University of Mannheim

About: University of Mannheim is a education organization based out in Mannheim, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & European union. The organization has 4448 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 446557 citations. The organization is also known as: Uni Mannheim & UMA.

In genes we trust: the biological component of psychological essentialism and its relationship to mechanisms of motivated social cognition.

Abstract: Three studies analyzed the biological component of psychological essentialism (laypeople's belief that social categories have an underlying nature/natural foundation) as it pertains to mechanisms of motivated social cognition. A new scale assessing the belief in genetic determinism is introduced as a measure of the biological component of essentialism. Results speak to the reliability and validity of the scale and show that essentialist beliefs are associated with basic social-cognitive motives and are also related to processes of stereotyping and prejudice. An experimental study found that rendering essentialist information salient elicits increased levels of prejudice and in-group bias, particularly in persons holding chronic essentialist beliefs.

Service Orientation of a Retailer’s Business Strategy: Dimensions, Antecedents, and Performance Outcomes

Abstract: Augmenting products with services is a major way retailers have of gaining differentiation in today’s competitive market. Despite its importance, this topic has received relatively little research attention. Unlike previous research, this study adopts a more comprehensive perspective on retail services by examining three important research gaps related to a service-oriented business strategy: First, the authors elaborate on the dimensions of a service-oriented business strategy and introduce a new measure of this strategy. Second, the authors examine the antecedents of a service-oriented business strategy. In practice, there appears to be considerable variability in terms of the extent to which retailers demonstrate a service orientation, but there is a major gap in the understanding of what factors influence this orientation. Third, the authors investigate the neglected link between a service-oriented business strategy and performance outcomes. To examine these three important areas, the authors...

Industrial Organization: Markets and Strategies

Abstract: Industrial Organization: Markets and Strategies provides an up-to-date account of modern industrial organization that blends theory with real-world applications. Written in a clear and accessible style, it acquaints the reader with the most important models for understanding strategies chosen by firms with market power and shows how such firms adapt to different market environments. It covers a wide range of topics including recent developments on product bundling, branding strategies, restrictions in vertical supply relationships, intellectual property protection, and two-sided markets, to name just a few. Models are presented in detail and the main results are summarized as lessons. Formal theory is complemented throughout by real-world cases that show students how it applies to actual organizational settings. The book is accompanied by a website containing a number of additional resources for lecturers and students, including exercises, answers to review questions, case material and slides.

Research on Technological Innovation in Family Firms: Present Debates and Future Directions

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to review and systematize prior work on technological innovation in family firms and to open up an agenda to guide future research into this promising area. The study shows that family involvement has direct effects on innovation inputs (e.g., R&D expenditures), activities (e.g., leadership in new product development projects), and outputs (e.g., number of new products), as well as moderating effects on the relationships between these steps of technological innovation. The article uses theories applied in family business research (e.g., agency theory) to discuss opportunities for extending technological innovation frameworks by considering family involvement.

Contention-based forwarding for mobile ad-hoc networks

Abstract: Existing position-based unicast routing algorithms which forward packets in the geographic direction of the destination require that the forwarding node knows the positions of all neighbors in its transmission range. This information on direct neighbors is gained by observing beacon messages each node sends out periodically. Due to mobility, the information that a node receives about its neighbors becomes outdated, leading either to a significant decrease in the packet delivery rate or to a steep increase in load on the wireless channel as node mobility increases. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to perform position-based unicast forwarding without the help of beacons. In our contention-based forwarding scheme (CBF) the next hop is selected through a distributed contention process based on the actual positions of all current neighbors. For the contention process, CBF makes use of biased timers. To avoid packet duplication, the first node that is selected suppresses the selection of further nodes. We propose three suppression strategies which vary with respect to forwarding efficiency and suppression characteristics. We analyze the behavior of CBF with all three suppression strategies and compare it to an existing greedy position-based routing approach by means of simulation with ns-2. Our results show that CBF significantly reduces the load on the wireless channel required to achieve a specific delivery rate compared to the load a beacon-based greedy forwarding strategy generates.