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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the Tausch- or barter-centers that existed in Germany during the 1940s. These small but unique platforms for the exchange of consumer durables represent an almost unknown chapter in economic history. This contribution aims to describe the major characteristics of these organizations and to investigate the implications of these findings for community currencies in general.

An analysis is conducted of primary sources, which bring to light different types of these alternative markets. This is complemented by a comprehensive study of secondary sources.

Theoretically, these exchange systems are interpreted as operating within boundaries. The results of this research project are not only relevant for our understanding of the war and post-war economy in Germany, at a time when the market mechanism was suppressed, this peculiar case also sheds some light on the functioning of markets. Furthermore, a better knowledge of the structure of the Tausch- or barter-centers is relevant with regard to our understanding of the functioning of community currencies in general.

This paper provides the first survey of these organizations.

Current issues of Publishers' Weekly are reporting serious shortages of paper, binders board, cloth, and other essential book manufacturing materials. Let us assure you these shortages are very real and quite severe.

In this chapter, we compare five approaches for assessing competences of higher education graduates. We begin by outlining the main reasons for assessing higher education graduates’ competences. Next, we present a brief definition of competences. This definition is applied throughout the chapter, and forms the framework for comparing various approaches for measuring higher education graduates’ competences, and for discussing their relative strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that the existing approaches for assessing competences are suitable for measuring only one type of competence, that is, either cognitive or non-cognitive, but limited in their capacities to measure both. In the context of changing labor market needs and requirements, it is essential either to use these approaches in combination or to develop innovative methods which are equally suitable for measuring discipline-related as well as more generic competences. In this chapter, we discuss the assessment approaches by mainly focusing on employment-related competences. By employment-related competences we mean both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of competences, such as personal and social skills, leadership, and communication skills.

This paper aims to introduce a new incremental sheet metal‐forming process. By moving a hammering tool over a sheet of metal fixed in a frame, a three‐dimensional workpiece can be produced without using any special die plate.

This paper describes the exact procedure of the new process and the advantages in comparison with other flexible conventional and incremental forming processes. The hammering process in particular, will be considered with respect to material behavior and effects on the industrial robot. In addition, a special path generation for the incremental forming process and multiple robot tools with different drives constructed for the incremental forming process is shown.

During the research it was discovered that complex geometries can be produced without any die plate and that a hammering tool with a mechanical eccentric should be used for the incremental forming process.

As the forces on the handling equipment are very low compared with other forming processes, a common industrial robot can be used to move the hammering tool. Thus sheet metal parts can be produced with cost‐effective equipment. Mainly, small and medium‐sized enterprises can benefit from this new technology.

The incremental forming process presented in this paper is patented by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation. It is the first time that sheet metal parts with a size of 300×300 mm are formed by a hammering tool with 100 hits/s.

This study aims to provide a thick description of a four-day bridging course in introductory accounting presented before the start of a student’s first year. The course aims to address the lack of prior accounting knowledge. The study also evaluates the effectiveness of the course using econometric techniques. Treatment effects are considered when interpreting the results.

This voluntary intervention used a quasi-experimental research design and quantitative techniques, including the application of propensity score matching (PSM), to isolate the treatment effect on the treated and untreated groups.

A positive and significant association is reported between attending the bridging course and performance in the first assessment.

A bridging course in accounting offers higher educators an opportunity to ensure that students are academically better prepared when entering university. This course provides adequate prior knowledge from which a student will benefit during the first assessments, which may contribute to increased self-efficacy and retention. This intervention has social implications for students as they can interact, participate and easily transition from school to university. Social implications include learning communities that are formed at the onset of their studies.

Bridging courses have been presented in other disciplines with positive results but not yet in accounting. Bridging courses in accounting are viable interventions to address gaps in prior knowledge and assist with the transition from school to university. This study expands literature by demonstrating the application and interpretation of PSM in quasi-experimental designs.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the theme of this special issue. In doing so, the paper argues that marketing historical research is in need of a paradigmatic shift. Rather than privilege primary and secondary sources that preserve the perspectives and actions of corporate managers and of marketing academics, marketing historians need to open the historical narratives they construct much more than before to the experiences and voices of ordinary consumers, i.e. of those who actually shop and buy and choose. They also need to do more to incorporate into their narratives examples of the value-creation that consumers themselves enact, both inside and outside the sphere of the market.

By reviewing the state of the marketing historical literature, this paper introduces the “History from Below” school of historical thought into marketing historical research. It also tests to what extent a stronger consumer focus might be able to enrich historical research in marketing.

Although contemporary marketing historiography is characterized by a richness of themes and methodological approaches, there is still a marked difference between the way marketing academics and historians write the history of marketing and consumption. While, surprisingly, the former often tend to ignore the voices of ordinary consumers, the latter often lack the marketing-related “technical” knowledge to fully understand the significance of specific archival sources they discuss. This means that a genuine “People’s History of Marketing” has yet to be written.

Findings from the paper will be of value to marketing historians who wish to expand the scope and agenda of their research and help historical research move away from narrow managerial perspectives and other “privileged” accounts of marketing.

This paper makes two original contributions. First, it introduces historiographical innovations associated with “History from Below” (social history) into marketing historical scholarship. Second, it attempts to help marketing historians identify alternative sets of primary and secondary sources, e.g. oral history archives, which would allow them to be much more optimistic about their own ability to reconstruct the perspectives of those whose voices are all too often ignored.

Improving the use of annotations in lecture recordings.

Requirements analysis with scenario based design (SBD) on focus groups.

These seven points have been extracted from the feedback of the focus groups: (1) Control of the annotation feature (turn on/turn off). (2) An option to decide who is able to see their comments (groups, lecturer, friends). (3) An easy and paper-like experience in creating a comment. (4) An option to discuss comments. (5) An option to import already existing comments. (6) Color-coding of the different types of comments. (7) An option to print their annotations within the context of the recording.

The study was performed to improve the open-source lecture recording system Opencast Matterhorn.

Annotations can help to enable the students that use lecture recordings to move from a passive watching to an active viewing and reflecting.

The purpose of this paper is to study how operations strategy (OS) innovation occurs in a project-centred production and organisation.

A longitudinal case study encompassing the processes at the headquarters of the company and in two projects using lean.

The operation strategy development commences at a middle level in the organisation, is underpinned and embedded in production projects and only after several years becomes embedded in the corporate operation strategy. Projects use lean principles in a differentiated manner.

A qualitative case study provides insight into only a single occasion of change in OS. More case studies would probably reveal several paths of OS development. OS development need to be handled as emergent, political and with contributions from several managers and management levels, bridging the vertical divides between projects and headquarter.

A conscious and systematic vertical integration and interaction is crucial in project-based companies doing operation strategy development, something critically difficult at building contractors.

The present study contributes to the small body of studies of OS development processes, by providing insight in how project-based companies renew their operation strategy.