How does the Process of Industry 4.0 Change the Profession of a Carpenter?

September 2018 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Being aware of the ongoing process of digital transformation it is necessary to focus on the question of how this will take
place and how it may affect us. While focusing on this development we have to arise a feeling of how we can steer this
process in the best possible direction. With focus on new technologies the project will build up cooperation's with
company's and creative industry and by that provide an up-to-date discussion. The main issue of the work is to provide
some kind of new perspective towards the ongoing discussion of digitization and by that raising an awareness for local crafts.

Keywords

Innovation Crafts & Architecture Digitalization Industry 4.0

Project Participants

Dipl.-Ing. Dr. sc. Wolfgang Schwarzmann

- PhD-Student

Postdoc - Craft and Structure

PhD-Student

Prof. em. Dipl. Arch. ETH Urs Meister

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Smart Production & Organizations: The impact of digitalization on organizations within manufacturing industries

September 2017 until June 2022 (completed) PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Digital technologies are omnipresent and penetrate deeply into the very core of products, processes and organizations. Especially manufacturing industries are affected as they are embedded into highly technical and digital environments including complex business processes. Despite a common understanding that skilled employees are the core of every enterprise embracing digital transformation, there are still opportunities of theoretical and empirical research on how digitalization is impacting organizations and what this means for management. With the current work, we are introducing a research project with the focus on identifying the impact of digitalization on organizations within manufacturing industries. As initial step, we conduct a theoretical analysis of existing human agent and material agent theories (e.g. theory of structuration by Giddens, Sociomateriality by Orlikowski, Imbrication by Leonardi) and challenging them with the concept of digitalization. Continuing with a mixed methods research design, we are combining qualitative and quantitative research and data. This research design is selected, as the field of digitalization is an emerging phenomenon in the area of Information Systems and we want to propose new theoretical insights to generate new ideas and hypotheses. Starting with an explorative case study research we first begin with a qualitative research phase and explore the view of participants (smart factories). The data is then analyzed, and the information used to derive patterns that build the foundation for theory creation. In the second, quantitative research phase, the developed theory will be validated. A new set of smart factories will be selected and treated as validation group. Providing a theoretical foundation for considering the influence of digitalization on organizations and the respective consequences for management, assists enterprises in developing a sound digitalization strategy that supports entrepreneurial success.

Keywords

Organisational Studies Digitalization Smart manufaturing Industry 4.0 Agency theory

Participating Institutions

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management / Doctoral instiution

Project Participants

Dr. rer. oec. Markus Heck MSc, EMBA

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Stefan Seidel

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Johann Kranz

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Nicholas Berente

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Smart Production & Organizations: The impact of digitalization on organizations within manufacturing industries

September 2017 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Keywords

Organisational Studies Digitalization Smart manufaturing Industry 4.0 Agency theory

Project Participants

Dr. rer. oec. Markus Heck MSc, EMBA

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Stefan Seidel

- Supervisor

Supervisor

Implementation of SOA-based ERP-systems

October 2009 (completed) Internal Project

Project Description

Service-oriented ERP systems promise to allow for a fine-grained alignment of IT with specific functional requirements of an organization's business processes. In this regard, studies particularly emphasize the potential to flexibly exchange services by means of market-based transactions. One important aspect widely neglected, however, is the challenge of governing the implementation processes of this new kind of information systems. The expected flexibility and higher degrees of profitability come with an increased complexity. This research project focuses on different aspects of the implementation process of SOA-based ERP systems and contributes to several open questions in this field.

Relevance to Liechtenstein

Service-oriented architectures enable a fine-grained adaptation of information systems. Accordingly, SOA allows large as well as small and medium sized enterprises to flexibly design their information systems, which is why the project results are interesting to various companies in Liechtenstein.

Participating Institutions

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management / Project Lead

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke

- Principal Investigator

Visiting Professor - Information Systems and Process Science

Principal Investigator

Dr. Christian Sonnenberg MScIS

- Project Collaborator

Project Collaborator

Dr. Bernd Schenk

- Project Collaborator

Senior Lecturer - Liechtenstein Business School Academic Director BSc in Business Administration - Liechtenstein Business School

Project Collaborator

Publications

Schenk, B. (2009). Veränderungen im Implementierungsprozess durch stärkere Modularisierung von ERP-Systemen mittels Web-Services für Unternehmen des Einzelhandels. Wien: WU-Wien, Diss., 2009.
More

vom Brocke, J., Schenk, B., & Sonnenberg, C. (2009). Organizational Implications of Implementing Service Oriented ERP Systems - An Analysis based on New Institutional Economics. In W. Abramowicz (Ed.), Business Information Systems (Vol. 21, pp. 252-263). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.
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Impact of ESG pillars on investment decision: Evidence from applying conjoint analysis

September 2019 until August 2023 (completed) PhD-Thesis

Project Description

The paper aims to investigate investor's preferences with regard to environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. The sample is based on individual investors from China and United States of America. Data collection is done with application of choice-based survey and conjoint analysis framework. Given methodology allows us to observe the preferences of individual investors as well as demonstrate level of interest in environmental, social and governance issues. In addition, most common key performance indicators (KPIs) will be used to identify preferences among investors and backtest the results generated by choice-based conjoint analysis. In the last phase, qualitative comparative analysis will be applied with use of multinomial regression to test whether the results obtained are statistically significant.

Keywords

Socially responsible investors Socially responsible investment strategies Environmental social and governance Key performance indicators Investors' preferences

Participating Institutions

Chair in Business Administration, Banking and Financial Management / Doctoral instiution

Project Participants

Prof. em. Dr. Marco J. Menichetti

- Supervisor

Professor Emeritus - Liechtenstein Business School

Supervisor

Dr. rer. oec. Deniss Bär MSc

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Martin Kukuk

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Impact of ESG pillars on investment decision: Evidence from applying conjoint analysis

September 2019 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Keywords

Socially responsible investors Socially responsible investment strategies Environmental social and governance Key performance indicators Investors' preferences

Project Participants

Dr. rer. oec. Deniss Bär MSc

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. em. Dr. Marco J. Menichetti

- Supervisor

Professor Emeritus - Liechtenstein Business School

Supervisor

Impact Investing: destined for being neglected?

July 2018 until June 2020 (completed) FFF-Funding Project

Project Description

This research project sheds light to impact investing instruments. Impact investing is a rapidly increasing sustainable investment strategy, investing into companies, organizations and funds with the intention to reach environmental and social impact alongside a financial return. Today, a vast majority of sustainable assets under management are attracted by strategies using ESG-integration or screening methods. These instruments do not fundamentally differ from traditional asset management, as they use traditional securities, exclude some or increase the weight of those securities with a high ESG-score. In contrary, impact investing is much more linked to a sustainable, social and environmental use of invested funds, but this instrument possesses only a relatively low amount of assets under management.
On the other hand, we cannot recognize any shift towards more sustainable business practices worldwide. Goal of this research project is the examination if impact investing could be improved such that it attracts a substantially higher amount of assets under management and increases the speed of transformation to a more sustainable world.

Consequently, the research proposal at hand examines two research question. First, we have to develop a sound knowledge base on impact investing and how it is different compared to other sustainable investment strategies like ESG-integration or screening techniques. Research concerning this part requires a literature analysis, case studies and expert interviews. A deduction finally will lead us to propositions how to make impact investing more attractive.
The second research question of this project is analyzing investors' preferences. Only with a knowledge on investors' decision making process we will be able to propose smart impact investing instruments, which will then be chosen for their investments. Research concerning this part will be executed with a choice based conjoint analysis.

Project results:

Keywords

Improving Impact Investing Investors' Preferences in Sustainable Investing Sustainable Investing ESG Investing Socially Responsible Investing Instruments

Participating Institutions

Forschungsförderungsfonds der Universität Liechtenstein / Sponsor Chair in Business Administration, Banking and Financial Management / Project Lead

Project Participants

Prof. em. Dr. Marco J. Menichetti

- Principal Investigator

Professor Emeritus - Liechtenstein Business School

Principal Investigator

Dr. Hendrik Peer Kimmerle

- Project Collaborator

Project Collaborator

Immersive systems for personnel assessment and development

February 2016 until February 2020 (completed) PhD-Thesis

Project Description

More and more companies follow a trend called gamification, which is the use of (video) game mechanics in serious contexts (e.g., business context). Furthermore, the video game industry continues to be growing rapidly and organizations are increasingly willing to use video games and gamified applications - especially for marketing and educational purposes. However, regular video games - that have been developed for entertaining purposes - have only gained little attention from researchers in the business context.

This research project explores the potential of video games in the context of human resources management. In particular, the goal is to identify game mechanics which support common processes in human resources management like personnel assessment, selection, and development. As the dissertation will be paper-based, several studies are being conducted. A first study, for example, concerns the turn-based strategy video game Sid Meier's Civilization and explores whether the game can be used to predict future job performance.

Keywords

Gamification video games video game elements serious games human resources management Immersive Systems

Participating Institutions

Hilti Chair of Business Process Management / Doctoral instiution

Project Participants

Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke

- Supervisor

Visiting Professor - Information Systems and Process Science

Supervisor

Dr. Isabell Wohlgenannt

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz

- Co-Supervisor

Co-Supervisor

Immersive systems for personnel assessment and development

February 2016 (completed) Preproposal PhD-Thesis

Project Description

Keywords

Gamification video games video game elements serious games human resources management Immersive Systems

Project Participants

Dr. Isabell Wohlgenannt

- PhD-Student

PhD-Student

Prof. Dr. Jan vom Brocke

- Supervisor

Visiting Professor - Information Systems and Process Science

Supervisor

Building identities- construction of identities through spatial production on example of the concept stage of the Swiss National Exhibition Expo2027

September 2014 until October 2018 (completed) PhD-Thesis

Project Description

International homogenisation in architectural expression leads to an increasing assimilation of built architecture around the world. Counter movements like the Critical Regionalism require spatial differentiation and articulation of individual building cultures. Concepts like "Heimat", affiliation and identity are picked up as central topic for world- and national exhibitions like the IBA, the EXPO, or the architectural biennale. Through those events architecture is exploited to mediate a theme, an image, or a mind-set, or to create affiliation - as well as to get in touch with their own identities. Architecture is limited in this case not only to the physical, but also includes the social and mental spatial production. This should be examined more closely by this work.

Through a process-guidance during the concept competition of the Swiss Expo2027 for Eastern Switzerland and the examination of the involved planners of the Expo.02 and the Expo2027 this dissertation firstly investigates how physical, social, and mental spatial production contributes to the construction of identities in the context of a national exhibition.

The dissertation is created within the framework of the doctoral programme at the University of Liechtenstein at the Competence Centre Architecture and Visual Culture with Professor Peter A. Staub.

Relevance to Liechtenstein

The upcoming Swiss National Exhibition Expo2027 is discharged from the three eastern Swiss cantons Thurgau, St. Gallen and Appenzell Ausserrhoden. The objective is, to take effect across national borders, and thus involve the northern region of Lake Constance in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as the eastern Alpine Rhine Valley in Vorarlberg and Liechtenstein. The findings, such as how physical, social, and mental spatial production contributes to the construction of identities in the context of the Expo2027, can thus make a valuable contribution to Liechtenstein.