Search results

This chapter takes a closer look at the integration process of the Western Balkan states. At first we will look at the procedures to join the EU, followed by some general information about the countries of the Western Balkans. Building on this, the path and the current results of the individual countries towards EU membership are reviewed. At the end, a closer look at the Berlin Process shows a concrete example how the individual Western Balkan states work with the EU. This allows an outlook how the enlargement process might continue in the coming years.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance impact of air quality as a contributing factor on residential property rents by applying geo-informatics to economic issues. Since air pollution poses a severe health threat, city residents should have a right to know about the (invisible) hazards they are exposed to.

Within spatial-temporal modeling of air pollutants in Berlin, Germany, three interpolation techniques are tested. The most suitable one is selected to create seasonal maps for 2018 and 2021 with pollution concentrations for particulate matter values and nitrogen dioxide for each 1,000 m² cell within the administrative boundaries. Based on the evaluated pollution particulate matter values, which are used as additional variables for semi-parametric regressions the impact of the air quality on rents is estimated.

The findings reveal a compelling association between air quality and the economic aspect of the residential real estate market, with noteworthy implications for both tenants and property investors. The relationship between air pollution variables and rents is statistically significant. However, there is only a “willingness-to- pay” for low particulate matter values, but not for nitrogen dioxide concentrations. With good air quality, residents in Berlin are willing to pay a higher rent (3%).

These results suggest that a “marginal willingness-to-pay” occurs in a German city. The research underscores the multifaceted impact of air quality on the residential rental market in Berlin. The evidence supports the notion that a cleaner environment not only benefits human health and the planet but also contributes significantly to the economic bottom line of property investors.

The paper has a unique data engineering approach. It collects spatiotemporal data from network of state-certified measuring sites to create an index of air pollution. This spatial information is merged with residential listings. Afterward non-linear regression models are estimated.

Given that a large proportion of refugees and forced im/migrants today are school-age, schools are widely assumed to be sites where integration will happen. How this integration will occur and whether education policies facilitate social cohesion is unclear. Focusing on California and Berlin as examples of politically left-leaning states that receive immigrants in substantial numbers, this chapter seeks to examine their immigration, integration, and education policies. Using an original conceptual framework, this chapter analyzes how relevant federal and state policies have evolved since the 1980s in these two contexts. This chapter considers integration to be the process by which immigrants identify with the receiving country (RC) and their previous contexts, provided that the RC is supportive and accepting. The goal of integration is less inequality along ethnic or cultural lines. By analyzing policies in terms of immigrant students’ identity formation and conceptions of equality, this chapter argues that the evolution of such policies in Berlin and California has not always been linear. Moreover, while both states consider diversity to be positive, their policies do not extend to facilitating a new culture that productively operationalizes the diversity of immigrant and non-immigrant students.

The adaptive reuse of heritage has the potential to socially and culturally re-signify dilapidated or suspended structures in the urban landscape. However, the scope of adaptive reuse could be broadened to include the constellation of infrastructure such as water and sewerage system, waste disposal facilities, power and communication plants and networks that support urban life but whose access – and maintenance patterns – remain the preserve of specialized technicians.

A conversation with some of the architects from the raumlabor collective involved in the Floating University Berlin project, about the stormwater detention basin of the former Berlin Tempelhof airport, provides an insight into the mechanisms by which adaptive reuse can also concern the infrastructural world in operation.

In Tempelhof's change of function from an international airport to a large abandoned urban space and then to a park, the detention basin has never ceased to function. But the subsequent process of reuse has reshaped the patterns of maintenance of the reservoir, leaving room for first non-human and then unskilled human action.

From this still overlooked reading perspective, it becomes clear how precisely flexible reuse, consisting of a constantly renegotiated interweaving of violated protocols and backward steps, allows the scope of adaptive reuse to be extended to infrastructures in operation. From secret domains of nature's transformation, they become places of openness in which to experience and better understand the entanglement of contemporary socio-ecological relations that underlie the urban condition.

Academics and practitioners have long acknowledged the potential of multiagent systems (MAS) to automate and autonomize decision-making in logistics and supply chain networks. Despite the manifold promises of MAS, industry adoption is lagging behind, and the exact benefits of these systems remain unclear. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by analyzing 11 specific MAS use cases, highlighting their benefits, clarifying how they can help enhance logistics network resilience and identifying existing barriers.

A three-stage Delphi study was conducted with 18 industry experts. In the first round, these experts identified 11 use cases of MAS and their potential benefits, as well as any barriers that could hinder their adoption. In the second round, they assessed the identified use cases with regard to their potential to enhance logistics network resilience and improve organizational productivity. Furthermore, they estimated the complexity of MAS implementation. In the third round, the experts reassessed their evaluations in light of the evaluations of the other study participants.

This study proposes 11 specific MAS use cases and illustrates their potential for increasing logistics network resilience and enhancing organizational performance due to autonomous decision-making in informational processes. Furthermore, this study discusses important barriers for MAS, such as lack of standardization, insufficient technological maturity, soaring costs, complex change management and a lack of existing use cases. From a theoretical perspective, it is shown how MAS can contribute to resilience research in supply chain management.

The identification and assessment of diverse MAS use cases informs managers about the potential of this technology and the barriers that need to be overcome.

This study fills a gap in the literature by providing a thorough and up-to-date assessment of the potential of MAS for logistics and supply chain management. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the relevance of MAS for logistics network resilience using the Delphi method.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how learning solely via an assistance system influences work performance compared with learning with a combination of an assistance system and additional training. While the training literature has widely emphasised the positive role of on-the-job training, particularly for groups that are often underrepresented in formalised learning situations, organisational studies have stressed the risks that emerge when holistic process knowledge is lacking and how this negatively affects work performance. This study aims at testing these negative effects within an experimental design.

This paper uses a laboratory experimental design to investigate how assistance-system-guided learning influences the individuals’ work performance and work satisfaction compared with assistance-system-guided learning combined with theoretical learning of holistic process knowledge. Subjects were divided into two groups and assigned to two different settings. In the first setting, the participants used the assistance systems as an orientation and support tool right at the beginning and learned the production steps exclusively in this way. In the second setting, subjects received an additional 10-min introduction (treatment) at the beginning of the experiment, including detailed information regarding the entire work process.

This study provides evidence that learners provided with prior process knowledge achieve a better understanding of the work process leading to higher levels of productivity, quality and work satisfaction. At the same time, the authors found evidence for differences among workers’ ability to process and apply this additional information. Subjects with lower productivity levels faced more difficulties processing and applying additional process information.

Methodologically, this study goes beyond existing research on assistance systems by using a laboratory experimental design. Though the external validity of this method is limited by the artificial setting, it is a solid way of studying the impact of different usages of digital assistance systems in terms of training. Further research is required, however, including laboratory experiments with larger case numbers, company-level case studies and analyses of survey data, to further confirm the external validity of the findings of this study for the workplace.

This study provides some first evidence that holistic process knowledge, even in low-skill tasks, has an added value for the production process. This study contributes to firms' training policies by exploring new, digitalised ways of guided on-the-job training and demonstrates possible training benefits for people with lower levels of (initial) abilities and motivation.

This study indicates the advantage for companies and societies to invest in additional skills and training and points at the limitations of assistance systems. This paper also contributes to training policies by exploring new, digitalised ways of guided on-the-job training and demonstrates possible training benefits for people with lower levels of (initial) abilities and motivation.

This study extends existing research on digital assistance systems by investigating their role in job-related-training. This paper contributes to labour sociology and organisational research by confirming the importance of holistic process knowledge as opposed to a solely task-oriented digital introduction.

This paper aims to explore consumer perception of “brand voice” authenticity, brand authenticity and brand attitude when the source of text is disclosed as either artificial intelligence (AI)-generated or human-written.

A 3 × 3 experimental design using Adidas marketing texts disclosed as either “AI” or “human”, or not disclosed was applied to data gathered online from 624 English-speaking students.

Text disclosed as AI-generated is not perceived as less authentic than that disclosed as human-written. No negative effect on brand voice authenticity and brand attitude results if an AI-source is disclosed.

Findings offer brand managers the potential for cost and time savings but emphasise the strong effect of AI technology on perceived brand authenticity and brand attitude.

Results show that brands can afford to be transparent in disclosing the use of AI to support brand voice as communicated in product description or specification or in chatbot text.

This paper aims to explore the topic of adaptive reuse referring to urban open spaces into a more-than-human perspective. It underlines that dealing with heritage means being part of an inherent and ongoing process of transformation and so that reuse is inextricably an adaptive practice, constantly facing mutations, and that adaptation is a coral practice that involves different kinds of users and makers, inclusive of human and not human livings.

This paper looks at the lexicon of abandonment, in search of the more essential and intense meanings of words, and at some pioneering practices in Europe to comprehend the aesthetic and ethical implications of adaptive reuse of neglected landscapes.

Processes of reuse involve many different communities of users who in turn continuously redesign the site, into a comprehensive, coral and conflicting collaboration, whose results are never given once for all and are both uncanny and beautiful, scaring and marvellous, like a monster.

Accepting the idea that humans are not the only users and makers of urban sites can widen the range of tools, methods and values involved in heritage adaptive reuse.

This paper tries to widen the meanings of adaptation into a multispecies perspective. It intends to broaden the range of agents that can be involved as users and makers, assuming a more-than-human point of view that is not yet commonly applied.

Today’s unpredictable and fast-changing work environment challenges researchers and organizations to rethink learning. In contrast to traditional learning designs, new learning frameworks such as agile learning are more learner centered, integrated into the workplace and socially shaped. The purpose of this study is to examine Working Out Loud (WOL) as an agile learning method.

This intervention study used a pre–post and six-month follow-up design (N = 507) to evaluate the effects of WOL on learners’ vigor (affective outcome), WOL behavior (behavioral outcome) and psychological empowerment (cognitive outcome) at work.

The authors compared the three longitudinal measurements using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that WOL could significantly increase learners’ WOL behavior and psychological empowerment at work in the post and six-month follow-up measurements. No effect was found on learners’ vigor at work.

This study highlights the need for research on new, more agile learning frameworks and discusses their relevance to the literature. Agile learning frameworks enable learners to be more autonomous and flexible, allowing them to better adapt to changing environmental demands.

Digitalization, innovation and changing customer requirements drive the continuous improvement of an organization's business processes. IT demand management (ITDM) as a methodology supports the holistic governance of IT and the corresponding business process change (BPC), by allocating resources to meet a company's requirements and strategic objectives. As ITDM decision-makers are not fully aware of how the as-is business processes operate and interact, making informed decisions that positively impact the to-be process is a key challenge.

In this paper, the authors address this challenge by developing a novel approach that integrates process mining and ITDM. To this end, the authors conduct an action research study where the researchers participated in the design, creation and evaluation of the approach. The proposed approach is illustrated using two sample demands of an insurance claims process. These demands are used to construct the artefact in multiple research circles and to validate the approach in practice. The authors applied learning and reflection methods for incrementally adjusting this study’s approach.

The study shows that the utilization of process mining activities during process changes on an operational level contributes to (1) increasing accuracy and efficiency of ITDM; (2) timely identification of potential risks and dependencies and (3) support of testing and acceptance of IT demands.

The implementation of this study’s approach improved ITDM practice. It appropriately addressed the information needs of decision-makers and unveiled the effects and consequences of process changes. Furthermore, providing a clearer picture of the process dependencies clarified the responsibilities and the interfaces at the intra- and inter-process level.