Contributions in Merlin

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The stakeholder view of the corporation holds that the capacity of a business enterprise is to generate long-term value, which depends on critical stakeholders. This paper proposes a learning framework to explain why and how firms adopt a broader respectively changed stakeholder orientation or why they do not. Therefore, insights gained by a former research project will be updated and extended (see Post et al. 2002b). Using concepts from organizational evolution, a dynamic three-stage frame-work will be developed in order to analysed the paths of a firm's stakeholder orientation in practice and over longer periods of time. Preliminary results from case studies of three large and complex firms are used to illustrate the development of propositions and show first empirical evidence that the framework works in identifying generic learning processes and longitudinally capturing the development of stakeholder management in practice

In this paper we explore the algorithmic space in which stripification, simplification and geometric compression of triangulated 2-manifolds overlap. Edge-collapse/uncollapse based geometric simplification algorithms develop a hierarchy of collapses such that during uncollapse the reverse order has to be maintained. We show that restricting the simplification and refinement operations only to, what we call, the collapsible edges creates hierarchyless simplification in which the operations on one edge can be performed independent of those on another. Although only a restricted set of edges is used for simplification operations, we prove topological results to show that, with minor retriangulation, any triangulated 2-manifold can be reduced to either a single vertex or a single edge using the hierarchyless simplification, resulting in extreme simplification. The set of collapsible edges helps us analyze and relate the similarities between simplification, stripification and geometric compression algorithms. We show that the maximal set of collapsible edges implicitly describes a triangle strip representation of the original model. Further, these strips can be effortlessly maintained on multiresolution models obtained through any sequence of hierarchyless simplifications on these collapsible edges. Due to natural relationship between stripification and geometric compression, these multi-resolution models can also be efficiently compressed using traditional compression algorithms. We present algorithms to find the maximal set of collapsible edges and to reorganize these edges to get the minimum number of connected components of these edges. An order-independent simplification and refinement of these edges is achieved by our novel data structure and we show the results of our implementation of view-dependent, dynamic, hierarchyless simplification. We maintain a single triangle strip across all multi-resolution models created by the view-dependent simplification process. We present a new algorithm to compress the models using the triangle strips implicitly defined by the collapsible edges.

This paper investigates the determinants of inter-firm cooperation in research and development (R&D). We analyse the impact of structural and firm specific characteristics, market performance, access to resources and managerial techniques on different types of inter-firm R&D cooperation. Based on a survey of 886 enterprises in manufacturing and industry/business-related services located in Germany, we estimate several models with different types of R&D partnerships as a dependent variable to find out which types of enterprises are more or less likely to form or join either type of R&D partnership. The findings suggest that the availability and the quality of a firm’s own R&D resources are common factors driving R&D cooperation in general. Differentiating between cooperation activities in R&D among enterprises on the same production level on the one hand and vertical cooperation between enterprises and suppliers/customers or cross-sector alliances between enterprises and public research institutes on the other hand, we find cooperation type specific determinants of entry. The size of a firm, its location, access to financial resources and network experience seem to be most important.

Neue digitale Vervielfältigungstechnologien und Piraterie auf dem Tonträgermarkt stellen die Musikindustrie vor eine ernstzunehmende Herausforderung. Im bislang wichtigsten Geschäftsfeld, dem Verkauf von bespielten Tonträgern, sind die Umsatzzahlen seit Jahren rückläufig. Auf der anderen Seite werden stetig steigende Umsätze aus dem Verkauf von Konzerttickets, Merchandising-Artikeln oder Klingeltönen erwirtschaftet. Die Erzielung dieser „Umwegerträge“ setzt eine Bekanntheit von Musikkünstlern voraus, die durch Piraterie tendenziell positiv beeinflusst wird. Je mehr (legale oder illegale) Tonträger im Umlauf sind, desto größer ist die Nachfrage nach komplementären Gütern und Dienstleistungen. Der Beitrag untersucht verschiedene neue Geschäftsmodelle, die Musikproduzenten eine Teilhabe an den Umwegerträgen ermöglichen. Die gezielte Produktion von Boy- und Girl-Groups, die Verpflichtung von Schauspielern und anderen Künstlern als Sänger oder TV-Casting-Formate, bei denen die aufwendige Suche und Auswahl von Musikkünstlern im Fernsehen inszeniert wird, lassen sich damit als Reaktion der Branche auf Piraterie interpretieren.

We examine vertical backward integration in a reduced-form model of successive oligopolies. Our key findings are: (i) There may be asymmetric equilibria where some firms integrate and others remain separated, even if firms are symmetric initially; (ii) Efficient firms are more likely to integrate vertically. As a result, integrated firms also tend to have a large market share. The driving force behind these findings are demand/mark-up complementarities in the product market. We also identify countervailing forces resulting from strong vertical foreclosure, upstream sales and endogenous acquisition costs.