Moments of Truth - How Rupturing Events Uncover the Value Impacts of Technology

Moments of Truth are the powerful, but also unsettling events through which companies are confronted with the ethical implications and value effects of their technologies. In this article we explain why companies are well advised to monitor Moments of Truth as a systematic part of product management. We explain how they have become both a source and catalyst of ruptures for tech companies’ operations. To properly understand the scale and importance of Moments of Truth, we draw on philosopher Alain Badiou’s event theory to define them. We show how they are unpredictable, yet expectable in their appearance and systematically reveal a material value truth that fundamentally alters customer behavior, industry dynamics and often even society at large

A Call for Interdisciplinary Research on Applied Human-centricity in a Sustainable Digital Economy

Human-centricity is a fundamental aspect of a sustainable digital transformation. While the importance of human-centricity has been widely discussed, the field still lacks commonly accepted interdisciplinary definitions, concepts, evaluation methodologies, and realization approaches. We call for more interdisciplinary research and collaboration towards the co-creation of "applied human-centricity" in real-world sustainable digital environments

ZIVILGESELLSCHAFT ALS LERNORT FÜR ZIVILCOURAGE Wahrnehmungen von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern in Deutschland und Österreich – Implikationen für die Engagement- und Demokratieförderung

» Die Mehrheit ist der Meinung, dass es in der Gesellschaft aktuell nicht genug Zivilcourage gibt. Dabei zeigen sich statistisch signifikante Unterschiede zwischen den Ländern und Altersgruppen. » Wahrgenommene Lernorte für Zivilcourage sind insbesondere das Elternhaus und freiwilliges Engagement. » Maßnahmen zur Förderung von Zivilcourage sollten die Bedeutung von freiwilligem Engagement und Erwachsenenbildung stärker in den Blick nehmen, gerade hinsichtlich Interaktionen in digitalen Räumen. » Die Ergebnisse unterstreichen zudem, dass die Entwicklung politischer Strategien zur Förderung von Zivilcourage stärker als bislang sozialwissenschaftlich begleitet werden sollten

Data Protection and Consenting Communication Mechanisms: Current Open Proposals and Challenges

Data Protection and Consenting Communication Mechanisms (DPCCMs) enable users to express their privacy decisions and manage their online consent. Thus, they can become a crucial means of protecting individuals’ online privacy and agency, thereby replacing the current problematic practices such as “consent dialogues”. Based on an in-depth analysis of different DPCCMs, we propose an interdisciplinary set of factors that can be used for a comparison of such mechanisms. Moreover, we use the results from a qualitative expert study to identify some of the main multidisciplinary challenges that DPCCMs should address to become widely adopted data privacy mechanisms. We leverage both the factors and the challenges to compare two current open specifications, i.e. the Advanced Data Protection Control (ADPC) and the Global Privacy Control (GPC), and discuss future work

Multi-mode standardization under extreme time-pressure – the case of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

The present study investigates the standardization process of contact tracing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the epidemiological urgency, and differing from classical examples in the literature, this process is characterized by a compressed timeframe. In this setting, we investigate the role of different standard-setting modes and their interaction through the lens of multi-mode standardization. We find that the processes of standard setting through market competition or inclusive multi-stakeholder committees proved time-consuming and inefficient in addressing the immediate needs during this major global health crisis. Multi-mode standardization between committees, market players, and governments equally proved unable to coordinate a standard. Ultimately, a so far neglected actor, namely platform owners, proved to be pivotal in coordinating a widely-adopted standard. Our research extends multi-mode standardization with platform owners as a further standardization actor of proliferating importance given the increasing pervasiveness of platforms in numerous contexts. The present article provides implications for the interplay between different modes of standard setting in general, and the setting of technological standards in crises in particular

The Beach: Tax Competition along the Italian Coasts

Space: the final frontier. This paper seeks to understand the spatial dimension of tax competition. We provide two novel contributions to the literature on tax competition. First, we present a spatial model of tax competition, which is an adoption of the Hotelling model of imperfect competition in the linear city. We find that tax rates are strategic complementarities, as a change in taxes of one town will lead to a similar change of tax rates in neighboring towns. Second, we test the model with data from tourism taxes along the Italian coastline. We find that towns on the Thyrennian coast reduce their tax rates in order to attract tourists and additional tax base. We do not find a similar effect on the Adriatic coast, but we still see a reaction of tax rates, pointing to yardstick competition.Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Serie

On the significance of borders: the emergence of endogenous dynamics

We propose a prototype model of market dynamics in which all functional relationships are linear. We take into account three borders, defined by linear functions, that are intrinsic to the economic reasoning: non-negativity of prices; downward rigidity of capacity (depreciation); and a capacity constraint for the production decision. Given the linear specification, the borders are the only source for the emerging of cyclical and more complex dynamics. In particular, we discuss centre bifurcations, border collision bifurcations and degenerate flip bifurcations—dynamic phenomena the occurrence of which are intimately related to the existence of borders

Trends and driving forces of China's virtual land consumption and trade

Land resources are important for China's rapid economic development, especially for food and construction. China's land resources are under tremendous pressures, and therefore land use is increasingly displaced to other parts of the world. This study analyses the evolution and driving forces of China's land consumption from 1995 to 2015. The main results show that China's land footprint increased from 8.8% of the global land resources under human use in 1995 to 15.7% in 2015. China's domestic land resources are mainly used for serving domestic consumption. Moreover, China needs to import virtual land from foreign countries to satisfy 30.8% of its land demand. Among the three land use types of cropland, grassland and forests, grassland had the largest fraction in China's land footprint from 1995 to 2000, while forest has become the largest one since 2000. China's virtual land trade experienced a sharp increase in net imports from 9.4E + 04 km2 in 1995 to 3.4E + 06 km2 in 2015. Observing China's virtual land network by a cluster analysis, this study concludes that China keeps tight relationships with Australia, Japan, Brazil and Korea for its cropland consumption, and Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Korea and Japan are relevant for its grassland consumption. In addition, decomposition analysis results show that affluence is the major driving factor for China's land consumption, while changes in land use intensity could mitigate some of the related effects. Lastly, policy recommendations are proposed so that China can move toward sustainable land management.Security: staffonl

Headquarters Landscape in Austria: International HQs.

Austria is home to several intermediary headquarters (HQs) of large multinational corporations (MNCs). With this study, we deep dive into the international HQ landscape of Austria and study its composition and characteristics in terms of types, location, size, sector, and origin of its international HQs. This report is meant to be an addition to our previously published report on “Headquarters Landscape in Austria: An overview” (2022). Therefore, it focuses on a subsample – represented by the population of international HQs in Austria – of the initial database of HQs in Austria. What emerges from the study is that Austria and especially its capital city Vienna is the seat of different types of international HQs: both divisional and regional HQs. Moreover, the countries that are most commonly choosing Austria as an HQ location are the neighboring DACH countries (i.e., Germany and Switzerland) and the US. Finally, even though the number of international HQs is considerably smaller than that of domestic corporate parents, the size of the former is much bigger (with an average turnover of more than 10bn€). This emphasizes the relevance of international HQs for the Austrian economy

Tokenizing Behavior Change: A Pathway for the Sustainable Development Goals

To be successful and sustainable, social impact programs require individuals and groups to change aspects of their behavior. As blockchain-based tokens are increasingly adopted to target social outcomes, it is important to properly define these activities as “behavior change interventions” and assess their design and management as such—otherwise, there is significant risk of possible unintended consequences. Designing tokens as behavior change interventions requires new constructs beyond those currently in use to model the interdependence of digital and social ecosystems, and integration of token engineering, cryptoeconomics, and behavioral skill sets to test token designs within various ecosystems. New token design and testing protocols that integrate behavior measures around the targeted social outcomes are needed, to fill a critical gap in current practice. Hence, new standards, operational frameworks, and ethics are needed to guide the use of tokens at scale, as tools to achieve social impacts such as attaining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Meeting these needs requires a collaborative approach between token design actors (computer scientists, cryptoeconomists, token engineers, etc.) and social impact practitioners who will be increasingly called upon to use tokens as behavior change tools. This paper begins to identify common ground and address areas to further develop research and practice of tokens being used for social impact