CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, MARKETING, AND REPUTATION: A Stakeholder Approach for Sustainable Car Fleet Management

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.Corporate responsibility is increasingly involved in corporate reputation, and so, in the economic success of a company. Car fleet operating companies are exposed to criticism and, as a direct result of this many corporate protagonists responsible for the operation of car fleets are developing measures to decrease CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. A second trend is the increasing usage of image-generating marketing actions in the worldwide ‘information society’. For various reasons, these image campaigns do not always lead to the expected improvements in corporate reputation. The crucial question is, how do these marketing actions, in the name of corporate social responsibility, relate to corporate reputation? The objective of this research is to establish rules for these relationships and to derive a new stakeholder approach to optimise corporate reputation regarding car fleet management marketing. First of all this study examines theoretical evidence in preparation for further empirical studies on the behaviour of sustainable car fleet management. With this in mind, the thesis looks at empirical evidence about the factors deemed necessary for successful responsible car fleet operation and its marketing. After conducting an online survey with more than 300 respondents, a multiple-embedded-case study with three cases, six supplementary cases, and several stakeholders represents the main part of this work. As a result, this work depicts, through three models, and via a new stakeholder approach (a combination of the three), the relationships of certain main types of firm with main types of fleet as well as the main types of marketing to support corporate reputation. Unexpected findings regarding the suitable intensity of communication to internal and external stakeholders have emerged. This approach successfully supports the design of sustainable car fleet management and a suitable arrangement of the marketing approach

Evaluation of numerical simulations of CO2 transport in a city block with field measurements

Studying urban air-transport phenomena is highly complex, because of the heterogenous flow patterns that can arise. The main reason for these is the variable topology of urban areas, however, there is a large number of influencing variables such as meteorological conditions (e.g., wind situation, temperature) and anthropogenic factors such as traffic emissions. During a one-year CO2 measurement campaign in the city of Basel, Switzerland, steep CO2 gradients were measured around a large building. The concentration differences showed a strong dependency on the local flow regimes. Analysis of the field data alone did not provide a complete explanation for the mechanisms underlying the observed phenomena. The key numerical parameters were defined and the influence of turbulent kinetic energy dependency on the time interval for the Reynolds decomposition was studied. A Reynolds-Average Navier-Stokes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach was applied in the study area and the CO2 concentrations were simulated for six significant meteorological situations and compared to the measured data. Two flow regimes dependent on the wind situation, which either enhanced or suppressed the concentration of CO2 in the street canyon, were identified. The enhancement of CO2 in the street canyon led to a large difference in CO2 concentration between the backyard- and street-sides of a building forming the one wall of the canyon. The specific characteristics of the flow patterns led to the identification of the processes determining the observed differences in CO2 concentrations. The combined analysis of measurement and modeling showed the importance of reliable field measurements and CFD simulations with a high spatial resolution to assess transport mechanisms in urban area

On the efficiency and correction of vertically oriented blunt bioaerosol samplers in moving air

The aspiration efficiency of vertical and wind-oriented Air-O-Cell samplers was investigated in a field study using the pollen of hazel, sweet chestnut and birch. Collected pollen numbers were compared to measurements of a Hirst-type Burkard spore trap. The discrepancy between pollen counts is substantial in the case of vertical orientation. The results indicate a strong influence of wind velocity and inlet orientation relative to the freestream on the aspiration efficiency. Various studies reported on inertial effects on aerosol motion as function of wind velocity. The measurements were compared to a physically based model for the limited case of vertical blunt samplers. Additionally, a simple linear model based on pollen counts and wind velocity was developed. Both correction models notably reduce the error of vertically oriented samplers, whereas only the physically based model can be used on independent datasets. The study also addressed the precision error of the instruments used, which was substantial for both sampler type

Europa zwischen Fiktion und Realpolitik/L'Europe – fictions et réalités politiques

Europa ist in den vergangenen Jahren zu einem dominierenden Thema geworden. Verantwortlich dafür ist vor allem der Prozess der europäischen Einigung, der zunächst wirtschaftlich, zunehmend aber auch politisch gesehen wurde. Ein kulturell fundiertes Europa-Verständnis hingegen wird zwar rhetorisch immer wieder ins Spiel gebracht, bleibt aber eigenartig unscharf. Dieser Band bringt politische, historische und kulturelle Aspekte des modernen Europas zusammen und trägt so zu einem ganzheitlicheren Bild bei. Sein Titel spielt bewusst mit der Mehrdeutigkeit des Begriffspaars "Fiktion" und "Realität": Auf der einen Seite kann literarische Fiktion eng mit politischer Realität bzw. Realitätsdarstellung verbunden sein, andererseits ist "Realpolitik" oft mit "Fiktion" - Mythen, Stereotypen, Traditionen - durchsetzt

Integrated Acceptance Model for On-demand Car Functions: exploring determinants of drivers' acceptance

This research paper investigates the factors influencing drivers' acceptance of on-demand car functions (ODCFs) and proposes an integrated acceptance model specific to the ODCFs context. While limited marketing research has explored consumer responses to ODCFs, understanding the determinants of consumers' intention to accept ODCFs is crucial. Existing acceptance models, although effective in explaining variances in consumer behavior, need to be adapted and extended to enhance explanatory power in individual contexts. To address this gap, a comprehensive literature review on ODCFs and related domains was conducted, identifying 74 acceptance factors. Drawing upon the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the Car Technology Acceptance Model (CTAM), and the identified factors, a multi-level acceptance model tailored to the ODCFs context was developed. At the meso-level, the baseline model incorporates factors such as exposure to ODCFs, domain-specific, symbolic-affective, and moral-normative factors. The micro-level pertains to distinct individual variance components, encompassing socio-demographic attributes, travel behavioral patterns, personality dispositions, and technological inclinations. These micro-level determinants exert a discernible influence on the factors situated at the meso-level of analysis. A partial model that considers cross-level influences and advocates for multi-level research to examine the contextual factors' impacts on acceptance empirically is proposed to operationalize the model. By adopting this approach, researchers can gain deeper insights into the acceptance of ODCFs and shed light on the mechanisms underlying consumer behavior in this specific context

On the performance of microlysimeters to measure non-rainfall water input in a hyper-arid environment with focus on fog contribution

The measurement of non-rainfall atmospheric water input (NRWI) in arid environments requires instruments that are capable to detect even smallest amounts of total daily water input of less than 0.1 mm. Microlysimeters yield robust and high precision data of such low NRWI. We provide a technical description of a self-constructed microlysimeter and demonstrate its excellent performance regarding the analysis of NRWI in the Central Namib Desert. Three stations of the FogNet measurement network have been equipped with microlysimeters in order to measure fog deposition. NRWI and evaporation for days/nights without fog shows a persistent diurnal course. Deviations from this baseline define the amount of fog deposition, intensity and duration of a fog events. A more detailed analysis of a five-day period reveals the complex nature and variation between individual fog events with respect to the different patterns of fog deposition and fog precipitation and the contribution of adsorption, dew and fog to NRWI. The relation between fog precipitation and fog deposition is not straightforward and a simple parameterization of the processes that quantifies the amount of the water sampled by fog collectors and its connection to NRWI is still lacking

Fast growth of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters: a self-accelerating dynamo

We propose a model of magnetic-field growth in galaxy clusters whereby the field is amplified by a factor of about 10^8 over a cosmologically short time of ~10^8 yr. Our model is based on the idea that the viscosity of the intracluster medium during the field-amplification epoch is determined not by particle collisions but by plasma microinstabilities: these give rise to small-scale fluctuations, which scatter particles, increasing their effective collision rate and, therefore, the effective Reynolds number. This gives rise to a bootstrap effect as the growth of the field triggers the instabilities which increase the Reynolds number which, in turn, accelerates the growth of the field. The growth is explosive and the result is that the observed field strength is reached over a fraction of the cluster lifetime independent of the exact strength of the seed field (which only needs to be above ~10^{-15} G to trigger the explosive growth).Comment: latex (AN style), 5 pages, 2 figure