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In recent years, much research has been done on medical laser applications inside the human body, as they are minimally invasive and therefore have fewer side effects and are less expensive than conventional therapies. In order to bring the laser light into the human body, a glass fibre with a diffuser is needed. The goal of this master thesis is the characterization and production of fibre optic diffusers that can be used for the three therapeutic applications: photodynamic therapy, laser-induced thermotherapy and endovenous laser therapy. For this purpose the following goals have to be achieved:
- Optimization of the efficiency and homogeneity of internally structured diffusers
- Examine damage thresholds of the diffusers in the tissue using a crash test
- Achieving a better understanding of the decouple mechanism with a simulation
Using an ultra-short pulse laser, modifications could be introduced into the fibre in this way that the radiation profile is homogeneous and the decoupling efficiency is 68.3 %. It was discovered that the radiation profile depends on the wavelength. Attempts have been made to improve the decoupling efficiency by mirroring the distal end of the fibre. The mirror reflects the remaining light back into the fibre, so that it is also decoupled lateral on the modifications. Vapor-deposited aluminum with physical vapor deposition is a promising approach. However, the adhesion of the coating must be improved or the coating must be protected by a mechanical cover, otherwise it will flake off too quickly.
In a crash test, it was shown that the glass fibre diffusers can withstand 20 W laser power for 300 s without visible change. In an ex vivo test, the coagulation zone in the tissue was examined and it was showed that the diffusers radiate radially homogeneously. Using a ray trace simulation, the course of the light rays in the fibre was examined and the correlation of modification width and length with the decoupling efficiency was investigated. It was discovered that there are helical light rays in the fibre, which cannot be decoupled by modifications in the fibre centre.
A novel calorimetric technique for the analysis of gas-releasing endothermic dissociation reactions
(2020)
Leadership, leader-follower relationship, and
subordinates’ behaviors during the Covid-19
pandemic
(2021)
The present research had compared how Uppsala and Bartlett & Ghoshal (B&G) models explain the internationalization process of the Brazilian pulp producer Fibria.
The Uppsala model describes the developments of capabilities that enable the firm to move towards higher commitments abroad. Despite its sine-qua-non dependence on foreign markets, it is unlikely that Fibria will internationalize its production to another country, given the country-specific advantages that the company has in Brazil. Nevertheless, Fibria set its structure abroad even when the direct exports would suffice to reach the markets without any foreign direct investment.
B&G deals with the aspects of the organizational structure and described the Transnational type as the evolution of the international firm. In their typology, Fibria was a Global and Ethnocentric type, but interestingly, elements of Transnational and Geocentric models were also observed in the company.
Both theories overlap or complement each other in many aspects. However, they could not explain the peculiarities of the internationalization of Fibria. One reason is the lack of country-related elements in these models.
Eventually, comparisons between theories such as those presented enable decision-makers to align the corporate strategy using suitable models, bearing in mind the limitations that each method entails.
Graphite substrates underwent two methods of creating doped silicon carbide films via carbothermal reduction; the first method being liquid-phase processing, or dip-coating, and the second gas-phase processing, otherwise referred to as the solid-vapour reaction. The dip-coating procedure resulted in flaky coatings, while the solid-vapour reaction resulted in polycrystalline films with columnar growth that displayed promising morphological and electrical properties. The films were tested on their performance as semiconductor diodes, and proved that carbothermal reduction in the gas phase is a promising technique for creating polycrystalline silicon carbide films for the application of light-emitting diodes.
The boom of information technology development created high demand for skilled labour force in IT occupations. IT professionals install, test, build, repair or maintain hardware and software and can do the job from any location in the world.
Demand for the workforce significantly outstrips the global supply. In a situation of staff shortage employers have to compete on local and global labour markets. The ability of a firm to attract and retain the best talent would become a source of its sustainable competitive advantage.
Aim of the study is to understand what influences perception of employment attractiveness by IT professionals the most. This study intends to expend the existing knowledge about employees´ needs and “psychological contract” concept.
The research was conducted with the participation of 4 IT and 4 HR English-speaking experts who live and work in Austria. In the study the grounded theory approach and the descriptive qualitative methods were applied.
The research findings explain which factors influence the decision of IT professionals to join, stay or leave an employer. The results are discussed in relation to talent attraction and retention practices of Austrian employers.
Increasing international competition and accelerated technological change characterize the environment in which companies must maintain and, if possible, expand their competitive advantage. In this context, the new, popular keyword innovation management is often mentioned. Many corporations propagate and use it for marketing purposes. As a result, the companies have to evaluate, develop and launch innovations increasingly faster, which poses great challenges for many and requires a high degree of adaptability.
This master thesis analyzes innovation management (IM) in the automotive industry and in other industries (material manufacturers, service providers, medicine, ...) depending on the number of employees and turnover. In addition, the maturity levels of the IMs and the innovation management systems (IMS) are examined. It also tries to determine which design or "building blocks" are necessary for a successful innovation management. Furthermore, factual and monetary guidelines by the management are evaluated. The thesis also aims to find out how the success of IM is measured. Therefore, guideline-based expert interviews were conducted with responsible people from the innovation departments and then systematically analyzed.
In the literature, expenses for innovations are often wrongly equated with the R&D rate. In this master thesis, it could be shown that this ratio is highest in the automotive industry. However, it does not correlate with the number of employees, turnover, maturity level, success or design of the IM. Furthermore, it could be shown that larger companies have a higher degree of maturity. The reason for this is that more people are usually involved in innovation and that a holistic understanding of innovation is better anchored in large corporations. When designing the IM or the roles of the innovation department, large companies use several different types. While the IM departments in small and medium-sized companies are usually incubators and accelerators, large companies also use corporate venture capital to support start-ups and develop new business models. In this thesis, the success of IM was determined by the number of innovations implemented in customer projects. It was found that, regardless of the size of the company, a higher degree of maturity of the IM and the accelerator role seem to have a positive influence.
Unfortunately, there are rarely concrete goals and targets set by the management although these, along with a holistic understanding of innovation in the company, are without doubt the most important part of a successful innovation management.
This thesis aims to support the product development process. Therefore, an approach is developed, implemented as a prototype and evaluated, for automated solution space exploration of formally predefined design automation tasks holding the product knowledge of engineers. For this reason, a classification of product development tasks related to the representation of the mathematical model is evaluated based on the parameters defined in this thesis. In a second step, the mathematical model should be solved. A Solver is identified able to handle the given problem class.
Due to the context of this work, System Modelling Language (SysML) is chosen for the product knowledge formalisation. In the next step the given SysML model has to be translated into an object-oriented model. This translation is implemented by extracting information of a ".xml"-file using the XML Metadata Interchanging (XMI) standard. The information contained in the file is structured using the Unified Modelling Language (UML) profile for SysML. Afterwards a mathematical model in MiniZinc language is generated. MiniZinc is a mathematical modelling language interpretable by many different Solvers. The generated mathematical model is classified related to the Variable Type and Linearity of the Constraints and Objective of the generated mathematical model. The output is stored in a ".txt"-file.
To evaluate the functionality of the prototype, time consumption of the different performed procedures is measured. This data shows that models containing Continuous Variables need a longer time to be classified and optimised. Another observation shows that the transformation into an object-oriented model and the translation of this model into a mathematical representation are dependent on the number of SysML model elements. Using MiniZinc resulted in the restriction that models which use non-linear functions and Boolean Expressions cannot be solved. This is because the implementation of non-linear Solvers at MiniZinc is still in the development phase. An investigation of the optimally of the results, provided by the Solvers, was left for further work.
Nowadays, the area of customer management strives for omni-channel and state-of-the-art CRM concepts including Artificial Intelligence and the approach of Customer Experience. As a result, modern CRM solutions are essential tools for supporting customer processes in Marketing, Sales and Service. AI-driven CRM accelerates sales cycles, improves lead generation and qualification, and enables highly personalized marketing. The focus of this thesis is to present the basics of Customer Relationship Management, to show the latest Gartner insights about CRM and CX, and to demonstrate an AI Business Framework, which introduces AI use cases that are used as a basis for the expert interviews conducted in an international B2B company. AI will transform CX through a better understanding of customer behavior. The following research questions are answered in this thesis: In which AI use cases can Sales and CRM be improved? How can Customer Experience be improved with AI-driven CRM?
The presented master thesis of the study subject International Management and Leadership at the University of Applied Science Vorarlberg in Dornbirn handles the potential future influence of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due diligence on SMEs. First this thesis introduces the most important regulations that might come into place with this Due Diligence Act and gives a theoretical input when and how it will come into place, and also who it will affect directly and who will be affected indirectly. The empirical data resulted of several qualitative expert interviews and a following quantitative research. The expert interviews are split in two different groups, first the topic experts from institutions like chamber of commerce or chamber of labour and second experts from highly successful Austrian companies which are already handling the topic and the future challenges. Expected outcome of the qualitative interviews was a better view on the actual situation especially the impact on small and medium enterprises. On the basis of this results the quantitative survey was produced. In the quantitative survey the goal was to see, how much entrepreneurs and companies in the small and medium sector already are aware of the upcoming legal challenges throughout the supply chain. With all this collected data the practical outcome of this thesis is the Checklist, which helps entrepreneurs to find out if and how much they will be affected by the Act. And finally, the most important part is the Guideline, which introduces first risk assessment tools, that will help companies to prepare for future legislation and bring undoubtedly a certain advantage for the upcoming challenges.
Many test drives are carried out in the automotive environment. During these test drives many signals are recorded. The task of the test engineers is to find certain patterns (e.g. an emergency stop) in these long time series. Finding these interesting patterns is currently done with rule based processing. This procedure is very time consuming and requires a test engineer with expertise. In this thesis it is examined if the emerging field of machine learning can be used to support the engineers in this task. Active Learning, a subarea of machine learning, is used to train a classifier during the labeling process. Thereby it proposes similar windows to the already labeled ones. This saves the annotator time for searching or formulating rules for the problem. A data generator is worked out to replace the missing labeled data for tests. The custom performance measure “proportion of seen samples” is developed to make the success measurable. A modular software architecture is designed. With that, several combinations of Time Series Classification algorithms and query strategies are compared on artificial data. The results are verified on real datasets, which are open source available. The best performing, but computational intensive solution is an adapted RandOm Convolutional KErnel Transform (ROCKET). The custom query strategy “certainty sampling” shows the best results for highly imbalanced datasets.
The Fast Average Current Mode control methodology is a novel method for the implementation of a current compensator in a switched-mode power supply. It does not require compensation against sub-harmonic instability and is inductor independent. In this work, the digital implementation of this topology is compared against an analog implementation using simulation. Additionally, a hardware prototype is created to validate the digital simulation's results. In a Simulink environment, parameters of the digital implementation, such as the digital-to-analog converter resolutions and the delay counter frequency are varied to research their impact on system performance. The simulations show that a digital current compensator has similar performance as an analog implementation when designed tailored to the application. When evaluating the whole control loop the digital system is inferior due to added delays caused by digital to analog conversion. By operating the Buck converter hardware implementation as a current source, the functionality of the current mode control implementation in a FPGA was proven. Voltage control cannot be validated due to hardware issues. Due to the successful simulation of the source code with a mixed signal model of the converter, it can be assumed that it is functional. Apart from performance, a digital implementation shows many benefits compared to an analog solution, such as configurability of control parameters and easy compensation of component variations and aging.
Startups usually have high growth ambitions but only limited resources. Therefore, they are looking for efficient and effective methods to grow their business. However, if they go interna-tional, challenging changes will likely be made if the company is not focused on the global market. The aim of this work is therefore to support startups in the internationalization of their business and to provide guidance from the beginning by using strategic marketing elements to facilitate this process. To achieve this, a qualitative method of analysis was chosen. First, a literature review was conducted on the relevant topics of a startup, strategic marketing, and internationalization. Five success factors emerged from the literature: commitment, strategy, research, marketing mix adaptation, and organization and network. These were then ana-lyzed in more detail in expert interviews. The analysis of the interview results shows that for the internationalization of startups, the commitment to internationalization and a global mindset is of great importance from the very beginning. This is because they influence all supporting and strategic marketing elements.
For centuries, companies and institutions are working on the development of organisational project maturity models. The purpose of these models is to develop a path for improving an organisation’s capability of managing projects. Projects are the means by which companies implement their strategic objectives. Trends like globalisation and advances in IT lead to more geographically distributed teamwork. Therefore, this thesis gives a comprehensive answer to how project management maturity models address transnational project management.
For accomplishing the research objective, this thesis follows an integrated, qualitative literature review approach. Theoretical frameworks and applied research on project management maturity assessments were systematically collected and analysed. The results extracted from these two sources were synthesised to extract findings.
The main research result shows that models continuously adapt to transnational project management. They are doing this by aligning the organisational culture and values, focusing on organisational wide learning and gradually embedding behavioural and intercultural competencies. Maturity assessments need to follow this trend.
Furthermore, transnational convergence of the models’ dimensions was observed. This development leads to growth in size and complexity. To apply them internationally, the models should be simplified or easily adapted to specific countries and cultures.
Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to explore the of self-initiated expatriates prior to and during acculturation to life in a smaller periphery region such as Vorarlberg, Austria. By providing insights into their lived experience this research aims to fill in the gaps of missing information on motivators, success factors to adjustment, issues, and stressors, and more that SIEs experience when adjusting. Specifically, what items promote adjustment and what items hinder adjustment.
Findings: Developed a better understanding of how and what motivational factors lead to expatriation. Furthermore, that opportunities arise by chance. During acculturation, language factors (dialect), cultural differences act as stressors. While social support, and organizational support, learning of the language act as promoters of acculturation.
Further Research could be done including ethnicities, SIEs moving from developed to developing countries, adjustment in regions with dialect vs no dialect.
Key words: self-initiated expatriates, expatriation, acculturation, adjustment, promoting acculturation, hindering acculturation.
Scrum has been a prominent project management framework for managing software development projects. The scrum team embodies values such as commitment, focus, respect, courage, and openness to develop trust, which serves as the foundation of the scrum framework. However, in recent years, scrum teams are shifting towards a work-from-home environment which is relatively new to most of them and known to present various challenges. Looking at the benefits of adhering to scrum values, this study aims to investigate the challenges scrum teams experience in adhering to scrum values while operating virtually, as well as to explore practical strategies to overcome the identified challenges, particularly during the storming stage of team development. This research employed a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews with scrum team members who have experience working in a virtual environment. Through qualitative content analysis of semi-structured interviews, this research identifies significant challenges within five main categories: communication, collaboration, interpersonal dynamics, the virtual work environment, and personal workspace issues. However, beyond the challenges, the study reveals practical strategies as well for successful team dynamics and higher efficiency. The strategies derived from team members' experiences are categorized into six categories: enhanced meeting management, leveraging in-person engagements, optimizing tools & technology, effective communication strategies, team-building, and nurturing a positive work culture.
This paper gives an insight into how cybersecurity is built inside and outside banks in Austria. The research was conducted based on information received from bank representatives in Austria as well as on literature, participation in various kinds of online conferences, and so on. The main objective of this paper was to investigate the cybersecurity execution scheme and to consider the possible impact of the cultural factor on cybersecurity execution. Due to a force majeure situation like coronavirus, the author was able to obtain little information from participants, but even this helped to draw satisfactory conclusions and make recommendations to banks. Thanks to the vast amount of literature and research, confirmation of the factor under study was found, confirming the relevance of the work and the potential for further research.
Integration of an industrial robot manipulator in ROS to enhance its spatial perception capabilities
(2020)
Robots without any external sensors are not capable of sensing their environment, often leading to damaging collisions. These collisions could potentially be avoided if the robot had a way to sense its environment in the first place. This thesis attempts to tackle this problem by equipping such a robot with extra sensor hardware for perceiving environmental objects. The robot used within this thesis is a KUKA LBR iiwa 7 R800. The goal is a robot capable of moving in an unseen environment without colliding with obstacles nearby.
The research covers different sensor options, robots in cramped areas as well as algorithms and simulation topics. Software platforms and libraries used for the implementation are briefly introduced.
Multiple infrared sensors are directly installed onto the robot manipulator. The extra sensors and the robot are integrated into the ROS middleware to create an application capable of sensing the robots’ environment and plan collision-free paths accordingly.
The experiments show, that the low amount of available sensor data can not map the robots’ environment with enough detail. Additional problems, such as sensor noise corrupting parts of the generated map or the robot recognizing itself as an obstacle, lead to a negative result in total. In future work, the choice of sensors shall be reconsidered and tested upfront via simulation software.
HRM Practices and Innovative Work Behavior: Employee Involvement and Job Auton-omy as influencing factors of Innovative Work Behavior
An organization´s capacity to innovate often resides within its employee´s innovative work behavior. Previous research suggested positive effects of employee involvement and job autonomy on innovative behavior. This research aims to analyze the impact of involvement- and autonomy-focused HRM practices (participation, information-sharing, work-scheduling autonomy, decision-making autonomy, and work-methods autonomy) on innovative work behavior. It is hypothesized that all five HRM practices mentioned above positively influence employees´ innovative work behavior. Therefore, a cross-sectional quantitative research design was chosen. Online questionnaire data from 376 employees in Austria was analyzed. Although all five HRM practices correlated with innovative work behavior, only work-methods autonomy had a statistically significant influence on the innovative work behavior of all employees. Thus, practitioners should include work-methods autonomy as critical HRM practice in a “high-innovation” HRM system to facilitate employees´ innovative work behavior.
This master thesis investigates leadership traits and how they can drive success within international organizations in the digital era. The basic principles of what defines a leader have undergone significant scrutiny throughout the past one hundred years, however, the digital revolution has created the most upset when considering the requirements for efficient leadership.
This paper utilizes a literature review to first determine how modern leadership theory developed and the implications of current research, followed by an empirical study designed to collect real-world data which represents how current leaders active in various industries understand their role as a leader and what skills they use to promote success within their organization.
Cross-examination of these sources indicates that the most effective leaders employ a combination of Transformational Leadership Theory and Emotional Intelligence-based leadership. The extent to which a leader must individualize their style is strongly contingent on the organizational culture, the individual employees, and the external environment. While traits such as communication, charisma, and trustworthiness are certainly strong indications of an efficient leader, agility and adaptability clearly stand out as the traits which are most required for highly effective leaders in the digital era.
Lack of transparency and traceability of products and their raw materials means that most products can only be thrown away or not properly recycled due to a lack of relevant data. This conflicts with the circular economy principles, which are demanded by several initiatives, including the European Union. The aim of this master thesis is to analyze this conflict and to propose a technical solution based on Distributed Ledger Technology that enables transparency and traceability of products and their materials. Therefore, the thesis addresses two central research questions: 1. How can traceability and transparency be enabled by integrating a DLT solution? 2. How would a prototype with the integration of smart contracts and DLT look like? To answer these questions, a blockchain solution is implemented using Hyperledger Fabric. The solution uses the immutability and decentralized nature of DLT to record and track the movement of products and their materials throughout their life cycle in the Circular Economy. Furthermore, with private data collections, confidentiality, and privacy are granted while ensuring transparency. The thesis contributes to the Circular Economy field by exploring the principles, models, and challenges of the Circular Economy and the circularity goals of a Digital Product Passport to develop a suitable technical solution. The chosen blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric, is presented, and its key components and features are highlighted. The thesis also delves into the design decisions and considerations behind the Digital Product Passport platform, explaining the architecture and transaction flow together with the prototype implementation and demonstration to showcase the functionality of the solution. Results and analysis provide insights into the challenges of the Circular Economy, sustainable resource management, and the Digital Product Passport, resulting in recommendations for future improvements and enhancements. Overall, this thesis offers a practical solution utilizing DLT to enable transparency and traceability in the Circular Economy, contributing to the realization of sustainable and efficient resource management practices to ultimately contribute to the set Circular Economy initiatives.
In this work, the simulation possibilities of transient magnetic fields are investigated. For this purpose, an experimental setup is established to compare the simulation results with actual measurement data.
The experimental set-up consists of two coils, which are placed on two U-shaped iron cores. These cores are then brought together to form two air-gaps. These two gaps are used for measurement and the optional insertion of samples. The simulations are carried out with the finite element method (FEM) program ANSYS Maxwell 19R3.
In the first experiments, static simulations and measurements are compared to verify the validity of the available material data and the simulation techniques, especially the symmetry considerations, excitations of the coils, and boundary conditions. The static simulations show two main sources of uncertainty. The B-H curve of the core material used in the simulations and the air-gap distance uncertainty.
After validating the simulations with the static measurements, transient experiments are performed. In these experiments, the qualitative agreement of the simulation and measurement, as well as the characteristic rise times are compared. The experiments show a decisive influence of the considered loss mechanisms on the agreement of the simulation results with the measurements. Therefore, several simulations with different loss mechanisms are performed.
Finally, also the simulation capability including a material sample in the upper gap is investigated. Therefore, the conformity of the relative change of the measurement and the simulation is compared.
In the experiments a good simulation capability within a 5% error bar is seen. The main difficulty of this work represents the uncertainty due to the available material data. It is assumed, that with more accurate material data the error can be reduced significantly.
Observing the ratios of the rail usage in terms of passenger travelled per km and per capita, we see that there are huge differences between countries, so some railway systems are performing better in catching passengers than others. By analysing the factors that make the railways attractive for users, and setting standard values for these factors, we can analyse how well a system is performing. This paper has investigated those factors and developed an assessment tool that will inform about the required improvements, so in a later stage specific strategies can be developed to increase the performance in order to attract more passengers. Spain will be used as case study, since the country has specially low passenger rail usage compared to other countries even though the large investments in high speed lines the country undertook in the last decades.
The e-commerce market has been growing for years and this trend seems to be continuing. Online stores for clothing are very successful. It seems that hardly any company can afford not to have a digital presence. This goes hand in hand with the fact that the range of products on offer to customers is getting bigger and bigger. But it's not just the range that's getting bigger, it's also the effort customers have to make to find the right product. For this reason, many successful online stores are already relying on AI. In doing so, companies are creating opportunities for customers that an employee could hardly manage. Implemented on the website, AI can check inventory, update it in real time, predict trends and evaluate customer or user data and make suitable recommendations. This is important for the customer because with the huge choice available, for one thing, personalization is increasingly important and being presented with a relevant selection. A central question is whether the recommendations are trustworthy and whether they can be equated with a real salesperson advising the customer. After all, trust is relevant in longterm customer relationships in that it leads to loyalty and satisfaction, which in turn increases the intention to repurchase. The recommendation tools mentioned are also of particular interest for another reason. On the one hand, they help customers to get a relevant selection of the offer and thus to get faster to the desired one. On the other hand, they are relevant for companies not only because of customer satisfaction, but also because of the chance to reduce returns. The large online stores for clothing offer their customers very generous opportunities to return the goods free of charge. In doing so, the companies have responded to customer wishes, because hardly anything is more important to them when it comes to online shopping: free returns. In this way, customers have minimized the risk of having to keep goods that do not fit or please them. This thesis examines whether recommendation tools can help customers to better assess the sizes and properties of clothing, so that they receive more suitable clothing and do not even feel the need to order several sizes of the same item of clothing. It can therefore be assumed that trust in the recommendations of the AI tools reduces uncertainty, which in turn should reduce the intention to return goods. Another assumption to be tested is that of the perceived usefulness of the recommendation tools. As a prerequisite to get an assessment of these assumptions is the usage of the tools. Therefore, a survey was initiated in the DACH region to assess the extent to which usage influences the factors mentioned. It was found by means of a regression analysis that the frequency of online purchases, mediated by perceived usefulness, explains the influence on trust.
The phenomenon of the increase of numerous widespread and common diseases, ranging from simple dental problems to obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes, is a concern which can be observed in various aspects of the entire world. Reasons for this is a combination of an unhealthy diet and insufficient physical activity. Consequently, governments across the globe are seeing the need to change consumer behaviour by introducing plain packaging regulations. From an entrepreneurial point of view, this would result in financial losses as well as various limitations in product design, branding and differentiation. Therefore, an empirical study with 232 respondents was conducted, which revealed that the use of images on packaging activates emotions in customers within a few seconds. This master thesis examines possible correlations and differences between the importance of emotionally loaded product packaging and consumer behaviour at the point of sale. The persuasive effect of images on purchase decisions is based on personal consumer experiences and validated processing in the brain which trigger specific emotions. Modern companies are able to communicate company values through emotions by using images correctly. The results of the conducted survey enable Diezano to successfully implement the communication strategy in the event of the introduction of plain packaging regulations. By using mountain graphics, Diezano conveys values such as home, regional, refreshment, tasty, memories of childhood and nostalgia, which the brand aims to convey to the market. Based on the result of this master thesis, it is concluded that the picture superiority effect is mostly underestimated, yet it is an indispensable medium for emotional differentiation and thus a company’s success.
Recent years have been commanded by a cascade of unpredictable incidents, that have redefined new standards in our private, but also in our professional life. Events like the financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis in Europe, resource scarcity and so forth have caused instability, forcing companies towards flexibility, constantly adapting their operative structures according to the needs of the moment. The effective adaptation to this environment is the key for reacting the dynamism of the market, and for guaranteeing future success. However, the introduction of these crucial changes on a stable company organisation is challenging. Furthermore, due to digitalisation, boundaries between countries have been removed, and the daily cooperation with co-workers and customers all around the globe became the new standard. The establishment of a good corporate culture where diverse people can work in harmony and, is a difficulty that comes ahead.
This master thesis developed from a professional perspective. The topics of change management and corporate culture where combined, and the relationship between these two concepts was studied. This master thesis aims utilising corporate culture as an instrument in managements favour, to implement strategical changes easily and successfully in a more efficient way. The relation between corporate culture and the resistance to change, focusing on the initiation of the change process, was the main area of study. Research questions and hypothesis, formulated with a solid theoretical background, are to be answered based firstly on literature, and secondly on the results of empirical quantitative re-search. To conclude, a set of recommendations for corporates were suggested with the intention of guiding companies how to use corporate culture as an instrument for change management.
An implementation approach of the gap navigation tree using the TurtleBot 3 Burger and ROS Kinetic
(2020)
The creation of a spatial model of the environment is an important task to allow the planning of routes through the environment. Depending on the number of sensor inputs different ways of creating a spatial environment model are possible. This thesis introduces an implementation approach of the Gap Navigation Tree which is aimed for usage with robots that have a limited amount of sensors. The Gap Navigation Tree is a tree structure based on depth discontinuities constructed from the data of a laser scanner. Using the simulated TurtleBot 3 Burger and ROS kinetic a framework is created that implements the theory of the Gap Navigation Tree. The framework is structured in a way that allows using different robots with different sensor types by separating the detection of depth discontinuities from the building and updating of the Gap Navigation Tree.
The master thesis concentrates on two different cases to generate energy from MSW. In the first case, the MSW is incinerated in an incineration plant. This approach represents the present situation in the waste treatment in large parts of the UK.
In the second case, the OFMSW is separated in a treatment facility and used in a fermentation plant. The remaining waste is again used as a feedstock in an incineration plant. The difference in the net energy yield between these two cases is investigated in this thesis.
To calculate the difference in the energy yield of case 1 and case 2, a research of the existing literature about comparisons of incineration and fermentation plants and their results are reflected and data about the MSW in the UK is collected. With the input of the literature and the researched data, a model is built which compares the two different cases of waste treatment. The results of the comparisons are then examined by varying different parameters. This step is repeated by using different input parameters. Afterwards, the results are compared and analysed.
In the next part of the thesis, an economic analysis of the incineration and fermentation combined technology plant is made. In this analysis, the investment costs, the annual profits and the annual costs of an additional fermentation plant are discussed and calculated. The result of the analysis is displayed as an amortization time calculation. The results are then analysed by varying the parameters in a sensitivity analysis.
Finally, the research question is answered and a forecast for possible plant designs with an incineration and a fermentation plant in combination are discussed.
The implementation of direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models has become more important for companies trying to develop a competitive edge and improve consumer engagement in today's rapidly expanding e-commerce market. This master's thesis investigates the important success elements and problems of deploying D2C models in the e-commerce business. The research question focuses on identifying the factors that contribute to the successful transition to D2C models and the obstacles businesses encounter along the way. Through qualitative research using the Eisenhardt method and in-depth case studies with industry experts, this study provides valuable insights into key success factors for direct-to-consumer (D2C) business models in e-commerce.The findings highlight that businesses that effectively implement D2C models utilize key success factors such as a clear value proposition, customer engagement and relationship build- ing, seamless online experiences, targeted marketing and digital advertising, brand identity and storytelling, and flexibility and adaptability. However, they also face challenges related to operational adjustments, marketing and branding investments, competition, and market saturation. Based on these research outcomes, this thesis provides recommendations for businesses seeking to switch to or implement D2C models in e-commerce. These recommendations emphasize embracing a customer-centric mindset, developing digital capabilities, foster- ing strong leadership commitment, leveraging data and analytics, establishing direct customer relationships, optimizing operational processes, building brand trust and credibility, and allocating resources wisely. This master's thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the key success factors and challenges associated with the transition to or implementation of D2C business models in the e-commerce industry. It provides advice to help companies successfully transition to D2C models.
In this thesis the effect of dc voltage bias on the equivalent series resistance (ESR) of capacitors and especially ferroelectric dielectric ceramic capacitors (FDCC) is analysed. Further the influence of the dc biased ESR on the losses of capacitors is investigated. Also piezoelectric resonances (PR) occurring in FDCCs with applied dc bias and their influence on the losses are analysed.
Therefore a measurement circuit to measure the impedance and thus the ESR of capacitors in combination with a vector network analyser (VNA) is developed. Using the developed circuit the ESR of capacitors of different technologies is measured and their behaviour with dc bias is evaluated. The losses of an FDCC are measured in a power electronic (PE) circuit with a developed calorimetric measurement system (CMS). The influence of the PR is investigated by tuning the switching frequency of the PE system and thus the frequency of the capacitor current exactly into the PR. The measured losses are then compared to a calculation based on the capacitor current harmonics and the respective ESR.
The measurements show an increase of the ESR with dc bias for all measured FDCCs. The loss measurements show a significant increase of the losses in an FDCC if the current frequency matches the PR frequency. Consequently a decrease of the PE system's efficiency is measured. The loss calculations do not exactly match the measurements but there is a systematic deviation of the same order for all measurements.
This study aims to address the research gap surrounding the role of leadership in the formation of high-performance teams within startup companies. While there is existing research on high-performing teams, limited attention has been given to leadership in this environment. To bridge this gap, the study combines a literature review and qualitative analysis through semi-structured interviews with diverse stakeholders in startups, with the goal of providing practical guidance for startup executives based on the research findings. The study uncovers key aspects of leadership in high-performance teams, emphasizing the importance of skills such as motivation and support for team members, fostering psychological safety and trust, and effectively managing uncertainty. In addition to resource constraints and high expectations, the study sheds light on the challenges faced by leaders in startup and high-performance team environments, particularly the blurring of traditional leadership roles as team members seek autonomy and decision-making authority. These findings present opportunities for future research to explore this progressive leadership style. Overall, this study contributes to our understanding of leadership dynamics within high-performance teams operating in the context of startups. It offers valuable insights that can help startup executives navigate the complexities of leadership and foster the development of successful and high-performing teams.
In the current international business environment employees are spending large amounts of their time in meetings. More than ever these meetings take place remotely and often have the problem that individuals in the meeting do not share information or opinions. Employees often stay in muted in meetings and allow one or two participants to drive the conversation. This habit is especially troublesome for problem solving meetings. Problem solving meetings invite individuals from different disciplines to share and brainstorm possible causes for issues related to poor company outcomes. Active and open contribution from all members is required to achieve the group goals. This study aims to find methods that will increase contribution amongst meeting participants in regular meetings as well as problem solving meetings. The study tested sixteen topics for their influence on contribution in meetings. This was done in a survey, that was distributed within a multination engineering corporation, and on LinkedIn. There was a total of 68 responses. These responses were then separated by above average and below average participation in problem solving meetings. Hypothesis testing was done on the total group and separately on the problem-solving group. Employee participation in decision making and psychological safety were found to correlate highly with Contribution in meetings for both groups. Psychological safety was found to be of even greater importance to problem solving group. This study demonstrates that to increase contribution in meetings, leaders should provide a psychologically safe climate where employees share in the decision making. Furthermore, a psychologically safe environment is critical in problem solving meetings where members of different disciplines with low familiarity take part.
This master thesis investigates effective leadership behaviour of multicultural teams during change management. Multicultural teams can be highly effective in dealing with complex change processes and can represent a key player to tackle today’s VUCA-world challenges.
Effectiveness of multicultural teams during change depends critically on leadership with a range of specific behaviours. Involvement and support of the employees in a coaching role is key. Leaders need to display behaviours such as continuous development of cultural and emotional intelligence, critical self-reflection, open-mindedness, and readiness to serve as authentic role models. Furthermore, the creation of a sense of unity based on good communication and common sense is essential to build multicultural teams, and to enable them to embrace their differences as opportunity. Trust, transparency and a holistic change process are vital. Effectiveness essentially depends on the following factors: the organization’s culture, the characteristics of the employees and of their leader, and on the external environment. Leaders should take these factors into consideration at all times.
The term start-up has become indispensable when new ideas are to be turned into business ventures. The number of start-ups is continuously increasing, but at the same time, many new start-ups are marked by failure. The successful path from start-up to a stable business model is to be explored in more detail in this thesis. The focus here is on the various success factors and how decisive they are.
At present, start-ups are mainly focusing on the area of digitalisation, not only triggered by the Covid19 pandemic but also by the high demand for digital products and services. In the past, start-ups founded in Silicon Valley/USA have been incredibly successful. Nevertheless, currently many other countries offer decisive advantages for start-ups and are therefore more attractive than the Silicon Valley. In Europe, Spain stands out with a rapidly growing start-up scene, primarily in the metropolises of Madrid and Barcelona.
This Master's thesis aims to empirically investigate the interrelationships of the necessary success factors in the start-up scene for the country of Spain. The focus of the study here is on the digitalisation industry. Qualitative content analysis is used for closer examination and is carried out through expert interviews. Qualitative research allows a much deeper insight into the interviewees' personal experiences and examines non-measurable factors. The subsequent evaluation is intended to present correlations and provide new insights. In summary, a list of recommendations is generated to provide future founders with suitable suggestions and advice right from the start.
This thesis investigates the role of leadership behaviours of C-level executives in the context of post-M&A integration processes. The primary focus is on understanding the impact of specific leadership behaviours on inspiring desirable follower effects and facilitating emotional acceptance during organizational change. Drawing on the frameworks presented in “Six- Dimension Integrative Model of Leadership” and "The Six Domains of Leadership" developed by Sitkin et al., the study conducts expert interviews with managers from middle management who have recently experienced M&A integration. The answers are analysed in depth to identify the most effective leadership behaviours, highlighting those mentioned most frequently and those capable of triggering multiple follower effects simultaneously. The result is a list of behaviours that can serve as a guideline for C-level executives who want to foster desirable follower effects throughout the M&A integration journey.
This thesis aims to determine how banks can prepare for fulfilling and implementing the IFRS S1 requirements, which have been published by the International Sustainability Standard Board. It also examines the extent to which banks in Liechtenstein and Switzerland have already implemented the existing regulatory requirements in the area of sustainability transparency and integrated them into their financial reporting. The focus is to determine whether, and to what extent, these requirements enable banks to disclose relevant information on sustainability aspects in their financial reports. In order to answer the research question appropriately, a qualitative research method according to Mayring was used, which included conducting expert interviews. In this context, it is important to analyze the possibilities of IFRS S1 concerning the identification, assessment, and disclosure of sustainability risks and opportunities. The thesis also analyzes the impact of the regulatory requirements on banks, including the challenges of implementing IFRS S1 and the potential benefits and opportunities for banks of complying with the sustainability transparency requirements. The results are intended to develop a better understanding of how the regulatory requirements for sustainability transparency can be effectively used by banks to improve the quality and comparability of sustainability-related financial information under IFRS S1.
Fear of failure is a major factor influencing entrepreneurial actions. Since the female quota for startups and self-employment is still lower than for men, the aim is to determine the extent to which the fear of failure is incorporated into the entrepreneurial actions of women in Austria. The trailblazer and pioneer in female entrepreneurship America is used as an international benchmark for evaluation. A quantitative survey was conducted among women from Austria and America on their fears of failure related to self-employment and their aspirations to become self-employed. There were significant differences in the quantitative study between self-employed and non-self-employed women, irrespective of their country of origin. As a result, recommendations for action were created to reduce the influence of Fear of Failure on entrepreneurial actions of Austrian women.
Digitalisation poses great challenges for regional tourism management. However, many organisations are currently undergoing a transformation from a marketing to a destination management organisation (DMO), which is why only a few have managed to adopt new digital approaches and to assert themselves as DMOs within the destination and against ever growing global platforms.
The presented master thesis therefore deals with this issue and aims to pave the way for DMOs to develop and use digital business models themselves.
The objective of the thesis is to develop a systematic process for the development of own DMO business models and to evaluate whether the establishment of a multi-sided platform as the recipe for the success of global platform providers is also suitable for DMOs. For this purpose, an extensive literature research was conducted and semi-structured expert interviews were evaluated. In addition, the Anchor Point Canvas was developed as a supporting framework for the modelling of business models for companies with historically grown structures and constraints.
The control measures for the COVID-19 pandemic, early 2020, caused a chain reaction that eventually led to a shortage of components in the electronic manufacturing industry. A lack of components meant that the production and sales were interrupted or even stopped. For many electronic manufacturing firms, this was seen as a crisis. A crisis is mostly divided into three phases called the pre-crisis phase, crisis management and post-crisis phase. The pre-crisis phase involves an environmental assessment and setting up of crisis management teams, and plan. The crisis management phase has to do with the collection and interpretation of information and the mitigation of the crisis. The post-crisis phase looks at learnings from the crisis. In this paper it was investigated how the electronic manufacturing firms in Vorarlberg managed the crisis in the period between 2020 and 2022. The overall aim was to get a full understanding of how it affected the operations regarding the respective crisis teams and which factors were considered most important for setting up the teams. Two basic criteria which had to be over-come was the uncertainty and lack of time. It was seen that even though the fundamental structure did not change, crisis teams were added in the form of a crisis management team and task forces. The task forces played a major role in getting an understanding of the problem and the effect it has on the business. The crisis management team, which includes high level managers from all affected functional areas, had to re-evaluate the high level strategy and decide what needs to be done, and who will be doing it. In order to do so, they needed to understand what the priorities are regarding components and products and then decide on the priorities regarding affected business. The new strategy was then handed down to the task forces for implementation. A major focus of this paper was also on decision making and how everything contributed to making decisions that had the right effect in resolving the financial crisis for the organizations.
In today’s world, fiber optic networks for data transmission are an essential technology. This technology provides multiple advantages compared to conventional electrical data transmission. The simultaneous transmission of multiple optical signals in a single fiber is one of the main benefits of fiber optic cable. This is accomplished by directing the different optical signals into a single fibre and splitting them up after the transmission in order to obtain the individual signals. Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs) are used for this purpose in modern optical networks. Design and evaluation process are two components of AWG development. During the evaluation of several simulated and already manufactured AWGs for telecommunication applications, it was discovered that the channel spacing parameter does not conform telecommunication standards. The correct shift of the geometric parameter ”separation of the output waveguides” leads to the standard-conform channel spacing.
According to the current state of the art, no commercial tool is available which calculates the shift of this parameter correctly. The aim of this thesis is the development of a software tool to calculate the accurate shifting of the geometric parameter ”separation of the output waveguides” of an AWG. This tool operates as an interface between the design and evaluation processes and must be able to import the data format of the evaluation process and returns the data in a suitable data format for the design process. The Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences uses three different methods for the shifting of the geometric parameter ”separation of the output waveguides”. These methods are evaluated and optimised as part of this thesis. Additionally, it has been determined that the shift of the geometric parameter ”separation of the output waveguides” has no significant impact on the performance of the AWG.
Whenever foreign activities turn out to be essential to ensure the company's goals and competitiveness, companies become international. New markets, new lucrative resources promise profitable growth. The new step beyond the national borders requires careful consideration based on the political conditions of the target market (e.g. stability of the political system, social peace, legal certainty, institutional barriers to market entry, attitude to direct investment). The legal framework, such as state funding, environmental protection laws, tax legislation, state requirements or bureaucratic regulations, appear to be at least as relevant too. However, SMEs often lack the capacity and/or courage to take this step. Political authorities at the European level and below are aware of this problem. Numerous studies show that internationalisation is not only necessary to improve competitiveness, but greatly promote innovation, e.g. within international collaborations, it is important to get the authorities to treat these issues with special attention. Governmental promotion is supposed to work in terms of establishing regional balance and supporting socially relevant topics and research. Nevertheless, despite the willingness to support SMEs in their cross-border projects, billions of released Euros are lying around and have not been used. It seems reasonable to assume money is not easy to come by. Enormous bureaucratic hurdles are on everyone's lips. But is that the only reason? Are the people sufficiently informed to be able to take advantage of the numerous financing opportunities? Or is there even more behind the invisible hurdle at first glance? To ascertain this circumstance more precisely, an in-depth analysis to answer the research question ‘what can the institutions do better to make it easier for SMEs to access funding?’ is required.
A rapid change to remote work during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic allowed many organizations to roll out new collaboration platforms to rapidly digitalize their workflows and processes in order to continue operation. This sudden shift to remote work revealed to employees the potential benefits of working remotely in the form of additional flexibility and also showed the challenges and barriers organizations could face by introducing such a strategy. This thesis aims to uncover the key considerations that the organizations of the industrial sector in Vorarlberg need to consider establishing a remote work strategy. According to the results from the research, the Covid-19 pandemic was as a paradigm change for the interviewed decision makers about how they thought about remote work and how they transformed their respective organizations too continue to operate. After the initial phase of Covid-19 restrictions organizations started to experiment with a remote work strategy of their own, based on their past experiences. For now, most of the interviewed organizations use already different remote work concepts and evaluate which one suits best their needs. The main considerations as to why an organization introduced a remote work strategy are to be an attractive employer and to stay ahead in the search for new talent. Further by introducing a remote work strategy, organizations need to change their rules of collaboration, adapt their core values to fit a remote workplace and to introduce collaboration platforms which are designed to support a remote workforce.
In times of global climate change, it is increasingly important to investigate emissions and resource consumption of all machines and, if possible, to improve them. This includes within the transport sector car ferries.
In order to reduce the environmental impacts of car ferries, the electrification has penetrated into this sector, which has led to the world's first fully electric car ferry. One of the most important components to operate this ferry is the energy storage. Not only the battery storage of the ferry itself is needed, but also an onshore battery storage system is needed to support the electrical grid.
The present study examines how storage technologies and concepts can impact the environment considering the world's first all-electric car ferry, MF Ampere, which operates in Norway.
To examine this, the current onshore battery storage system is compared to a concrete sphere storage system. For this purpose, data from the first test run of this new storage technology, which was successfully carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute in 2016, is considered. Subsequently, a life cycle assessment of the two storage systems is carried out to compare the environmental impacts.
The concrete sphere storage system performs better for 15 of 17 impact categories compared to the existing onshore battery storage system. Depending on the impact category the impact reduction is about 2% to 8%.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to estimate how long the useful life and how good the efficiency of the concrete ball storage will be, since no system of this size has been tested yet. Also, the costs of the concrete sphere storage system have not been considered.
A concept for a recommender system for the information portal swissmom is designed in this work. The challenges posed by the cold start problem and the pregnancy-related temporal interest changes need to be considered in the concept. A state-of-the-art research on recommender systems is conducted to evaluate suitable models for solving both challenges. The explorative data analysis shows that the article's month of pregnancy is an important indicator of how relevant an article is to a user. Neither collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, hybrid models, nor context-aware recommender systems are applicable because the user's pregnancy phase is unknown in the available data. Therefore, the proposed recommender system concept is a case-based model that recommends articles which belong to the same gestation phase as the currently viewed article.
This recommender system requires that the month of pregnancy, in which an article is relevant, is known for each article. However, this information is only available for 31% of all articles about pregnancy. Consequently, this work looks for an approach to predict the month of gestation based on the article text. The challenges with this are that only few training data are available, and the article texts of the various months of pregnancy often contain the same terms, considering all articles are about pregnancy. A keyword-based approach using the TF-IDF model is compared with a context-based approach using the BERT model. The results show that the context-based approach outperforms the keyword-based approach.
Having autonomy in the workplace can have a positive impact on employees’ performance, which in turn can benefit the organization’s competitive advantages. While previous researches have primarily focused on the psychological effects of job autonomy on employee performance and has been limited to certain domains, the relationship between job autonomy and organizational design is an important area of study for organizations seeking to improve their competitiveness. This thesis proposes a conceptual model for designing an organization structure that promotes employee performance in manufacturing companies by removing obstacles towards obtaining job autonomy. The focus is on ambitious employees who seek growth and development opportunities within their organization. The model is based on a review of existing literature on job autonomy and organizational design. Exploratory qualitative research was conducted with selected ambitious employees from different industries by means of one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Overall, the proposed model has practical implications for manufacturing companies looking to motivate their employees, as well as for researchers seeking to advance their understanding of organizational design in our times.