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Even though housing prices in Germany are low by international standards, housing in urban areas has become less affordable. Since 2018, certain families aspiring to become homeowners may apply for a capital subsidy (Baukindergeld) that contributes to their down-payment. This paper analyzes whether this subsidy is an appropriate policy instrument to achieve the desired goals.

The paper presents an equilibrium model with two types of households (low- and high-income) and two types of houses (low- and high-quality) to examine equilibrium prices before and after the introduction of a subsidy.

This subsidy not only makes owning less affordable for the lower-income household but also increases the prices of more expensive houses that are not within reach of lower-income households.

Because this policy has just come into effect in 2018 and no data are available yet, the implications of the model are yet to be tested.

The implications of the subsidy run counter to its intentions as house prices will rise even further. Other policies or fewer regulations for new construction may be more effective.

An instrument aiming to relieve financially weaker families, this subsidy will increase prices for all house types, assuming continuing supply shortages observed in the German urban housing markets.

This is the first paper on Germany’s new homeownership subsidy. The model is general enough to be used with any explicit demand and supply functions and is thus applicable to other markets with low supply elasticities.

The creation of a new venture is at the heart of entrepreneurship and shares parallels with project-based organizing: embedded in an institutional context, founders have to assemble a team that works on specified tasks within a strict time constraint, while the new venture undergoes various transitions. The purpose of this paper is to explore parallels between both streams of research and an increasing projectification of entrepreneurship.

The study is based upon a case study of the Berlin start-up ecosystem including the analysis of interviews (n=52), secondary documents, and field observations.

The paper reveals that – shaped by their institutional context – patterns of project-like organizing have become pertinent to the new venture creation process. It identifies a set of facets from the entrepreneurial ecosystems – more specifically different types of organizational actors, their occupational backgrounds, and epistemic communities – that enable and constrain the process of new venture creation in a way that is typical for project-based organizing.

This study thus elaborates on how institutional settings enforce what has been called “projectification” in the process of new venture creation and discuss implications for start-up ecosystems.

A prolific stream of research has demonstrated the unique potential of sports sponsorship to contribute to corporate image and to influence audiences around the world. Meanwhile, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasingly been identified in the literature for its potential to deliver a degree of competitive advantage. This paper builds on both these theoretical fields to develop a conceptual framework linking the effectiveness of sports sponsorship with the sponsors' CSR commitment to both employees and consumers.

Considerably diminished quality of life (QoL) is observed in patients with visual field defects after lesions affecting the visual pathway. But little is known to what extent vision-and health-related QoL impairments are associated with psychological distress. In 24 patients with chronic visual field defects (mean age=56.17±12.36) the National Eye Institute-visual functioning questionnaire (NEI-VFQ) for vision-related QoL, the Short Form Health Survey-36 (SF-36) for generic QoL and the revised Symptom-Checklist (SCL-90-R) were administered. Cases with clinically relevant SCL-90-R symptoms were defined. Demographic, QoL and visual field parameters were correlated with SCL-90-R scales. About 40% of the investigated patients met the criteria for the definition of psychiatric caseness. 8/12 NEI-VFQ scales correlated significantly with SCL-90-R phobic anxiety (r-range -0.41 to -0.64, P<0.05), 5/12 NEI-VFQ scales correlated with SCL-90-R interpersonal sensitivity (-0.43 to -0.50), and 3/12 with SCL-90-R depression (-0.51 to -0.57) and obsessive-compulsiveness (-0.41 to -0.43). In contrast, only 1/8 SF-36 scales correlated significantly with SCL-90-R depression, phobic anxiety and interpersonal sensitivity (-0.41 to -0.54). No substantial correlations were observed between visual field parameters and SCL-90-R scales. Significant correlations of SCL-90-R with NEI-VFQ but not with SF-36 suggest that self-rated psychological distress is the result of diminished vision-related QoL as a consequence of visual field loss. The extent of visual field loss itself did not influence the rating of psychological distress directly, since SCL-90-R symptoms were only reported when diminished vision-related QoL was present. Patients with reduced vision-related QoL due to persisting visual field defects should therefore be offered additional neuropsychological rehabilitation and supportive psychotherapeutic interventions even years after the lesion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how gender role orientation (GRO) impacts commercial and social entrepreneurial intention and whether value orientation mediates these effects.

Based on a sample of N = 112 entrepreneurs, we tested our model using path analyses with standardized regression coefficients and bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals. Sex was included as a control variable.

The results suggest that masculine GRO has a positive direct and indirect effect on commercial entrepreneurial intention, and feminine GRO has a positive indirect effect on social entrepreneurial intention. There is evidence that these effects are mediated by entrepreneurs’ value orientation. Biological sex showed no effect on both entrepreneurial intentions.

Our findings highlight the importance of including GRO and further gender-related factors in entrepreneurship research. Researchers must continue to challenge stereotypes in commercial and social entrepreneurship, considering that characteristics such as value orientation are socially gendered.

Overcoming entrepreneurial stereotypes is a task for multiple stakeholders within society. We encourage entrepreneurs to reflect on their GRO and value orientation, while entrepreneurial educators should implement programs to facilitate this reflection and promote openness to change and self-transcendence value orientation. To blur gender roles, more feminine-oriented entrepreneurial role models are needed. We also urge policymakers to foster enabling environments for entrepreneurs, while recognizing gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, our study is the first to link GRO and value orientation with commercial and social entrepreneurial intentions in one integrative research model. Thereby, the study contributes to entrepreneurship research by testing our model on a sample of real entrepreneurs and avoiding overly simplistic sex comparisons by focusing on GRO.

The Hot Spot Analysis developed by the Wuppertal Institute is a screening tool focussing on the demand of reliable sustainability‐oriented decision‐making processes in complex value chains identifying high priority areas (“hot spots”) for effective measures in companies. This paper aims to focus on this tool.

The Hot Spot Analysis is a qualitative method following a cradle‐to‐cradle approach. With the examples of coffee and cream cheese hot spots of sustainability indicators throughout the entire life cycle are identified and evaluated with data from literature reviews and expert consultations or stakeholder statements. This paper focuses on the indicator resource efficiency as an example of how the methodology works.

The identified hot spots for coffee are the raw material procurement phase in terms of abiotic material, water and energy consumption, the production phase concerning biotic material and the energy consumption in the use phase. For cream cheese relevant hot spots appear in the raw material procurement phase in terms of biotic materials and water as well as biotic materials and energy consumption during the production phase.

Life cycle analyses connected to indicators like resource efficiency need to be applied as consequent steps of a Hot Spot Analysis if a deeper level of analysis is eventually aimed at which is more cost and time intensive in the short term. The Hot Spot Analysis can be combined with other sustainability management instruments.

Research and management can be directed to hot spots of sustainability potential quickly which pays off in the long term.

The paper shows that companies can address sustainability potentials relatively cost moderately.

Virtual assistants are increasingly used for persuasive purposes, employing the different modalities of voice and text (or a combination of the two). In this study, the authors compare the persuasiveness of voice-and text-based virtual assistants. The authors argue for perceived human-likeness and cognitive load as underlying mechanisms that can explain why voice- and text-based assistants differ in their persuasive potential by suppressing the activation of consumers' persuasion knowledge.

A pre-registered online-experiment (n = 450) implemented a text-based and two voice-based (with and without interaction history displayed in text) virtual assistants.

Findings show that, contrary to expectations, a text-based assistant is perceived as more human-like compared to a voice-based assistant (regardless of whether the interaction history is displayed), which in turn positively influences brand attitudes and purchase intention. The authors also find that voice as a communication modality can increase persuasion knowledge by being cognitively more demanding in comparison to text.

Simply using voice as a presumably human cue might not suffice to give virtual assistants a human-like appeal. For the development of virtual assistants, it might be beneficial to actively engage consumers to increase awareness of persuasion.

The current study adds to the emergent research stream considering virtual assistants in explicitly exploring modality differences between voice and text (and a combination of the two) and provides insights into the effects of persuasion coming from virtual assistants.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional football clubs from the English Premier League, German Bundesliga and Spanish Primera División use digital media to expand their international reach in emerging football markets (EFM) outside of Europe. Based on the EPRG framework and Rugman’s home-region hypothesis, the aim is to broaden the perspective where “sports go global” for a further understanding of actors’ international orientation in the digital sphere.

The study is based on data from desk research and a qualitative survey, comprising information on international digital media activities of 58 European clubs. Cluster analysis is used to identify different international orientations with regard to digital media activities.

The data provide evidence that clubs differ strongly in their orientations towards EFM. While some global players that provide digital media content in several EFM languages and attract a large share of Facebook followers from EFM exist, other clubs focus on their home region. League-specific differences become apparent.

This study determines the international online orientations of European football clubs by combining two previously separated research streams in football management studies: internationalisation and digital media activities. Most clubs with a strong EFM fan base choose polycentric, multi-language digital media strategies, followed by geocentric, standardised approaches. By offering a novel angle on internationalisation in professional football, this study contributes towards optimising clubs’ international online strategies for EFM, which are markets that promise high growth rates.

The paper investigates how the alignment of two corporate functions, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and trade compliance (TC) can help companies to take corporate value chain responsibility (VCR). In particular, the authors investigate how evolutionary system theory can explain the coevolution of two distinct VCR functions (SSCM and TC) and the potential and challenges for their future alignment.

The authors introduce evolutionary system theory as a powerful explanatory perspective to the field of VCR, SSCM and TC. By applying evolutionary system theory to the VCR debate, the authors analyze the potential for aligning both functions. They further analyze the inherent challenges of such an alignment by discussing the concept of organizational path dependencies.

The paper spells out a research agenda and formulates testable propositions for further investigating the interplay of environment and system as well as the structural options for a functional alignment of SSCM and TC.

The corporate function of TC has been widely overlooked by supply chain and sustainability scholars. This paper adds the function of TC to the wider discussion on SSCM and corporate VCR. Furthermore, the paper develops a research agenda for a pioneer topic and triggers discussion in academia and corporate practice.

This literature review provides an overview of previous research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and entrepreneurship. After introducing the relevance of the topic and discussing different perspectives on ADHD and entrepreneurship, this chapter reviews 26 academic journal publications. In the first step, it reports how authors of empirical studies have measured ADHD and reveals a dominance of quantitative research designs. In the second step, it presents insights from previous research on ADHD and the likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, the relationship between ADHD and entrepreneurial intentions or preferences, the translation of entrepreneurial preferences into entrepreneurial actions, and finally, ADHD and entrepreneurial performance. The literature review finds that previous research has not yet provided conclusive results on the relations between ADHD and entrepreneurship. In the third step, therefore, this chapter outlines avenues for further research.