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Educational institutions have a special social responsibility to initiate processes of sustainability transformation in society, nevertheless, activities that effectively address students as well as employees are rather moderate. To initiate change alongside strategic and political decisions, this paper aims to present findings of a gamification intervention (hereafter referred to as climate duel), which was implemented in a field study and tested to assess its potential as a supporting and transformative approach in a university context.

A three-month field study was conducted with two universities of applied sciences. The study included an environmental impact analysis of the two participating university departments, the conception and testing of the intervention and associated surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention in order to and to obtain feedback that would allow the duel to be scaled up at other universities or institutions.

Three hundred seventy-five people took part and saved 2.6 tons of greenhouse gas emissions through their participation in the climate duel and their corresponding behavioural changes. In addition, feedback from the participants yielded positive results in terms of behavioural changes and generated valuable evidence for future implementations. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement, especially in terms of supporting communication activities that promote social relatedness to motivate each other, share experiences or deal with implementation difficulties in everyday life.

Building on the promising effects of gamification, the study is a showcase for applied science. With the possibility of testing a theory-based intervention in practice, an implementable, effective and scalable measure for universities that helps to accelerate the transformation process is available.

Digital applications and thus new digital intervention possibilities such as gamification have made their way into our everyday lives. This paper aims to examine to what extent social norm information (SNI) in a game element feedback may increase eco-friendly food choices.

The effect of social norm-based feedback (SNBF), provided by a “GreenMeter”, was investigated experimentally. The SNI was integrated into the feedback by comparing the subject’s GreenMeter rating with either an injunctive, descriptive or combined SNI.

Injunctive SNBF was found to be effective in encouraging people to make an eco-friendly food purchasing decision. Combining injunctive with descriptive SNBF or simply providing descriptive SNBF was also found to be better than no intervention at all.

To take further advantage of social norms to make gamification more effective, additional studies are needed in which long-term effects on behavior are investigated, as well as other game elements and target groups are taken into account.

Many people want to choose food that is more eco-friendly but often struggle because of deeply ingrained habits or strong social influences. Consequently, their intentions do not translate into changes in their behavior. Alternative motivational, gamification approaches, like SNBF, may be considered when designing Web-based applications.

The study provides insights into the effectiveness of SNI going beyond text-based interventions. Considering SNI in a specific design of gamification (“GreenMeter”) provided insights into how they could be integrated into dynamic, digital, behavioral change techniques to increase eco-friendly food choices.

This chapter provides an overview of the state of knowledge about creative media advertising; choosing a novel medium that implicitly communicates the message. It explains what creative media advertising is and how it differs from other unconventional marketing communication formats. It addresses the theoretical mechanisms that explain how creative media affects consumers. Its final purpose is to review all the empirical findings about creative media advertising effects.

This chapter presents a systematic literature review of all the empirical research about creative media advertising that explicitly compares its effectiveness with traditional media advertising. The 11 reviewed articles with 16 experiments appeared between 2005 and 2015.

Overall creative media advertising generated positive evaluative outcomes (e.g., brand attitude) and behavior (e.g., word of mouth and sales). These effects were often mediated by a feeling of surprise and an increase in positive thoughts. It remains unclear whether creative media are perceived as persuasion attempts. Mixed findings exist for cognitive outcomes. Creative media advertising seems beneficial for creating strong brand associations, but brand memory might suffer from the technique if solving the link between the medium and the message takes away mental resources for the brand elements in the advertisement.

By reviewing all the literature about creative media advertising, the authors make recommendations for future research and for using creative media in practice. They emphasize potential boundary conditions and ideal circumstances of using creative media advertising.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between foreign ownership and perceived job insecurity. It takes into account that the link can depend on circumstances and type of firm.

The analysis is based on linked employer-employee data from Germany. The data enable us to account for both employee characteristics and firm characteristics. Most importantly, they allow a detailed analysis of moderating influences.

The estimates show that there tends to be a positive link between foreign owners and perceived job insecurity. The link is specifically strong for foreign-owned firms with high personnel turnover or poor employment growth. It is also stronger if the foreign-owned firm providing managerial profit sharing. However, the link tends to be negative for foreign-owned firms with product innovations.

Econometric examinations on the link between foreign ownership and perceived job insecurity are scarce. The study contributes to the literature by using linked employer-employee data and provides a detailed analysis of interaction effects.

The Library Campaign is still a force to be reckoned with. That was the message that came out of The Campaign's crisis meeting held in Birmingham on 23 September when over 50 supporters assembled to offer much needed help and expertise.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector in Mauritius and to investigate the impact of women entrepreneurship on their own livelihoods and that of their families.

Using survey data on 158 women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector, the authors analyse whether there has been an improvement in the standard of living of women entrepreneurs as a result of their informal entrepreneurial activities.

Findings reveal that the informal sector has provided a self-employment outlet for unemployed and retrenched women in Mauritius. Even if for a majority, their earnings remain low, their informal activity has indeed helped to contribute to their livelihood and household earnings.

Research on informal sector businesses is fraught with limitations, given that these firms operate on the fringes of legality and data are thus a major issue. Hence interviewing owners of informal sector businesses to get relevant data is quite challenging.

The results indicate that informal entrepreneurial activities contribute positively to women's livelihoods, hence policy should be aimed at encouraging women agency even if it is in the informal sector.

The study helps to shed light as to whether entrepreneurship even if it exists in the informal sector helps to improve the living of these women and their families.

This study is innovative as it investigates the livelihood of a vulnerable section of the population, in this case, women entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector. The authors find that the informal sector provides women with higher income when they are married and are more formally educated.

The research aims to investigate how firms can develop their sensing capabilities for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technology adoption through reframing their opportunity perceptions related to learnings from I4.0 initiatives.

The research follows a design science research approach. Following the case of I4.0 technology introduction at a large food manufacturer, the paper develops a theoretical framework (artefact) and validates the applicability and efficacy of the framework within the case study.

The theoretical framework highlights the different temporal (short-term/long-term) and locational (direct/indirect) value dimensions of I4.0 opportunities. The findings show that the use of the framework can shift managers’ perception regarding the business value of an I4.0 technology implementation. Specifically, the framework reversed initially negative perceptions around a narrowly scoped business case towards an opportunity-oriented attitude exploring further potentials of the technology.

The research adds to the debate when and why firms engage in, and sustain their I4.0 initiatives by providing a novel perspective on firms’ sensing capabilities. As a single-case study, the framework requires further validation in practice.

The proposed framework provides practitioners with an extended view concerning the potential value of digital transformation projects and serves as a conversational tool.

The presented wider frame for evaluating digital transformation projects, taking into account the more “intangible” value of their learnings, tackles the fundamental issue of translating explorative innovation efforts into exploitative value – a key challenge when dealing with innovation and one of the main barriers for the digital transformation.

Mid-level executives are confronted with many dilemma situations, in which they are forced to decide between conflicting options, none of them leading to the desired result. If they fail to cope with them constructively, their individual risk for mental strains increases (Gerlmaier and Latniak, 2013). Initial findings focusing on executives in industry (Bossmann, 2020) show that fostering effective dilemma management in executives is a preventive factor against stress-related diseases. Yet, there is little empirical research that evaluates the contribution of dilemma management training on leadership’s mental health prevention in hospitals. This study aims to examine whether such a training program, adapted to current working conditions in German hospitals, promotes mid-level executives’ mental health.

A 10-month training program was administered to N = 69 senior physicians, senior nurses and senior service and administrative staff in four hospitals. To evaluate training effects on perceived stress reactivity, on cognitive and emotional irritation over time as well as the effects of the training dose on these results, participants’ self-reported measures were collected at four points in time: before (t0), during (t1), immediately after (t2) and three months after the intervention (t3).

Overall, participants showed less cognitive irritation and perceived stress reactivity over time. However, their emotional irritation did not change significantly. The dose of training participation did not moderate these results.

This paper contributes to the prevention of stress-related diseases and the promotion of sensemaking in mid-level executives’ dilemma management routine in the face of increasingly aggravating working conditions due to financial restrictions in the German health-care system. Findings of this study are explained in greater depth using previously reported qualitative data from the same research project.

Augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a new interactive technology, swiftly transforming the field of marketing. Driven by its rapid uptake in marketing practices, academic research on AR has proliferated. This study aims to offer a holistic view of the past, present and future of augmented reality marketing (ARM) scholarship by analyzing its current and evolving research profile as well as its social and conceptual structures to inspire further research.

This study enriches the ARM scholarship by integrating a quantitative bibliometric analysis with a chronological-thematic review and a qualitative content analysis to develop a more comprehensive understanding of this novel area and suggest future research courses.

The bibliometric analysis reveals the key performance indicators as well as the social and conceptual structure of the ARM research field. The chronological-thematic review exhibits the advancement of ARM research over time and forecasts the emerging trends for the domain. Finally, the content analysis of recent articles reveals the current research hotspots and provides future research directions.

The database limits the selection of literature, as the information in databases such as Scopus is updated regularly, resulting in alterations in the number of articles and citations.

AR developers and brand managers may use this study’s findings to understand the current ARM landscape better and make strategic decisions based on AR adoption and consumption patterns.

This study is singular in using a mixed methods approach by integrating the findings from bibliometric and content analyses for more reliable results and to offer a holistic perspective of the ARM sector, thereby significantly advancing the field of technology-led marketing.