Contributions in Merlin

The generation of new knowledge is crucial for a firm’s competitive advantage. We analyze explorative knowledge production in teams as a social dilemma. Such social dilemmas can to some extent be solved by transactional solutions such as activating the shadow of the future or selective incentives. But transformational solutions are more important. Employee’s intrinsic initiative to participate in knowledge exploration is crowded-out by certain high-powered incentives and unfriendly monitoring. It is crowded-in by, low-powered incentives, friendly monitoring, communication and institutional framing. We conclude that there exist convincing ideas of how to govern explorative knowledge production which should be tested empirically.

Der Band fasst den Erkenntnisstand zum demographischen Wandel aus betriebswirtschaftlicher Perspektive zum Thema Arbeit, Altern und Betrieb zusammen. Dabei werden insbesondere die Beschäftigungs-, Lohn- und Produktivitätseffekte in Betrieben untersucht und im internationalen Vergleich die Wirkungen institutioneller Rahmungen betrachtet. Die Befunde liefern erste Antworten auf die Frage, mit welchen Regelungen und Maßnahmen sowohl Beschäftigung älterer Arbeitnehmer als auch betriebliche Produktivität in Deutschland im demographischen Wandel gewährleistet und verbessert werden können.

Was wir einmal haben, geben wir so schnell nicht mehr her – auch wenn das rational betrachtet die bessere Lösung wäre. Dass Menschen in bestimmten Situationen nicht mehr rational entscheiden, liegt an den so genannten Entscheidungsanomalien. Eine Studentengruppe der Universität Zürich untersuchte in unserer Miniserie deren Einfluss.

There is a growing debate about economics not only being bad for practice but also destroying good management practice. The focus of this debate has been on the negative influences of wrong assumptions in theory building which become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We analyze why standard economics indeed can be bad for managerial and political practice. Aside from wrong assumptions, economic imperialism is another important factor. We argue that psychological economics is better for practice than standard economics, but is still not good for practice, as long as it uses an imperialistic approach. We propose a different research strategy, which we call multidisciplinary mapping. It not only bridges between different disciplinary approaches but also between the knowledge of scholars and practitioners. It is good for practice as well as for theory building.

Märkte werden gerne als effiziente Informationsverarbeitungsmechanismen gesehen, in denen sich Menschen als rational handelnde Individuen bewegen. Die an Börsen beobachteten Bewegungen und widersprüchliches Anlageverhalten werfen allerdings kritische Fragen auf. Der vorliegende Beitrag führt kurz in die Behavioral Finance ein, die sich mit dem menschlichen Verhalten in Finanzbelangen auseinandersetzt.

«Consolidated Financial Statements» is intended for accountants, auditors and university, polytechnic and executive students as well as other practitioners who are interested in gaining and understanding the subject. This textbook concentrates on the theoretical and practical treatment of problems concerning consolidated financial statements, using an integrated and logical approach and paying careful attention to methodical and educational requirements. Applying current accounting theory, the book demonstrates all the topics relevant to consolidation and illustrates them with examples. There is also an overview of the regulations concerning each topic in the accounting standards of the Swiss GAAP FER, IFRS and US GAAP. The book includes 19 case studies on the individual topics as well as two comprehensive case studies.