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.

The Role of Soft Factors in Implementing a Service-Oriented Strategy in Industrial Marketing Companies

Abstract: It has been recognized that in today's highly competitive industrial markets, one of the few ways left to gain differentiation from competitors is by offering value-added services. To do so, however, requires a service-oriented strategy and the active implementation of this strategy which includes significant internal changes in management philosophy and approach. Unfortunately, no study has examined the implementation aspects of a service-oriented strategy. In this context, our research focuses on two important “soft factors,” corporate culture and human resource management, that are necessary for a successful implementation of a service-oriented strategy in industrial marketing companies. We analyze the mediating role of these two soft factors in the causal chain leading from a service-oriented strategy to organizational performance. We find that the soft factors play an important mediating role in the link between a service-oriented strategy and organizational performance.

Employment Risk, Compensation Incentives and Managerial Risk Taking: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry

Abstract: We examine the influence of employment risk and compensation incentives on managerial risk taking. Our empirical investigation of the risk taking behavior of equity fund managers during 1980 to 2003 shows that managerial risk taking crucially depends on the relative importance of these incentives. When employment risk is high, managers that lag behind tend to decrease risk relative to leading managers in order to prevent potential job loss. When employment risk is low, compensation incentives dominate and lagging managers increase risk in order to catch up with the winners.

A general formulation of modulated filter banks

Abstract: This paper presents a general framework for maximally decimated modulated filter banks. The theory covers the known classes of cosine modulation and relates them to complex-modulated filter banks. The prototype filters have arbitrary lengths, and the overall delay of the filter bank is arbitrary, within fundamental limits. Necessary and sufficient conditions for perfect reconstruction (PR) are derived using the polyphase representation. It is shown that these PR conditions are identical for all types of modulation-modulation based on the discrete cosine transform (DCT), both DCT-III/DCT-IV and DCT-I/DCT-II, and modulation based on the modified discrete Fourier transform (MDFT). A quadratic-constrained design method for prototype filters yielding PR with arbitrary length and system delay is derived, and design examples are presented to illustrate the tradeoff between overall system delay and stopband attenuation (subchannelization).

Centered L 2 -discrepancy of random sampling and Latin hypercube design, and construction of uniform designs

Abstract: In this paper properties and construction of designs under a centered version of the L2-discrepancy are analyzed. The theoretic expectation and variance of this discrepancy are derived for random designs and Latin hypercube designs. The expectation and variance of Latin hypercube designs are significantly lower than that of random designs. While in dimension one the unique uniform design is also a set of equidistant points, low-discrepancy designs in higher dimension have to be generated by explicit optimization. Optimization is performed using the threshold accepting heuristic which produces low discrepancy designs compared to theoretic expectation and variance.

Bankers on the Boards of German Firms: What They Do, What They Are Worth, and Why They Are (Still) There

Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the role of bankers on the boards of German non-financial companies. We assemble a unique panel data set for 137 firms and 11 banks for the period from 1993 to 2005 and investigate if bankers act as monitors of their equity interests or their interests as lenders, as capital market experts, or if they help to advance the commercial banking services and the investment banking services of their banks. We find convincing evidence that bankers promote their M&A advisory services, but we find no or little evidence for all other hypotheses that have been formulated in the literature. Our main conclusions are that bankers extract private benefits from their board seats and that banks benefit because bankers on the board become industry experts. Non-financial firms do not benefit because bank representation on their boards reduces their valuations. JEL classifications: G21, G34