Vienna University of Economics and Business
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Transformative Innovation
Full text linkThis article scrutinizes the potential of transformative innovations to contribute to social-ecological
transformations. It problematizes the positive connotation linked to innovations in tackling
contemporary social and environmental challenges by giving an overview of theories of innovation,
with a focus on social innovations, and systematizing the multiple meanings of the term
transformation. We define transformative innovations as innovations that contribute to those
transformations that are desirable and feasible in a specific conjuncture. Desirable are innovations
that enable a good life for all within planetary boundaries, feasible are those that can be
implemented here and now, given specific constellations of actors, power relations and structural
constraints and possibilities. Furthermore, we describe the current conjuncture, dwell on collective
and political actions and explore one promising transformative innovation: creating and
strengthening sustainable and inclusive provisioning systems, that are feasible in the short term
and effective in the long-term.Series: SRE - Discussion Paper
Environmental Concern and the Determinants of Night Train Use: Evidence from Vienna (Austria)
Full text linkThis paper investigates which factors determine the intention to take a night train, emphasizing the
role of environmental concern. We employ a Theory of Planned Behavior framework. We built a
survey based on elicitation study, which resulted in an online survey being conducted on a
convenience sample in Vienna (Austria). Our results show that in particular environmental concern
and familiarity with night train services play a significant role in the formation of the intention to take
a night train. Among the significant factors that are associated with a high intention to take a night
train are the belief that night trains are comfortable, that one can save the cost of a night in a hotel,
and that night trains tend to arrive at and depart from the city center. Factors that deter travelers
from taking a night train include a high price, the sharing of cabins, and long travel times.Series: SRE - Discussion Paper
Die Landschaft von Firmenzentralen in Österreich: Ein Überblick
Full text linkFirmenzentralen von multinationalen Unternehmen spielen eine wichtige Rolle für die Wirtschaft eines Landes, da sie Aktivitäten mit hoher Wertschöpfung durchführen, hochqualifiziertes Personal beschäftigen und eine wichtige Quelle für Steuereinnahmen darstellen. Dank Österreichs Lage im Herzen Europas und anderer Merkmale, die das Land für multinationale Unternehmen besonders attraktiv machen, ist Österreich Sitz vieler in- und ausländischer Firmenzentralen. Mit diesem deskriptiven Bericht wollen wir einen umfassenden und detaillierten Überblick über die Landschaft von Firmenzentralen in Österreich geben. Basierend auf einer Datenbank, die 2021 durch Triangulation von Daten aus „Orbis“ (Bureau van Dijk) mit anderen öffentlich zugänglichen Daten aus Geschäftsberichten und früheren Bericht erstellt wurde, haben wir 1.439 Firmenzentralen in Österreich identifiziert. Eine Analyse der Arten von Firmenzentralen, ihres Standorts, ihrer Größe, ihres Sektors und ihrer Herkunft bringt interessante Ergebnisse zutage. Erstens beherbergt Österreich nicht nur viele inländische Firmenzentralen, sondern auch viele intermediäre Firmensitzstrukturen von Großunternehmen aus dem europäischen (z.B. Deutschland) und außereuropäischen Ausland (z.B. USA). Viele dieser Länder wählen Österreich, um Zugang zu den Nachbarländern, wie Deutschland und den osteuropäischen Ländern, zu erhalten. Darüber hinaus ist die Landschaft von Firmenzentralen in Österreich durch eine Vielzahl von Branchen und verschiedenen Größen der Firmenzentralen gekennzeichnet, wobei kleine und mittlere Unternehmen (KMU) die Szene dominieren. Schlussendlich ist Wien mit 569 Firmenzentralen eindeutig das Zentrum der österreichischen Landschaft von Firmenzentralen
Tokenizing Behavior Change: A Pathway for the Sustainable Development Goals
Full text linkTo be successful and sustainable, social impact programs require individuals and groups to change aspects of their behavior. As blockchain-based tokens are increasingly adopted to target social outcomes, it is important to properly define these activities as “behavior change interventions” and assess their design and management as such—otherwise, there is significant risk of possible unintended consequences. Designing tokens as behavior change interventions requires new constructs beyond those currently in use to model the interdependence of digital and social ecosystems, and integration of token engineering, cryptoeconomics, and behavioral skill sets to test token designs within various ecosystems. New token design and testing protocols that integrate behavior measures around the targeted social outcomes are needed, to fill a critical gap in current practice. Hence, new standards, operational frameworks, and ethics are needed to guide the use of tokens at scale, as tools to achieve social impacts such as attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Meeting these needs requires a collaborative approach between token design actors (computer scientists, cryptoeconomists, token engineers, etc.) and social impact practitioners who will be increasingly called upon to use tokens as behavior change tools. This paper begins to identify common ground and address areas to further develop research and practice of tokens being used for social impact
A study into the contingencies of process improvement methods
Full text linkThe design and improvement of business processes is of central importance for realizing benefits of information systems. A broad spectrum of methods has been proposed since the 1990s, which ranges into several dozen. It is unclear whether this large number trivially stems from copying and relabeling or whether there are substantial differences in these methods that can be tied to their applicability in different contexts or to the pursuit of different goals. Accordingly, we ask: Which activities do process improvement methods have in common, how do they differ, and why? In this paper, we approach these research questions using a multi-method design integrating techniques from systematic literature review, process mining, and statistical analysis. Our contributions are as follows. First, we provide a framework with 264 activities clustered in six stages that could be used for incrementally and radically improving processes. Second, we find that methods map to different configurations of the three dimensions described by the redesign orbit. Third, we uncover similarities and differences of the different methods contingent to the factors industry, objectives and whether a method is proposed or applied. Fourth, we observe three distinct clusters of method activities, which show that different strategies play a role when choosing a method for improvement. Our findings have important implications for the application of improvement methods in various improvement scenarios
A hybrid multi-regional input-output model of China: Integrating the physical agricultural biomass and food system into the monetary supply chain
Full text linkLacking systematic supply-use information of agricultural biomass and food products within China makes the existing provincial environmental pressure assessments (e.g., water consumption) either not detailed enough (e. g., by the input-output table-based approach) or not comprehensive enough (e.g., by the process-based approach). This study develops a symmetric inter-provincial multiregional input-output (MRIO) model that hybridizes the physical food and agricultural biomass system with the monetary supply chain of China. First, we construct the inter-provincial supply, use, and input-output tables in physical units of 84 agriculture, food and forestry products. These physical supply/use/MRIO tables systematically capture agrifood product flows, at an unprecedented level of product detail, along domestic supply chains within China. Then we integrate the physical MRIO table of agrifood products into the monetary all-sector MRIO table to construct a symmetric hybrid MRIO table of China. The application of our hybrid MRIO model to the case of provincial blue water footprint assessments reveals that the hybrid model enhances both the monetary MRIO table-based approach and the process-based approach from different aspects. For instance, the hybrid MRIO model can reduce the uncertainty of monetary MRIO modeling due to the aggregation of products with different environmental properties into homogeneous sectors. Lastly, uncertainty analysis is implemented to quantify the main sources of uncertainties, and understand the reliability of our new hybrid MRIO model for future sustainable development design
Trends and driving forces of China's virtual land consumption and trade
No full textLand resources are important for China's rapid economic development, especially for food and construction. China's land resources are under tremendous pressures, and therefore land use is increasingly displaced to other parts of the world. This study analyses the evolution and driving forces of China's land consumption from 1995 to 2015. The main results show that China's land footprint increased from 8.8% of the global land resources under human use in 1995 to 15.7% in 2015. China's domestic land resources are mainly used for serving domestic consumption. Moreover, China needs to import virtual land from foreign countries to satisfy 30.8% of its land demand. Among the three land use types of cropland, grassland and forests, grassland had the largest fraction in China's land footprint from 1995 to 2000, while forest has become the largest one since 2000. China's virtual land trade experienced a sharp increase in net imports from 9.4E + 04 km2 in 1995 to 3.4E + 06 km2 in 2015. Observing China's virtual land network by a cluster analysis, this study concludes that China keeps tight relationships with Australia, Japan, Brazil and Korea for its cropland consumption, and Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Korea and Japan are relevant for its grassland consumption. In addition, decomposition analysis results show that affluence is the major driving factor for China's land consumption, while changes in land use intensity could mitigate some of the related effects. Lastly, policy recommendations are proposed so that China can move toward sustainable land management.Security: staffonl
The Beach: Tax Competition along the Italian Coasts
Full text linkSpace: the final frontier. This paper seeks to understand the spatial dimension of tax competition. We provide two novel contributions to the literature on tax competition. First, we present a spatial model of tax competition, which is an adoption of the Hotelling model of imperfect competition in the linear city. We find that tax rates are strategic complementarities, as a change in taxes of one town will lead to a similar change of tax rates in neighboring towns. Second, we test the model with data from tourism taxes along the Italian coastline. We find that towns on the Thyrennian coast reduce their tax rates in order to attract tourists and additional tax base. We do not find a similar effect on the Adriatic coast, but we still see a reaction of tax rates, pointing to yardstick competition.Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Serie
Lebensweisen und Infrastrukturen des Alltäglichen Lebens: Transformative Innovationen für eine Zukunftsfähige Alltagsökonomie in Wien am Beispiel Atzgersdorf
Full text linkDer Beitrag untersucht innovative und kontextspezifische Strategien für eine zukunftsfähige
Stadtentwicklung in Wien. Dabei skizzieren wir zuerst eine kurze Geschichte des
Innovationsbegriffs und plädieren für ein neues Innovationsverständnis. Transformative
Innovationen verknüpfen einen alltagsökonomischen Zugang zu Innovation, d.h. die qualitativ
hochwertige und inklusive Befriedigung kurzfristiger Alltagsbedürfnisse (insbesondere durch
kollektiven Konsum), mit langfristigen ökologischen Notwendigkeiten. Vermeintlich „ökologische“
Umweltpolitik wird so zur sozialökologischen Mitweltpolitik. Nur als solche kann eine Politik der
sozialökologischen Transformation mehrheitsfähig, d.h. hegemonial, werden. Daran anknüpfend
untersucht der Beitrag Ansatzpunkte für transformative Innovationen am Fallbeispiel Atzgersdorf.
Die Analyse dieses Fallbeispiels zeigt (1) wie die Befriedigung von, in der Nachbarschaft kollektiv
definierten Alltagsbedürfnissen, insbesondere die Stärkung der erweiterten Nahversorgung, zu
einem sozialökologisch besseren gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnis im Sinne einer Nachbarschaft
der kurzen Wege beitragen kann. Um dieses Potenzial zu realisieren (2) problematisieren wir
strukturelle Hindernisse, insbesondere die Dominanz des motorisierten Individualverkehrs, und (3)
erkunden konkrete Pfade um diese Hindernisse effektiv zu überwinden und neue Lebensformen zu
etablieren.Series: SRE - Discussion Paper