampled surfaces, In: Graphics Interface, 2009-05-25. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
We present a simple and efficient method for reconstructing triangulated surfaces from massive oriented point sample datasets. The method combines streaming and parallelization, moving least-squares (MLS) projection, adaptive space
subdivision, and regularized isosurface extraction. Besides
presenting the overall design and evaluation of the system,
our contributions include methods for keeping in-core data
structures complexity purely locally output-sensitive and for exploiting both the explicit and implicit data produced by a MLS projector to produce tightly fitting regularized triangulations using a primal isosurface extractor. Our results show that the system is fast, scalable, and accurate. We are able to process models with several hundred million points in about an hour and outperform current fast streaming reconstructors in terms of geometric accuracy. |
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Neil Buckley, Stuart Mestelman, Andrew Muller, Stephan Schott, Jingjing Zhang, Shut Up and Fish: The Role of Communication when Output-Sharing is used to Manage a Common-Pool Resource, In: Proceedings of the Atlantic Canada Economics Association Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2009. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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D Brunner, Wer warum wie viel verdient, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 117, p. 67, 23 May 2009. (Newspaper Article)
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C Gradl, Piera Waibel, Entwicklungsländer bergen für Unternehmen Wachstumspotential, io new management, 2009. (Journal Article)
Auch in Schwellenländern kann Wachstum erzielt werden. Vorausgesetzt Firmen binden die Menschen in ihre Projekte ein und sind bereit, ihre Produkte und Prozesse anzupassen. |
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