ACTIVITY REPORT 2020
CHair of marketing management and suStainability
ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 1 INTRO
Dear Reader,
Looking back on the year 2020, I think all the reports will mention that it was an exceptional year due to the pandemic. I also look back on the chair's activities, which were influenced by the crisis. However, at universities, we were able to continue our activities to a large extent - with a strong online focus. When I look at the research projects conducted in 2020, it was a very special year for our chair's team: We successfully completed a multi-year BMBF project on the future of retail in inner cities. Likewise, we finalized a research project funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (German Federal Foundation for the Environment). Furthermore, six research projects with a doctoral thesis were successfully completed, which is a record in my chair's history. For the first time, all disputations took place online, and we could only toast virtually to the well-deserved success of the doctorates' completion. Finally, the transformation platform "mission2impact", which was founded off the chair, started full-scale work in 2020, and we were able to start exciting projects with practice partners. In August 2020, the Deutsche Post endowment commitment to HHL came to an end. For seven years, the Deutsche Post uniquely supported the Marketing Chair in research and teaching. The focus was, in particular, on gaining and communicating new insights into cross-media development. At this point, I would like to express my special thanks to the Deutsche Post because without the foundation's commitment, we would not have been able to develop our research activities and doctoral projects so comprehensively. As a private university institution, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management relies on foundation commitments, and Deutsche Post has thus made an essential contribution to its development. I would also like to thank all our network partners in academia and corporate practice, the Scientific Society for Market- Oriented Management and the Academic Marketing Society, for their support and cooperation.
In this annual report, we recapitulate the various teaching, research, and transfer activities as well as the chair and research team behind them. I want to express my special thanks to my chair's team, which has supported me in an extraordinarily committed and responsible manner, especially in 2020.
I now wish you an exciting reading.
Yours Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 2 CONTENT
1 Team 3 1.1 Chair Holder 3 1.2 Chair Staff 4 1.3 External PhD students 7 2 Chair Philosophy 9 3 Research 11 3.1 Research Areas 11 3.2 Research Area Sustainability Marketing 12 3.3 Research Area Holistic Branding 15 3.4 Research Area E-Commerce & Crossmediales Management 17 3.5 Research Conferences 25 3.6 Research Cooperations 27 4 Courses & Master Theses 29 4.1 Courses 30 4.2 Master Theses 32 5 Networks & Cooperations 33 5.1 Academic Society for Market-Oriented Management 33 5.2 Academic Marketing Society 36 5.3 Transfer platform "mission2impact" 38 5.4 Participation in institutions and advisory boards 38 6 Publications 40 Imprint
ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 3 1 TEAM
1.1 Chair Holder
Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg
Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg holds the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. He completed his doctorate and habilitation on market-oriented environmental management and sustainable marketing at the University of Muenster. The research competencies in sustainability marketing and holistic branding, which have been built up at his chair over more than two decades, are linked to research questions of e-commerce and the optimization of cross- media forms of communication. Prof. Kirchgeorg has lectured at universities in Germany and abroad and is also a member of numerous business associations and advisory boards. His scientific career has been characterized by a variety of publications and editorships over the decades. The linking of theory and practice illustrates his research program, and he proactively seeks dialogue with business practice. Among others, Prof. Kirchgeorg is a member of the supervisory board of Unilever Deutschland Holding GmbH and an executive board member of the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für marktorientierte Unternehmensführung e. V. (Academic Society of Market-Oriented Management). In 2018, he chaired the Curriculum Council of the "Microeconomics of Competitiveness" (MOC) network founded at Harvard Business School by Prof. Michael Porter. He co-initiated the foundation of the transfer platform "mission2impact" in 2019. Besides, Prof. Kirchgeorg is involved in various expert groups, acts as an expert advisor and a mentor for start-ups, and is a trusted Konrad- Adenauer-Stiftung lecturer. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 4
1.2 Chair Staff
Birgit Simmank Team Assistant
Birgit Simmank has been the chair's new team assistant since May 2019 and takes care of organizational and administrative tasks, particularly appointment and event management. Mrs. Simmank has many years of professional experience. In her 17 years at HHL, she has already actively supported the chairs of Logistics and Macroeconomics.
Nadine Horbas Project Manager
Since 2012, Nadine Horbas has been responsible for the chair's project management and controlling, including the acquisition, administrative support, and controlling of third-party funded projects and the chair's financial management. She studied economics at the FernUniversitaet Hagen with a focus on marketing and service management.
Dr. Anja Weber Research Assistant
Dr. Anja Weber has been a research associate at the chair since 2016. She is responsible for research projects and cooperations in the field of sustainability marketing. Previously, she worked as a research associate and doctoral candidate at the chair. Her dissertation dealt with the topic "Sustainability and Consumer Confusion at the Point of Sale." She studied psychology at the University of Mannheim and the Philipps University in Marburg.
Maximilian Bechstedt Research Associate
Maximilian Bechstedt joined the chair as a research associate in December 2020. Together with Sara Lagodni, he will accompany the office of the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management. Maximilian Bechstedt studied Business Psychology with a focus on Marketing in Berlin and previously International Hospitality Management in Dresden. Due to the strong practical orientation of the courses of study, he was already able to gain much experience, among others in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Bangkok. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 5
Nicole Bruehl Research Associate
Nicole Bruehl has been supporting the chair's team since December 2019. She has already studied at various universities nationally and internationally and gained practical knowledge through multiple activities in the media and communication sector. As a research associate, she is currently working on approaches of resonance research and panarchy models. At the chair, we have placed the communication and PR function in her hands.
Damian Hesse Research Associate
After completing his master's degree at HHL in September 2017, Damian Hesse began working as a research associate. One of his tasks at the chair is to work on a research project on the German advertising industry's future direction. He is researching in the area of e-commerce & cross-media management on the effects of multi-channel concepts by analyzing economic and psychographic success variables.
Eric Holdack Research Associate
Eric Holdack has been a research associate at the chair since April 2017. He researches in the area of e-commerce and cross-media management and investigates customer acceptance of mixed reality applications. At the chair, Eric Holdack is mainly responsible for the BMBF-funded project SURTRADE.
Sara Lagodni Research Associate
Sara Lagodni joined the chair as a research associate in August 2019 and researches in the field of circular economy. She manages the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management office and has been supported by Maximilian Bechstedt, who takes over the project management since December 2020. Sara Lagodni studied marketing management in the textile industry, focusing on sustainability at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, where she is a lecturer in the master's program "Multichannel Trade Management in Textile Business." ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 6
Katja Lurie-Stoyanov Research Associate
Katja Lurie-Stoyanov has been a research associate at the chair since 2017, and her doctoral project focuses on the acceptance of cross-media integration technologies in retail. She is involved as a researcher in the BMBF project SURTRADE. Previously, she studied Management & Organization Studies at the Technical University of Chemnitz and subsequently worked in project management.
Lilo Meier Research Associate
Lilo Meier joined the chair as a research associate in November 2020 and researches in the field of sustainability marketing. Lilo Meier studied Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability at the Technical University of Berlin and is co-founder of a sustainable start-up in the fashion industry.
Xisi Yang Research Associate
Xisi Yang has been a research associate at the chair since May 2017. She researches in the field of sustainability marketing and investigates environmentally responsible consumer behavior in China as well as in a cross- national context, in particular, the environmental responsibility of the state, companies, and consumers as perceived by customers. At the chair, she was responsible for curriculum planning. After three years at our chair, she left us in April 2020, after her employment contract expired, to focus on her research and next steps.
Bjoern Friedrich Student Associate
Bjoern Friedrich has been a student associate at the chair of marketing management and sustainability since March 2013. In addition to his law studies, he works as a freelance management consultant. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 7
Caroline Dauenhauer Student Associate
Since January 2020, Caroline Dauenhauer has also been working as a student associate at the chair of marketing management and sustainability, supporting the staff primarily with the DBU project. She is currently studying business administration, having previously obtained a bachelor's degree in business psychology. She has gained a wide range of practical experience in marketing and market research, making her a good fit for the chair team.
1.3 External PhD students
Joerg Huebner Leipzig Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Quality dimensions of services in the public sector using the example of a chamber of commerce and industry
Iphigenie Kiefer Full-time PhD student
The contribution of design thinking to market-oriented corporate management
Julia Klapczynski Accenture Strategy
Flexible work practices in employer branding from the perspective of person- organization fit theory
Kristin Najdek Full-time PhD student
Networked commerce and retail customer experience: scales, theories, and experimental studies
Tobias Naujoks Amazon
Structural changes in online retailing and the marketing mix - an analysis considering multichannel online retailing and voice dialogue interfaces ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 8
Felix Rabia Robert Bosch GmbH
Channel choice behavior in the pre-purchase research phase in a business-to- business context. An industry-specific analysis
Jeremy Schoenwaelder Henkel dX Ventures
Maturity levels of sustainable corporate entrepreneurship: the role of cooperation between corporate venture and corporate sustainability departments
Florian Skwara Credit Suisse Group AG
The impact of financial transparency through technology on mental accounting and consumer marketing
Melanie Stehr Deutsche Messe AG
Trade fairs in the digital transformation - a constructivist-informed analysis of strategic design options of a trade fair organizer against the background of cross-media shifts in transaction-oriented B2B interaction processes
Heiko Maximo Stutzinger VNU Exhibitions Asia Pacific Co., Ltd.
Customer experience management (CEM) in the trade fair industry - service, location and experience quality as instruments for increasing customer satisfaction at trade fairs ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 0 9 2 CHAIR PHILOSOPHY
Academic and didactic brilliance paired with creative and responsible lateral thinking in times of change
According to this philosophy, the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability team sees itself as a scientific service provider with the highest standards. Today, future-oriented challenges, ranging from digitalization to climate change, require an outstanding technical and cross-sectional knowledge in marketing management and the willingness to question traditional instruments and methods. Breaking new ground in research and teaching requires courage, perseverance, and a high sense of responsibility.
We live up to this claim with a professionally excellent and highly committed team of professors. It not only has an outstanding academic performance profile but also international experience in business practice. Building bridges between science and business on a daily basis is a matter of course for us.
The Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability is involved in a wide variety of areas. Thus, our service portfolio includes, among others:
· Marketing Education · Transfer Projects · Workshops · Management Training · Publications · Think Tanks & · Research Projects · Reviewer Activities Scenario-Analysis · Conference Papers ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 0
We bundle our own and third-party funded research projects in the competence areas "Sustainability Marketing," "E-Commerce and Cross-Media Management," and "Holistic Branding." We support companies and institutions with our expert knowledge as sparring partners and lateral scientific thinkers. The cooperation between science and practice can occur in different formats: Student field projects, master theses, company case studies, workshops, consulting projects with our transfer platform "mission2impact" or the establishment of research positions. We are happy to provide interested partners with our references, documenting our application-oriented consulting and research expertise.
THE CHAIR OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY ONCE AGAIN RECEIVED THE “TALENT FACTORY WIWI-TALENTS"
Nicole Bruehl, another member of the chair, applied for the WiWi-Talents program at the end of 2020 and received the corresponding award in January 2021. Applicants for the program are selected based on outstanding academic performance, goal-oriented career planning, diverse practical and international experience, as well as social and community involvement.
The Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability is one of the Chairs with the "Talentschmiede - WiWi-Talents" signet, as indicated by WiWi-Online. This is due to many research associates and HHL students nominated by Prof. Kirchgeorg receiving the award for the WiWi-Talents program since 2005. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 1 3 RESEARCH
3.1 Research Areas
Our research program derives from five beliefs targeting current developments in marketing:
Discontinuities caused by ecological and social system changes, advancing digitalization, and changing values will present the marketing discipline with fundamentally new problems in the next ten years. Therefore, our research addresses these challenges. Behavioral insights form the foundation of marketing. Our research findings are always combined with decision-oriented implications. Driven by digitization, customer relationships will be initiated and maintained via various communication and sales channels in the future. Cross-media dialogs and analyses are thus gaining great relevance. Competitive pressure and the variety of instruments make effectiveness and efficiency analyses in marketing indispensable.
Against the changing situational context, we have aligned the research model for our chair activities to three distinct research areas.
Research areas of the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability in the environment of global megatrends ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 2
3.2 Research Area Sustainability Marketing
Current dissertation projects:
Resonance as an efficiency booster in stakeholder-oriented communication Nicole Bruehl, M.A.
Crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, demand an efficient and effective way for marketers to communicate with their stakeholders and align themselves according to the new situation. The key issues are maintaining or regaining trust and approval for actions, spreading a positive image, and strengthening bonds with stakeholders. Positive feedback can be a helpful tool to reduce the resources and effort needed to achieve this. Besides, steps can be taken to influence the opinions and perceptions of the various stakeholder groups positively. This is particularly important in times of change, restructuring, or the introduction of innovations. Even though resonance has already received some attention in the social sciences, there is still a significant research gap of the construct, especially in stakeholder-oriented communication. Filling this gap is the subject of this dissertation project. By combining different approaches and research areas, an attempt is made to define a precise construct and to conduct further research based on this construct. For example, the emergence of resonance in different real-world environments will be considered.
Circular economy for ephemeral goods and services - Conceptual framework and empirical implication. Sara Lagodni, MBA
The planet's resources are limited, and raw material prices are expected to rise further. Also, customers, NGOs, politicians, and other stakeholders are putting more pressure on companies to produce and act in a more environmentally friendly way and pursue ecological strategies. The Circular economy is seen as a promising concept to continue to do business ethically and at the same time effectively and efficiently. The dissertation project focuses on two resource- intensive industries, the trade show industry and the fashion industry, which offer short-lived products and services. Both industries use resources that are extracted at great expense and used for disproportionately short periods. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 3
The short usage reasons are not due to technical features but are based on strategic decisions and underlying philosophies. The first focus is on Circular Economy concepts for the exhibition industry. In developing a conceptual framework, the resources and emissions used are weighted and assessed for their impact. A material flow analysis is then conducted to measure material inputs and outputs and look at emissions generated during transportation and travel. Considering a drastic change in the industry due to the Corona crisis, alternative concepts for exhibitions are included, and it is considered which parts of the exhibitions can be digitized. Empirical implications are defined based on the analyses. The second part of the dissertation project focuses on the textile industry. It examines how digital technologies, such as AR/VR, can enable a more environmentally friendly textile chain, for example, in production, and at various customer touchpoints. AR/VR technologies, such as 3D glasses and design, provide the desired speed from idea to market while reducing material waste. Besides, they may hold the potential to close the loop. Experiments are being conducted with fellow researchers in the department, and a collaboration with a company is planned to test one of these technologies.
Innovation labs in large enterprises and SMEs: Value for market-oriented companies and customers Jeremy Schoenwaelder, MBA
Technological progress is shaping various sectors on the one hand, as digital capabilities enable companies to interact with customers and consumers in innovative ways. On the other hand, digital transformation is changing business models and reducing the cost of market entry. Digitization has lowered the cost of scaling production, distribution, and advertising. For example, in the CPG sector, start-ups are growing rapidly through newly created niche brands and gaining market share even in highly competitive markets. Senior managers of large companies perceive an acceleration of market volatility and dynamics in the competitive landscape. In general, the impact of digitalization is forcing companies to act and react to changing business rules. Due to this circumstance, there is a growing sense of urgency in large, small, and medium-sized companies. In particular, market-oriented companies are starting to increasingly engage in corporate ventures (CV) or implement their innovation units (innovation labs) to accelerate innovation and identify new business models. The heterogeneity of Innovation Lab activities across firms is a consequence of diverse factors (for example, firm size, organizational structures, culture, challenges, competition, or focus areas). It raises questions about the optimal design of innovation departments to create customer value. The publication-based dissertation will include a ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 4
methodological literature review and three empirical studies. The empirical studies will analyze the casuistics of innovation labs in the context of companies' market orientation and in comparison of Dax corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany.
Finished dissertation projects:
Going green at the point of sale - application of digital technologies and message framing to promote sustainable consumption Anna-Katharina Grimm (née Jaeger), M.A.
More sustainable food consumption and production patterns could contribute significantly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting natural resources. Nevertheless, the market shares of sustainable products are still low. The reason: although consumers indicate in surveys that they want to act sustainably, they rarely do so at the supermarket shelf. The cumulative dissertation aims to close this gap between intention and actual behavior, the "attitude-behavior-gap," by investigating different communication strategies to increase sustainable products' sales. To this end, consumer psychology is combined with innovative technology: Article I tests two different point-of- sale technologies - digital signage and augmented reality - in a real-world experiment to draw consumers' attention to product information about sustainable products. Both technologies can increase sales of organic products, but the augmented reality applications attracted significantly more attention. Building on this, Article II examines the benefits that advertising for sustainable products should emphasize in particular (self- vs. third-party benefits) and how these must be formulated to be persuasive. The results suggest that the credibility of advertising messages is a central driver of consumers' purchase intention. Since concretely formulated environmental benefits are perceived as particularly credible, their use is most promising. The third article tests a new form of advertising for sustainable products with so- called "empowerment ads," which communicate customer demand as the main driver for (green) corporate decisions. These ads increase both a company's perceived customer orientation and environmental responsibility, making them more successful than ads that target only one of the two aspects. Article IV also uses modern technology in the form of an information app to educate consumers about the sustainability of products, thereby encouraging them to change their purchasing behavior. This app's test shows that consumers need a simple and credible decision-making tool, ideally a "sustainability index" that accumulates different aspects. All four articles presented in this dissertation offer manufacturers and retailers of sustainable products valuable insights for their promotion at the point of sale. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 5
Locus of Control: Motivation für umweltbewusstes Ver- halten Xisi Yang, M.Sc.
Individual environmental activities become powerful when they coalesce into collective movements that involve significant changes in personal perception, judgment, and action. This study aims to show how an individual's belief in his/her ability to affect environmental change affects pro-environmental behavior in China regarding internal and external factors. Using the concept of environmental locus of control (ELOC), the dissertation aims to identify the effect of disseminating environmental messages in online marketplaces and social media. The first paper of the dissertation specifies characteristics in ELOC factors and pro-environmental behavior among Chinese. The second paper focuses on the promotion of internal ELOC attributes. A series of experiments in China will be used to determine whether consumers have a greater intention to purchase environmentally friendly products online when consumers' power to influence companies through purchase is emphasized. In the third paper, the research focus is on environmentally friendly marketing on social media platforms. Here, the aim is to identify effective activities that remind people of various environmentally friendly behavior forms and stimulate their internal ELOC and willingness to contribute. Overall, this dissertation provides recommendations for improving the framing of environmental messages and environmentally friendly advertising.
3.3 Research Area Holistic Branding
Current dissertation projects:
Flexible work practices in employer branding from the perspective of the person-organization fit theory.
Julia Klapczynski, M.A.
Person-Organization Fit refers to persons and organizations' compatibility, with values often serving as a key basis for assessment. Current research findings show that a high degree of fit between employer and employee has several desirable consequences for both sides: Among other things, positive effects on job satisfaction, work engagement, and employee retention have been sufficiently documented; at the same time, applicants are attracted to those organizations with which they assume a high fit. In the light of the ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 6
concept of Person-Organization Fit, this research addresses theoretically and empirically the influence of flexible work practices (in particular flexible working hours and teleworking) on the perception of employer attractiveness. Among other things, it is investigated to what extent value-based Person- Organization Fit can serve as a possible explanatory mechanism for different preferences regarding flexibility-related employer offers. The results can provide impulses for the practice of employer branding in the selection and use of non-monetary employer benefits, especially concerning the creation of a value-based organizational culture.
Finished dissertation projects:
Perception of internationalized transfer brands in the trade fair sector - an empirical analysis of trade fair brand designs in Asia Michaela Hausmann-Hofer, Dipl.-Des., MBA
Due to digitalization and globalization, inter - and intra - competition, management decisions in the trade fair industry are increasingly moving towards internationalization. Economically very important, China is also essential for the internationalization strategies of trade fair organizers. When transferring the home fair from Germany to Asia, either an adaptation or a differentiation of the fair brand occurs. The research work is based on understanding the holistic brand design of the service bundle "trade fair event" by means of brand design. Based on the brand architecture of the trade fair-specific umbrella brand strategy and its communication-political brand management elements, implications are made for the physical-communicative design of internationalized transfer brands. The study focuses on the perceptual evaluation of visual stimuli or schemes and their identity-oriented impact in the outside-in perspective of the Asian market. Culture-specific characteristics of the foreign market are thereby considered for the first time in the design of trade fair brands. Not considered so far, the work empirically proves image transfer effects by means of brand fit analysis. Thus, a derivation of recommendations for the brand management of trade fair organizers is possible, and the transfer from theory to practice is established. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 7
The influence of diversity management on employer branding - leadership as a success factor in gender diversity, presented by a case-based analysis Christin Oechsle-Neumann, M.A., MBA
Due to the international war for talent, it is a challenge for companies to retain highly qualified employees. An intangible incentive factor for staying in the company is the manager's behavior, such as appreciative treatment and recognition. The study examines to what extent the manager's implementation of diversity management affects the employee's attitude towards the employer, i.e., the employer brand's self-image and his or her loyalty to the company. The behavioral stimulus-organism-response model is used to explain these relationships. Diversity management refers to the influence, control, and organization of diverse people's behavior by superiors. The focus is on the diversity dimension of gender, the cultural gender constructed by social and cultural environmental conditions. The collected employee data come from international locations of Robert Bosch GmbH.
3.4 Research Area Cross-Media & E-Commerce
Current dissertation projects:
Essays on key research streams within multi-channel- retail-research Damian Hesse, M.Sc.
The rise of the Internet and the accompanying technological innovations have fundamentally changed the traditional retail business and the way customers store, posing a dramatic challenge to managers. For a long time, retailers marketed their products and services through single and isolated channels, for example, a website and the traditional point of sale (POS) in the store, in an independent and non-integrated modus operandi. As a result, the required collaboration between a retailer's channels mainly remained inadequate, and fragmented channel structures increased the complexity of addressing challenges such as channel integration, cannibalization, operational difficulties, and financial synergies. In short, a seamless purchase decision process across multiple channels remains a distant future goal rather than a current reality, partly as a result of the inability or unwillingness of many companies to address such contemporary technological issues and innovative ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 8
practices. As a solution to this phenomenon, the author addresses three different areas of multi-channel research. First, the recent development of online pure-players opening offline stores and the corresponding impact on financial and non-financial performance metrics is examined. Second, it argues for a decentralized channel structure to maintain organizational flexibility and allow channels to serve different segments. On the other hand, a decentralized structure rarely enables optimal synergy exploitation. Therefore, an investigation of the best possible degree of channel integration should be carried out. Third, an analysis of channel harmonization should be implemented to increase price transparency online and also offline. Prices in electronic channels are generally lower than those in brick-and-mortar stores - ergo, price discounts have a positive effect on the engagement of online channels at the expense of offline channels, leading to cannibalization effects. In summary, the author will evaluate how multiple pricing schemes across multiple channels must be managed so that dissonance perception does not harm retailers' image and profits.
Retail utopia or distopia? Customer acceptance of mixed reality applications Eric Holdack, M.A.
"The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better the design" (Steve Jobs). With the emergence of wearable VR and AR technologies, companies increasingly seek to integrate 3D content into the customer experience. Simultaneously, the adoption of mixed reality wearables in a retail context has yet to be explored. Concerns about the long-term return on investment give rise to the question of what factors lead customers to accept corresponding technologies as their communication channel. In terms of software development, marketers, developers, retailers, and manufacturers alike are interested in whether mixed reality should be used along the customer journey to provide customers with extensive product information or instead emphasize interactivity-related elements. Therefore, this dissertation proposes extended experience acceptance models to predict the future adoption of wearable VR and AR technologies in retail. The results extend abstract ideas about the acceptance of immersive technologies and provide useful insights into the implementation and development of wearable mixed reality technologies. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 1 9
Quality dimensions of services in the public sector using the example of a chamber of commerce and industry Joerg Huebner, Dipl.-Kfm. (FH)
The quality of the services offered is a significant success factor for private- sector companies and public-sector organizations. For example, the German chambers of industry and commerce (IHK), as corporations under public law, offer their member companies a wide range of services: representation of interests vis-à-vis politicians and the administration, implementation of state- assigned (sovereign) tasks, and a large number of voluntary services to assist them in their day-to-day business. Decisive IHK marketing goals are satisfaction, loyalty, and the building of acceptance among members, customers, and numerous other public stakeholders. Therefore, the dissertation project addresses the central research question of which quality dimensions of services in the public sector make a significant contribution to the success and how they affect the aforementioned marketing goals. Conceptually, relevant quality control and measurement models are considered and configured for our empirical research. The result is recommendations for action to establish efficient, target group and benefit-oriented structures in the public sector's service management within the framework of the New Public Management approach.
The contribution of design thinking to market-oriented corporate management Iphigenie Kiefer, M.Sc.
The contribution to the success and implementation of Design Thinking (DT) is currently a top topic in large companies' executive floors. This is partly due to the fact that companies are concerned by the increasing market dynamics and the disintegration of established and once successful companies. Old tried and tested the classic market and resource-oriented management models are critically questioned and replaced or expanded by agile, creative problem- solving approaches such as DT. This raises the question of how established organizational structures and patterns of thinking and decision-making that have grown and been lived over the years can be expanded and profitably supplemented by DT. Several research contributions have already addressed how cognitive and organizational capabilities promote market-oriented behavior in companies and contribute to the continuous creation of customer, competitive and corporate advantages in a dynamic and complex environment. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 0
However, the DT approach has not yet been empirically investigated concerning its influence on market-oriented management and corporate success. Therefore, the dissertation project addresses the central question of what contribution Design Thinking makes to success in bi-paradigmatically managed companies and how the approach is to be implemented. Based on a cross-industry survey of medium-sized and large companies, an explanatory model is derived, which is intended to guide managers to adopt DT as a means of market-oriented corporate management or to review and optimize existing approaches.
Acceptance of cross-media integration technologies in the retail sector Katja Lurie, M.Sc.
Rapid technological developments and innovations force retailers to rethink their service model and create a new, "smart" retail environment. In doing so, it is necessary to provide enhanced product visualization and interaction capabilities that enable and facilitate cross-channel shopping for customers. For this purpose, various technological solutions, such as mixed reality applications or interactive navigation systems, are being developed on a large scale but are still hardly used in practice. The high costs and time required to establish new technologies and the unexplored acceptance of these innovations on the part of customers often prevent retailers from establishing innovative approaches. For this reason, the focus of the dissertation is on the application of extended technology acceptance models to identify the success potential of cross-media technologies and to provide practice-relevant insights into their implementation.
Connected Retail & Customer's Retail Experience: Scales, Theories and Experimental Studies Kristin Najdek, M.Sc.
Connected Retailing links the on- and off-world through the use of smart technologies (e.g., augmented reality, digital signage/iBeacons, interactive digital in-store assistants) and thus breaks up the previously dyadic interactions and concentration on channels/touchpoints. The possibility of integrative interactions across all elements (customer, product, brand, retailer) suggests an influence on the customer experience based on experiences between the customer and a product and/or company. Here, the experience is personal and implies customer engagement on the cognitive, affective, emotional, social, and physical levels. The challenges are that there is no ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 1
scale for "customer experience" yet as well as hardly any research on the impact of connected retail on customer experience. First, a theoretical contribution to the development of the construct "Customer Experience" will be elaborated, in which an overview of relevant scales and theories will be given. Based on this, a "customer experience" scale for a connected retail setting will be developed to subsequently empirically test the degree of impact on elementary response factors within the scope of an experiment.
The influence of servitization on multichannel marketing in the B-to-B context, illustrated by the example of the cogeneration market Felix Rabia, M.Sc.
Industrial companies are increasingly confronted with diverse and demanding tasks. Due to the increasing competitive pressure caused by globalization, products are increasingly viewed by customers as homogeneous or even interchangeable. Due to this development, successful differentiation, which is exclusively constituted by the product itself, is becoming increasingly difficult. Against this background, complimentary services are becoming an effective way of successfully differentiating oneself from the competition. Based on the IMP-Group interaction model, this dissertation will determine the success potential of services and design concrete service offers for the CHP business with the help of a survey of the customers of Bosch KWK Systeme GmbH. Based on this, the influence of servitization on organizational customers' channel selection behavior in a multichannel context will be investigated.
The impact of financial transparency through technology on mental accounting and consumer marketing Florian Skwara, M.A.
Every day, consumers are confronted with purchasing decision processes that have far-reaching consequences for their financial assets. They decide whether to spend, borrow, save or invest money. The rational choice theory states that consumers act rationally in such decisions, in line with the idea of homo economicus, and maximize their utility. However, research shows that consumers act irrationally in certain scenarios and, for example, show an increased willingness to pay when using credit cards compared to cash. It thus appears that the theory of rational homo economicus has its weaknesses and that consumers in this example violate a core principle of economic theory: The principle that money is fungible. Researchers explain many of these ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 2
phenomena through mental accounting, described by Richard Thaler as "the set of cognitive operations used by individuals and households to organize, evaluate, and keep track of financial activities." He argues that consumers use complex mental reasoning processes daily and in a variety of application domains. This dissertation project aims to further explain these effects, particularly in light of recent technological advances in payments and spending tracking by financial institutions that help consumers track spending and savings within self-defined budget categories over time. Therefore, the project conducts a systematic literature review and further explores consumer behavior related to mental accounting in experiments.
Interaction patterns in building trust in the B2B- procurement process Melanie Stehr, MBA
In today's VUCA world, industrial companies are increasingly being offered solutions to problems in the procurement process, the quality of which can hardly or not at all be assessed by the customer prior to purchase due to their complexity. The confidence in the efficiency and the achievement will of offerers became thus an important purchase-deciding factor in many segments of the Business to Business procurement. The dissertation concentrates particularly on the phase of the business preparation in the procurement process and examines for different initial situations the customer-sided communication preferences with the structure of confidence. The objective is to identify interaction patterns that reveal which clusters of demanders show preferences for certain trust signals via certain communication media. Thus, a theoretically based frame of reference for the segmentation of customer groups and their interaction and communication preferences in supplier-side business-to-business marketing is to be designed and empirically verified based on a cross-industry study.
Customer Experience Management (CEM) in the trade fair sector - service, location and experience quality as instruments for increasing customer satisfaction at trade fairs Heiko Maximo Stutzinger, Dipl.-Kfm.
The dissertation project is intended to contribute to answer how the quality of service experiences, location factors, and experiences can be measured to enable relevant, action-related statements in the trade fair sector in connection with customer experience management. To achieve this, an exami- ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 3
nation of trade fair-specific quality experiences, the experience, the associated cause-effect relationships, and CEM approach is necessary. Since an experience and the service experience occur continuously at points of contact between an exhibition company and its customers, a detailed examination of the customer journey structure and the customer contact points is essential. Also, the relevant dimensions of service, location, and experience quality measurement are to be elaborated and empirically verified. As a frame of reference for the empirical analysis, a trade fair of VNU Exhibitions Asia Pacific Co., Ltd. will serve as an exemplary research object. The aim is to explore which of the trade fair supplier-controlled customer contact points are decisive for the overall experience. Furthermore, it will be determined which dimensions of service, location, and experience quality determine along the customer journey. Moreover, it will be worked out which measurement methods are suitable for analyzing service, location, and experience quality and can be included in the study design accordingly. Empirical studies will be conducted in a theory-based manner to identify starting points for improving the customer experience at trade shows.
Finished dissertation projects:
Multi-channel customer loyalty: the influence of cross-channel services in the retail sector Katharina Behme, M.A.
Innovative developments in a multi-channel context characterize the modern retail landscape. For companies, online, mobile, and interactive POS channels open up new sales and communication channels. These developments mean new opportunities to access information, compare products and prices, and make purchases for customers and consumers. This research project aims to investigate multi-channel customer loyalty, focusing on the influence and design of cross-channel services. The research project is divided into articles based on each other: On the customer side, the effect of cross-channel services on customer loyalty will be investigated to identify drivers of customer loyalty in a multi-channel environment. On the company side, the influencing variables and drivers of multi-channel service development will be examined in a complementary manner. Subsequently, the findings on cross-channel services will be compared from the customer and the company perspective to identify the potential for more effective service design. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 4
Customer behavior in a multi-channel environment Rico Bornschein, M.Sc.
Companies are facing increased change. New technologies offer companies an ever wider range of possibilities, such as electronic sales channels or digital marketing communication. At the same time, consumers' behavior is also changing, who are paying less and less attention to a wide variety of marketing activities on different channels due to sensory overload. As a result, established impact relationships between marketing activities and economic success are becoming increasingly complex, which poses significant challenges for companies today. Therefore, it is of great relevance to understanding the interdependencies of multi-channel marketing and the effects on consumer behavior in more detail. The cumulative dissertation project focuses on two aspects of this current phenomenon: (a) channel switching behavior of customers and its impact on business performance measures and (b) consumer reactions to website cookies.
Cross-Channel Integration: a consumer and retailer perspective Rico Manß, M.Sc.
With the rise of the Internet and the advent of online shopping, traditional retail has changed dramatically. Retailers have developed multi-channel strategies and, in particular, integrated their offline channels with online channels. Such integration is associated with the term cross-channel integration. This cumulative dissertation aims to examine cross-channel integration holistically from a demand perspective and a supply perspective. It consists of four independent studies embedded in overarching introductory and concluding sections. The first study provides the conceptual foundation by conducting a systematic literature review. It identifies, analyzes, structures, and extracts 169 publications in the research field of cross-channel integration and concludes by proposing two dominant directions for future research. These two research directions are addressed in three subsequent empirical studies. One empirical study focuses on the consumer perspective by examining channel switching behavior. It concludes that customers have a fundamental need for certainty during and after the purchase process when it comes to channel switching. The other two studies focus on the supply side of cross-channel integration and examine the impact of strategies retailers can ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 5
employ when integrating channels. One study evaluates the return on investment of adding a channel. It finds that adding an offline store to online channels increases profits in absolute terms but reduces margins in the short term. On the supply side, the other study conceptualizes cross-channel technologies along the customer's buying process and evaluates one of these technologies experimentally. Based on the four independent studies' findings, the dissertation concludes by summarizing the contribution and deriving overarching implications for researchers and practitioners equipped with a checklist for cross-channel integration.
Structural changes in online retailing and the marketing mix - An analysis considering multi-channel online retailing and voice dialog interfaces Tobias Naujoks, Dipl.-Kfm.
The online retail environment is expanding, and with it, the opportunities for customers to shop online. On the one hand, online channels' proliferation is establishing a multi-channel online retail landscape that offers customers more alternatives where they can shop online. On the other hand, by changing the user interaction mode of existing customer touchpoints, new voice dialog interfaces are created, offering customers more opportunities to shop online from graphics to speech. In this context, this publication-based dissertation aims to generate theoretical and practical contributions to these two recent developments in online retailing, that is, multi-channel online retailing and voice dialogue interfaces, to improve decision making in the marketing mix.
3.5 Research Conferences
Due to the corona pandemic, participation in conferences and research meetings took place only to a limited extent and virtually.
Virtual sustainability workshop
On September 28, the sustainability workshop initiated by the Chair took place for the third time, this time in cooperation with the Chair of Business Ethics. The workshop's topic was "How to make fashion sustainable? - Bringing together different perspectives". To learn more about the particular challenges in the fashion industry and to better understand how to drive the change towards Circular Economy and more ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 6
sustainability, Dr. Anja Weber, Sara Lagodni, and Marie Schwimmer invited three industry experts. First, Dr. Anja Weber highlighted the environmental and social impacts of the rapidly growing industry. Next, David Quass presented Adidas's sustainability initiatives, Verena Paul-Benz shared her experiences on the responsible management of a fair fashion label (Lovjoi) during the Corona crisis, and Friederike Priebe (EPEA GmbH) gave insights into the production of textiles according to the cradle-to-cradle principle. After each guest lecture, the virtual workshop participants were able to ask questions and discuss the topics with the experts.
In good tradition: marketing professors and doctoral students in digital exchange
Over the past decade it has become a tradition for the chairs funded by the Deutsche Post to get together for a doctoral colloquium. This time, the exchange took place in digital form on November 27, 2020. Prof. Dr. Andreas Mann, Prof. Dr. Dieter Dahlhoff, Prof. Dr. Ralf Wagener (University of Kassel), Prof. Dr. Kai Peter (University of Hamburg), Prof. Dr. Manfred Krafft (University of Muenster), Prof. Dr. Helmut Schneider (Steinbeis School of Management and Innovation, Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg (HHL, Leipzig) took part in the exchange of experiences with their doctoral students. The doctoral students presented their research and doctoral projects, and a discussion followed from which the participants were able to take away important ideas. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 7
3.6 Research Cooperations
Completion of BMBF project Surtrade
With the final report submission in August 2020, the BMBF-funded project "SURTARDE - Smart Urban Retail Services - Integrated Service System for Cross-channel Retail in the City of the Future" ended after three years. Under the leadership of Kuehne Logistics University and in cooperation with a research team from the University of Leipzig and the practical partners Tchibo, Salt Solutions, and Checkmobile, a Smart Retail Service platform was developed as part of innovative business and transformation strategies for urban city and retail spaces. The project team's interdisciplinary composition allowed to adopt and integrate different perspectives from the fields of marketing, retail, information technology, logistics, service science, and urban planning. The Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability at HHL was involved in the analysis and conception of future cross-channel retail concepts and the research of customer acceptance of cross-channel integration technologies. Milestones were a real lab in downtown Leipzig (2018), the test of a VR application under real conditions in a Tchibo store in Hamburg (2019), and SurDay, a conference for cross-channel experts from science and practice (2019). With the project partners, technologies and applications for modernizing retail were made tangible for customers and companies on site. The insights gained in the process led to several publications and conference papers and will be further evaluated.
Completion of the DBU research project
On June 25, the last project advisory board meeting for the research project "Promotion of Sustainable Consumption Behavior at the Point of Decision" funded by the German Federal Foundation for the Environment (DBU) took ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 8
place, moderated by Anna-Katharina Grimm (née Jaeger) and Dr. Anja Weber. The project advisory board accompanied the research project for over 1.5 years and supported it with professional input: Matthias Benz, Shirin Betzler, Dr. Nils, S. Borchers, Claudia Gaspar, Dr. Thomas Pyhel, and Dr. Katja Rudolph. In this project, we set ourselves to investigate how consumers in supermarkets can be motivated to translate their sustainable purchasing intentions into actual purchasing behavior. In particular, we investigated the potential of digital technologies for marketing sustainable products. For example, intelligent shelf systems were tested in the market, and a browser app (LabelKompass) was programmed to help consumers find the most sustainable product quickly and easily. An overview of the exciting studies and findings can be found on the project website: http://nachhaltigkeit-kommunizieren.de/
Research stay at Aarhus University and collaborative project on economic incentives to promote sustainable behaviors
On March 1, 2020, Xisi Yang began her research stay at the School of Business and Social Sciences at Aarhus University in Denmark. She has initiated a cross- national collaborative project with Professor John Thøgersen, Ph.D., on optimizing economic incentives to promote sustainable behaviors, including household waste recycling and environmentally friendly consumption. In the second week of March, Xisi Yang presented her research project "Consumer Green Empowerment in Environmental Advertising" - co-authored by Dr. Anja Weber and Anna-Katharina Grimm (née Jaeger) - at the Knowledge Exchange Seminar of the Marketing Department at BSS Aarhus. Xisi Yang is currently conducting a research project on conditional monetary rewards. In this, individuals can earn and receive the corresponding reward by sorting and recycling household waste through a smart recycling system. This monetary compensation can then, in turn, only be spent in environmentally-friendly online stores. It is hypothesized that with this conditional green reward, higher recycling intentions will be achieved compared to a standard reward or green incentive. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation increase, while extrinsic incentives' negative effects would decrease with green purchasing as the desired goal. Xisi Yang will conduct this research with international partners in three countries, including Germany, China, and the United States. This will also allow the study of possible differences in cultural values and technological acceptance. An initial research concept has been accepted for an oral presentation for the EMAC annual conference. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 2 9 4 COURSES & MASTER THESES
Our teaching is based on three pillars: excellent technical knowledge, practical relevance, teamwork.
We aim to prepare students for their careers optimally. Therefore, in addition to specialist knowledge, we also teach systematic problem-solving skills and promote our courses' analytical and social competencies. We continuously integrate the latest findings from research projects into our teaching.
Our teaching is based on three pillars:
Excellent technical knowledge Practical relevance Teamwork
In-depth knowledge of marketing theories and methods is a prerequisite for our students to develop into excellent problem solvers in marketing management. They test their specialist knowledge in practical projects, case studies, and cooperation events with top-class executives. Besides, we encourage efficient and cross-functional teamwork, initiative, communication, and presentation techniques. Because only with the help of these "soft skills" can marketing concepts be successfully planned and implemented as a cross- sectional task in the company. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 0
4.1 Courses
The courses for MSc and MBA students are based on the decision-oriented approach to marketing and systematically cover all marketing management phases. The lectures not only use interactive tools, such as online case studies or topic-specific quizzes but are also enriched by top-class guest speakers from well-known companies.
Overview courses 2020:
Overall, the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability offered diverse courses in the following programs in 2020:
Master of Science program (Full-Time und Part-Time) MBA program (Full-Time und Part-Time)
Courses Winter Spring Summer Fall Sum per 2020 Term Term Term Term course
Competitiveness 1 1 Marketing Mix & Cotrolling 1 1 Integrated Case Study 4 4 Strategic Brand Management 2 1 3 Marketing & Strategic 1 1 Brand Management Consumer Behavior and 1 1 Market Research Customer Value Creation 2 1 2 5 Marketing 1 1
Total courses 2 7 2 6 17
Teaching evaluation:
The course assessments per course in the HHL's MBA and MSc programs assess the teaching quality. The table shows an aggregated picture of the development of the course evaluations in recent years. Despite the increasing number of courses with a higher number of participants, the teaching quality could be kept high in a longitudinal comparison. Feedback and international benchmarking are used to continuously develop the didactics and content of the marketing module courses. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 1
Evaluation MSc- MSc- MBA- MBA- GEMBA results Full Time Part Time Full Time Part Time
2012 1,54 1,39 1,56 1,46 / 2013 1,46 1,42 1,42 1,51 / 2014 1,83 1,56 1,41 / 1,35 2015 1,66 1,62 2,08 1,45 1,58 2016 1,53 1,52 1,84 1,73 1,31 2017 1,71 1,58 1,71 1,45 1,42 2018 1,90 1,67 1,56 1,19 2,01 2019 1,60 1,59 1,50 / / 2020* 1,89 1,56 1,42 1,58 /
*until Fall Term 2020
Virtual MOC network meeting
Since 2008, Prof. Manfred Kirchgeorg has been teaching the Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) course at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management together with Prof. Wilhelm Althammer. This course examines the determinants of competitiveness and economic development in different world regions from a microeconomic perspective. Since 2017, Prof. Kirchgeorg has accompanied the Microeconomics of Competitiveness Curriculum Council chair, a committee within the MOC network anchored at Harvard Business School. The MOC network was founded by Prof. Michael Porter, who also received an honorary doctorate from HHL in 2008. Over 140 partner universities from 67 countries are members of the MOC network. The network developed into a platform for research and teaching and an important tool to influence and support economic developments worldwide. The MOC course was specifically designed to be taught at Harvard Business School and its partner institutions. HHL is part of the network of these partner institutions. In December 2020, the annual network meeting was not held at Harvard Business School; instead, it was moved to the virtual space. In November 2020, Prof. Kirchgeorg initiated a survey at the international partner universities to gather their online teaching experiences. At the network meeting, he presented the results as a study of the Curriculum Council, and various discussion sessions were held on teaching experiences with online tools. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 2
4.2 Master Theses
In 2020, the following topics were supervised as master theses in the MSc as well as MBA program at the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability:
How Technology and Data is shaping Marketing: Marketing Automation Current Trends in Customer Relationship Management Success factors of green start-ups – A case-study based analysis Growth and scalability of start-up companies with circular economy business models: A case study The impact of the overall attractiveness of the store location on customer satisfaction with grocery stores - an empirical study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Differences in Measuring Customer Acceptance for Mobile and Wearable Augmented Reality Technologies in Retail - A Literature Review Customer Lifetime Value and its application on marketing attribution - critical discussion based on a survey of SMEs in e-commerce Top-up shopping – a question of city centre attractiveness? - A case study of the first IKEA inner-city store at Hamburg Relevance of the TAM in Marketing – A Systematic Review How data-driven marketing helps industrial companies to personalize marketing campaign activities Brand Experience in Multichannel Environments along the Customer Journey - An Extended Literature Review Impact of Ad Blocking on Programmatic (Brand) Advertising From Mitigation to Adaption - Implication of Resilience Strategies Customer acceptance of technology using the example of virtual reality in retail Differences in guest preferences between business and leisure travelers in the hospitality sector: Implications for the relationship marketing of independent hotels Impacts of COVID-19 on the customer journey using the example of the telecommunications industry Greening the fast fashion industry – Can established players adapt Toward a more eco-friendly organizational procurement: Exploring the value of studies on individual sustainable consumption for the design of industrial marketing programs for sustainable products Consumers’ environmental evaluation of food products – An empirical analysis ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 3 5 NETWORKS & COOPERATIONS
Since its foundation, the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability has been characterized by intensive participation in and cultivating networks. Networks in research and teaching are a matter of course for us. The intelligent linking of expertise through networks often creates a win-win situation for all participants - especially in times of change. The following networks and research cooperations support the chair in its teaching and research tasks in a unique way.
5.1 Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für marktorientierte Unternehmensführung
The Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management was founded in the early 1980s at the Westphalian Wilhelms University of Muenster by Prof. Meffert and leading personalities. It forms a cross-industry platform for the exchange of experience between academics and top decision-makers from business practice. Today, the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management counts 35 companies as members. The aim is to reflect on fundamental and current market-oriented corporate management issues and make scientific approaches to solutions usable in practice. The office has been located in Leipzig since 2006 and is linked to the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability. Prof. Kirchgeorg is an executive board member of the Scientific Society.
78th Leadership Meeting of the Scientific Society in Berlin
The 78th Leadership Discussion of the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management took place on October 1-2. The topic was the extent to which the German economy is coping with the Corona crisis and what opportunities the resulting new start could bring. Once again, top-class guests were invited to discuss these issues. These included Heinrich O. Deichmann, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Deichmann SE, Dr. Albert Christmann, Chairman of Dr. Oetker GmbH, Thomas Linemayr, CEO of Tchibo GmbH, Werner M. Dornscheidt, ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 4
Chairman of Messe Duesseldorf GmbH, Prof. Andreas Schulz, Director of the Gewandhaus Leipzig and Friedrich Joussen, Chairman of TUI AG. The participants were guided through the evening by TV presenter and journalist Astrid Frohloff. After the introductory words regarding the role of politics in the current crisis by the chairman of the CSU regional group in the German Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, Prof. Dr. Niko Mohr, partner at McKinsey, presented current data on the situation assessment concerning medium-sized businesses. This showed that, despite all the circumstances, 77% of all SMEs have a positive outlook on the future. However, it quickly became clear that the situation can be completely different depending on the industry. For example, the trade fair, culture, and tourism industries, in particular, complained about high sales losses due to the crisis. In contrast, manufacturers of foodstuffs or trading companies experienced a growth spurt. As a representative of the cultural sector, Schulz emphasized that the guests were afraid to come because concerts would offer a particular risk (singing, wind instruments). If one looks at other significant events, such as fairs, the basic tenor is no different. According to Dornscheidt, a trade fair is a "touch and feel experience" that can only be implemented digitally with difficulty, just like tourism. Both represent services that can only be experienced on-site. Friedrich Joussen, together with Heinrich O. Deichmann, made it clear that maintaining liquidity is a priority, that strict cost reductions must be made, and that all investments must be reviewed. Nevertheless, he also sees positive effects from the steep learning curve experienced, such as the increase in efficiency of processes due to the "compulsion" of digitization progress. Thomas Linemayr also shared this opinion. He reminded the audience that the CEO must assume his responsible role, as onboarding activities for new employees are challenging, especially in this time. Dr. Albert Christmann also spoke in favor of clear leadership with comprehensible communication. Concerning marketing, he warned against relativizing brands if they failed to integrate and establish themselves in a new digital ecosystem. In summary, the chairman of the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Corporate Development Board, Dr. Jürgen Meffert, said that new courage should arise from the discussion's insights. The crisis itself can be seen as a change and an adult of something new.
Corona pandemic: affectedness, attitudes and influence on personal values and purchasing behavior
In addition to the detailed discussions regarding the German economy in Corona times, Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg, Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, presented new research findings on the subject of the current Corona measures. The ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 5
majority of the 2160 respondents indicated that a restriction of fundamental rights would be tolerable (34%), or even stronger restrictions would be acceptable if necessary (51%). Only a small proportion of participants (15%) felt that the regulations were too severe. It can thus be interpreted that the high presence of protest movements against such measures in no way reflects the voice of the people as a whole. In addition to these findings, the research project also revealed the extent to which respondents attribute responsibility for overcoming the crisis to certain groups. It became clear that, from the citizens' point of view, this responsibility lies primarily with politics (88.8%), science (87.6%), and each individual (87.4%). However, SMEs (43.6%) and the church (26.1%) came out rather worse. In particular, the church, otherwise known for being seen as a comfort source under challenging times, lands in the last place. This becomes even clearer if only the younger generation's figures are taken into account, with the church only accounting for around 16%. Finally, Prof. Dr. Kirchgeorg also reported on the change in the life goals of the citizens surveyed. In particular, interpersonal relationships (35%) and an intensified family life (32%), but also financial security (29%) and the desire for rest/relaxation (28%) have become more important as a result of the Corona crisis. Kirchgeorg noted that something has definitely changed in people's minds, that they are more aware of their lives again and are dealing with them more. The lockdown is therefore causing people to slow down and reflect on the important things in life. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 6
5.2 Akademische Marketing Gesellschaft
The Academic Marketing Society is the result of a founding initiative by doctoral students of the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability. It pursues promoting research and teaching at the chair and provides a professional, scientific, and personal exchange platform. The membership consists of current and former doctoral students of the chair. The members are professionally active in various marketing areas, some of them occupying leading positions in internationally active companies. In 2020, not only the economic and social life was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the association life of the Akademische Marketinggesellschaft e. V. (AMG). After the traditional AMG winter event was held in February in Kuehlungsborn on the Baltic Sea with lectures and excursions, the AMG summer event 2020 planned for July in Frankfurt was canceled altogether. Nevertheless, the club life was moved to the digital space, and two professors' meetings (May and December) could be held online. AMG was also awarded the 2020 AMG Marketing Award, although not as usual during HHL's official graduation ceremonies, at a formal digital award presentation by AMG board members to the prize winner, Jana Boeddicker. Due to the rising numbers of covid-19 disease in Germany in the fall of 2020, no AMG winter event is planned for 2021. In this respect, AMG members will probably not meet again until summer 2021 at the scheduled AMG summer event in Leipzig.
AMG Marketing Award 2020
On September 7, 2020, the Managing Director of the Academic Marketing Society, Damian Hesse, together with the AMG board members, presented the AMG Marketing Award to Jana Boeddicker. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the award ceremony did not take place as usual during the HHL graduation ceremonies but at an online conference meeting. This year, the award winner prevailed over a large number of applicants based on her outstanding academic achievements as well as her accumulated practical marketing experience. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 7
Meeting of the professors in May and December 2020
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the traditional meeting of the 15 AMG professors could not take place in Leipzig in the summer of 2020. Nevertheless, the AMG professors met twice in 2020 for an online exchange of experiences regarding the transition from offline to online teaching. A wide range of findings was reported and discussed. Positive aspects of online teaching were, for example, the activation of students through chat functions and the simplified acquisition and invitation of guest lecturers. Negative points that were raised in the course of the conversion to online teaching were, for example, the problem of controlling students with regard to attendance in lectures or exam situations. The AMG professors continue to strive for a close exchange concerning useful improvements and further developments of online teaching. They want to continue to meet in the future to exchange digital experiences.
Doctoral candidate meeting in October 2020
The current Ph.D. students also met in October 2020 for an online exchange. In addition to a brief status update, exciting presentations were given on the most recently submitted dissertation research proposals and current projects:
Sara Lagodni | Presentation Proposal "Circular Economy for Ephemeral Goods and Services – Conceptional Framework and Empirical Application" Nicole Bruehl | Presentation Proposal „Resonance as Amplifier of Efficiency in Stakeholder-Oriented Communication” Damian Hesse & Eric Holdack | Presentation “Customer Segmentation Based on the Profitability of Try-Before-You-Buy Program Users” Melanie Stehr | Presentation Proposal „Interaction patterns in building trust in the B2B procurement process“ Florian Skwara | Presentation “The Effects of Mental Accounting on Purchase Decision Processes” ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 8
5.3 Transfer platform „mission2impact“
Network platform "mission2impact" picks up speed
In the first half of 2019, the Chair of Marketingmanagement and Sustainability was able to record the first company founded in its 20-year history. With mission2impact GmbH & Co. KG, Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg, Rico Manß, Dr. Silko Pfeil, and Prof. Dr. Elmar Guenther are pursuing the idea of "translating" the latest findings, approaches, and methods from science into concepts that can be implemented in practice and made usable. Behind the name mission2impact is, on the one hand, the specifically set claim to generate an impact from academic knowledge acquisition and fact-based, on the other hand, the holistic way of thinking from the mission statement and the strategy of a company to the implementation. To enable this claim, a network of about 50 PhDs and 12 professors is accessed, all coming from the same school of thought of the marketing chair at HHL, but with a diverse knowledge and experience profile. Companies benefit from this diversity by bringing in the experts as needed in customized projects or coaching sessions. In 2020, several high-profile projects were carried out, ranging from brand valuation approaches to new forms of live communication and retail companies' repositioning.
5.4 Participation in institutions and advisory boards
Participation in supervisory boards
Prof. Manfred Kirchgeorg is involved in a variety of ways at the interface between science and practice. Among other things, he is a managing board member of the Scientific Society for Market-Oriented Management, in which management personalities, together with academics, reflect on future challenges of market-oriented management in management discussions. Prof. Kirchgeorg has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Unilever Deutschland Holding GmbH as a scientist since 2011. As a board member, he also works in the media foundation of the Sparkasse Leipzig. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 3 9
Member of the Resilience Hub founded in Leipzig
Due to the Marketing Chair's research history in the field of Resilience Management and Sustainability Marketing, Prof. Kirchgeorg is a member of the newly founded Leipzig Resilience Hub. The Resilience Hub aims to network Leipzig's wide-ranging, interdisciplinary resilience research more closely than before and integrate it into a theoretically and methodologically multifaceted resilience discourse. In Leipzig, as an academic location, resilience is already being researched in so many different institutions and perspectives as in hardly any other German university city. The aim is, among other things, to provide a research platform for an intensive, interdisciplinary discourse on the study of resilience in its relevant facets, for the development and application of innovative methodological approaches, and for the theoretical penetration of a research paradigm that is being discussed in an ever-increasing number of disciplines, and to do so in a national and international context that extends far beyond the scientific location of Leipzig.
Lecturer of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Prof. Kirchgeorg has been a trusted lecturer of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for 16 years now and regularly participates in selection meetings for scholarship candidates in the university and doctoral programs. The objective of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation is to identify and promote talents. Bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students from Germany and abroad are among the scholarship recipients. As a liaison lecturer in Leipzig, Prof. Kirchgeorg supervises a group of scholarship holders with up to 20 students who belong to different academic disciplines. Each semester, the scholarship group creates a program for the academic exchange of experiences and non- university events that broaden the interdisciplinary horizon of experience. In 2019, KAS fellows independently organized nearly 20 events for interdisciplinary experience exchange. Given the Corona pandemic, all events had to be held virtually. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 4 0
Mentor in the HHL-SPINLAB
Prof. Manfred Kirchgeorg regularly participates in the exchange of experiences with startups at HHL-SPINLAB and is available to the founders as a mentor with his expertise. In addition to marketing issues, this also involves producing contacts with established companies and institutions and supporting funding applications. 6 PUBLICATIONS
To discuss the progress in the individual research projects and make the final, exciting results accessible to both science and practice, Prof. Kirchgeorg and his research team are regularly represented with presentations at conferences, meetings, and doctoral colloquia. The Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability attaches great importance to the publication of current scientific research results in the form of dissertations, working papers, and journal articles.
Origins and future of the German advertising industry: Here's what happens next
For more than three decades, Willi Schalk was one of the most important corporate leaders in the German and international advertising industry. For this, he was given a fitting place at the inauguration of the Hall of Fame of German Advertising in 2001. As a member of the Scientific Society for Market- Oriented Management, Mr. Schalk initiated a research and publication project at the Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability in 2018 that deals with the German advertising industry's origins and future. For this purpose, Prof. Kirchgeorg and his team developed a survey that targeted advertising companies and advertising agencies. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 4 1
They were asked about the status quo and the prospects of the advertising industry. The results have been incorporated into a book publication edited by Manfred Kirchgeorg, Peter Strahlendorf and Willi Schalk under the title "Und so geht es weiter". The book has been available in bookstores since November 2020. In addition to a look at the historical development of the advertising industry, the second part outlines future scenarios derived from a survey of the advertising industry. Finally, in a third book chapter, Willi Schalk reflects on his assessment of the advertising industry's future against the background of his decades of experience.
Marketing Weiterdenken – Future paths for market-oriented corporate management
The second edition of the book "Marketing Weiterdenken" was published in September 2020. Prof. Manfred Kirchgeorg, together with Prof. Manfred Bruhn and Prof. Christoph Burmann, once again took the initiative to invite 56 authors with future perspectives on marketing management. This reader puts the role of marketing to the test and thinks it further ahead. Structures, processes, and instruments must be adapted to the continuously changing environment. The epistemic value of established theories and models must be critically questioned in the face of disruptive change. However, one thing remains the same: Winning and retaining customers is decisive for sustainable corporate success. Renowned corporate management and marketing science personalities address the future challenges of marketing, describe future paths for the marketing discipline, and give it new impetus. In the 2nd, thoroughly revised, and expanded edition, numerous new authors contribute both their expertise and various new perspectives. Many authors have combined further thinking with "broader thinking." A broad spectrum of contributions on digitization and the responsibility of marketing has been added. ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 4 2
Dissertations as monographs
Beyer, Christina (2020) Kongruenz in der Crossmedia-Kommunikation: eine Untersuchung der Determinanten und Wirkungen.
Bornschein, Rico (2020) Consumer Behavior in a Multichannel Context and its managerial Implications
Jaeger, Anna-Katharina (2020) Going Green at the Point of Sale: Application of Digital Technologies and Message Framing to Promote Sustainable Consumption
Hausmann-Hofer, Michaela (2020) Wahrnehmung von internationalisierten Transfermarken im Messebereich – Eine empirische Analyse von Messe- Marken-Designs in Asien
Manß, Rico (2020) Cross-Channel Integration: A Consumer and Supplier Perspective
Naujoks, Tobias (2020) Structural changes in online retailing and the marketing mix – An analysis considering multichannel online retailing and voice dialog interfaces
Oechsle-Neumann, Christin Claudia (2020) Der Einfluss von Diversity Management auf das Employer Branding – Erfolgsfaktor Führungskraft bei Gender Diversity dargestellt anhand einer fallbasierten Analyse
Selected journal, magazine and book articles
Bornschein, Rico; Schmidt, Lennard; Maier, Erik; Gomez, Peter (2020) The effect of consumers’ perceived power and risk in digital information privacy: the example of cookie notices. In: Journal of Public Policy and Marketing
Jaeger, Anna-Katharina; Weber, Anja (2020) Increasing sustainable consumption: message framing and in-store technology. In: International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management
Jaeger, Anna-Katharina; Weber, Anja; Kirchgeorg, Manfred (2020) Sustainability apps – the key to promoting sustainable shopping?. In: Marketing Review St. Gallen
Jaeger, Anna-Katharina; Weber, Anja (2020) Can you believe it? The effects of benefit type versus construal level onadvertisement credibility and purchase intention for organic food. In: Journal of Cleaner Production ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020 4 3
Holdack, Eric; Lurie, Katja (2020) The role of perceived enjoyment and perceived informativeness in assessing the acceptance of AR wearables. In: Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Kirchgeorg, Manfred (2020) Cluster, Netzwerk, Plattform: Organisationsformen der Bioökonomie. In: Das System der Bioökonomie (Hrsg.: Thrän, Daniela; Moesenfechtel, Urs.)
Kirchgeorg, Manfred; Bruhn, Manfred; Burmann, Christoph (2020) Marketing Weiterdenken – Ein kondensierter Blick auf das ganze Erkenntnisspektrum. In: Marketing Weiterdenken, 2. Aufl. 2020 (Hrsg. Bruhn, Manfred; Burmann, Christoph; Kirchgeorg, Manfred)
Kirchgeorg, Manfred; Schalk, Willi; Strahlendorf, Peter (2020) „… und so geht es weiter“: Herkunft und Zukunft der deutschen Werbewirtschaft. In: Books on Demand, Hamburg
Meynhardt, Timo; Kirchgeorg, Manfred; Suchanek, Andreas; Zuelch, Henning (2020) Powerful or powerless? Beyond power and powerlessness: the Leipzig Leadership Model provides some answers. In: Leadership, Education, Personality: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Schmidt, Lennard; Bornschein, Rico; Maier, Erik (2020) The effect of privacy choice in cookie notices on consumers' perceived fairness of frequent price changes. In: Psychology & Marketing
Weber, Anja; Maier, Erik (2020) Reducing competitive research shopping with cross-channel delivery. In: International Journal of Electronic Commerce
Yang, Xisi (2020) Potential consequences of COVID-19 for sustainable meat consumption: the role of food safety concerns and responsibility attributions. In: British Food Journal
ACTIVITY REPORT // 2020
Imprint
Publisher: Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability
HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management
Chair Holder: Prof. Dr. Manfred Kirchgeorg Jahnallee 59 04109 Leipzig T +49 341-9851-680 F +49 341-9851-684 [email protected] www.hhl.de/marketing
Editorial: Nicole Bruehl
Publication date: 08.03.2021
Photos: HHL HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management Chair of Marketing Management and Sustainability Jahnallee 59 04109 Leipzig, Germany T +49 341 9851-680 F +49 341 9851-684 www.hhl.de