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Firmenpleiten auf höchstem Stand seit mehr als zwei JahrzehntenSteffen MüllerDer Spiegel, 9. April 2026
We seek to understand the relationship between network change determinants, network change processes at the micro level and structural consequences at the overall network level. Our conceptual framework considers three groups of determinants – organizational, relational and contextual. Selected factors within these groups are assumed to cause network change processes at the micro level – tie formations and tie terminations – and to shape the structural network configuration at the overall network level. We apply a unique longitudinal event history dataset based on the full population of 233 German laser source manufacturers and 570 publicly-funded cooperation projects to answer the following research question: What kind of exogenous or endogenous determinants affect a firm’s propensity and timing to cooperate and enter the network? Estimation results from a non-parametric event history model indicate that young micro firms enter the network later than small-sized and large firms. An in-depth analysis of the size effects for medium-sized firms provides some unexpected yet quite interesting findings. The choice of cooperation type makes no significant difference for the firms’ timing to enter the network. Finally, the analysis of contextual determinants shows that cluster membership can, but do not necessarily, affect a firm’s timing to cooperate.
In this article, we describe the results of a multiple case study on the indirect corporate innovation impact of climate change in the Central German chemical industry. We investigate the demands imposed on enterprises in this context as well as the sources, outcomes and determining factors in the innovative process at the corporate level. We argue that climate change drives corporate innovations through various channels. A main finding is that rising energy prices were a key driver for incremental energy efficiency innovations in the enterprises’ production processes. For product innovation, customer requests were a main driver, though often these requests are not directly related to climate issues. The introduction or extension of environmental and energy management systems as well as the certification of these are the most common forms of organizational innovations. For marketing purposes, the topic of climate change was hardly utilized so far. As the most important determinants for corporate climate innovations, corporate structure and flexibility of the product portfolio, political asymmetry regarding environmental regulation and governmental funding were identified.
Climate change, including its possible causes and consequences, is one of the most controversial and intensely discussed topics of our time. However, European businesses nowadays are less affected by the direct effects of climate change than by its indirect consequences. One central issue that arises in this context is the change in demands imposed by the enterprises’ operational environment. This article contributes to environmental innovation literature by providing a comprehensive framework which allows an analysis of the drivers, determinants and outcomes of climate innovations implemented by companies. In this context, the prime issue is how the perception of climate change affects corporate innovation processes. Firstly, the new demands imposed on the company by its stakeholders are considered. Secondly, the innovative reactions to these impulses are captured. Finally, the functions and relevance of certain internal and external determinants in the innovative process are highlighted.
Das Modul „Emissionsrechtemanagement“ des Softwarepaketes „CO2-Navigator“ ist ein Instrument zum unternehmensinternen Management von Emissionsrechten im Rahmen des europäischen Emissionshandels. Es liefert zu jedem Zeitpunkt eines Kalenderjahres einen Überblick über den tagesaktuellen Bestand an Emissionszertifikaten sowie Transaktionen von CO2-Emissionszertifikaten wie Zuteilung, Kauf- und Verkaufsaktivitäten. Dabei werden die relevanten Zeitpunkte, Mengen und Preise erfasst.
Ausgehend vom aktuellen Stand der Emissionen einer Anlage wird mit Hilfe eines
unternehmenstypischen Emissionsprofils eine Abschätzung der Zertifikatedeckung
zum Bilanzstichtag des aktuellen Jahres ermöglicht. Hierbei wird eine eventuelle
Zertifikateunter- oder -überdeckung quantifiziert und graphisch verdeutlicht. Das
Modul stellt somit ein nützliches Hilfsmittel im Risikomanagementprozess von emissionsintensiven Unternehmen dar. Auf den von diesem Modul gelieferten Daten baut eine eventuell anschließende Investitionsanalyse auf, beispielsweise eine stochastische Investitionsplanung. Dieses Papier veranschaulicht die Motivation und den rechtlichen Rahmen sowie die technische Konzeption des Instruments.
This article analyses how regional employment growth in Germany is affected by related variety, unrelated variety and the functions a region performs in the production process. Following the related variety literature, we argue that regions benefit from the existence of related activities that facilitate economic development. However, we argue that the sole reliance of related variety on standard industrial classifications remains debatable. Hence, we offer estimations for establishing that conceptual progress can indeed be made when a focus for analysis goes beyond solely considering industries. We develop an industry-function based approach of related and unrelated variety. Our findings suggest that related variety only in combination with a high functional specialization of the region facilitates regional growth in Germany. Additionally, also unrelated variety per se fails to wield influences affecting development of regions. It is rather unrelated, but functionally proximate variety in the groups “White Collar” and “Blue Collar Workers” positively affects regional employment growth.
The focus of this article is the empirical identification of factors influencing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in transition economies on a regional level (NUTS 2). The analysis is designed as benchmark between three neighboring post-communist regions, i.e. East Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. Their different transition paths have not only resulted in economic differences. We can also observe today that the importance of pull factors for FDI varies significantly across the regions. This analysis shows that in comparison with Poland and the Czech Republic, East Germany’s major benefit is its purchasing power, its geographical proximity to West European markets, and its modern infrastructure. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that intra-industry linkages such as specialization and agglomeration economies are relevant factors for the location decision of foreign investors. This result can help to explain the regional divergence of FDI streams in transition economies.
In the early phase of transition that started with the 1990s, Central and Eastern European Countries pursued economic restructuring of the enterprise sector that involved massive injections of state support. Also foreign investment from the West and facilitation of the development of a market economy involved massive injections of state support. With their accession to the European Union (EU), levels and forms of state aid came under critical review by the European Commission. This inquiry investigates whether the integration of the new member states operates on a level playing field with respect to state aid. Quantitative and qualitative analysis is relied upon to answer this key, as well as other, related questions. Findings suggest that in recent years a level playing field across the EU has indeed emerged. State aid in the new EU member countries is rather handled more strictly than laxer compared to the ‘old’ EU countries.
Empirical and theoretical contributions provide strong evidence that firm-level performance outcomes in terms of innovativeness can either be determined by the firm’s position in the social space (network effects) or by the firm’s position in the geographical space (co-location effects). Even though we can observe quite recently first attempts in bringing together these traditionally distinct research streams (Whittington et al. 2009), research on interdependent network and geographical co-location effects is still rare. Consequently, we seek to answer the following research question: considering that the effects of social and geographic proximity on firm’s innovativeness can be interdependent, what are the distinct and combined effects of firm’s network and geographic position on firm-level innovation output? We analyze the innovative performance of German laser source manufacturers between 1995 and 2007. We use an official database on publicly funded R&D collaboration projects in order to construct yearly networks and analyze firm’s network positions. Based on information on population entries and exits we calculate various types of geographical proximity measures between private sector and public research organizations (PRO). We use patent grants as dependent variable in order to measure firm-level innovation output. Empirical results provide evidence for distinct effect of network degree centrality. Distinct effect of firm’s geographical co-location to laser-related public research organization promotes patenting activity. Results on combined network and co-location effects confirms partially the existence of in-terdependent proximity effects, even though a closer look at these effects reveals some ambiguous but quite interesting findings.
Wenn gleich die positiven Effekte von Kooperationen bereits in einer Vielzahl von Untersuchungen nachgewiesen werden konnten, erfährt die Frage nach den Determinanten der Neigung von Unternehmen, Kooperationsbeziehungen einzugehen, in der Forschung zu Unternehmenskooperationen bisher nur geringe Aufmerksamkeit. Dabei könnte die Kenntnis der relevanten Einflussfaktoren Aufschluss darüber geben, inwieweit sich unterschiedliche Kooperationsintensitäten in Regionen auf Unterschiede im Unternehmensbesatz zurückführen lassen. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht das Diskussionspapier, welche Einflussfaktoren die Anzahl der Kooperationspartner von Unternehmen in der Photovoltaik-Industrie bestimmen. Ausgehend von einem Überblick über die möglichen Effekte der Kooperation von Unternehmen mit Partnern innerhalb und außerhalb der eigenen Region werden Hypothesen über die Zusammenhänge zwischen sowohl unternehmensspezifischen als auch regionsspezifischen Variablen und der Kooperationsneigung von Unternehmen aufgestellt. Diese werden im Rahmen von Regressionsmodellen anhand eines Datensatzes zu 178 deutschen Photovoltaikunternehmen getestet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass insbesondere große Unternehmen sowie Unternehmen mit hohen absorptiven Fähigkeiten eine Vielzahl an Kooperationsbeziehungen unterhalten. Kooperationen innerhalb der eigenen Region gehen die Unternehmen vor allem dann ein, wenn eine Vielzahl potenzieller Partner am Standort vorhanden ist. Zudem kooperieren Niederlassungen ausländischer Unternehmen besonders häufig mit Partnern aus der Region, in der sie angesiedelt sind.
Individuals’ preferences in transition regions are still shaped by the former communist system. We test this ‘Communism legacy’ hypothesis by examining the impact of acculturation in a communist regime on social network participation and, as a consequence, on preferences for spatial mobility. We focus on the paradigmatic case of East Germany where mobility intentions seem to be substantially weaker than in the western part. Applying an IV ordered probit approach we firstly find that East German people acculturated in a Communist system are more invested in locally bounded informal social capital than West Germans. Secondly, we confirm that membership in such locally bounded social networks reduces the intention to move away. Thirdly, after controlling for the social network effect the mobility gap between East and West substantially reduces. Low spatial mobility of the eastern population, we conclude, is to an important part attributable to a social capital endowment characteristic to post-communist economies.
