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Archive of research projects at Faculty 3: Business and Law

... in terms of the provision and development of meta data

The project provides a comparative study of different NoSQL data base systems designed for the development of "Big Data." A special focus is on the provision and development of meta data and the discord between the "scheme-free nature" - identification of the flexibility - and the reliability concerning the meaningfulness of analysis: Every child knows that you cannot add up apples and oranges together. A total of certain values is only meaningful if the individual values can actually be added up together- if some or many are not numbers, then the result cannot be right. The analysis / structure of the documents in a collection can yield information about the reliability of aggregating analyses.

Project duration: June 2014 - June 2017
Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Michael Unterstein

Alternative career models in Germany, a study on careers and career paths

The topic of "careers of working women" in Germany continues to be relevant during these times of demographic change and a lack of experts and executives, particularly with respect to the discussion about women's quotas and stiffer competition among businesses. Different studies show that the potential, in particular among well-educated women, is still not fully exhausted (see Brumlop, 1994; Statistisches Bundesamt, 2012). When looking at the traditional career paths, women often do not get past a certain level. Women run into barriers in businesses, the so-called "glass ceiling," which can be expressed in the form of stereotypes, prejudices, informal networks, management behavior, and relationships within the genders (see Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995; Oakley, 2000). Research has shown that the career paths of women display more variety and versatility than those of men and also that the perception of the career is different (see Hertneky, 2012; Kirchmeyer, 1998, 2002; O’Neil, Hopkins, Bilimoria, 2008). Many connect the classic, vertical path with a career – rising through the ranks and taking on management responsibility. However, not much attention has been paid to alternative career paths. Alternative paths are gaining in significance, such as project and specialist careers (see Blazek et al., 2011). This study wants to take a closer look at alternative career scenarios, in particular project and specialist careers as well as the path into self-employment.

Project duration: until September 2017
Project team: Caprice Oona Weissenrieder and Prof. Dr. Regine Graml
Financing: gFFZ

Survey on career opportunities in the workplace for men and women in the Cayman Islands

The study titled "Your Career Advancement - Survey on Career Opportunities in the Workplace for Men and Women in the Cayman Islands" intends to shed light on the current situation of working women in the Cayman Islands – in particular in terms of equal opportunity for selecting staff for management positions.

The assumptions and possible reasons why there are fewer women in management positions are to be studied using an online survey. The research paper wants to determine a representative status quo of the working world and provide recommendations for the measures that need to be taken in order to achieve equal participation of women in working life. The Cayman Islands are the wealthiest island group in the Caribbean. Despite the strong British and American influences, it appears to be difficult for women on the Cayman Islands to achieve equal participation in the working world. This study will be the first of its kind on the topic of equality for women in the professional world on the Cayman Islands. In this research project, the UAS will work together with the Cayman Islands Society for Human Resources Professionals and wants to raise the government's awareness of the situation of women with the study.   

Project team: Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler, Astrid Kramer (Wiss. MA)
Cooperation partner: Cayman Islands Society for Human Resources Professionals (CISHRP)
Duration: April 2016 - March 2017
Subsidy: € 5,000

The globalization of the economy is progressing in production as well as in research and development. Decreasing transport costs and economic catch-up processes in Asia create new possibilities for international outsourcing and offshoring, which are very significant from the perspective of the German economy and the EU. With respect to innovation dynamics, key markets have a very important function, which innovation-oriented businesses must pay particular attention to and which will also become important in economic policy due to the new EU funding policy. The focus lies on the development of value-added chains for the spatial distribution of important sectors and the role of the key markets and the internationalization of research activities in the context of offshoring and outsourcing.

We will study how the key markets develop in select sectors and what impact this will have on the structural change in Germany and the EU. In addition, we want to quantify techno-globalization. New findings from fundamental economics research are combined with application-oriented questions; for the first time, the analysis of techno-globalization for select sectors in Germany / Austria will permit an explanation of the dynamics in techno-globalization and estimate it in the medium term. This will result in conclusions about the growth of knowledge-intensive work places that is required and the corresponding qualification needs. We also want to study what role direct investments from/into foreign countries play for the innovation dynamics of EU countries. The state can also provide innovation stimulus for acquisition programs, in which case a template will need to be developed.

Project duration: March 2015 – April 2016
Project team: Europäisches Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsbeziehungen (EIIW) e.V. at the Bergische University Wuppertal with the subcontractors Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences) and Dr. Bernhard Dachs (Austrian Institute of Technology,  Department of Technology Policy)
Research funding: Hans-Böckler-Stiftung Abt. Forschungsförderung Strukturwandel - Innovation und Beschäftigung

Demographic change brings logistics face to face with a great challenge. The  share of 60-year-olds and older will increase by 8 million by 2030. Care costs have doubled to € 17.6 billion in the last 7 years and the number of people requiring care will increase by more than 50% by 2030. According to estimates, 68% of the people who require care are cared for at home. This development in industrialized nations therefore comes with new logistical product and service requirements. Logistics also has to tackle the issue concerning the qualifications and employment of an aging staff.

Duration: March 2015 - December 2015
Project partner: Kühne & Nagel
Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Susanne Koch

Behavioral and Skills - Analytical Study of Women and Men in Management Positions

The goal of the research project is to generate explorative results on the topic of "acceptance of executives." This is intended to shed a light on the culture as it is lived in companies with their stereotypical attributions of abilities and characteristics of women and men. The results should provide answers as to what manifestations of acceptance have on the professional world and to what extent visible behaviors differ as signs of acceptance. Furthermore, the focus is on gaining insights about possible connections between the acceptance of executives and their career perspectives. A mix of qualitative and quantitative methods is used in order to explore the research questions.

The results will be used to develop studies and recommended actions and make them available to the public.

Duration: October 2014 - December 2015
Project team: Caprice Oona Weissenrieder, Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler, Prof. Dr. Regine Graml
Project partner: Gabriele Stahl, Odgers Berndtson
Publications: Working Paper 11/2015; Manager-Barometer

This research project is about studying the recruiting practices of German businesses from the perspective of applicants. Determining the actual state of candidates’ experiences in Germany and gaining insights about how these experiences are evaluated and processed are used to develop proposals as to how companies can design their recruiting processes in a gender-sensitive manner and thus promote women in management positions.

Duration: May 2014 - September 2015
Project volume: € 2,795
Project team: Prof. Dr. Andrea Ruppert and Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt

Duration: November 2013 – September 2015 
Third party funding: € 130,000 Share Frankfurt UAS

Intralogistics projects generally come with very large investment for companies. Over the course of the investment decision, it has therefore proven fruitful for companies first to represent the planned material flow processes in a simulation and thus to check the technical implementation as well as to study reference objects and integrate the experiences of other companies into their own project. Standard programs are used for the simulation that have an object library (tool kit) with e.g. material flow components.  

The objective of the project is to develop a product that is ready for sale, to develop the object library FluidSim, and (using the object library) to create a virtual reference product "simulation of the early baggage storage of the Frankfurt Airport." As part of this simulation, the capacity of fluid logistics is demonstrated using the simulation of a specific application.  

The fluid logistics product represents a revolution in the intralogistics market with significant market opportunities. Correspondingly positive is the interest of a large number of DAX companies (etc.) such as ThyssenKrupp. The FluidSim product based on this profits from these USPs. During the project, a product is developed, split into ten milestones, and validated using an application case.  

You can find additional information here.  

Project partners: Prof. Dr. Schocke (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences), Prof. Dr. Koberstein (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Fraport AG, benjamin Systems GmbH, SimPlan AG

Development of sustainable spare part logistics for primary electronics products by means of order-oriented disassembly of old equipment. A Contribution to Supporting Future-oriented Inclusion in the Field of Workshops for People with Disabilities

Project employee: Nadija Hossini
Duration: August 2014 - August 2015
Project partner: Behindertenhilfe Bergstraße
Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Susanne Koch

The adjunct lecturer rate at Hesse's universities has dramatically increased in the last years and is close to 50% in some places. The share of female adjunct lecturers lies at merely ca. 30%. Faculty 3: Business and Law of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences employed 123 adjunct lecturers in the WS 2013/14, one quarter of which was female. In the same period, the share of female full-time professors was 43%. It appears that there are structural conditions that make employment as an adjunct lecturer less attractive for women.

Duration: June 2014 - July 2015
Project team: Martina Mohrbacher and Prof. Dr. Susanne Koch

The Logistics Atlas for Hesse provides decision-makers for logistics and transportation-specific questions with detailed, location and area-specific data that can be used to justify the corresponding decisions with local or regional relevance. For this purpose, data sources are developed, made available, and linked; the existing data are ordered, condensed, and analyzed so that they can be used as a basis for decisions. The "Logistics Atlas Hesse" project proposal serves to create the concept-related prerequisites for the actual logistics atlas and to conduct a viable project proposal.commercial transportation The specific output of the proposed research project is a) a data base of relevant decision-related questions concerning logistical aspects created with semi-quantitative interviews, b) the derivation of suitable data structures to answer the decision-related questions, c) an overview of the required, available, and currently unavailable data and data sets, d) a guideline for the Logistics Atlas Hesse, and e) a research proposal at the federal and state level.

Duration: June 2014 – March 2015
Project volume: € 49,925
Project partners:
HS Fulda: Prof. Dr. Michael Huth (Director), Prof. Dr. Dorit Schumann-Bölsche, Prof. Dr. Boris Zimmermann
HS Darmstadt: Prof. Dr. Rico Wojanowski, Prof. Dr. Johanna Bucerius
HS RheinMain: Prof. Dr. Hartmut Werner
TH Mittelhessen: Prof. Dr. Katja Specht
FRA UAS: Prof. Dr. Susanne Koch, Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke, Prof. Dr. Kirstin Zimmer

The use of Social Network Sites poses risks to the privacy of members: for example, the members’ information could be used for unwelcome commercial purposes or they could become the target of personal attacks. Risks generally lead to Protecting Behavior. However, it is still unknown which specific Protecting Behavior results from Perceived Privacy Risk in Social Network Sites. This project contributes to this research gap.

Contact Person: Prof. Dr. Claus-Peter H. Ernst

(IFOFO stimulus project)    

The project is supposed to make a contribution to the better understanding of the employment situation and the employment dynamics of recipients of invalidity pensions in Germany. For this purpose, the employment rates of different groups of persons are determined among the invalidity pension recipients, the probability of accessing employment, the probability of leaving employment, and thus the employment duration and their respective determinants. We work with the BASiD data set (biography of select social security agencies in Germany).  

Duration: August 2014 to January 2015

Project team: Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen and Stefanie Waldeck

The objective of the proposed project is the development of a data basis for commercial transportation in the inner city of Frankfurt, which will make it possible to identify deficits in the transportation infrastructure. Based on the analyzed traffic and mobility data, a catalog of traffic planning measures is to be developed, which is expected to contribute to an improved use of existing transportation infrastructure and the relief of bottlenecks in logistics processes. The data is to be collected via traffic monitoring in a pilot area of Frankfurt's inner city as well as through interviews with businesses from the logistics industry. One result of the project should also be the development of portable survey methodology. The determined data basis is intended to be an important building block to achieve the project objectives of the research project "Logistics Atlas for Hesse.”

Duration: June – December 2014

Project volume: € 23,400

Project team: Prof. Dr. Petra Schäfer (Faculty 1), Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke

via an openly standardized automatic data exchange

Businesses across the air freight supply chain are involved in over four stages of the value chain levels at Cargo City Frankfurt/Main, the largest European air freight location. At the initiative of the operator Fraport, in 2012/2013 a joint data base (fair@link) was launched, which permits the electronic exchange of shipping information between the businesses "ahead" of the actual freight for the first time. The goal of the projects is to develop software standards (best practices) and interface standards for the development of integrated and sustainable logistics solutions for the cargo community. The focus of the venture was the improved coordination and integration of the different actors along the air freight value chain to allow the actors to achieve higher quality and more efficient process completion. The costs and access barrier for the data exchange must be held as low as possible. The blueprint is the internet as a communication platform. In order to win the acceptance of the actors, they must be included on a non-discriminatory basis, moderated, and organized freely for the design and implementation of the modified IT solutions.

Duration: June – December 2014

Project volume: € 162,200 / (FRA UAS: € 38,300)

Project partners:
Fraunhofer IML, Project Center Air Transportation Logistics
Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke
Air Cargo Community Frankfurt e.V.

The goal of the venture is the development and coordination of a methodology for a location-specific tool kit for depicting process quality (e.g. turnover time, data quality, delivery service). The tool kit is supposed to reproduce the performance and quality of the freight location as a whole, but also to enable the early recognition of bottlenecks and uncover the need for expansion or improvement measures. The collection and supplementation of the individual data is desired for the monitoring and management of the overall location. In addition to the data of the location partners, it should also include market information. A prerequisite are strategies and indicators for joint and neutral use and comparisons with competing airports. The recommended actions are supported by a demonstrator. In comparison with the HOLM research agenda, the pursued topics are "secure information networking," "integrated acquisition, analysis, and representation of regional traffic data” (here focused on the air freight location), "joint capacity utilization and intelligent pricing mechanisms," and "transparency of intelligence analytics."

Duration: June – December 2014

Project volume: € 84,777 / (FRA UAS: € 26,301)

Project partners:
Fraunhofer IML, Project Center Air Transportation Logistics
Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke
Air Cargo Community Frankfurt e.V.

Duration and project volume: 2012 – 2014, 98,900 Euros

The most recent rulings of the European Union are prescribed by a highly defined need for safety, but demand significant organizational and economic efforts from the businesses involved in air freight transportation.

The objective of the research project is to study the effects of new EC / EU ordinances on the supply chain of air freight logistics.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Susanne Koch / Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler / Doron Levy

Running time and project volume: 2012 - 2014, € 1,960,089

The transfer of the two-year, part-time MBA Aviation-Management Programme of Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences to the established Indian partner-university UPES. The project is part of the broader initiative, whose aim is to strengthen the institutional capacity of the Civil Aviation sector in India and to help ensure a safe and secure aviation environment.

Contact Person: Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler

The joint research venture "Out-of-court and In-court Conflict Resolution" as part of the Hesse research initiative "LOEWE – state offensive for the development of scientific-economic excellence" was able to win over its stiff competition! The research project is one of only five projects with a term of 3 years (2012-2014) that are supported by funding totaling 3.4 million Euros as part of the 4th subsidy phase. More ...

Econometric Analyses based on Cross-Country Data

Running time: July 2012 – July 2013

Using cross-country data, we analyse the impact of the 2007 financial shock on national macroeconomic developments depending on the national banking regulation before the crisis.

The econometric analyses provide insight into the role of financial regulations for macroeconomic stability.

Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen

Duration: 2012 – 2013

The study examines how 20-29-year-olds use the internet, how they get online, how long they go online, and what they do online.

The following questions are discussed: How much time do they spend with media and online media? How do they still communicate among each other? How actively / passively do they use the internet? Are there blockbusters among the social media applications? What specifically do they do in these applications?

Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Angelika Wiltinger

Duration and project volume: 2011 – 2013, € 25,501

Study and Identification of Strategies That Lead to Success in Salary Negotiations.

The goal of the research project is to understand those strategies and factors that lead to success for female and male executives during salary negotiations and to develop recommended actions for female executives.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Andrea Ruppert / Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt

Duration and project volume: 2011 – 2013, € 5,000

Study of the Connections Between Company Culture and the Career Perspectives for Women

The goal of the research project is to identify the cultural factors that may have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the career perspectives of women, to better use the potential of female executives, and to develop a tool kit to determine the accessibility of women to management positions.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler / Prof. Dr. Regine Graml, M.A. / Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen / Caprice Oona Weissenrieder

From the disability insurance in Zürich

Duration: 2010 – 2013

Using a private employment service, Zürich attempts to reintegrate persons with disabilities into the working world.

The study is based on a survey and social security data and modern microeconomic methods are used to evaluate the data. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of the measure and analyze to what extent the measure leads to savings / additional revenue for the social security system.

Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen

Duration: April 2012 – December 2012

The expected demographic development in Germany will have an impact on the labor market and the German innovation system. This will also affect the quality and quantity of start-ups. This is elucidated using the data of the KfW start-up monitor and economic methods.

Differences between age groups are to be determined relevant to start-ups, in order to better understand the consequences of demographic change and derive business policy implications.

Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen

Duration and project volume: 2011 – 2012, 3,000 Euros

The purpose of the study is to examine the cultures in the different areas of study at the UAS FFM and the typical processes of “doing profession” and “doing gender” for these cultures. The employed study method was ethnographic field research.

The goal of the research project is to gain insights about the extent to which gender-specific inclusion and exclusion in men's and women's programs is also organized through the practices and habits related to gender and the culture in the different areas of study.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt / Prof. Dr. Lotte Rose (Fb 4) / Prof. Dr. Ruth Schorr (Fb 2)

Duration and project volume: 2011 – 2012, € 14,300 per year

Annual Representative Population Survey "KfW Start-up Monitor" 50,000 persons in Germany are asked about themselves, and if applicable, about the start-ups they have founded.

The objective of the research project is to obtain information about full-time and part-time start-ups and start-up events. In addition, linking the survey rounds from different years delivers valuable insights on the dynamics of start-up activities.

KfW Start-Up Monitor 2011

KfW Start-Up Monitor 2012

Contact partner: Prof. Dr. Tobias Hagen

In the TASE project (October 1, 2009 to March 31, 2011) commissioned by the Romanian Labor Ministry and co-financed by the European Social Fund (project No. POSDRU/ 32/3/3.1./G/ 37316), the Institute for Entrepreneurship supported the training of young entrepreneurs from different subject areas (psychology, business administration, industrial engineering) at two universities in Bucharest: Titu Maiorescu (UTM) and Politehnika.

An advanced project goal was to permanently establish a Skill Center for Entrepreneurship at the Career Center of the private UTM. On the side of the Politehnika, Prof. Istvan Sztojanov (Industrial Engineering) was the lead partner. The first step in the project was to instruct trainers from both universities who were highly competent in their subjects but had no experience with start-ups.

While working together with the Romanian trainers, the training materials of the Institute for Entrepreneurship of approx. 200 slides were adapted to the Romanian conditions. The training occurred in three groups with 36 trainees each and were held in English and partly also in German. The German experts were able to withdraw more and more each round from the actual training and limit themselves to supervising and feedback responsibilities.

After the training, the trainees developed business plans in a period of two to three months, which they received detailed feedback on from the consultants. Towards the end of the project, about 86 out of 108 participants were still active after a year. About 55 business plans were created overall. The original ideas were often reformulated or completely abandoned and replaced by new ones. These start-up ventures are now supported and evaluated by the Romanian team in a second phase until 2013.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Weißbach, Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt, Dr. Florian Weißbach (GSI Darmstadt)

Analysis of Air Freight Supply Chain Under Special Consideration of the Land-side Processes at the Airport (from Customers to Airplane).

Cooperation partner: Fraport AG & Fraunhofer IML

The objective of the research project is the optimization of the processes under efficiency and sustainability aspects.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Kirstin Zimmer / Prof. Dr. Kai-Oliver Schocke

The major contribution of the project is the development of an up-to-date business aviation market analysis as well as an elaborated outlook on the anticipated business aviation future, which provides a valuable basis for strategy development. The analysis based on secondary data is conducted to assess the European market environment followed by a Porter five forces analysis based on secondary data and expert interviews to assess the current state of European business aviation. In order to give an industry outlook, the Delphi methodology is applied and the findings of an extensive future study on the business aviation future in the year 2025 are presented. For this purpose, an innovative Real-Time “Online-Delphi methodology” has been used. 

Research Team: Prof. Dr. Yvonne Ziegler, FB 3: Business and Law
Kathrin Lang, Manager Investment Planning and Efficiency, Flight and Terminal Management, Fraport AG
Dr. Marco Linz, Director Aviation Management, European Business School (EBS)

Project Finance is the financing of large projects. Main contracts between the single purpose project entity and other contributing parties include the project agreement, license agreement or take-off-contract; the construction contract; supply contracts; equity and debt contracts; insurances and guarantees from state entities, sponsors or banks.

The project proposes formal models to capture the main features of the risk allocation, the conditions needed for the existence of a possibility to reach agreement between the parties on different contract parameters, as well as asymmetric allocation and costly generation and transfer of information.

Contact Person: Prof. Dr. Lars D. Wellejus

THE COMPETITIVENESS OF EUROPEAN INDUSTRY AROUND 2025

NMP technologies have the potential to contribute significantly to the move of Europe from a resource-intensive economy to a knowledge-intensive economy in the future. They will lead to new applications, new business models, new products, new production patterns, new services, new processes and other outcomes.

The main challenge of the project will be to bring together qualitative and quantitative work on the NMP-level and (macro)economic-level, respectively, and to translate NMP-specifities into a quantitative model as well as derive well-founded qualitative recommendations from the scenarios.

Research Team: Prof. Dr. Andre Jungmittag, subcontractor and expert in econometrics, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Fraunhofer Institutes (Fraunhofer ISI and Fraunhofer ISC)
Project Management Commitee (PMC)
European Commission (EC)

More information

Study of the Composition of German Boards of Supervisors  

The study examines the composition of the Boards of Supervisors of the DAX30 companies for the years 2001 and 2011. For this purpose, the publicly available résumés (curriculum vitae) are analyzed and a data base with all Board of Supervisors positions and personnel is created. Both demographic and biographical aspects were recorded so that an individual’s respective educational history and professional career can be reviewed.

We see that employee representatives clearly have lower qualifications and display less diversity according to various metrics than the shareholder representatives. Among shareholder representatives, foreigners are clearly overrepresented compared to the overall population. The more varied professional experiences of individuals gives the shareholder representatives a broader range of different qualifications. The share of women among the shareholder representatives in the Board of Supervisors has tripled since 2001, but is still at a low level with 11 %. The data indicate that for about four years, more women have been appointed, even if less qualified than men.  

Project team: Prof. Dr. Christian Rieck / Helena Bendig / Julyus Hünnemeyer / Lisa Nitzsche

Gender-aspects in Contract Negotiations – Concept of a Course Unit for Business Law Programs, research project at Faculty 3: Business and Law at the University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt am Main under the direction of Dr. Andrea Ruppert and Dr. Martina Voigt and in collaboration with the Joint Women's Research Center of the Hesse University of Applied Sciences (gFFZ).

Project team: Prof. Dr. Andrea Ruppert / Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt

Gender-specific negotiation skills and their effect on remuneration and advancement negotiations – research project at Faculty 3: Business and Law at the University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt am Main under the direction of Dr. Andrea Ruppert and Dr. Martina Voigt, supported by the Hesse Ministry for Science and Art, and in cooperation with BPW Germany Business, Professional Women Germany e.V., and ULA Deutscher Führungskräfte Verband. Find out more (German only)(pdf 26 KB)

Project team: Prof. Dr. Andrea Ruppert / Prof. Dr. Martina Voigt

The project "Career Perspectives of Working Mothers" studies how well working mothers in Germany are able to combine career and family. This empirical study, in which 1,801 mothers from all over Germany participated, shows how difficult it is to combine motherhood and career in German businesses, what specific difficulties working mothers face, and what solutions they propose. Based on the empirical study, recommended actions are then developed both for the career-oriented mothers and the affected businesses.

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