The blog post can be found here.

Location: WiWi 1 building, A 1050/1060

Instructor: Ximena Garcia-Rada

Program: Download PDF Program

Register: diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

The Diginomics Graduate Group together with the BreLAB will organize a workshop given by Ximena Garcia-Rada (Harvard Business School) on „Experimental Design & Methods“ for Phd candidates and all other interested colleagues of the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics on April 23-24, 2020. The workshop will offer an overview of experimental research methods applicable to marketing, social psychology, and other related fields. Based on behavioral approaches, the course will introduce how to design and run different types of experiments in a lab or field environment.

Ximena Garcia-Rada is a Doctoral Candidate in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School. She specializes in consumer behavior in the context of close relationships using laboratory experiments, field studies, and archival data. Before joining Harvard University, she worked as a research associate at Duke University, where she studied how social and cultural factors impact decision-making and dishonest behavior. Ximena received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Universidad de Lima and an MBA from INCAE Business School.

Speaker: Dr. Veronica Hoch, Academic Councillor, Ruhr-University Bochum, Chair of Civil Law, Corporate Law and Law of Family Business

Title: "Aber das Programm hat gesagt..." - Management Decisions, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics"

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Veronica Hoch from the Ruhr-University Bochum at our next Diginomics Brownbag seminar. She will give a lecture on "Aber das Programm hat gesagt..." - Management Decisions, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics". Dr. Veronica Hoch is Academic Councillor at the Chair of Civil Law, Corporate Law and Law of Family Businesses at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Her research areas include commercial and corporate law, capital market law, insolvency law, tax law and civil procedure law. A short summary of the work that Dr. Veronica Hoch is going to present can be found below:

Abstract. „Bald sind wir alle überflüssig…“ – Ein Satz, den man auch als Jurist immer öfter hört. Auslöser dieser düsteren Prophezeiung sind die jüngeren Fortschrittedes Legal Tech-Marktes. Durch die Entwicklungen im Bereich der Künstlichen Intelligenz wachsen die Anwendungsfelder solcher Systeme mit erheblicher Geschwindigkeit. Das Ideal der Entwickler ist die vollständig automatisierte Rechtsberatung mittels Software. Die Beantwortung einzelner Rechtsfragen ausschließlich durch Rechtsberatungssoftware ist bereits heute teilweise möglich. Der Fortschritt in diesen Bereichen führt jedoch zu einer Vielzahl rechtlicher Fragestellungen in verschiedensten Rechtsgebieten. Von erheblicher Relevanz sind die rechtliche Zulässigkeit solcher Systeme und die Haftungsfolgen bei Fehlberatungen. Zudem stellt sich die Frage, in welchem Umfang der Einsatz solcher Systeme in der Praxis überhaupt zulässig ist und welche rechtlichen Konsequenzen sich durch deren Nutzung ergeben. Die anfänglich erwartungsgemäß dominierenden Nutzer entsprechender Systeme werden sich in der Rechtsberatungsbranche und in Großunternehmen, bei denen regelmäßiger Entscheidungs- und Beratungsbedarf bezüglich Rechtsfragen besteht, finden.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christoph Merkle, Kühne Logistics University.

Title: Algorithm Aversion in Financial Investing

Prof. Dr. Christoph Merkle from the Kühne Logistics University will be our next guest lecturer at the Diginomics Brownbag seminar on Wednesday, November 27, 2019.  He will give a talk on the topic of "Algorithm Aversion in Financial Investing". Before Prof. Dr. Christoph Merkle joined the KLU, he was Professor of Finance and Banking at the University of Mannheim from 2012 to 2017, where he earlier received his PhD. His research interests include Behavioral Finance, Household Finance, Experimental Economics, Decision Research, and Digital Finance.

Further information about Prof. Dr. Christoph Merkle is available here.

A short introduction to the work that Prof. Dr. Christoph Merkle will be presenting can be found below:

The tendency of humans to shy away from using algorithms|even when algorithms observably outperform their human counterpart|has been referred to as algorithm aversion. We conduct an experiment to test for algorithm aversion in nancial decision making. Participants acting as investors can tie their incentives to either a human fund manager or an investment algorithm. We nd no sign of algorithm aversion: Investors care about returns, but do not have strong preferences which intermediary obtains these returns. Contrary to what has been suggested, investors are also not quicker to lose con dence in the algorithm after seeing it err. However, we nd that investors are unable to fully separate skill and luck when evaluating either intermediary.

The presentation took place during the international workshop "Artificial Intelligence - Between Panacea and Skynet" that took place in Bremen from September 26 to 28, 2019. The workshop was organized by the Center for Regional and Innovation Economics (CRIE) under the direction of Dirk Fornahl of the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics at the University of Bremen. During the workshop, scientists discussed the development and drivers of artificial intelligence, its economic impact, and the potential of the application of AI techniques in innovation economics.

In this context, Björn Jindra and Matheus Eduardo Leusin also participated in another workshop in Strasbourg organized by the BETA Group entitled "Economics of Science and Innovation". The BETA Group is a joint research unit of the universities of Strasbourg and Lorraine, alongside the CNRS, INRA, and AgroParisTech. We would like to thank the group for the organization of the event and especially Stefano Bianchini, who was also the main organizer of the AI-related workshop and is an active partner of the international AI network.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/diginomics-in-town-tickets-74802812225

To the interview: Link.

Bild: Pixabay License

Lecturer: Dr. Michael Koch, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University Denmark

Topic: "Robots and Firms"

The "Diginomics" research group invites to the first Diginomics Brownbag seminar of the winter semester 2019/2020. We are delighted to welcome Dr. Michael Koch, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, as our guest speaker. You will find a short summary of Dr. Koch’s upcoming talk on "Robots and Firms" below:

Abstract. We study the implications of robots at the level of individual firms using a rich panel data-set of Spanish manufacturing firms over a 27-year period (1990-2016). We focus on three central questions: (1) Which firms adopt robots? (2) What are the labor market effects of robot adoption at the firm level? (3) How does firm heterogeneity in robot adoption affect the industry equilibrium? To address these questions, we look at our data through the lens of recent attempts in the literature to formalize the implications of robot technology. As for the first question, we establish robust evidence that ex-ante larger and more productive firms are more likely to adopt robots, while ex-ante more skill-intensive firms are less likely to do so. As for the second question, we find that robot adoption generates substantial output gains in the vicinity of 20-25% within four years, reduces the labor cost share by 5-7%-points, and leads to net job creation at a rate of 10%. These results are robust to controlling for non-random selection into robot adoption through a difference-in-differences approach combined with a propensity score reweighting estimator. Finally, we reveal substantial job losses in firms that do not adopt robots, and a productivity-enhancing reallocation of labor across firms, away from non-adopters, and toward adopters.

Speaker: Dr. Moritz Heiden, Senior Investment Expert, Munich Re.

Title: Investor vs. Investment Return: The Curious Case of Systematic Investment Strategies

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Moritz Heiden from Munich Re at the next Diginomics Brownbag seminar. On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, he will give a lecture on "Investor vs. Investment Return: The Curious Case of Systematic Investment Strategies". Before joining Munich Re Financial Solutions as Senior Investment Expert and working for Scalable Capital and Union Investment, Dr. Heiden received his PhD in Financial Statistics from the University of Augsburg and studied Mathematical Finance at the University of Konstanz.

A brief introduction to the work that Dr. Moritz Heiden is going to present can be found below:

Based on examples from our recent paper “Retail investors’ trading behavior in foreign exchange markets”, I highlight how systematic investment strategies can be used to overcome prevalent behavioral biases. I’ll give practical insights into research and production of these strategies, highlighting the importance of rethinking the customer approach in a more and more digitalized world.

Date and time: 28.11.19 from 17:15 to 19:45

Registration: www.gpm-ipma.de/events/regionale_veranstaltungen/detail/digitalisierung_im_projektmanagement.html

The Diginomics Group and the regional group Bremen/Oldenburg of the Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement are pleased to invite you to the second event of the speaker series "Diginomics Research Talks" on Thursday, November 28, 2019. The event, "Digitalization in Project Management",  will start at 17:15. A short introduction to the topic can be found below:

Digitization is often conjured in project management, but it is rarely found in business reality. In some projects, it is still considered as a big step forward if the Excel spreadsheet with the project figures is accessible to all project participants on the team drive. Meanwhile, some software vendors are already working on "artificial intelligence" in project management, and project organizations are experiencing that being "agile and digital" is not just a technical challenge. Who are the providers on the market for project management software, what stages and approaches to digitalization exist in practice - and why are bankruptcy projects not long since a thing of the past, despite digital assistants?

More detailed information about the event can be found here.

Lecturer: Prof. Youngjin Yoo, Case Western Reserve University

Title: AI as Information Infrastructure and the Future of Firms

Workshop: 15:15 - 17:15, room A2020, WiWi1 building.

On December 12, 2019, Prof. Youngjin Yoo (Case Western Reserve University; https://weatherhead.case.edu/faculty/Youngjin-Yoo/) will visit the Diginomics Research Group and give a lecture on "AI as Information Infrastructure and the Future of Firms." Youngjin Yoo is one of the world's leading researchers in the field of "Digital Innovation/Digital Transformation" and has published and edited numerous papers in elite journals such as Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal and Organization Science. A summary of the presentation and a short CV of Prof. Yoo can be found below.

Following the presentation at the Brownbag Seminar, a workshop with Prof. Yoo on further development of research papers will take place. The purpose of the workshop will be to present 2 to 4 current working papers and to discuss with Prof. Yoo how they can be improved and made ready for publication. The workshop will start at 15:15 in room A2020 in the WiWi1 building and will end at 17:15.

Abstract. In this talk, I develop two interrelated ideas. First, I put forward the notion that it is beneficial to conceptualize artificial intelligence (AI) as an assemblage of distributed heterogeneous computing resources, autonomous algorithm, and ever-changing data, in short, information infrastructure. By seeing AI as assemblage, I explicitly recognize that “intelligence” of AI is a dynamic emergent property of the temporary and dynamic binding of distributed and heterogenous hardware, software and data in information infrastructure. Just like intelligence emerges from temporary connections among neurons — one that is actualized instance out of innumerable other possible such connections —, artificial intelligence must be understood as actualized instances of connections among heterogeneous and distributed elements in vast information infrastructure, out of innumerable other possible connections among distributed and heterogenous elements in information infrastructure. Such a distributed and infrastructure-centric view of AI, contrary to a view that sees AI as a discrete container of algorithms, provides a plausible explanation on the historical evolution of AI. More importantly, it recognizes the multiplicity, temporality, and situationality of emergent intelligence of AI. 

Second, given the increasingly important role that emergent intelligence of AI in firms, I argue that we need a new theory of a firm that recognizes how information infrastructure is centrally integrated in the value creation process by which algorithms mobilize deferred, temporary, situational, and recombinant assemblage of material physical and non-material digital assets to produce marketable goods and services. The emergent intelligence of algorithms then must be treated as the core element of any attempt to build a new theory of a firm. This will lead to the unbundling and re-bundling of the traditional firms, and the contemporary digital innovation phenomenon like digital platform ecosystems must be understood in this context.  I will use the digital transformation of healthcare as an empirical illustration to support this argument. I will conclude by speculating theoretical and managerial implications of the emergence of the new model of a firm.

Short CV. Youngjin Yoo is the Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Professor in Entrepreneurship and Professor of Information Systems at the department of Design & Innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. An Association of Information Systems Fellow, he is also WBS Distinguished Research Environment Professor at Warwick Business School, UK. and a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, UK.  He is the founding faculty director of xLab at Case Western Reserve University. He has worked as Innovation Architect at the University Hospitals in Cleveland, overseeing the digital transformation efforts at one of the largest teaching hospital systems in the country. He studies digital innovation and publishes at leading academic journals such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, the Communications of the ACM, and the Academy of Management Journal among others.

Given the growing importance of "Big Data" in the course of increasing data availability of websites, social media and electronic applications, the possibilities to make this data usable for science are growing. At the same time, increasing computing power and algorithms of artificial intelligence offer the possibility of adequately recording and analyzing vast volumes of data. The doctoral course specifically covered the topics "Exploratory Data Analysis" and "Unsupervised Machine Learning," "Network Analysis," "Block Modelling," "Text as Data" and "Web Scraping".

Matheus E. Leusin is a member of the Diginomics group of the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics at the University of Bremen. His research focuses on the worldwide development and dissemination of artificial intelligence based on patent and publication data. He will use the knowledge gained in the doctoral course for text analysis of patents and publications, e.g., by Natural Language Processing. Likewise, the methods taught in the course will allow him to analyze future patent and publication behavior, e.g., by supervised machine learning. In addition, his advanced knowledge of methods in the field of web scraping allows him to generate new data from sources that have not been systematically accessible so far.

The article is an important contribution to the project “Energy system transformation, digitalization, and labor market: Effects on growth and distribution” of the Diginomics Research Group.

This article is also available as Discussion Paper #1903 in the series of Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation of the Institute for economic research and policy (ierp).

Link to the discussion paper: http://elib.suub.uni-bremen.de/edocs/00107733-1.pdf

This contribution is also available as Discussion Paper #1902 in the series of Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation of the Institute for economic research and policy (ierp).

Link to the discussion paper: http://elib.suub.uni-bremen.de/edocs/00107732-1.pdf

Date and time: 22.10.19 from 15:00 to 17:45

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/diginomics-in-town-tickets-74802812225

The research group "Diginomics" of the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics at the University of Bremen invites you to the kick-off event of the speaker series "Diginomics Research Talks" that will take place in the Kontorhaus Passage in Bremen at 3 pm on October 22, 2019.

The aim of the speaker series is to exchange information with companies and the general public about questions and challenges of digitalization. The participants of the event will gain insights into current research topics and practical solutions from the economic sciences that can be used to master the challenges of digitalization. At the end of each event, there will be an opportunity to talk to the professors of the department in an informal setting and to establish contacts.

After a short introduction of the "Diginomics" research group by Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf and Prof. Dr. Jörg Freiling, the series of events will open with a topic "Work 4.0" - Social Workplace: The example of the DIGILAB innovation projects”. The DIGILAB innovation project (which was initiated by the Senator for Economic Affairs, Labour and Europe) shows how students examine the question of what constitutes a "Social Workplace" and how to achieve this status using the example of the practice-oriented innovation project "Social Workplace". The innovation project was implemented in cooperation with the BTC AG Oldenburg and the Chair for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Start-Up and Entrepreneurship (LEMEX) of the University of Bremen. Experiences and findings from the project will be presented and reflected in a case study. This will be followed by an open discussion between panel and plenum on the topic "Transdisciplinary research and teaching at the intersection of innovation and digitalization" - with Dr. Yvonne Bauer (speaker for Work 4.0 and Experts in the office of the Senator for Economic Affairs, Labour and Europe of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen), Dr. Martin Holi (Project Manager DIGILAB Innovation Projects; LEMEX University Bremen) and Martin Ehlis (Senior Recruiter BTC AG Oldenburg). The event will conclude with informal networking over refreshments to get to know each other and exchange ideas.

About the DIGILAB Innovation Projects

The objective of the DIGILAB innovation projects of the Senator for Economic Affairs, Labour and Europe is conception and development of solutions for current entrepreneurial issues, especially new products and services in the context of digitalization. Interested companies can contact Dr. Martin Holi (holiprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de). A detailed presentation of the innovation project "Social-Workplace" can be found here: http://social-workplace.com/

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Martin Spann, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.

Title: Location Based Targeting

The Diginomics group is looking forward to welcoming Prof. Dr. Martin Spann from the LMU Munich as the first guest speaker of the Brownbag seminar this year. He will give a lecture on "Location Based Targeting" on Wednesday, January 8, 2020. Professor Spann is Director of the Institute for Electronic Commerce and Digital Markets and Dean of Research at the Faculty of Business Administration at the LMU Munich. Apart from numerous research stays at renowned universities such as New York University (NYU) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he published in leading international journals, including Marketing Science, Management Science and the Journal of Marketing. His current research interests are as follows:

• Pricing strategies and tactics (e.g., auctions, dynamic pricing, behavioral pricing)
• Digital advertising (e.g., mobile marketing, social media)
• Digital platforms (e.g., crowdsourcing, crowd work, sharing economy)

An abstract of the work that Prof. Dr. Martin Spann will be presenting at the seminar can be found below:

Abstract. Offline retailers increasingly use location-based advertising to target consumers in their vicinity in real time. The rationale for the use of location-based advertising is that geographic proximity increases the relevance for consumers and, thus, the effectiveness of these campaigns. This presentation presents the results of several field experiments regarding the design and effectiveness of location-based targeting. Further, it discusses implications for digital marketing practice and future research.

The CESifo Working Paper No. 7962 can be found here.

The abstract of the working paper:

We study the extent of fraud in initial coin offerings (ICOs), and whether information disclosure prior to the issuance predicts fraud. We document different types of fraud, and that fraudulent ICOs are on average much larger than the sample average. Issuers that disclose their code on GitHub are more likely to be targeted by phishing and hacker activities, which suggests that there are risks related to disclosing the code. Generally, we find it extremely difficult to predict fraud with the information available at the time of issuance. This calls for the need to install a third-party that certifies the quality of the issuers, such as specialized platforms, or the engagement of institutional investors and venture capital funds that can perform a due diligence and thus verify the quality of the project.

On behalf of the Diginomics Graduate Group, we would like to thank you for your active participation and hope to welcome you again at the next Diginomics Research Talk.

The paper presented by Lars Hornuf can be downloaded free of charge from SSRN.

A brief summary of the working paper was recently published on the Machine Lawyering Blog.

Over the past decade, new segments and players have emerged in the entrepreneurial finance market. The rules of the game and the methods of obtaining finance have changed in many ways. The special issue and the editorial in Small Business Economics focus on crowdfunding (CF) and initial coin offerings (ICOs), two different but important market segments of finance for start-up companies. Although the two market segments initially appear to be very similar, the authors note important differences between them. The comparison focuses on the stakeholders, microstructures, regulatory framework and the development of the markets. The authors also provide an outlook for future ICO and CF research.

The article is available here.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Melanie Arntz, ZEW Mannheim and University of Heidelberg.

Title: Automation, Employment, and Wages: Is This Time Different?

On Thursday, 23.01.2020, the Diginomics group is pleased to welcome Prof. Dr. Melanie Arntz with a lecture on "Automation, Employment, and Wages: Is This Time Different?" at the Brownbag Seminar. Melanie Arntz is deputy of ZEW's Research Department “Labour Markets and Human Resources” and Leibniz Professor of Labour Economics at the University of Heidelberg. Her research focusses on the question how changing labour market conditions such as an increasing digitalization of work tasks and the proceeding international division of production processes affects labour markets and individuals.

A summary of the work that Prof. Dr. Melanie Arntz will present in the Brownbag Seminar can be found below, a detailed CV of the lecturer can be found here.

Abstract. Robotics, artificial intelligence, and other recent technological advances allow machines to replace workers in an increasing range of tasks. While many economists argue that this time is no different from past technological revolutions that did not spark mass unemployment, public alarmists now fear the end of work. Yet, this is a false dichotomy, as new  technologies potentially give rise to labor-replacing as well as complementing effects (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018a). Based on a theoretical framework that allows for both scenarios, we estimate the effect of adopting cutting-edge automation technologies on the German labor market using information from a new firm survey. We find that the net employment effect of such technologies in Germany is positive but small, masking large structural shifts across occupations and sectors. Moreover, in contrast to widespread perceptions, cutting-edge technologies do not substitute, but complement workers on net, while it is the more mature automation technologies that substitute the most for labor.

The article is available under:

https://rdcu.be/b39qe

Members of the Diginomics Group and graduates of our faculty have the opportunity to discuss their experimental designs with Ximena Garcia-Rada during a one-on-one meeting. The workshop will take place on June 15^th, 2020, from 15 to 17:00.

If you are interested, please contact diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

Initiated by Uwe Staroske from the SuUB and Jutta Günther, we are planning a workshop with a representative of the BVD, which is providing the database. The aim of the workshop is, first to give a general introduction for new users and interested, and second to update experienced users on new features, besides also offering the possibility of asking specific questions of individual interest.

The workshop will take place on June 25th, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.via Zoom.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de for the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

More about Orbis: Orbis offers information and data on more than 360 million companies worldwide. It captures and treats data from more than 160 separate providers and hundreds of BVD own sources. Therefore, it is a great data source for a variety of research fields as well as for business applications (e.g. Credit risk, transfer pricing analysis, business development, M&A and corporate finance). The SuUB offers access to “Orbis” for all library users: https://suche.suub.uni-bremen.de/peid=S00566451

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Daniel Fürstenau, Freie Universität Berlin

Title: Generativity and Growth in Digital Platforms

On Wednesday, 03.06.2020, the Diginomics group is pleased to welcome Prof. Dr. Daniel Fürstenau from Freie Universität Berlin with a lecture on "Generativity and Growth in Digital Platforms" at the Brownbag Seminar. Prof. Dr. Daniel Fürstenau is Assistant Professor at the department of Information Systems with a focus on Digital Transformation and IT Infrastructures. 

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Abstract. Generativity refers to the ability of a system to spark unbounded growth. This talk analyzes the relationship between generativity and growth in the context of digital platforms that have been opened up for outside developers that work side-by-side with corporate developers. We call this focal phenomenon the extended core. Through an analysis of four e-commerce platforms, we find that these platform’s extended core has exhibited mostly superlinear growth patterns, that the relationship between the generative discussions regarding the platform and platform growth is mediated through two generativity pathways: an internal generativity mechanism limiting contributions to privileged internal developers and an external generativity pathway creating forks and later crossing back the organizational boundary by resubmitting modified changes to the extended core. We further illustrate the generativity-enabling collaboration networks and their evolution using one detailed case example.  The results shed new light on generativity in the context of companies opening up an internal platform to an external digital platform.

* Visual Facilitators website

Presenter: Abayomi  Baiyere (Assistant Professor, PhD), Copenhagen Business School 

Title: Digital X and Digital Practice

On Wednesday, 01. July 2020, the Diginomics group is pleased to welcome Abayomi  Baiyere (Assistant Professor, PhD)  from Copenhagen Business School. Via Zoom he will give a talk to the topic "Digital X and Digital Practice". Abayomi Baiyere is an Assistant Professor at Digitalization Department of Copenhagen Business School; a Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research and a visiting scholar at University of Turku.  His research interest seats at the intersection of digital innovations, digital disruption and the societal impact of digitalization.

Abstract: 

The rise in the use of digital across several disciplines signals the emergence of a notable shift from prior non-digital logics. This is reflected by the relabeling of existing concepts as "digital x” - where x could be strategy, innovation, transformation etc.). There is an inkling in scholarship that there is something fundamentally different when digital is evoked. Yet, there is a conceptual lacuna on the distinctiveness of adding “digital" to established “x” concepts. This is particularly problematic as digital x and IT x are increasingly treated as synonyms with ontological indifference. The consequence is that theoretical insights will be proposed for digital with incompatible organizing logics as though it is IT. This challenges the cumulative potential of scholarly knowledge on digital X.

 In this talk, he questions the loose appropriation of digital x and highlight its potential value as an addition to our scholarly lexicon. In this regard, the talk zooms into two empirical studies, one that highlights some distinction between Digital and IT. Based on this, the notion of digital practices is proposed as a useful lens for articulating the unit of activity in digital transformation.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomics[at]uni-bremen.de or rgdnews[at]uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Orbis is a product of the Bureau van Dijk (BvD) and contains data from over 360 million companies around the world, including a variety of information such as business activity, performance, corporate structure, ownership and financial information, M&A etc. The “Orbis” database was acquired recently by the University Library (SuUB) through a joint effort from the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, and the SuUB. It is available for all members of the University of Bremen.

Matthias Müller, database expert, and Santhosh Metri, IT specialist, from BvD introduced into the use of the database and focused on the presentation of “Orbis IP” (Intellectual Property). “Orbis IP” links global patent data to companies and corporate groups, offering a variety of related data, such as legal changes in ownership of patents, potential values, technical quality evaluations, etc. The workshop participants discussed future possibilities of reserach using this further development of intellectual property information in “Orbis”. The organisers of the workshop will keep the participants informed about future developments.

Contact: Matheus Eduardo Leusin

"In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event and if investors experience more than two insolvencies. Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions."

The full article can be downloaded here.

The paper identifies countries at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and proposes two novel patent-based indicators to differentiate structural differences in the patterns of intellectual property protection observed for Artificial Intelligence across countries. China and the USA can be characterized as dominant national breeding grounds. Australia and selected European countries, but primarily the USA, are major international breeding grounds. We conclude that China promotes AI development with a major focus on IP protection in its domestic market, whereas the USA sustains its AI progress in the international context as well. This might indicate a considerable bifurcation in the structural patterns of IP protection in global AI development.

For further information klick here.

A related article was recently published in the ifo Schnelldienst and can be downloaded here: https://www.ifo.de/publikationen/2020/aufsatz-zeitschrift/der-deutsche-fintech-markt-im-jahr-2020

You find the radio interview here: https://apple.co/33Jgy6q

Moreover, documenting the characteristics of fraudsters is of paramount importance. The authors deploy the theoretical framework of the “Trust Triangle” to document campaign features that could be helpful to backers in detecting fraudsters in crowdfunding markets. The find fraudsters are less likely to have engaged in prior crowdfunding activities, are less likely to have a social media presence, and are more likely to provide easy-to-read campaign pitches with a greater number of enticements through pledge categories.

The full article can be downloaded here.

During the past decade, equity crowdfunding (ECF) has emerged as an alternative funding channel for startup firms. In Germany, the Small Investor Protection Act became binding in July 2015, with the legislative goal to protect investors engaging in this new asset class. Since then, investors pledging more than 1,000 EUR now must self-report their income and wealth. Investing more than 10,000 EUR in a single ECF issuer is only possible through a corporate entity. The authors examine how the Small Investor Protection Act has affected investor behavior at Companisto, Germany's largest ECF portal for startup firms.

The results show that after the new law became binding, sophisticated investors invest less on average while casual investors invest more. Moreover, the signaling capacity of large investments has disappeared.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Daniel Metko, Diginomics Group, University of Bremen

Title: Machine learning in stock return prediction

Daniel Metko, PhD student and member of the Diginomics Research Group, will give a talk on "Machine learning in stock return prediction" during the upcoming DiginomicsBrownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Morana, Saarland University

Title: Designing process guidance systems supporting individual’s process knowledge and process execution

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Stefan Morana of Saarland University will give a talk on "Designing process guidance systems supporting individual’s process knowledge and process execution” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomics@uni-bremen.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

"In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event and if investors experience more than two insolvencies.

Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions."

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Dr. Dennis-Kenji Kipker, Prof. Dr. Evren Eren, Prof Dr. Richard Sethmann and Carl Philipp Wrede, NorShiP (North-German Research School for Information Security, Computer Forensics and Privacy)

Title: Cybersecurity and Data Privacy from an interdisciplinary perspective: requirements, demands and measures

Dr. Dennis-Kenji Kipker, Prof. Dr. Evren Eren, Prof Dr. Richard Sethmann and Carl Philipp Wrede from NorShiP (North-German Research School for Information Security, Computer Forensics and Privacy) will give a talk on “Cybersecurity and Data Privacy from an interdisciplinary perspective: requirements, demands and measures” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Topic: AI Product Management

Dr Engel will give an introduction into AI product management - a topic many companies struggle to succeed with. In this talk, Dr Engel discusses a product-level approach towards creating value by using AI. He is going to show how product management concepts enable data science teams to frame the search for and implementation of ideas for innovation. In addition to that, Dr Engel will identify areas in which the product management frameworks for software products do not apply to AI products. Finally, he will discuss complementary approaches specific for AI products.

The background of this talk is given by the lacking abilities of many companies to deploy AI technologies to generate real customer value and eventually, economic impact. The problem derives from the entrenched habit to either using a firm-level AI strategy or a technology based approach by developing new models respectively algorithms. However, a data science team does not benefit from this in either way to maximize any short to medium-term profits.

The talk will take place as an online event via Zoom. The recording will be published later on YouTube.

Click here to register

Please find a recording of his talk here.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de, to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Florian Töpfl, University of Passau

Title: Publics as authoritarian input institutions: How digital criticism contributes to the stabilization of non-democratic rule

Prof. Dr. Florian Töpfl of University of Passau, will give a talk on “Publics as authoritarian input institutions: How digital criticism contributes to the stabilization of non-democratic rule” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Moreover, they evidence that intellectual stimulation by managers increases community participation, while individual consideration of users has no impact on user activities. Finally, the data reveal that community manager activities that require more effort, such as media file uploads instead of simple written comments, have a larger effect on crowd participation.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Maik Eisenbeiß, Diginomics Group and markstones Institute, Universität Bremen

Title: Modern forms of digital advertising

Prof. Dr. Maik Eisenbeiß of markstones Institute at University of Bremen and member of the Diginomics Research Group will give a talk on “Modern forms of digital advertising” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

"In this article, we examine how investor motives affect investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, we compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany and investigate whether they suffer from a default shock that was recently identified by Dorfleitner et al. (2019). In general, we find evidence of a default shock in equity crowdfunding that occurs immediately after the event and if investors experience more than two insolvencies.

Moreover, we find that sustainability-oriented investors pledge larger amounts of money and invest in more campaigns than ordinary crowd investors. The results also suggest that sustainability-oriented crowd investors care about non-financial returns, as they react more sensitively after experiencing a default in their equity crowdfunding portfolios, which indicates that they suffer beyond the pure financial loss. These findings contribute to recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and how individual investment motives and personal experiences affect investment decisions."

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Dr. Jan F. Klein, Tilburg University

Title: Quantified self and self-tracking technologies: an application in health care

Dr. Jan F. Klein from Tilburg University will give a talk on “Quantified self and self-tracking technologies: an application in health care” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Hapsatou, Diginomics Group, University of Bremen

Title: Digitalization of management of information flow in the supply chain of retail companies in Cameroon

Hapsatou, PhD student at the Chair of Maritime Business and Logistics and member of the Diginomics Research Group will give a talk on “Digitalization of management of information flow in the supply chain of retail companies in Cameroon“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Thanos Papadopoulos, University of Kent

Title: Supply Chain Management Aspects and Data Analytics Practices for Emergency Situations: a study of the UK Retail Sector

Prof. Dr. Thanos Papadopoulos from University of Kent will give a talk on “Supply Chain Management Aspects and Data Analytics Practices for Emergency Situations: a study of the UK Retail Sector” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fehrler, University of Bremen, Socium

Title: Committee decision-making under the threat of leaks

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fehrler of University of Bremen will give a talk on “Committee decision-making under the threat of leaks” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Markus Pelger, Stanford University

Title: Deep Learning in Asset Pricing

Prof. Dr. Markus Pelger from Stanford University will give a talk on „Deep Learning in Asset Pricing“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar. The event is co-organized by BREMEN.AI Data Lounge and the Data Science Center.

To get access to the Zoom meeting, please register via the Eventbrite page: Click here to register.

To watch the full video, click here.

Consistent with business angel (BA) and venture capital research they find geographic and industry closeness, the existence of patents and prototypes as well as the authenticity and tonality of the entrepreneurial pitch to have a positive effect on founders getting a deal during the show. Using a relative weight analysis, they evidence that the money BA provide and the screening they undertake are by themselves the most important factor regarding venture survival, subsequent propensity to generate web traffic, and sales. Moreover, having a well-known and well-connected BAs as board member trumps the existence of patents and prototypes with regard to post funding venture performance. These findings have broader implications for BA finance and other nascent players in the entrepreneurial finance ecosystem.

Speaker: Dr. Carsten Sørensen, London School of Economics and Political Science

Title: Let’s talk digital infrastructure: the digital reordering of rights, networks and community

Dr. Carsten Sørensen of London School of Economics and Political Sciencewill give a talk on “Let’s talk digital infrastructure: the digital reordering of rights, networks and community” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

To watch the full video, click here.

The highlight of the day was the presentation of Dr. Thieß Petersen, author of the book „Diginomics verstehen – Ökonomie im Licht der Digitalisierung,“ on the key topics of digitalization in an economic and business context. You can find a video of the presentation here.

Speaker: Theresa Kück, Diginomics Group, University of Bremen

Title: Initial Coin Offerings: a systematic literature review based on topic modeling

Theresa Kück, research associate at the Chair for Business Administration, in particular Financial Services and Financial Technology and member of the Diginomics Research Group at the University of Bremen, will give a talk on “Initial Coin Offerings: a systematic literature review based on topic modeling“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Paul P. Momtaz, UCLA Anderson School of Management and House of Finance, Frankfurt

Title: The Economics of Crypto Funds

Prof. Dr. Paul P. Momtaz of UCLA Anderson School of Management and House of Finance, Frankfurt will give a talk on “The Economics of Crypto Funds” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

To watch the full video, click here.

Speaker: Fabrizio Ciotti, Université Catholique de Louvain and Eliza Stenzhorn, Universität Bremen

Title: Lock-in effects in online labor markets

Fabrizio Ciotti of Université Catholique de Louvain and Eliza Stenzhorn, research associate at the Chair for Business Administration, in particular Financial Services and Financial Technology at University Bremen will give a talk on “Lock-in effects in online labor markets” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Date and time: 09.03.2021, 6 pm

Location: Online (Zoom)

On March 9, 2021 the Diginomics Research Group of the University of Bremen hosts Tobias Kölbel, Researcher (PhD) Economy of Things at Bosch. Tobias Kölbel will speak about

„Decentralized Economy of Things – Nucleus for Tomorrows Cross-Company Collaboration?“

Like many companies, Bosch is currently undergoing a transformation through digitalisation and is examining the use of new digital technologies. The focus is particularly on cross-company collaboration, which is becoming increasingly important. Data-based platforms are essential for a successful transformation. The strategic research project Economy of Things by Bosch Research deals with the negative implications of centralised platforms and shows decentralised approaches to solutions. The goal: A fair and open digital economy with cooperating market participants instead of dominant platform monopolists.

In his talk, Tobias Kölbel introduces the research field of the Economy of Things and deals with the technological capability of decentralised systems to strengthen the cooperative behavior of companies. He shows the potential of self-sovereign identity concepts for the identity management of tomorrow. Using the example of a manufacturing marketplace, he also outlines the extent to which decentralised technologies such as distributed ledger, blockchain, confidential computing or multi-party computation could be used for fair platforms.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Dong Jun Wu, Georgia Tech

Title: IT Knowledge Spillovers, Absorptive Capacity, and Productivity: Evidence from Enterprise Software

Prof. Dr. Dong Jun Wu from Georgia Institute of Technology will give a talk on „IT Knowledge Spillovers, Absorptive Capacity, and Productivity: Evidence from Enterprise Software“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar. The event is open to member of all departments at the University of Bremen.

To get access to the Zoom meeting, please register under diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

The article can be found here.

Speaker: Maximilian Horn, University of Bremen

Title: Investors‘ Financial Attitudes and Robo-Advice: A Research Design

Maximilian Horn of University of Bremen will give a talk on “Investors‘ Financial Attitudes and Robo-Advice: A Research Design” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Dr. Tobin Hanspal, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Title: Self-Control, Robo-Advice, and Borrowing Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments

Dr. Tobin Hanspal of WU Vienna University of Economics and Business will give a talk on “Self-Control, Robo-Advice, and Borrowing Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

To watch the full video of the talk, click here.

Speaker: Debarshee Bhardwaj, University of Bremen

Title: Developing Theoretical Perspectives Towards Dynamic Performance Management System Using Library Research and Machine Learning Techniques

Debarshee Bhardwaj of University of Bremen will give a talk on “Developing Theoretical Perspectives Towards Dynamic Performance Management System Using Library Research and Machine Learning Techniques” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker:  Prof. Dr. Jan Recker, University of Hamburg

Title:  From Lock-in to Transformation: A Morphogenetic Theory of Emerging Technology and Organizing

Prof. Dr. Jan Recker of University of Hamburg will give a talk on “From Lock-in to Transformation: A Morphogenetic Theory of Emerging Technology and Organizing” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

To watch the full video, click here.

Speaker: Daniel Metko and Gül Yüksel, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Deep Learning in Predicting Takeover Targets

Daniel Metko, research associate at the Chair of Business Administration and Gül Yüksel, research associate at the Chair for Business Administration, in particular Financial Services and Financial Technology at University Bremen will give a talk on “Deep Learning in Predicting Takeover Targets” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Dr. Igor Asanov, University of Kassel

Title:  Showing Life Opportunities: Increasing Opportunity-Driven Entrepreneurship and STEM Careers Through Online Courses In Schools

Dr. Igor Asanov of University of Kassel will give a talk on “Showing Life Opportunities: Increasing Opportunity-Driven Entrepreneurship and STEM Careers Through Online Courses In Schools” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp, University of Bremen

Title: The “Life Cycle” of Pioneer Communities: The Emergence and the Decline of the Quantified Self and Maker Movements

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp of University of Bremen will give a talk on "The 'Life Cycle' of Pioneer Communities: The Emergence and the Decline of the Quantified Self and Maker Movements“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to or to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Janis Cloos, Clausthal University of Technology

Title: Acceptance of Data Sharing in Smartphone Apps from Key Industries of the Digital Transformation

Janis Cloos of Clausthal University of Technology will give a talk on  "Acceptance of Data Sharing in Smartphone Apps from Key Industries of the Digital Transformation" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

To watch the full video, click here.

Speaker: Fabian Siekmann, University of Bremen

Title: DigiLoOp - Digital Decision Support for Logistics & Operations Management

Fabian Siekmann, research associate at the Chair of Global Supply Chain Management and member of the Diginomics Research Group at the University of Bremen will give a talk on "DigiLoOp - Digital Decision Support for Logistics & Operations Management" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Sharon Parker, Ph.D. Curtin University, Future of Work Institute

Title: The Digital Agenda: A SMART Work Design Perspective

Prof. Sharon Parker, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Professor of Organisational Behavior at Curtin University in Perth, Australia will give a talk on "The Digital Agenda: A SMART Work Design Perspective" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

To watch the full video, click here.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Aseem Kinra, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: An Unstructured Big Data Approach for Country Logistics Performance Assessment in Global Supply Chains

Prof. Dr. Aseem Kinra, member of the Diginomics Research Group at the University of Bremen will give a talk on "An Unstructured Big Data Approach for Country Logistics Performance Assessment in Global Supply Chains" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Dr. Mica Endsley, SA Technologies

Title: Situation Awareness and Decision Making in the Real World: Information Attack, Social Media and Cognitive Resistance

Dr. Mica Endsley, president of SA Technologies will give a talk on "Situation Awareness and Decision Making in the Real World: Information Attack, Social Media and Cognitive Resistance" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: The Social Dilemma of Big Data: Donating Personal Data to Promote Social Welfare

Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf, member of the Diginomics Research Group at the University of Bremen will give a talk on "The Social Dilemma of Big Data: Donating Personal Data to Promote Social Welfare" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Valid data from users is also of central importance for the public sector for important research projects, for the promotion of start-ups or for government projects in the field of digitalization. The Covid 19 pandemic in particular has shown how important the provision of data on a voluntary basis is for the common good, for example, in order to develop a powerful Corona warning app.

But how can incentives be created so that more citizens want to voluntarily provide their data for private or public purposes? What factors are conducive to citizens' behavior of donating their data for public purposes? Which factors are more of a hindrance? Where could the state start to stimulate the voluntary donation of data by citizens for charitable purposes while maintaining data protection and thereby promoting innovation?

These and many other questions will be answered by Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf, of the Chair of Business Administration, in particular Financial Services and Financial Technology at the University of Bremen, in a lecture at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy this Friday. He has agreed to discuss the topic "Data transfer for public goods and innovations: From the Corona warning app to autonomous driving" with the BMWi's Young Leaders Group.

Invited speakers are Prof. Fahed Saleh from Wake Forest University and Prof. Amin Shams from Ohio State University. Prof. David Yermack from NYU Stern School of Business is the chair of the workshop.

Are investors willing to give up a higher return if the investment generates positive environmental impact? Lars Hornuf and his co-author Christoph Siemroth from the University of Essex investigate this question with a decision experiment among crowdfunders, in which they choose between a higher return or environmental impact. Overall, 65% of investors choose environmental impact at the expense of a higher return for sufficiently large impact, 14% choose impact independent of the magnitude of impact, while 21% choose the higher return independent of impact. Combining the experimental data with historical investments, the authors find that investors allocate a larger share of funds to green projects if they value environmental impact more, and if they expect green projects to be more profitable. These findings suggest that investors have a preference for positive environmental impact, and satisfy it by investing in green projects. The authors further show that the preference for environmental impact is distinct from a preference for positive social impact. Finally, the authors introduce new survey measures of impact for future use, which are experimentally validated and predict field behavior.

Together with his coauthors Fabrizio Ciotti und Eliza Stenzhorn, Professor Lars Hornuf analyzes the role of lock-in exploitation and the impact of reputation portability on workers’ switching behavior in online labor markets. Online platforms using reputation mechanisms typically prevent users to transfer their ratings to other platforms. This leads to lock-in effects and high switching costs, which make users vulnerable to platform exploitation. The researchers build a theoretical model in which workers in online labor markets are locked-in because of their reputational data and test its prediction in an online lab-in-the-field decision experiment. They compare a policy regime with and without reputation portability. Furthermore, they vary lock-in exploitation with platform fees to study switching behavior based on monetary motives and fairness preferences. Theoretically, they show how reputational investments can become switching costs that platforms can exploit. Experimentally, the results suggest that reputation portability mitigates lock-in effects, making users less susceptible to lock-in exploitation. The data further show that switching is foremost driven by monetary motives, but fairness preferences also play a significant role.

Are investors willing to give up a higher return if the investment generates positive environmental impact? Lars Hornuf and his co-author Christoph Siemroth from the University of Essex investigate this question with a decision experiment among crowdfunders, in which they choose between a higher return or environmental impact. Overall, 65% of investors choose environmental impact at the expense of a higher return for sufficiently large impact, 14% choose impact independent of the magnitude of impact, while 21% choose the higher return independent of impact. Combining the experimental data with historical investments, the authors find that investors allocate a larger share of funds to green projects if they value environmental impact more, and if they expect green projects to be more profitable. These findings suggest that investors have a preference for positive environmental impact, and satisfy it by investing in green projects. The authors further show that the preference for environmental impact is distinct from a preference for positive social impact. Finally, the authors introduce new survey measures of impact for future use, which are experimentally validated and predict field behavior.

When evaluating Internet-based loan project of small and medium size enterprises (SME), lenders can rely on easy-to-understand risk ratings or more sophisticated financial information. The authors investigate lenders decisions and its effect on loan funding success on the marketplace-lending platform Zencap. The data set has been provided by the platform Zencap and includes 414 SME marketplace loans and 2,196 lenders. The data examined provide strong support for the importance of simple platform ratings in influencing investor behavior, while the effect of more detailed financial information is less pronounced, controlling for relevant variables. Higher interest rates appear more profitable to investors without any serious concern about non-repayment.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Dr. Franco Mariuzzo, University of East Anglia

Title: Platform Competition in the Tablet PC Market: The Effect of Application Quality

Dr. Franco Mariuzzo of the University of East Anglia will give a talk on "Platform Competition in the Tablet PC Market: The Effect of Application Quality" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

The authors investigate how investors' motives affect their investment behavior in equity crowdfunding. In particular, the authors compare the investment behavior of sustainability-oriented investors with ordinary crowd investors on six leading equity crowdfunding platforms in Austria and Germany. They evidence that, according to Dorfleitner et al. (2019), default shock in equity crowdfunding usually occurs immediately after the event or when investors become insolvent more than twice. Moreover, by distinguishing between sustainability-oriented and ordinary crowd investors, the authors show that sustainability-oriented investors pledge higher amounts and invest in more campaigns. The results are consistent with the notion that sustainability-oriented investors care about nonfinancial returns because they react more negatively when they experience a default in their portfolio, suggesting that they suffer beyond pure financial loss. The findings contribute to the recent literature on equity crowdfunding, socially responsible investing, and further demonstrate how individual investment motives and personal experiences influence investment decisions.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Fraud in the reward-based crowdfunding market has been of concern to regulators, but it is arguably of greater importance to the nascent industry itself. Despite its significance for entrepreneurial finance, our knowledge of the occurrence, determinants, and consequences of fraud in this market, as well as the implications for the business ethics literature, remain limited. In this study, the authors conduct an exhaustive search of all media reports on Kickstarter campaign fraud allegations from 2010 through 2015. The authors then follow up until 2018 to assess the ultimate outcome of each allegedly fraudulent campaign. First, the authors construct a sample of 193 fraud cases, and categorize them into detected vs. suspected fraud, based on a set of well-defined criteria. Next, using multiple matched samples of non-fraudulent campaigns, the authors determine which features are associated with a higher probability of fraudulent behavior. Second, the authors document the short-term negative consequences of possible breaches of trust in the market, using a sample of more than 270,000 crowdfunding campaigns from 2010 through 2018 on Kickstarter. The results show that crowdfunding projects launched around the public announcement of a late and significant misconduct detection (resulting in suspension) tend to have a lower probability of success, raise less funds, and attract fewer backers.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Matthies Hesse, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Accounting - From Micro to Macro

Matthies Hesse, research associate at the Professorship Management Accounting and Information Systems and member of the Diginomics Research Group will give a talk on "Accounting - From Micro to Macro" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

By implementing an online experiment among 1,696 US citizens together with his co-author Kirsten Hillebrand, he finds that individuals would donate their data even when at risk of getting leaked. The willingness to provide personal data depends on the risk level of a data leak but not on a realistic impact of the data on social welfare. Individuals are less willing to donate their data to the private industry than to academia or the government. Finally, individuals are not sensitive to whether the data are processed by a human-supervised or a self-learning smart assistant. The necessity to mobilize individual user data has recently become omnipresent in the context of governmental policies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Various countries around the world have developed and implemented tracking apps that use personal infection and location data to help control the spread of the virus and to protect public health. The research project helps to solve the social dilemma associated with donating personal data.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Christian Hildebrand, University of St.Gallen

Title: Dehumanization in the IoT: Experiential Consequences of Syntactically Constricted Human-Machine Interaction

Prof. Dr. Christian Hildebrand of University of St.Gallen will give a talk on “Dehumanization in the IoT: Experiential Consequences of Syntactically Constricted Human-Machine Interaction” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Are investors willing to give up a higher return if the investment generates positive environmental impact? Lars Hornuf and his co-author Christoph Siemroth from the University of Essex investigate this question with a decision experiment among crowdfunders, in which they choose between a higher return or environmental impact. Overall, 65% of investors choose environmental impact at the expense of a higher return for sufficiently large impact, 14% choose impact independent of the magnitude of impact, while 21% choose the higher return independent of impact. Combining the experimental data with historical investments, the authors find that investors allocate a larger share of funds to green projects if they value environmental impact more, and if they expect green projects to be more profitable. These findings suggest that investors have a preference for positive environmental impact, and satisfy it by investing in green projects. The authors further show that the preference for environmental impact is distinct from a preference for positive social impact. Finally, the authors introduce new survey measures of impact for future use, which are experimentally validated and predict field behavior.

The article reports on an investigation of the role of lock-in exploitation and the impact of reputation portability on workers' switching behaviors in online labor markets. Online platforms using reputation mechanisms typically prevent users from transferring their ratings to other platforms, inducing lock-in effects and high switching costs and leaving users vulnerable to platform exploitation. With a theoretical model, in which workers in online labor markets are locked-in by their reputational data, the authors test the effects using an online lab-in-the-field decision experiment. In addition to comparing a policy regime with and without reputation portability, they vary lock-in exploitation using platform fees to consider how switching behavior might differ according to monetary motives and fairness preferences. Theoretically, this study reveals how reputational investments can produce switching costs that platforms can exploit. Experimentally, the results suggest that reputation portability mitigates lock-in effects, making users less susceptible to lock-in exploitation. The data further show that switching is driven primarily by monetary motives, but perceiving the fee as unfair also has a significant role.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Michèle Rieth, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Adaptable Automation

Michèle Rieth, research associate at the Chair of Business Psychology & Human Resource and member of the Diginomics Research Group, will give a talk on “Adaptable Automation” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Timm Teubner, TU Berlin

Title: Considerations on Reputation Portability

Prof. Dr. Timm Teubner of TU Berlin, will give a talk on “Considerations on Reputation Portability” during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Dr. Terry Gregory, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Title: How Do Workers Adjust When Firms Adopt New Technologies?

Dr. Terry Gregory of the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), will give a talk on „How Do Workers Adjust When Firms Adopt New Technologies?“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Dr. Daniel Schnurr, University of Passau

Title: Data Donations for Digital Contact-Tracing: Short- and Long-term Effects of Monetary Incentives

Dr. Daniel Schnurr of the University of Passau, will give a talk on „Data Donations for Digital Contact-Tracing: Short- and Long-term Effects of Monetary Incentives“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Together with his coauthors Fabrizio Ciotti und Eliza Stenzhorn, Professor Lars Hornuf analyzes the role of lock-in exploitation and the impact of reputation portability on workers’ switching behavior in online labor markets. Online platforms using reputation mechanisms typically prevent users to transfer their ratings to other platforms. This leads to lock-in effects and high switching costs, which make users vulnerable to platform exploitation. The researchers build a theoretical model in which workers in online labor markets are locked-in because of their reputational data and test its prediction in an online lab-in-the-field decision experiment. They compare a policy regime with and without reputation portability. Furthermore, they vary lock-in exploitation with platform fees to study switching behavior based on monetary motives and fairness preferences. Theoretically, they show how reputational investments can become switching costs that platforms can exploit. Experimentally, the results suggest that reputation portability mitigates lock-in effects, making users less susceptible to lock-in exploitation. The data further show that switching is foremost driven by monetary motives, but fairness preferences also play a significant role.

Are investors willing to give up a higher return if the investment generates positive environmental impact? Lars Hornuf and his co-author Christoph Siemroth from the University of Essex investigate this question with a decision experiment among crowdfunders, in which they choose between a higher return or environmental impact. Overall, 65% of investors choose environmental impact at the expense of a higher return for sufficiently large impact, 14% choose impact independent of the magnitude of impact, while 21% choose the higher return independent of impact. Combining the experimental data with historical investments, the authors find that investors allocate a larger share of funds to green projects if they value environmental impact more, and if they expect green projects to be more profitable. These findings suggest that investors have a preference for positive environmental impact, and satisfy it by investing in green projects. The authors further show that the preference for environmental impact is distinct from a preference for positive social impact. Finally, the authors introduce new survey measures of impact for future use, which are experimentally validated and predict field behavior.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Michael Rochlitz, University of Bremen, Diginomics Reaseach Group

Title: Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance, and Big Data

Prof. Dr. Michael Rochlitz of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance, and Big Data“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta, University of Oxford

Title: Are We Moving Towards a Borderless Labour Market? National Institutions vs. Digital Platforms for Remote Work

Prof. Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta of the University of Oxford, will give a talk on „ Are We Moving Towards a Borderless Labour Market? National Institutions vs. Digital Platforms for Remote Work“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Daniel Metko, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: The Relevance of Accounting Information and the Cross-Section of Equity Market Returns          

Daniel Metko of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „The Relevance of Accounting Information and the Cross-Section of Equity Market Returns“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Julia Kensbock, University of Bremen

Title: E-Working, Loneliness, and the Role of Personality         

Prof. Dr. Julia Kensbock of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „E-Working, Loneliness, and the Role of Personality“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Sabrina Jeworrek, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH)

Title: Alone at Home: The Impact of Social Distancing on Norm-consistent Behavior      

Prof. Dr. Sabrina Jeworrek from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), will give a talk on „Alone at Home: The Impact of Social Distancing on Norm-consistent Behavior“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Do Retail Investors Value Environmental Impact? A Lab-in-The-Field Experiment with Crowdfunders       

Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf, member of the Diginomics Research Group at the University of Bremen will give a talk on "Do Retail Investors Value Environmental Impact? A Lab-in-The-Field Experiment with Crowdfunders" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnewsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

Their meta-analysis includes 104 wages from eight different countries. In total, the analysis is based on around 76,000 data points from 22 online work platforms collected and published over the last twelve years. The authors identify average hourly wages for "microtasking" crowdworkers of less than $6 per hour, but note that crowdworkers classified as "online freelancers" can earn hourly wages of up to $20 per hour. One potential explanation for this difference includes the much higher requirement profile in "online freelancing." Particularly, the results of the investigation of different methodologies in crowdworker wage determination are relevant for future research in this regard. Thus, significant differences can be found between hourly wages determined by survey and those determined by technology. Also, ignoring unpaid work, such as searching and evaluating tasks, could significantly bias hourly wages. According to the authors, the comparability of hourly wages in crowdworking could be experimentally increased by quantifying the effect of potential biases. This comparability is particularly relevant for the current policy debates around social security and the labor classification of crowdworkers.

The full article can be downloaded here.

The book series ‘Advanced Studies in Diginomics and Digitalization’ features the latest research in economic topics related to the digitization of labor finance and product markets. Books published in this series are primarily monographs and edited volumes that present new research results both theoretical and empirical on ethical socio-political work psychological economic and politically relevant questions about new digital markets. All books are published in print and digital formats and disseminated globally. If you wish to publish your work in the book series, contact our editors Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf (Diginomics), Prof. Dr. Herbert Kotzab (Diginomics), and Prof. Dr. Markus Pelger (Stanford University).

https://lnkd.in/eB3JfS3b

Speaker: Eliza Stenzhorn, University of Bremen 

Title: Reputation Portability and Platform Competition

Eliza Stenzhorn of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „Reputation Portability and Platform Competition“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de or rgdnews@uni-bremen.de to receive the Zoom meeting-room ID and password.

In their chapter, the authors provide an overview of important topics in human resource management (HRM) that are affected by digitalization and automation. It is outlined how HRM work is changing in areas such as mental health at work, work design, leadership and personnel development. The last section shifts focus and introduces a new way of working in HRM, known as HR analytics or people analytics. The fact that the various topics are not independent of each other and indeed intersect with each other is illuminated in the individual sections.

The full article can be accessed here.

The topic of the working paper is a transdisciplinary chatbot project of the University of Bremenʼs Department of Economics, in the course of which human-machine interaction is being researched in the HumanRoboLab (HRL). So-called "chatbots" are digital dialog systems that represent an application sub-area in automation which is increasingly used in both work and business contexts. The growing use, functionality and benefits of chatbots are therefore also of interest for university teaching in economics. Students at the University of Bremenʼs Department of Economics are developing their own transdisciplinary chatbot project. Working together with partners from different companies within the framework of the HumanRoboLab (HRL), they explore human–machine interaction from an applicationoriented perspective. The main objective of the HRL is to test a didactic concept for transdisciplinary human–machine interaction projects in order to subsequently integrate this concept into business studies and business psychology degree programs. The purpose of such a module is to provide students without prior experience in programming with the knowledge, tools and competences to research, apply and question AI technologies in a self-effective manner; in other words, the HRL aims to help students develop expertise with regard to digitization, benefiting them in both social and economic contexts. The concept of the HRL, as well as some examples of the projects and the role of AI, are outlined in this chapter in order to provide a template for university teachers who might wish to adapt these concepts.

The full article can be accessed here.

The working paper deals with the implementation of new technologies in the field of marketing. Over the course of digitization, many innovative marketing technologies have emerged that – theoretically speaking – promise firms gains in efficiency and/or effectiveness. However, a central task for marketing is not to allow the use of these technologies to become an end in itself, but to preserve the guiding principle of marketing, namely customer orientation. This means that the new technologies only offer added value for firms if they also offer (perceived) added value for consumers. Using three specific application areas as examples (chatbots, voice assistants and data privacy management), the authors show how firms can combine innovative marketing technologies and consumer interests in a purposeful manner.

The full article can be accessed here.

This paper examines the lack of entrepreneurial resources for venture development in rural regions and presents a study of how virtual business incubators (VBIs) can fill this gap and support rural entrepreneurial activities. The authors employ a single case study approach in which the empirical data builds on six interviews conducted with rural entrepreneurs and managers of VBIs. The data collection and data analysis follow the grounded theory approach set forth by Charmaz (2014). The main contribution of this research is the application of the VBI concept in the rural entrepreneurship context, with the aim of overcoming the challenges inherent to this context while conserving its benefits.

The full article can be accessed here.

This paper discusses manipulative product and interface designs known as digital dark nudges, which have become a common phenomenon in the digital economy. The authors examine the behavioral science background and the main problem areas of such unethical online business practices. Furthermore, they also show the limits of the existing statutory framework for combating digital dark nudges. The chapter concludes by discussing potential private and statutory remedies to address dark nudges in the digital economy.

The full article can be accessed here.

The full article can be accessed here.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Christian Peukert, HEC Lausanne

Title: Facebook Shadow Profiles      

Prof. Dr. Christian Peukert from the HEC Lausanne, will give a talk on „Facebook Shadow Profiles“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to .

Time: 27 April 2022, 12:00 pm, A1100

Speaker: Leon Marquardt, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Expanding Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Boundaries with Digital Architecture: A Resource Perspective

Leon Marquardt of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „Expanding Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Boundaries with Digital Architecture: A Resource Perspective“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University

Title: Artificial Intelligence for a Better Future - An Ecosystem Perspective on the Ethics of AI and Emerging Digital Technologies

Prof. Dr. Bernd Carsten Stahl of De Montfort University will give a talk on „Artificial Intelligence for a Better Future - An Ecosystem Perspective on the Ethics of AI and Emerging Digital Technologies“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

The full article can be accessed here.

Speaker: David Karpa, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance and Behavior

David Karpa of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „ Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance and Behavior“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Alessandro Acquisti, Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University

Title: Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation

Prof. Dr. Alessandro Acquisti of Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University will give a talk on „Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare: An Empirical Investigation“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

The full article can be accessed here.

Speaker: Olga Masyutina, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: What Determines Public Support for Big Data Governance Solutions? Experimental Evidence from Russia

Olga Masyutina of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „What Determines Public Support for Big Data Governance Solutions? Experimental Evidence from Russia“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Jean-Victor Alipour, ifo Institut – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung

Title: The Future of Remote Work – What We Can Learn From Job Postings

Jean-Victor Alipour of ifo Institut – Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, will give a talk on „The Future of Remote Work – What We Can Learn From Job Postings“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

The full article can be accessed here.

Speaker: Daniel Metko, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Machine Learning Goes Global: Cross-Sectional Return Predictability in International Stock Markets

Daniel Metko of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „Machine Learning Goes Global: Cross-Sectional Return Predictability in International Stock Markets“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Lauri Wessel, European University Viadrina

Title: A Processual Approach to Data Quality: 'Task-based Tuning' in a Professional Organization.

Lauri Wessel of the European University Viadrina, will give a talk on „ A Processual Approach to Data Quality: 'Task-based Tuning' in a Professional Organization. “ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

The full article can be accessed here.

Speaker: Charlotte Pietschmann, Diginomics Research Group, University of Bremen

Title: Self-Quantification: Definition, Evolution and Perspectives

Charlotte Pietschmann of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „Self-Quantification: Definition, Evolution and Perspectives“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

The EURAM Conference took place in the ZHAW School of Management and Law in Winterthur on June 15-17, 2022.

Time: 29 June 2022, 5:00 pm, via Zoom

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Dorothy Leidner, Baylor University

Title: Digitalization with Dignity

Prof. Dr. Dorothy Leidner of Baylor University, will give a talk on „Digitalization with Dignity“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

The full paper can be accessed here.

Speaker: Lisa-Marie Seyfried, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: (Artificial) Empathy in Digital Communication

Lisa-Marie Seyfried of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „(Artificial) Empathy in Digital Communication “ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Matheus is the first member of the doctoral students from the Diginomics Research Group to conclude the doctorate. He has published a chapter of his thesis in the journal "World Patent Information", and one in the IERP discussion papers series. During his doctoral studies, he presented his work at conferences such as DRUID, Applied Evolutionary Economics (EMAEE), International Schumpeter Society Conference (ISS), and others. One of his working papers was awarded the EAEPE prize for the best paper on Evolutionary Political Economy written by a young scholar. Matheus also assisted in teaching and supervising as part of the working group led by Prof. Dr. Jutta Günther.

As of August 2022, Matheus Leusin will continue his scientific career as a postdoctoral researcher in the Evolutionary Economics working group at the University of Bremen. Under the supervision of Christian Cordes he will also pursue an habilitation.

Speaker: Dr. Jermain Kaminski, Maastricht University

Title: Opportunities and Pitfalls of Applied Machine Learning in Entrepreneurship Research  

Dr. Jermain Kaminski from Maastricht University will give a talk on „Opportunities and Pitfalls of Applied Machine Learning in Entrepreneurship Research“ at the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

The full article can be downloaded here.

Speaker: Kohei Kawaguchi, The Honk Kong University of Science and Technology

Title: An Empirical Model of Mobile App Competition

Kohei Kawaguchi of the Honk Kong University of Science and Technology, will give a talk on „An Empirical Model of Mobile App Competition“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Benjamin Müller, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Stop and Smell the Rose: Integrating Conceptualizations of Digital Inequality to Achieve Digital Equality

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Müller of the University of Bremen, will give a talk on „Stop and Smell the Rose: Integrating Conceptualizations of Digital Inequality to Achieve Digital Equality“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Based on 26,883 investment decisions, the authors Maik Eisenbeiß, Sven Hartmann and Lars Hornuf examine the influence of social media marketing on the participation of investors in equity crowdfunding. They distinguish between different types of informative and persuasive posts on Facebook and Twitter. Informative posts provide investors with information about the crowdfunding campaign; persuasive posts do not, but rather aim to directly influence an investor’s decision-making process. They find that both types of posts have a positive impact on the number of investments. However, persuasive posts also increase the amount of an investment if they contain a statement about the previous investment success of the campaign and signal to the crowd that they are not investing alone.

The article is available here.

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Paul Hünermund, Copenhagen Business School

Title: Causal Discovery Algorithms in Strategic Management Research

Prof. Dr. Paul Hünermund of the Copenhagen Business School will give a talk on „Causal Discovery Algorithms in Strategic Management Research“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Matthies Hesse, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Natural Language Processing

Matthies Hesse of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „Natural Language Processing“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Wei Zhou, University of Arizona

Title: Exploitation and Exploration: Improving Search Precision on E commerce Platforms

Wei Zhou of the University of Arizona will give a talk on „Exploitation and Exploration: Improving Search Precision on E commerce Platforms“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

Speaker: Dr. Katharina Klug, University of Bremen

Title: On Healthy (Self -)leadership in the Context of Workplace Flexibility

Dr. Katharina Klug of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „On Healthy (Self -)leadership in the Context of Workplace Flexibility“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Jérémie Haese, University of Lausanne

Title: Entry into Open Source: Evidence from Web Browsers

Jérémie Haese of the University of Lausanne will give a talk on „Entry into Open Source: Evidence from Web Browsers“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

.

Speaker: Steffen Günther, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group

Title: Cryptocurrencies - Non-Standard Errors in Asset Pricing Research

Steffen Günther of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „Cryptocurrencies - Non-Standard Errors in Asset Pricing Research“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Dr. Otto Kässi, ETLA Economic Research, Oxford Internet Institute

Title: Labor Market Effects of Service Offshoring: Synthetic Control Approach with High Dimensional Microdata

Dr. Otto Kässi of the ETLA Economic Research will give a talk on „Labor Market Effects of Service Offshoring: Synthetic Control Approach with High Dimensional Microdata“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

Speaker: Sina Häusler, University of Bremen

Title: The Right of Access to Personal Data Are Employees Sufficiently Protected?

Sina Häusler of the University of Bremen will give a talk on „The Right of Access to Personal Data Are Employees Sufficiently Protected?“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Dr. Dominik Gutt, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University

Title: Do Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) Affect Prices of Physical Products? Evidence from Trading Card Collectibles

Dr. Dominik Gutt of Rotterdam School of Management will give a talk on "Peer Effects of Star Turnovers on Multi Sided Content Platforms: Evidence from Ninja" during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Antonia Sureth and Dr. Jens Nachtwei, HU Berlin

Title: The Future of Work, Artificial Intelligence, and Automation Psychological Implications for Employees

Antonia Sureth and Dr. Jens Nachtwei of HU Berlin will give a talk on „The Future of Work, Artificial Intelligence, and Automation Psychological Implications for Employees“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to diginomicsprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de.

Speaker: Dr. Ann Hipp and Enno Kohlisch, University of Bremen, Diginomics Research Group, IW Köln

Title: The Drivers of Digitalization in German Regions

Dr. Ann Hipp of  University of Bremen and Enno Kohlisch of IW Köln will give a talk on „The Drivers of Digitalization in German Regions“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Daniel Vrankar, University of Bremen

Title: Rocket Science and Innovation Spillovers

Daniel Vrankar of  University of Bremen will give a talk on „Rocket Science and Innovation Spillovers“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Dirk Hovorka, The Universiy of Sidney

Title: Where are These Futures of Which We speak?

Dirk Hovorka of The University of Sidney will give a talk on „Where are These Futures of Which We speak?“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Thomas Scholdra, University of Cologne

Title: Trick or Treat? The Stock Market Impact of Fake Reivews

Thomas Scholdra of the University of Cologne will give a talk on „Trick or Treat? The Stock Market Impact of Fake Reviews“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Markus Langer, Philipps-University Marburg

Title: "It is just a machine - why should it be unfair?" Expectations regarding algorithmic fairness in personnel selection

Markus Langer of the Philipps-University Marburg will give a talk on „'It is just a machine - why should it be unfair?' Expectations regarding algorithmic fairness in personnel selection“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Matthias Klumpp, University of Bremen / Politecnico di Milano

Title: Industry 5.0: Benefits, Challenges and Customer Communication

Matthias Klumpp of the Politecnico di Milano will give a talk on „Industry 5.0: Benefits, Challenges and Customer Communication“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Fred Niederman, Saint Louis University

Title: Translating the experience of editing a journal into practical tips about the IS field and about publishing

Fred Niederman of the Saint Louis University will give a talk on „Translating the experience of editing a journal into practical tips about the IS field and about publishing“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Lauri Wessel, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Title: Designing for digital transformation in a society of smartness: Conceptual Cornerstones, Design Implications, and the road ahead

Lauri Wessel of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder )will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Roman Briker, Maastricht University

Title: The mind and the machine: The interplay between AI algorithms and workers' social cognition

Roman Briker of the Maastricht University will give a talk on „The interplay between AI algorithms and workers' social cognition“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Shuai Yuan, University of Amsterdam

Title: Leveraging textual data extracted from social media for research purposes in OBHRM

Shuai Yuan of the University of Amsterdam will give a talk on „Leveraging textual data extracted from social media for research purposes in OBHRM“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Alexander Bleier, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management

Title: Revisiting SEA Effectiveness: Evidence from Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)

Alexander Bleier of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management will give a talk on „Revisiting SEA Effectiveness: Evidence from Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)“ during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar

Speaker: Qingwei Wang, University of Cardiff

Title: The Morning After: Late-night TV Shows and the Stock Market

Qingwei Wang of the University of Cardiff will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Maren Becker, ESCP Europe

Title: Indulge in Redemption? When and Why Customers Uptrade in Cashback Loyalty Programs

Maren Becker of the ESCP Europe will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Ulrike Schultze, University of Groningen

Title: Managing the Flexibility-Stability Paradox in Digital Platforms through Practices of Flexibilization and Practices of Stabilization

Ulrike Schultze of the University of Groningen will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Ashish Verma, Indian Institute of Science (IISC)

Title: Understanding Dynamics of Spiritually Motivated Crowd: An application of multi-source data from World's largest Human Gathering, Kumbh Mela

Ashish Verma of the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Anna-Sophie Ulfert-Blank, Eindhoven University of Technology

Title: Would you trust an AI colleague? Disentangling trust in human-AI teaming

Anna-Sophie Ulfert-Blank of the Eindhoven University of Technology will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Annabelle Hofer, University of Cologne

Title: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Precariousness within the Traditional and the Online Labor Market

Annabelle Hofer of the University of Cologne will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Lara Lobschat, Maastricht University

Title: Breaking Through the Ad Clutter: The Role of Viewability and Ad Characteristics

Lara Lobschat from the Maastricht University will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Frank Kirchner, DFKI GmbH

Title: AI Based Robotics

Frank Kirchner of the DFKI GmbH will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Petyo Budakov, XU Exponential University of Applied Sciences

Title: Crafting Sustainable Mobile Experiences: A UI/UX Design Exploration for Knowledge Exchange Using IDEO's Human Centered Design Process

Petyo Budakov of the XU Exponential University of Applied Sciences will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Sebastian Lins, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Title: Investigating the Emergence and Consequences of Consumer Skepticism toward Web Seals

Sebastian Lins of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Fabiola Gerpott, Otto Beisheim School of Management

Title: It’s Significant! …Or Not? Registered Reports: A New Route to Publishing Rigorous Research in Management & OB

Fabiola Gerpott of the Otto Beisheim School of Management will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

• Submission Open: May 10th
• Submission Deadline: 23:59 (CET) June 6th
• Review Notification: June 21st
• Amended Paper Deadline: June 28th
• Conference: July 3rd (Wednesday)

For submission instructions follow the link .

Register your participation here.

The full speaker schedule is available here

For lunch we will be having a BBQ on the terrace. The options include veggie and meat sausages along with side salads, brezeln and sauces. We would welcome any additional finger-food reinforcements for the buffet table!

We will close the event with soft-drinks and beers to reflect and connect.

Agenda:

• Reception 11:00 - 11:15
• Opening remarks 11:15 - 11:25
• Walking tour DHI 11:30 - 11:50
• Guest keynote 12:00 - 12:25
• Paper session 1 12:30 - 14:15
• Lunch (BBQ on terrace) 14:15 - 15:00
• Paper session 2 (Hütte 1. OG) 15:00 - 16:45
• Paper session 3 15:00 - 16:45
• Drinks & networking 17:00 - End

Speaker: Tobias Röth, University of Bremen

Title: “Supporting AI-Based Innovations – Journey of a Qualitative Study”

Tobias Röth from University of Bremen will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Marc Eulerich, University of Duisburg-Essen
Title: "Using Artificial Intelligence to Identify Fraud Risks: Unique Evidence from Novice and Experienced Auditors"
Marc Eulerich of University of Duisburg-Essen will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Submission topics ranged from Satisfaction in Human-AI Teams, Generative AI and Work-Related Learning, Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Times of Digitalisation, Digital Responsibility to Smart City Visions, and many more exciting themes. It was a unique learning experience for the third Diginomics Cohort, providing the doctoral candidates with experience in writing a call-for-papers, handling the submission and peer-review processes, as well as organising the location and catering. We are very much looking forward to exploring additional formats for next year's Diginomics Summer conference. 

What we achieved:
- Dialogue and bridge-building between faculties and research groups.
- A chance for participants to have their ongoing worked reviewed by senior scholars.
- Thanks to Daniel Nyga from neusta data intelligence GmbH, a glimpse into topics that are top of the agenda in industry and practice.
- Networking time and space to discuss future cooperation between scholars.

** This interview has been edited for length and clarity. **

Christopher Johnson (CJ): You completed your doctoral thesis in 2017 on the topic of product design and visual aesthetics. What sparked your initial interest in product design and visual aesthetics as a younger scholar?

Stefan Mayer (SM): My background is a bit unconventional for a marketing scholar. I originally earned a diploma in psychology and also studied computer science. I then interned at Daimler, in Stuttgart. During my time there, I worked on designing interfaces for various help systems in vehicles. This was the first time I applied what I had learned in my psychology studies to practical scenarios, and I found it incredibly fascinating to think about how to design something so that a human can intuitively understand what to do. For example, we worked on a warning system for truck drivers. When they take a right turn, they have several blind spots. We had to figure out how to design a warning system that drivers could easily distinguish from regular information. This experience made me realize that a purely theoretical career in psychology might not be as interesting to me because I enjoyed the practical application side much more.

By chance, I came across a PhD position in Frankfurt with a professor who had also studied psychology and was working in a similar field. It was a stroke of luck that I ended up there. When I started, I had to choose a research topic, and I spent the first six months exploring literature. I was particularly intrigued by what people find beautiful and how that influences their decisions in daily life. Given my background in computer science and my interest in numbers, I decided to combine these fields and try to quantify aspects of beauty and aesthetics.

CJ: When you have a research interest as broad as “aesthetics”, how does one take account of distant yet still relevant literatures from the wider social sciences but still remain focused on the research question?

SM: It's not easy to manage that because it implies reading papers outside of your field, which can be hard due to the different terminologies. For example, I attended design conferences with people from completely different fields. This exposure helped me understand their languages better over time. However, I didn't incorporate every field and paper fully because if you include too many external sources, it might not be recognized as a marketing paper. There's a trade-off between knowing what's happening outside your field and focusing on relevant literature within your own field. I recommend attending conferences that aren't just purely marketing-focused but are relevant to your research area. It's also highly useful to talk to as many people as possible from different backgrounds, which you find more in specialized content.

CJ: That's helpful advice, especially for the Diginomics students who don't have an established intellectual home yet. It's a challenge for those working on inter or multi-disciplinary research.

SM: Yes, using the language of your field while incorporating other perspectives is crucial. At one conference, the track chair decided to have a panel discussion at the end instead of traditional talks. During this panel, someone asked about aesthetics and referenced philosophers I hadn't studied. This experience made me realize that many other fields might have already explored my research topics. It highlighted the importance of looking outside the traditional scope of what you personally consider relevant.

CJ: What are some emerging trends in your field that younger researchers should pay attention to? In terms of topics but also more generally, such as novel research methods, or any higher-level trends across the discipline?

SM: It's challenging for me to say definitively, especially compared to several years ago, when I had more time to explore research as a PhD student. One notable change is how machine learning has evolved. During my PhD, incorporating machine learning into your work was a significant contribution on its own. Nowadays, it's just another tool in the researcher's toolkit, an additional method that can be applied to various problems.

I think it's increasingly important to demonstrate causality. Ideally, you should have a secondary data set showing economic consequences, combined with experiments to show causal relationships. This multi-perspective approach—combining models, experiments, and data—has become crucial. It's not sufficient to rely on a single method; you need to integrate different approaches to provide a comprehensive view. Another trend is addressing societal problems. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the question was how to convince people to adopt different behaviors. Similarly, environmental concerns remain a significant topic. These issues require answers that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries. From a methodological standpoint, it's essential to move beyond traditional approaches and combine different methods. This might involve collaborating with people who have expertise in specific methods. For instance, in our group, we have a postdoc with a PhD in computer science, and we've had to learn each other's language to communicate effectively.

CJ: What are some key steps you took early in your career that got you to the position you are in now? What are some early career pitfalls one should watch out for?

SM: The steps that were really useful for me included focusing my efforts as a PhD student. For instance, I learned a second programming language and became deeply invested in a specific method, doing more than the average PhD student. This was beneficial both academically and personally. Another crucial step was spending time outside of Germany as a visiting scholar at UCSD. This experience was valuable for my growth, as I had the opportunity to interact with different researchers from various fields. I was also fortunate to be part of a large group of PhD students where many researchers would visit to discuss their work. Growing your network is essential, even if it sounds mundane. It’s important that people get to know you and understand what you are researching. This familiarity can be helpful when positions open up, as people will have you in mind.

CJ: That sounds like excellent advice. Are there any pitfalls you think early-career researchers should be aware of?

SM: One pitfall is not networking enough. Building a strong network can open many doors. Also, not taking the time to learn new skills or methods can limit your potential. And finally, not stepping out of your comfort zone to gain international experience or to engage with researchers from different fields can be a missed opportunity for growth.

-END-

We thank Stefan for sharing these valuable career insights!

Digital Ethics 2.0 Navigating Ethics in the Age of Generative AI, Darmstadt, Germany (summarized by Chris)

The hosts did a fantastic job creating an environment conductive to the exchange of ideas and best practices between academic and industry partners and all this took place at the Merck Innovation Centre, a state-of-the-art technology and science hub situation on their main campus. We explored the challenges of digital ethics in today's rapidly evolving technological landscape through a varied programme including an engaging address by philosopher Carissa Véliz from the University of Oxford. I really enjoyed her multi-layered keynote, first zooming out to explore what ethics means and how we put it into practice before focussing on the specific characteristics of digital technology and why they warrant our special attention when developing applied ethical approaches. The day also included three expert interviews and Q&A sessions allowing participants to learn more about digital ethics in practice. Break-away sessions in the afternoon offered a deep-dive into themes such as leveraging LLMs ethically for innovation in healthcare, trustworthy AI and AI ethics assessments in HR, and many more. I came away with a heightened appreciation of the diverse logical methods people and organisations use in ethical decision-making. In our approaches we must remain dynamic and work with, not against, the complexities of evolving digital ecosystems in order to meet the high expectations of stakeholders and wider society.

CDR Conference 2024 - Fairness in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (summarised by Anna)

Digital technologies are fundamentally changing business, creating heightened efficiency and productivity, however, not without impacting the environment and society. A growing discussion on corporate digital responsibility (CDR) emerged, addressing the raised concerns and identifying opportunities. CDR entails that an organization has incorporated its approach to digital responsibility into its values, which are formulated into principles and translated into action items to govern its achievability in daily corporate practice. The research into CDR brings valuable insights to the Diginomics Group since it addresses responsible digital topics on a cross-level, which is relevant to most of the other digital research fields in the group. With CDR focusing on discussing the company's role in facilitating responsible digital transformation, interface topics such as cooperation with other internal stakeholders and digital technologies are incorporated.  As a practice-driven and politically charged topic, CDR necessitates continuous expert dialogue. The most recent such exchange took place in November at the fifth CDR Conference, hosted by the BMUV in Berlin. The hosting ministry spearheaded the creation of a CDR Code a few years ago, to which pioneering CDR companies have since committed. Their latest initiative is a “diversity impact assessment,” developed collaboratively with researchers and practitioners. The conference provided an opportunity to engage with experts shaping the political agenda and to stay updated on the latest practical advancements.

Attending the Brownbag Seminar Series for the first time as a new PhD student, I found this session to be extremely informative. What I found personally beneficial was the understanding of the various stages involved in the paper's research process and gaining insight into the researcher’s decision-making criteria for upcoming initiatives. It was enriching to observe firsthand how all these elements contribute to and shape the final product, an insightful and relevant research paper.

Professor Dr. Tobias Röth facilitated a deeper understanding by outlining various alternative approaches that a qualitative research study can undertake and offering his expert recommendations. This methodological revelation gave me a unique opportunity to empathize with and immerse myself in the research process. This example will undoubtedly serve as an invaluable reference for my academic journey.

In conclusion, the session was both inspiring and reaffirming. It strengthened my methodological understanding of qualitative research approaches and reinforced my conviction to persist through any changes and uncertainties that might present themselves in order to make significant contributions to my dissertation and, ultimately, to the research landscape.

Researchers are invited to submit their work on topics such as AI in marketing, digital finance, platform economics, corporate digital responsibility, and more.

Submission deadline: March 28, 2025

More details & submission

The Diginomics team met with Prof. Dr. David Bendig during his recent visit to Bremen, where he presented his work at our Brownbag seminar. We discussed his academic journey, research interests, and insights on current trends in entrepreneurship and innovation.

**This interview has been edited for length and clarity.**

Chris Johnson

Your research interests include corporate entrepreneurship, innovations management and strategic management. What sparked your initial interest in these areas as a younger scholar?

David Bendig:

Well originally, I’m a finance and accounting guy, at least from a student perspective. Back then in Germany, there weren’t many entrepreneurship courses. That’s really something that only started to emerge broadly around 2010.

Then I went into practice, and when I had the opportunity to pursue a PhD, it was very interesting to me. I had always been interested in entrepreneurship. I went to start-up meetups and was generally very engaged in corporate transformation projects. I’d done some practical work in that space, and that’s where the interest came from so I thought now’s the time to do something truly entrepreneurial.

That’s also why I went to Aachen, because it was known, and still is, for having a strong research group focused on entrepreneurship, innovation, and similar topics. It's not just a niche there; it's a large and active group. And once you're there you’re sitting between scholars and start-ups so you naturally find relevant topics to work on.

Chris Johnson:

I took a look through your Google Scholar profile and was curious how your research interests have developed over time. I noticed a mix between conceptual papers and more empirical, data-driven ones. Do you define yourself more strongly as one or the other? Or how do you create that balance?

David Bendig:

I think it’s important, especially for young scholars, to try out different things. I come from a clear empirically quantitative background so I’m the "methods guy”. That’s my foundation. I was good with secondary capital market data, which was a niche [in entrepreneurship] at the time. But I realized I couldn’t build a full career just on that. So I set myself the challenge and told myself; "In the next project, I’ll be the conceptual person." That’s very tough, but you learn by doing.

It was the same when I did my first survey study. A colleague invited me, and they said, “You’ll do the structural equation modelling.” I initially thought, “I can’t do that.” But it was Tessa Flatten from TU Dortmund who showed me how, and that helped a lot. So, it’s been a journey of continuously learning new things. Still, if you look at where I’m strongest, it’s with numbers, no doubt.

Chris Johnson:

Would you say that conceptual papers are somehow reserved for more experienced scholars? It seems like when we study emerging phenomena, we need to conceptualize them first, but conceptual pieces can be quite hard to grasp, at least from my experience.

David Bendig:

Absolutely. It's not black and white, of course. But the reality, especially for young scholars, is that publishing conceptual pieces in top-tier journals is quite rare…unless you’re collaborating with someone very established who knows how to frame those ideas. For me, I started doing more conceptual work after I got tenure. That’s when I began aiming for impact papers, that is, things that reach a wider audience, including practitioners. But before tenure? Not really…as I didn’t have the security, and maybe I was just being cautious.

Chris Johnson:

I imagine tenure gives you more freedom to explore a broader set of interests. On that note, and I think our early-career audience will find this interesting, you mentioned a kind of pressure for younger scholars to focus on A-journals. But looking at your profile, I also saw quite a few conference papers mixed in with the top publications. What do you think are some advantages of working on conference papers as well as aiming for the A-journals?

David Bendig:

Again, it goes back to trying things out. I really believe in experimenting throughout your career where you shouldn’t just do one thing over and over. So I’ve always tried to explore different topics and formats. Sometimes I’ve failed…actually, I’ve failed often. For example, in 2018 we were pretty early on the blockchain topic. We had some good initial token offering studies, solid empirical work, but we never got it beyond ICIS. The journals just weren’t ready for that back then. Now in 2025, crypto is a mainstream topic in business journals. But in 2018, not at all. The journals can be quite conservative, especially with emerging topics.

Chris Johnson:

That’s something we talk about among the PhD students here. On the one hand, conference papers are a chance to workshop ideas for future journal submissions. On the other hand, there’s this worry that if you publish something in proceedings, it limits your ability to publish it in a journal afterward. What’s your take on that? How do you navigate that line?

David Bendig:

That really depends on the field. Information Systems, for example, is more aligned with natural sciences in that they publish full proceedings like ICIS, ECIS, and so on. But that’s not the case in management, marketing, or general business. In those fields, conferences are seen more as places to get feedback on early-stage work. It’s understood that you’ll rewrite and develop it further before aiming for a journal. Some journals even have formal rules. For instance, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) requires a certain percentage of new content if you’re submitting something that was in a conference proceeding. So yes, it varies by field.

Chris Johnson:

Moving on, what are some emerging research topics or methodological trends that you think young scholars should be paying attention to right now?

David Bendig:

Well, academia is still a bit slow, but we are catching up with practical trends. Back in the day, we were too slow with blockchain. But now I see a better connection between academic work and real-world developments. Artificial Intelligence is obviously huge right now. As someone recently joked, "everyone and their mother is doing AI." Of course, you have to be careful as it’s becoming oversaturated. But yes, digital and sustainability topics are both big. Within those, there are many subtopics: data governance, ecological footprints, ESG metrics, etc. And increasingly, mainstream journals are interested in those.

Chris Johnson:

Right. I’ve seen that some of your recent papers touch on sustainability, like measuring carbon output in companies. Did that interest come from personal motivation or more from recognizing a research opportunity?

David Bendig:

It actually started with a PhD student who wanted to work on that in 2019. Back then, it wasn’t as common as it is today. But I thought, “Why not, let’s try it.” I found it fascinating because finally we had quantitative data. In the past, we relied on subjective ESG ratings. But now we had real, measurable data from sources like the Carbon Disclosure Project and science-based targets. And interestingly, in that area, academia and practice were really aligned. Both faced the same challenge: how do we measure sustainability performance? That made it a compelling space to be in.

Chris Johnson:

What were some key steps you took early in your career that helped you get where you are now? And what are some early-career pitfalls you think young scholars should avoid?

David Bendig:

First, I would always recommend defining clear goals. Ambitious but achievable ones. Ask yourself: What journals do I want to publish in? What conferences should I attend? Who are the key scholars in my field? Understanding the community really helped me a lot.

One pitfall I often see is pessimism. I get it…mid-career pressures without tenure are real. But my own PhD advisor said, “Don’t listen to the pessimists, we’ll make it.” And he was right. Every one of his PhD students who wanted to stay in academia made it.

Having a positive mindset and a good environment matters a lot. If you work hard, stick to your goals like publishing in A-journals, getting external funding, and teaching experience – you can get there. It might take longer, and there will be setbacks, but don’t lie to yourself: if you want to be a business professor, journal publications are key.

Chris Johnson:

Thanks, David!

-END-

The Diginomics team spoke with Prof. Dr. Felix Eggers during his visit to Bremen on December 11, 2024. We discussed his academic path from preference measurement to digital business models, his views on AI in marketing research, and advice for early-career scholars.

**This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.**

Chris Johnson:

Your doctoral thesis focused on preference measurement in marketing and you’ve since moved on to study digital business models, corporate digital responsibility and the impact of digitalisation on branding, among others. How did you move from that narrower marketing focus to a broader scope over time? What sparked your initial interest in marketing, and how did your research develop?

Felix Eggers:
Starting my PhD was actually more or less a coincidence. I had written a master's thesis on preference measurement and found that I really enjoyed the topic. Then my supervisor, Henrik Sattler, mentioned he had a position available and asked if I was interested. So I took it, and that’s how I ended up doing my doctorate.

I didn’t exactly choose the topic in a strategic way, I just started working on it, found it rewarding, and stayed with it. That’s how I developed a methodological focus…I worked for years on preference measurement, got a good overview of the field, and even developed my own methods.

Having a methodological focus can be quite valuable as it makes you a sought-after co-author. Researchers who work on substantive topics often need solid methods, so they reach out to collaborate. That’s a good position to be in, and it helped me build a strong network.

As for broadening out: methodological work always needs a research context. In marketing, that includes branding, pricing, or digital business models. So you're hitting two birds with one stone — doing methodological research while also engaging with a substantive topic. You end up with two projects at once, and over time you stick with the areas that seem most promising or interesting.

Later, when I became an assistant professor in Groningen, my mentors encouraged me to broaden my scope further. They advised me to be known for at least two distinct research areas. That’s how I started looking into privacy, especially privacy in marketing and data collection, which is a big topic in the field.

From there, my interest expanded to algorithmic biases and how data are used by algorithms. That led to my work on corporate digital responsibility, which covers a lot of ground. More recently, I’ve started focusing on algorithms and generative AI and how they can be applied in marketing.

Chris Johnson:
So in your case, it sounds like a mix of natural progression, mentorship and building a reputation through collaboration?

Felix Eggers:
Exactly. As a PhD student, you need to become a specialist and focus narrowly in order to publish high-quality papers. But if you stay in academia long-term, it’s wise to broaden your expertise so you're not a one-trick pony.

Chris Johnson:
What are some emerging trends in your field that younger scholars should pay attention to? Both in terms of topics and also methods or broader shifts?

Felix Eggers:
In the area of preference measurement and consumer data collection, generative AI and large language models are definitely becoming important. Studying how consumers interact with AI is opening up a new research field.

One especially exciting area is whether we can substitute real survey responses with artificial ones. Can we train language models to generate responses that look and behave like real data? The projects I’ve worked on in that area are looking surprisingly good.

In the future, we might run pretests using synthetic data instead of real respondents, just to see if a study design works or to answer certain types of questions early on. These "silicon samples," as some people call them, could change how we conduct survey-based research quite significantly.

Chris Johnson:
That’s fascinating. So to wrap up, what were some key steps you took early in your career that helped get you to where you are now? And what are some early-career pitfalls to avoid?

Felix Eggers:
After finishing my PhD, I actually left academia and worked in market research for a while. But I realized I was more interested in scientific work as it felt less repetitive and gave me more freedom.

I assumed that industry experience would help when applying for academic jobs, but in fact it didn’t. In practice, universities mostly look at your publication record. So if there's a gap where you weren’t doing academic research, it shows up as a lack of publications, which can be a disadvantage.

That was disappointing. But I think things are starting to change as there’s more interest now in research that has societal impact. If you can show how your work affects firms or consumers, then practical experience becomes more valuable. Having exposure to how firms actually work is helpful when trying to implement findings in the real world.

Still, if someone is making that choice today, it’s probably best to go straight from a PhD into a postdoc or assistant professorship because that’s what universities currently expect.

Chris Johnson:
Yes, it's a bit of a shame. You would think industry experience, whether before or after a PhD, would help build contacts and give access to applied research opportunities. That seems like something that should be considered in hiring.

Felix Eggers:
Exactly. And now, as researchers, we’re being asked to reach out to firms, create collaborations, and apply our findings, which is much harder if you've never worked in a firm or don’t have those connections.

Chris Johnson:
Thanks a lot, Felix!

-END-

(report by Faridoddin Rezaei)

The European Marketing Academy (EMAC), established in 1975, is a professional association for scholars engaged in marketing theory and research. With more than 1,000 members from over 50 countries, EMAC provides a key platform for international academic exchange.

The 54th Annual EMAC Conference was held from May 27–30, 2025, in Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, hosted by ESIC University. This year’s theme was "Human and Smart Marketing: Understanding and Enhancing Our Future."

I presented our research in the “AI-Driven Methods for Marketing Analytics” track. The study, co-authored with my supervisors Maik Eisenbeiss and Kristina Klein, used large language models (LLMs) to analyze over 300,000 academic papers, identifying and examining more than 10,000 relevant studies on AI in marketing. The work shows how LLMs can support large-scale literature reviews by uncovering patterns in methods, AI domains, and marketing concepts.

The track highlighted innovative applications of AI and machine learning in marketing research. During my presentation and throughout the event, I received constructive questions, encouraging feedback, and practical suggestions—some of which I plan to apply in the next phases of my research.

The conference was also a valuable opportunity to connect with researchers from across Europe and beyond. I explored current research on AI in marketing and found it encouraging that the gap between our work and that of leading institutions is smaller than often assumed. While funding differences remain, they can often be managed through careful planning—thanks in part to shared access to advanced AI tools, strong guidance from my supervisors, and a supportive research environment within the Diginomics group.

The conference contributed to both the visibility of our findings and the kind of meaningful exchange that supports the Diginomics group’s mission to explore the economic and societal impacts of digital transformation.

This year's theme was “Transforming Working Environments: Challenges & Opportunities.” Fateme Rezaei Badafshani, a PhD researcher in the Diginomics group at the University of Bremen, presented her study “Emotional Contagion in the Digital Workplace: How Follower Anxiety Affects Leader Support.” Conducted in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Julia M. Kensbock and Dr. Katharina Klug, the research explores how anxiety expressed by employees through digital channels can influence leadership behavior in virtual work settings.

The presentation contributed to the broader discussion within the leadership–follower track of the conference. The EAWOP congress offered opportunities for exchange with international researchers working on similar topics. Across sessions, there was shared interest in how digital transformation is affecting the human side of work—an area central to the Diginomics research agenda.

Theme:Digital Business: Digital Society – Opportunities, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations

This conference provides a platform for scholars to present and discuss research on the digital transformation of business and society, with a focus on both the opportunities and ethical implications of digitalization.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Digital finance and monetary economics

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning in marketing

• User behavior on digital platforms

• Digital ethics and corporate responsibility

• Big data analytics in macroeconomics

• Leadership and interpersonal dynamics in the digital workplace

We look forward to welcoming researchers and professionals for a day of academic exchange, critical discussion, and networking.

The Diginomics Summer Conference 2025 took place on June 25, 2025, at the Bremen Chamber of Commerce (IHK). Organized by the Diginomics group at the University of Bremen, the conference brought together researchers and professionals to discuss current developments in digital business and society.

Presentations and keynotes covered topics such as workplace loneliness, asset pricing and the macroeconomy, behavior-based and online price discrimination, research frontiers in digital transformation, corporate digital responsibility, AI applications in tax research, e-commerce personalization, and central bank digital currency.

We thank all speakers, participants, and organizers for contributing to an engaging day of academic exchange and discussion. Special thanks to Lars and Charlotte for their excellent conference management.

We look forward to future events and continued collaboration on digital transformation research.

Time: 05.11.2025, 12:00 pm, F4090
Speaker: Nicolas Zacharias, Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Title: "Using LLMs as Sentiment Analyzers to Predict Review Helpfulness: A Multistudy Approach to Open the Black Box"
Nicolas Zacharias of Friedrich Schiller University Jena will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Sylvia Hubner-Benz, Paderborn University 

Title: "One Size Fits None: When Diverse Entrepreneurial Journeys Meet Digital Tech" 

Sylvia Hubner-Benz of Paderborn University will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Raoul Kübler, ESSEC Business School Paris 

Title: "Tuning into the Hateverse: The Dynamics between Conspiracy Theories, Hate Speech, and Offensive Language Usage" 

Raoul Kübler of ESSEC Business School Paris will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

On Wednesday, 10 December, the Diginomics Graduate Group held its annual Winter Workshop at the Forum am Domshof (Raum 60005) in Bremen. The event brought together doctoral researchers from the third cohort as well as senior researchers and supervisors for an afternoon of structured project updates and joint discussion.

In the first part of the programme, each member of the third cohort presented a brief status update on their dissertation and shared selected aspects of ongoing work. The presentations covered research motivation and framing, methodological approaches, preliminary results, and current challenges. Each talk was followed by a discussion and feedback session.

The second part of the workshop consisted of a round-table discussion on recurring topics relevant to doctoral research. Key themes included the ethical positioning of dissertations (including questions related to human–AI teaming and potential dual-use implications), qualitative data analysis, strategies for framing and finalising the dissertation, and preparation for the thesis defence.

The workshop provided a forum for exchange across projects and for receiving feedback in a supportive setting. The day concluded with informal conversations at the Bremen Christmas Market.

Speaker: Milad Mirbabaie

Title: "Understanding and Improving Validity in LLM-based Analyses in Information Systems Research"

Milad Mirbabaie will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Speaker: Jochen Koch, European University Viadrina

Title: "Speaking Ideas into Being: The Interactional Emergence of Novelty in AI Startups"

Jochen Koch of European University Viadrina will give a talk during the upcoming Diginomics Brownbag Seminar.

Now entering its fourth cohort, the Diginomics Research Group investigates the profound impact of digitalization on businesses and the economy. As a collaborative research unit, the group leverages the broad expertise of the faculty to facilitate research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries within business and economics.

For this upcoming cohort, the research focus is: “Still made by humans? The ambivalence of automation and augmentation”

Digital technologies have the potential to both automate organizational processes and augment human behavior. This duality substantially transforms how organizations manage teams, drive innovation, market products, and structure information systems. Exemplary research questions for this cohort include:

• Individual Perceptions: How do individuals perceive and react to automation in the workplace?
• Transformational Impact: How does automation reshape work and innovation processes?
• Human–Machine Collaboration: What are the outcomes of these collaborations, and which conditions shape these relationships

Further information can be found in the official call for applications.