T Becker, P Schneckenleitner, W Reitberger, A Brunner-Sperdin-Conference Proceedings Trends in Business Communicati

Timo Becker
Peter Schneckenleitner
Wolfgang Reitberger
Alexandra Brunner-Sperdin Editors
Conference Proceedings
Trends in Business
Communication 2016
Conference Proceedings Trends in
Business Communication 2016
Timo Becker · Peter Schneckenleitner
Wolfgang Reitberger
Alexandra Brunner-Sperdin
(Eds.)
Conference Proceedings
Trends in Business
Communication 2016
Editors
Prof. Dr. Timo Becker Wolfgang Reitberger
Freiburg, Germany Kufstein, Austria
Peter Schneckenleitner Alexandra Brunner-Sperdin

Kufstein, Austria Kufstein, Austria
ISBN 978-3-658-17253-4 ISBN 978-3-658-17254-1 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-17254-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017931353
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Foreword
The communication landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Former

omnipotent media channels like newspapers or traditional functions of journalism
as gate keepers are losing influence and potency.
Today new, fast, digital, and easy to use communication channels are up and
coming and the field of communication is not an exclusive segment anymore. It
has never been so easy for anyone to publish, consume, store, or distribute
information. Each of us can be journalist, author, or communication manager by
posting public content on Facebook or Youtube and thus each of us can directly
effect the reputation and image of a product, person, company, or association.
A consequence of this development is communication structures from organi-
sations have to be adopted continuously. We are talking about new developments
and constantly changing situations and requirements. We are talking about trends
- trends in communication. The change of communication is still in a state of flux
and that’s why it is worth observing, studying, and analysing these trends. One of
the results of these efforts is this present proceedings.
In 2013 the University of Applied Sciences in Kufstein, Tyrol started with a small
event about communication which developed into an international symposium
within a few years. Our latest symposium “Trends in Business Communication”
took place at the University of Applied Sciences in Kufstein, Tyrol in March 2016.
The presentations perfectly reflected the dynamic environment and the wide range
of different fields in business communication. Within two days scholars, experts
and communication managers presented and discussed their findings and expertise
in business communication and we are pleased to present this documentation to
you. The symposium also combined the expertise of our both study programs
“Marketing and Communication Management” and “Digital Marketing”. Our
Digital Marketing master students were additionally invited to contribute abstracts
of their master thesis - shown in part B of these proceedings.
From different submissions the editors selected the most relevant and most
interesting topics. The authors of the published papers and abstracts are respon-
sible by themselves for the quality of their works.
This documentation became much more than a mnemonic of a successful event
and thus we are proud to present this book to you.

The Editors
Table of Contents
Foreword ...............................................................................................................V
Part A: Scientific Papers .................................................................................... 1
1 Live Demonstrations as Means of Services Marketing and Brand

Communication Towards Security Authorities .............................................. 3
Bourdache K., Aro M.
2 The Use of Online Platforms in the Fight Against Black Market Sales of
Football Tickets – Empirical Evidence from Germany ............................... 11
Hahn A., Breuer M., Kaiser-Jovy S.
3 Trends in Corporate Communication Based on the Example of Medium-
Sized World Market Leaders from Austria .................................................. 21
Jungwirth G.
4 Effective Resource Allocation in PR and IR – Linking the Output and
Impact of Corporate Communications ......................................................... 33
Kovarova-Simecek M.
5 Reporting to Machines – Reporting Trends and XBRL Diffusion
Among Austrian Listed Companies ............................................................. 49
Kovarova-Simecek M., Pellegrini T.
6 How Politicians in Austria Obtain Information and Its Consequences for
Corporate Communications Activities ......................................................... 67
Schneckenleitner P.
7 Structures and Professionalization of Public Relations in National Sports
Governing Bodies – a Comparison Between Austria and Germany ........... 79
Wojciechowski T.
8 The Moving Network – a New Platform for Refugees and Their
Communicational and Educational Issues ................................................... 91
Wolfram G., Sandrini M., Prado M. F.
VIII Table of Contents
Part B: Master Thesis Abstracts ..................................................................... 99
9 Factors of the Successful Implementation of a Crowdfunding Campaign 101

Amann C.
10 How Much Digitalization Can a Human Tolerate?.................................... 107
Fritz L.
11 Customer Reviews: The Importance of Personal Factors That
Influence the Consumer Reaction Within Webshops ................................ 115
Gahbauer M.
12 The Impact of Web Design on Brand Perception ...................................... 125
Griessner B.
13 Fascination Neon Signs .............................................................................. 133
Haslwanter C.
14 Intercultural Online Communication of International Companies in
High-Context and Low-Context Cultures ................................................. 141
Kniewasser C.
15 Massive Open Online Courses and Big Data: A Metamorphosis of
the Academic World? ................................................................................. 149
Koch M.
16 Consumer Ethnocentrism in the Online Purchasing Process ..................... 157
Kübel-Bertsch J.
17 The Influence of Apps on the Media Usage Behaviour of Recipients
by the Example of “Die Tagespresse” ...................................................... 165
Leitner A.
18 Morally Questionable, Opportunistic Product Returns .............................. 171
Lochner J. K.
19 Success Factors in Digital Communication of Crowdfunding
Projects of Social Entrepreneurs in German Speaking Countries ............. 179
Stephan V.
20 Marketing Aspects in the Game Design Process of Free-To-Play
Mobile Games ............................................................................................ 189
Winter F.
Part A:
Scientific Papers
1 Live Demonstrations as Means of Services
Marketing and Brand Communication Towards
Security Authorities
Kaci Bourdache1, Mari Aro2
Abstract: Governmental entities such as law enforcement agencies and

emergency services are a tough market. The operational confidentiality prevents
the manufacturers to get first-hand feedback from the end-users. To gain an
audience to explain the functionalities and operational requirements might also
face challenges since the people using the equipment and the people deciding on
the investment are different. Also, as the public sector’s tight budgets and
necessity to tender all investments is a factor, the end user’s need in the develop-
ment phase help to direct the product development in the necessary direction to
meet the demand. This paper discusses the unique opportunities of working in a
multi-disciplinary international project that aims to market new services and
technical solutions for authorities all over Europe using live demonstrations as
marketing and communication platforms.
1.1 Introduction
Marketing new or improved technology is not always easy. Competition is high,
and the variety of solutions may be overwhelming to the potential customer. Also,
technology develops rapidly so that the customer might not be aware of the
differences of the products on the market, and the smaller or new companies might
have a hard time in gaining the attention of customers. An additional challenge
with many technological solutions is that the developed solutions might not
respond to the needs of the end user, as they rarely are involved in the development
process. This results into the technology having some unnecessary features while
at the same time lacking some necessities. In this paper, we discuss some of the
challenges that have occurred as well as added value that is present in a live
demonstration marketing environment.
One opportunity for marketing ones technological solutions is to take part in
Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) projects funded by different
instruments. One example is the AIRBEAM project. AIRBEAM stands for
Airborne Information for Emergency situation Awareness and Monitoring, which
1
Laurea University of Applied Sciences/Finland, kaci.bourdache@laurea.fi
2
Laurea University of Applied Sciences/Finland, mari.aro@laurea.fi

T. Becker et al. (Hrsg.), Conference Proceedings Trends in
Business Communication 2016, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-17254-1_1
4 Live Demonstrations as Means of Services Marketing …
had the goal to propose a situation awareness toolbox for the management of crisis
over wide area, taking benefit of an optimised set of aerial unmanned platforms.
The purposes of the project are to demonstrate the availability of unmanned
airborne solutions for law enforcement and emergency services; and to convince
regulatory stakeholders such as European Union and national legislatures of the
maturity of the fast growing civilian Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS)
market and the urgency to deliver a regulatory framework for RPAS insertion
(AIRBEAM, 2011).
The project had 21 partners from 12 EU countries, including representatives from
the academia, industry, and end users. During the project the partners worked
together to develop solutions that complied with the legislation, were technically
state-of-the-art and responded to the end user’s needs and standards. This four-
year (2012-2015) EU project culminated in two live demonstrations – one
emergency-related in Belgium 20.6.2015, and one law enforcement-related in
Portugal 8.10.2015.
1.2 The Live Demonstrations Explained

In the Belgium scenario, a major hurricane hits the area near Antwerp, leading to
1000+ internally displaced persons in Dessel; serious structural damage reported
in Retie; a fire reported in a natural resort; and a chemical incident in an industrial
building. For these, a wide variety of RPAS was deployed, from balloons
to fixed-wing aircrafts to small quadcopters. See Figure 1 for an illustration of
deployment.
In the Portugal scenario, the Bank of Portugal (BP) needs to transport gold to the
national reserve from an undesignated area. The transportation is being made by
airplane and by unforeseen and not known reasons the airplane is forced to land
in Beja airbase. The security forces (National Republican Guard, GNR) are
contacted. They prepare and deploy a convoy to escort the gold to the national
reserve by land. This, again, leads to a wide variety of mainly law enforcement
situations for which RPA systems are used to provide the GNR a better
understanding of the situation, including the need to secure the area before
departure, to track the convoy and assisting in the management of any event during
the travel.
The demonstrations were organized so that the participating companies and
research facilities prepared a scenario which was tested during the demonstration
day. End users consisting of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and Emergency
Services were first presented with the scenario and the systems, creating a basic
understanding of their features.
Bourdache K., Aro M. 5
Figure 1: The Belgium scenario

(Reproduced from AIRBEAM, 2011)
Then, the guests were taken to the field to observe the action, and were also given
the opportunity to ask the operational staff questions. After the official demon-
stration there was also a general debriefing session, also during which a team
belonging to the project consortium interviewed the end users on how useful they
perceived the system. In addition to the feedback that was gotten from the end
users the involved companies mainly from the industry had stands where they
presented their company, products and services that they offered and solutions that
were currently under development.
Both of the AIRBEAM live demonstrations were successfully completed and the
conceptual approach was proven to work. It is great to see that systems from
different manufacturers and operabilities produce high quality data that can be
combined, and which complement one another. Yet, the most important aspect is
that the end-users could see the system providing added value to their operations,
as was answered to the AIRBEAM consortium by the majority of the interviewees.
The conclusions in this paper are therefore based on these debriefings, semi-
structured interviews conducted with end-users on site, and also a survey
conducted to complement those. As the demonstrations were very dynamic events,
it was challenging to glean data systematically, but when the right moment and
person was chosen we believe the results to be trustworthy. Observation of the
live demos themselves – or rather, observing the end users themselves observing
the live demos – was a constant source of notes as well. Observation provides
researchers with ways to check for nonverbal expression of feelings, determine
who interacts with whom, grasp how participants communicate with each other,
and check for how much time is spent on various activities (Schmuck, 1997). In
addition to the demos, observing briefing and debriefing events, Q&A sessions
and informal discussions were also important fodder for notes. In the following
few paragraphs, we attempt to condense our results in a straightforward manner.
1.3 Results of the Live Demonstrations

The demonstrations concluded into a general end-user acceptance from the
participants. New technology, however, was told to be a concern, as it out dates
fast. It was already pondered by the participants whether the demonstrated solution
would be outdated soon. The end-users perceived the AIRBEAM system as useful.
Many participants stated that using such technology helps the operations, as they
will have an extra set of eyes in the sky, and a better situational awareness in the
location. When given choices on the technical requirements, the end-users thought
that payload was more important than flight time with the RPAS. Then again, even
though maneuverability was seen more important than flight altitude and stealth it
provided, stealth was seen as more important than uninterrupted live stream. Yet,
the most beneficial aspects according to the end-users were the increase in
operational safety and security. Even with the good initial perception, the end-
users identified some drawbacks. Some features, like different substance sensor
data, should be combined for a more versatile use of the technology. Also, some
technology was said to have a low battery life, and difficult maneuverability in
difficult weather conditions. These drawbacks affect the system as a whole, since
the heavier it is, the less wind affects to it, but the more in requires energy or fuel
to stay operative.
1.4 Security Authorities as a Market - Drawing Conclusions

The public sector in general is a demanding customer, but marketing towards the
public security sector brings even more new challenges. Those challenges are for
example scarce resources as well as tight budgets in addition to security and
confidentiality. Still, the authorities working with operational tasks are rarely the
people who have the authority to make decisions on investments for new
technological solutions and equipment. Further to the cost of the technology there
always are some additional costs to it, such as how much training the staff needs
to be able to make use of the additional and valuable resource, how the materiel
purchased is maintained and stored, and possible licenses to operate, and so on.
Therefore, the need and enthusiasm for the marketed technology or solution can
be met, but the authority to make actual purchasing decisions might not be
currently present even if the supplier is granted a marketing opportunity to the
authorities. Based on our observations, it was quite common for attendees of
demonstrations to be enthusiastic, but when the matter was discussed further it
was clear that for the intent and will to purchase to actually become a reality, there
were multiple steps from asking permission from superiors to actually having to
include entire committees and subgroups in the acquisition process. At times it
was made clear that there are no funds in the budget this season, year or even
longer time, so it would be necessary to approach the issue when the next budget
preparation is underway. Naturally this can also happen in the private sector, but
the discussions clearly indicated that no flexibility was possible. Interestingly,
while the private sector seems to perceive technology as an investment, the public
sector appeared to perceive it as acquiring additional resources, as if to aid or even
replace missing personnel.
When the demonstrations are assessed from a marketing perspective, they seem to
provide two excellent opportunities for the companies. The first perspective is the
traditional one where they receive an opportunity to present their products and
services. The end-users have an opportunity to ask questions on their operational
requirements. As public entities have tight budgets and constant oversight, the
solution has to be a well-fitting one. With the RPA system and payload such as
camera and sensor manufacturers at the demonstration scene, they had a unique
opportunity to see how the system was working, and what features were popular
with the end-users. It is not common to have the opportunity to collect their
experiences right away after the demonstration. The other is to also hear feedback
and collect end user needs and requirements to further develop their products.
Naturally, such projects require both time and budgetary resources.
The needed resources could be considered as an investment. Additionally, some
of the investment in RDI projects is supported by the monetary instrument. The
end user feedback provides a possible advantage over competitors. Again, rather
than an opportunity to market the product there are additional benefits in
participating into RDI, such as the networking with both the end users and also
the partners.
An additional aspect with the demonstrations as a marketing opportunity is the
possibility to discuss and demonstrate the operational requirements the system
needs for the user to gain the maximum benefit from it. There, the end users can
see the systems in operation and the technology and service provider may explain
how the system operates and explain the functionalities what comes to the training.
Also, as the solutions are on the field the end users may see what the products
need for maintenance, and what is needed for storage and transportation.
One of the biggest difficulties in providing products and services to the law
enforcement authorities as end users is that they cannot or will not provide
information on their operational work and needs and requirements without a
signed confidentiality clause. Hence, to target the products to their needs might
prove difficult. In a demonstration session the guests are attending in a closed
circle, which means that the needs can be discussed more freely, yet still usually
on an abstract level. The subtle hints could indicate what the expectations are, but
also reveal what the existing systems are to which the new product should be
compatible with. In addition, as the end users might not know the state-of-the-art
technological solutions, they might not know what they want, need or require.
Without proper understanding of the needs and requirements of the end users, the
technological engineers cannot offer any solutions for those needs.
The potential in the integration of the end users in the development and testing
phases is many times forgotten. Alternatively, it might not be thought of even if
the industry would be open to it, even though it could be considered as the basics
of marketing: good reputation. Good reputation and recommendation from one
end user to another is cost effective, efficient and beneficial. In turn, bad
experiences travel as fast amongst the customers, too.
When an international project is used as the platform for marketing and brand
communication, then naturally the target groups are also international. This has
the usual added challenges of internationality such as language and cultural
barriers. Considering the AIRBEAM project, cross-border operations and
international cooperation between the relevant authorities were also important
points that came up during the project. Thus, any proposed Remotely Piloted
Airborne (RPA) system should have national and international compatibility, such
as a wide variety of language options and support functions. While private entities
can choose a common working language, authorities always operate in their local
languages and have to handle international cooperation in other languages, which
in Europe and worldwide is typically English.
Parallels could be drawn with the current European situation regarding cellular
trunked radio systems that authorities use: both TETRA and Tetrapol standards
are currently competing in the European market, and the systems are largely
incompatible. Therefore, an authority that uses TETRA cannot efficiently
communicate with another that has chosen Tetrapol, hindering international
cooperation. I. e., while the technology is the same and compatible with one
another, even across the borders, the operational culture including trust, language,
terminology and operational procedures differs significantly. On this subject,

common training and language courses have been proposed and therefore in the
use of RPA systems they would almost certainly be required as well. This issue
was addressed with another RDI project called MACICO, Multi-Agency
Cooperation in Cross-Border Operations (Kämppi, Aro, & Rajamäki, 2014).
If a major company is marketing their RPA system as a situational awareness tool,
the interoperability and possible cross-border cooperation scenarios are always on
the mind of European authorities. It is therefore inefficient and largely useless to
focus marketing efforts towards the authorities of a single country; rather,
international official networks such as EU entities and unofficial networks such as
the European Network of Law Enforcement Services (ENLETS) can be used to
spread the message more effectively in an attempt to reach a wider audience. It is
therefore good to note that while private businesses can operate freely in Europe,
internationality is more prominent among security authorities as well than many
might think. Even though the security authority itself (apart from very few
exceptions) operate strictly on a national level, the international cooperation
capabilities and networking require that the marketer should consider the security
authority market as an international market as well.
However, as with all technology, even though the AIRBEAM system is perceived
well, the end-users are concerned that the technology will be outdated soon.
Therefore, the impact for the end-users is increase in awareness and also the raised
discussion on the need and possible acquisition of the equipment, both locally and
nationally. Some end-users pointed out that also the current legislation creates
obstacles with adopting the RPAS in their operative work. Some end-users
explained that technical maintenance and upkeep might be the biggest obstacle in
taking these systems into operative use. This might also be an issue for other
LEAs, as adopting new technology takes time, and to gain and maintain a relevant
level of know-how also has to be considered. Still the system appears easy to use,
and the majority of the respondents said it would fulfill the professional require-
ments. In the end, the major benefit according to the end-users was that the
operational safety would be increased and less surprises or unforeseen instances
would occur.
Marketing is essentially communicating. A demonstration session and / or an RDI
project provides a more relaxed environment for communications. The environ-
ment is created with trust and shared goals in making the project a success. The
unofficial business meetings with the project and the demonstrations are more than
just marketing opportunities. They provide insights on what features are
interesting to the end user, and further the partnerships between all stakeholders.
Thus, communication can be perceived as more natural. This was evident
also during the AIRBEAM project. It brings together the whole spectrum of
stakeholders: researchers and academics, manufacturers and service providers,

end-users and policy makers. As the consortium gets to know each other, they also
build trust both personally and professionally. The tight schedule of the
demonstration days was a challenge. This might have an effect on the time given
to the interviews or the representation of knowhow. In other words, not all
answerers were operative end-users. Nevertheless, AIRBEAM has proven to have
created interest among the end-users. With comments like “[It] brings high value
and is applicable to all LEAs all over the world”, the solution is welcomed as a
solution or an answer to the end-user needs.
1.5 List of References

AIRBEAM Consortium. (2011). AIRBEAM project Description of Work. Blagnac,
France: AIRBEAM Consortium.
Kämppi, P., Aro, M., & Rajamäki, J. (2014). End-user Requirements for Multi-
Agency Cooperation in Cross-border Operations (MACICO) Project. In
R. S. Choras (Ed.), 8th WSEAS International Conference on Circuits,
Systems, Signal and Telecommunications (pp. 183-190). Tenerife, Spain:
WSEAS Press.
Schmuck, R. (1997). Practical action research for change. Arlington Heights, IL:
Skylight Training.
2 The Use of Online Platforms in the Fight Against
Black Market Sales of Football Tickets –
Empirical Evidence from Germany
Alexander Hahn3, Markus Breuer4, Sebastian Kaiser-Jovy5
2.1 Introduction
Building up strong brands as well as cultivating the relationships towards fans and
customers become more important in professional sports. Football managers need
to permanently rethink and optimize their corporate communication. This paper
presents results of an empirical study that was conducted in Germany in 2015. The
basic population of the underlying survey is the (global) fan base of Bayern
Muenchen, Germany’s most successful and probably best-known football club.
Perception and usage of the different ticket markets have been questioned and
hypotheses were set up to test whether or not an authorized secondary market can
combat grey and black markets and if it can strengthen the relationship between
fans and professional sport clubs.
2.2 Special Characteristics of the Sports Market

During recent decades, sports have become an essential part of people’s leisure
time. Sports organizations have evolved from local institutions that were
dominated by volunteers to professional, global players (Breuer & Kaiser, 2016).
As a consequence, sports marketing faces new challenges. Both marketing of
sports and marketing through sports are subject to particular circumstances and
recent developments that make a difference between sports and other markets
(Breuer & Kaiser, 2016; Smith & Stewart, 2015; Beech, Kaiser, & Kaspar, 2014;
Beech & Chadwick, 2004). Not least, globalization has a significant impact on the
scope of sports organizations. For example, the sale of TV rights of the major
European football leagues which has become more and more important, especially
for clubs that have been able to build up global brands, such as FC Barcelona or
Manchester United (Breuer & Kaiser, 2016; Kaiser & Müller, 2014).
From the supplier’s perspective one of the main characteristics of the sports
market is the diversity of different sports producing organizations. In Europe, a
3
SRH University Heidelberg/Germany, alex.hahn89@gmail.com
4
SRH University Heidelberg/Germany, markus.breuer@hochschule-heidelberg.de
5
Heilbronn University/Germany, sebastian.kaiser@hs-heilbronn.de

12 The Use of Online Platforms in the Fight Against Black Market Sales …
large number of the institutions involved are non-profit organizations such as

clubs and associations that are subsidized by public authorities. Their (primary)
goal is not maximizing profit but being successful in sports events, tournaments,
etc. (Breuer & Kaiser, 2016; Kaiser, 2010). Furthermore, taking the special
features of the production process in team sports into account, it is striking that
competitors have to cooperate to a certain degree. Without any cooperation
between the athletes or teams, neither sports nor sports goods (for passive sports
consumption by spectators) can be provided. Not least, as a large part of sports
goods are services in nature, production and consumption are linked inseparably.
Additionally, external production factors (a. o. the spectators) are involved in the
production process. Not least so called “exogenous factors”, such as the weather,
consumption of performance-enhancing drugs, etc., play an important role during
the production process and also affect the marketability of the product (Breuer &
Kaiser, 2016).
Also, the demand for sports services and goods can be characterized by several
peculiarities that should be considered in the marketing management process. In
professional sports, the popularity of team sports and team sports events is often
explained by the so called “Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis” (Rottenberg,
1956). It states that the attractiveness of a competition is influenced by the
uncertainty of its outcome: The more uncertain the result, the higher the
attractiveness. However, regarding fans that show a deep loyalty to a certain club,
the uncertainty of the outcome is of minor importance. Group experiences (in the
stadium, watching their club win or lose) become much more important for these
fans, compared with neutral spectators who are only interested in the sports but
not in the performance of a single team (Breuer & Kaiser, 2016).
Against this background, sports marketing faces an opportunity: If the marketer is
able to strengthen the identification of the fans (consumers) with “their” team, the
revenues resulting from the sale of tickets, merchandising, etc., are more and more
independent from the current performance of the team. Thus, “identification with
the team” is an important segmentation criterion for a target group oriented
address. In this context, the new media allow adequate means to get in contact
with target groups as they enable the marketer to address different groups at low
costs. For the strategic planning and the identification of adequate content, it is
important to identify links that allow a long-term identification with a club that is
independent of the current success (independent of the current league table).
According to Kaiser (2010, pp. 437), such links might be:
Hahn A., Breuer M., Kaiser-Jovy S. 13
a) the team’s success in the past,

b) the performance of individual athletes,
c) shared values (for example a working-class background,
d) a strong connection to a city or region or
e) a common understanding as an underdog
2.2.1 Ticket Markets

In order to describe the specific features of ticket markets in sports, it seems to be
helpful to consider the various circumstances of the production and consumption
in this particular field. In recent scholarly publications, the natural monopoly of a
sports league is mentioned once and again. This is explained with the peculiarities
of league competitions: in order not to lose its credibility, every competition can
only have one winner, every league only one champion. Furthermore, a sports
league is typically a cartel-like merger of the relevant clubs (Downward, Dawson,
& Dejonghe, 2009). Not least, also at the micro-level each individual club, in
contrast to other companies and because of a high level of emotional bond and
loyalty of its fans and spectators, can be seen as a monopolist: only the respective
club can offer the requested product, i.e., a match of their favored team.
However, whereas monopolists usually try to maximize their profit by adjusting
prices and volumes, football clubs deliberately keep ticket prices low. In doing so,
they aim to meet their social as well as socio-political responsibility (as described
in the statutes of the German Football Association as well as the German Football
League (DFB, 2013). On the other hand, this measure is considered to have a
positive impact on stadium attendance which may in turn lead to a better overall
quality of the product and thus to higher media coverage. Last but not least, clubs
thereby hope to catalyze sales of complementary goods such as merchandize and
catering. Taking into consideration the inelastic demand for tickets in team sports,
the ticket market in football can be characterized by supply-side market failure.
Because of their monopolistic position and because of the fact that the quantity
supplied is limited due to a fixed number of matches as well as the stadium
capacity, clubs are not able to meet the high and rising demand while raising the
ticket prices is avoided purposely.
All these factors combined a consequence is the creation of parallel markets –
including the so called “black market” – which have to be differentiated from the
official market with due regard to their characteristics and their stakeholders.
Generally, the market for tickets in football is divided into a primary and a
secondary market (Holzhäuser, 2012). On the primary market the official sale of
tickets by the organizer and/or cooperative partners takes place. According to the
regulations of the German Football League (DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH),
the league association itself is responsible for the organization of the matches
which assigns the staging and operation as well as the associated rights and
obligations to the respective home team. This club may then receive all revenue
generated throughout the match (esp. tickets, merchandize, sales of comple-
mentary goods). As far as the distribution of tickets is concerned, clubs make use
of the classic marketing channels. Moreover, several clubs cooperate with
authorized sales partners such as advance booking offices or sales agencies
offering a large network for distribution. These sales partners usually finance
themselves through a commission fee while they are not allowed to resell tickets
to other traders at self-determined prices. This is one of the most characteristic
features of the primary market: tickets are only dealt at official rates according to
the price structure of the respective club (Holzhäuser, 2012).
2.2.2 Secondary Ticket Markets

The secondary market for football tickets can be divided into an authorized as well
as an unauthorized market. With the authorized secondary market, clubs (or
authorized sales partners) offer tickets again, after they have been sold on the
primary market, typically via online ticket exchange platforms. Thereby fans have
the opportunity to sell tickets they may not use under the conditions of a controlled
and regulated formal environment (Holzhäuser, 2012). At the same time, those
platforms can be seen as an instrument against the non-authorized secondary
market. However, due to changing technological framework conditions in recent
years, also new forms of trading have evolved. Professional and mostly
international organizations enable third parties to trade tickets on specifically
designed (digital) ticket exchange tools. This newly created market is called “grey
market”. On this market, dealers can act anonymously. Furthermore, in many
cases it doesn’t become apparent that the tickets are not offered by the provider
itself but by third parties. Finally, on the black market tickets are sold by dealers
that have bought them via various purchasing channels on the primary market,
aiming to maximize their profit. For the acquisition of the tickets, traders often
make use of stooges that buy the maximum quantity available on the primary
market, which they then sell to them with a profit margin (Holzhäuser, 2012). Both
market forms, grey as well as black market, have in common that tickets are sold
at a price which is significantly higher than the official price.
2.3 Empirical Evidence from Germany

The following sections are based on a study that was conducted in Germany in
2015. Chapter 2.3.1 summarizes the facts and circumstances under which the
survey was conducted. Chapter 2.3.2 deals with some initial analyses (descriptive
statistics) whereas section 2.3.3 presents the findings from hypothesis testing.
Hypotheses were set up to test whether or not an authorized secondary market can
combat grey and black markets and strengthen the relationship between fans and
professional sport clubs.
2.3.1 Facts and Circumstances

The basic population of the underlying survey is the (global) fan base of Bayern
Muenchen, Germany’s most successful and probably best-known football club.
The survey was conducted through a standardized online questionnaire. The link
to the questionnaire was communicated through the following channels:
- Facebook: Major Bayern Muenchen fan clubs (Club Nr. 12, La Bestia Negra)
published the link to the questionnaire on their Facebook page.
- Xing6: The link to the questionnaire was posted by the Xing group “FC Bayern
München”.
- The “Audi Fanclub FC Bayern Muenchen”, one of the most important fan clubs
in Germany, sent an e-mail containing the link to the questionnaire to its
members.
During June 8th and June 30th 2015 3,877 football fans participated in the survey.
2,994 of them completed the questionnaire whereas a total number of 883 did not
answer all of the questions. According to our knowledge, the club does not have
precise data on the socio-economic composition of the fan base. Thus, it is not
possible to prove that the random sample is an adequate sample. The adequateness
of the sample probably suffers from the channels that were used to attract
participants. However, the size of the data set should allow interesting insights in
the club’s fans and their behavior with regard to club communication and the
sale/purchase of tickets on secondary markets.
2.3.2 Descriptive Statistics

An indicative analysis of the sample shows that the participants can be grouped
into three different groups:
a) Those fans that are member of Bayern Muenchen represent a first group. 2,237
participants show this kind of high commitment to the club. The average age
is ca. 30 years and more than 93% of this group is male.
b) A second group is represented by 473 season ticket holders. On average, they
are approximately 34 years old and 92.39% are male. Season ticket holders are
6
Xing is a professional social network similar to LinkedIn that is mainly used in Germany,
Austria and Switzerland.
de facto a sub group of the club members (group one). Only 24 participants of
the survey hold a season ticket without being a member of Bayern Muenchen.
Against this background, season ticket holders will not be considered as a
group on its own for all further analysis.
c) A third group shall be called fans/visitors. A total number of 733 survey
participants are neither members of the club nor season ticket holders.
However, we can assume a strong relationship to the sports club and regular
stadium visits. Otherwise these participants would not have received the link
to the questionnaire. Moreover, fans have used unauthorized secondary
markets for several times in the past. Participants belonging to this group are
on average 33.5 years old. 89.5% are male.
The knowledge of the authorized secondary market for tickets that is organized by
the club itself differs significantly between the groups: Whereas 88.5% of the
members are aware of the online market (93.7% of the season ticket holders), only
34.7% of the fans/visitors have ever realized that there is the official secondary
market. In contrast, more than 90% of all groups are aware of unauthorized
secondary markets including online platforms like Ebay. Moreover, for all groups
the awareness of black and grey markets is above the awareness of the online
platform that is driven by the club.
Regarding the communication channels, it is striking that members (including
season ticket holders) receive their information on the authorized secondary
market mainly through the official club webpage. In contrast, for fans/visitors
independent webpages could be found to be the most important source of
information on the authorized market. The importance of social media is in line
with these initial findings: Social media play a minor role for members. For
fans/visitors social media are ranked fourth and, thus, are of much higher
importance.
Usage of the authorized secondary market (for purchasing tickets) is strongly
influenced by the affiliation to one of the identified groups. Whereas 42.74% of
all members and 38.27% of all season ticket holders used the official secondary
market at least once, only 1.36% of the fans/visitors ever participated in the
authorized sales platform. In contrast, black market activities are more equally
spread between the different groups. Figures for the sale of tickets are similar.
Most important factors for the purchase of tickets using online platforms are
“original sales price” (price on the secondary market equals the original sales
price) and “security of the platform” (regarding e.g., the submission of credit card
details, etc.). Regarding the question whether or not an authorized platform is used
for tickets trades, members and season ticket holders show a significantly higher
preference for official platforms compared to fans/visitors. The same result can be
observed for the demand for security. In other words: Fans/visitors are less
interested in using authorized and, thus, secure platforms but tend to trade on grey
and black markets.
Focusing on factors influencing the willingness to sell tickets on online platforms,
the following items have been checked: Importance of:
- selling the ticket to another fan (in contrast to any anonymous buyer)
- sales price
- fast payment
- paying methods (e.g., debit card, credit card, PayPal, etc.)
- sales and payment conditions
Among others, the survey showed that ticket sales “to other fans” are evaluated
more important by members/season ticket holders compared to fans/visitors. In
contrast, a maximum sales price was rated less important. Both results are highly
significant.
2.3.3 Hypothesis Testing

The following table provides an overview on the hypotheses that were tested based
on several questions included in the questionnaire. Highlighted in bold are
hypotheses that showed a significant correlation based on the data set available.
Correlations Coefficient Spearman’s rho has been computed, correlations were
significant on the .01 level.
Hypothesis1a/b show that a club’s communication strategy has to aim at
increasing the fan’s/consumer’s identification (commitment) with the club. Based
on the underlying sample, a higher identification results in a more detailed
knowledge of the OSM and, moreover, in less detailed knowledge of any grey and
black markets. Hypotheses 2a/b showed that a better knowledge of the OSM
(based on a higher identification) implies a more frequent use of this platform.
However, usage figures of the grey and black market are not affected by the level
of knowledge (and thus the usage) of the OSM. Similarly, hypotheses 3a/b show
that the perceived quality of the OSM (measured by factors like fast payment) has
significant influence on the usage figures. However, usage of grey and black
markets is not affected by the quality perception of the OSM. Hypotheses
4a/b prove a significant relationship between a fan’s identification with Bayern
Muenchen and a more frequent use of the OSM. Again, a higher identification
does not result in a less frequent use of other sales portals. Finally, a more frequent
use of the OSM does not imply a less frequent use of grey and black market for
the sale/purchase of tickets.
Table 1: OSM = Official Secondary Market; BLACK = Grey and Black Market
(Own description)
1 A higher identification with the club leads to more detailed knowledge of the OSM.
1 A higher identification with the club implies less detailed knowledge of the BLACK.
2 Better knowledge of the OSM leads to a more frequent use of the OSM.
2 Better knowledge of the OSM implies a less frequent use of the BLACK.
3 A higher perceived quality of the OSM implies a more frequent use of the OSM.
3 A higher perceived quality of the OSM implies a less frequent use of the BLACK.
4 A higher identification with the club implies a more frequent use of the OSM.
4 A higher identification with the club leads to a use of the BLACK at a lower level.
5 Frequent use of OSM implies less use of BLACK.
Against this background, offering an authorized secondary market cannot be seen

as a magic bullet in the club’s fight against grey and black markets. The results of
the survey might lead to the assumption that a club driven secondary market
increases the fan’s/consumer’s willingness to sell their ticket and, thus, the overall
number of tickets that are resold. However, mainly customers showing a high
commitment towards the club (‘members’) are aware of the authorized market and
even those who participate in this market do not reduce their activities on grey and
black markets.
2.4 Summary and Outlook

Due to the increasing importance of customer relationship management and brand
management in professional sports, club managers need to rethink and optimize
their corporate communication. This need of rethinking current strategies must not
be realized as a one-time task but as a current challenge. Offering authorized
secondary markets for tickets might imply several positive effects resulting in
higher fan commitment, increased ticket sales, and, finally, increased turnovers.
However, secondary markets are only important for those clubs that show a high
excess demand regarding their tickets. For fans of those clubs, club driven
secondary markets can provide additional benefit and enable the club management
to collect socio-economic data of their customers that might be used for all kind
of CRM activities.
However, the results of the survey (section three) show that official secondary
markets might not be the first choice to combat grey and black markets. Future
research could repeat the survey with other clubs (and other sports). Additional
surveys should focus on considering those fans visiting the stadium only from time
to time and showing minor commitment. The findings at hand might suffer from
the fact that mainly club members and/or season ticket holders participated in the
survey.

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New York, NY: Routledge.
3 Trends in Corporate Communication Based on the
Example of Medium-Sized World Market Leaders
from Austria
Georg Jungwirth7
Abstract: This article deals with the importance of corporate communication

for the international success of medium-sized world market leaders (Hidden
Champions) from Austria. These companies, which are largely unknown to the
general public, position themselves in their markets as technology and quality
leaders and thereby usually achieve higher prices and significantly better returns
than their competitors.
To find out more about the secrets of these companies' successes, in February 2015
the Marketing Directors of 191 medium-sized Austrian world market leaders were
interviewed by telephone about various aspects of corporate communication.
Among other things it concerned the question of which classic and digital
communication tools these mostly family-run businesses used to build such a
positive image in the business sectors and markets in which they operate, and to
convince international customers of the technological and qualitative superiority
of their products.
Since a very similar study was already conducted in 2008 with the same target
group, a comparison of the results shows clear trends and developments in the
field of corporate communication. In particular, it also illustrates to what extent
the financial and economic crisis of recent years has impacted on the communi-
cation policy of Austrian Hidden Champions.
3.1 Initial Situation

While business research has been attempting for decades to analyze the secrets to
the successes of large companies and well-known brands, small and medium-sized
enterprises and their often equally impressive market successes have for a long
time remained unresearched. It was not until relatively late that studies such as the
STRATOS study (Bamberger & Pleitner, 1988) dealt with the strategic orientation
of small and medium-sized enterprises. Biallo (1993) was the first person in the
German-speaking world to analyze the strategies of particularly successful
7
CAMPUS 02 Graz University of Applied Sciences/Austria, georg.jungwirth@campus02.at

22 Trends in Corporate Communication …
medium-sized enterprises, by investigating only small and medium-sized German

companies, which even made it to being world market leaders.
This special form of success factor research became more widely known above all
through the work of Hermann Simon (1997, 2007, 2012). It was also Simon (1997)
who coined the term "Hidden Champions" for these medium-sized world market
leaders, because these companies were largely unknown outside their sector,
especially to the general public.
Yet how is it even possible that a company that is largely unknown in its home
country, enjoys great popularity and high regard among potential and actual
customers all over the world? What is the importance of corporate communication
for the international success of the Hidden Champions? What instruments of
communication policy do these mostly family-run businesses use to build such a
positive image in the business sectors and markets in which they operate, and to
convince international customers of the technological and qualitative superiority
of their products? What role does communication policy play in comparison to
other marketing instruments?
Using the example of medium-sized Austrian world market leaders, this article
shall attempt to find answers to these and other questions related to the corporate
communication of these internationally successful companies. However, first it is
important to define what is meant by a Hidden Champion.
3.2 Austria's Hidden Champions

The study on which this article is based, is broadly aligned with the criteria which
Simon (2007) set out establishing when a business qualifies as a German Hidden
Champion:
- No. 1, 2 or 3 on the world market or no. 1 in Europe
- Turnover below € 3 billion
- Corporate headquarters in Germany
- Low public profile
The seemingly imprecise delineation of the market position is on the one hand due
to the fact that most Hidden Champions operate in the business-to-business sector
and due to a lack of regular market analysis are themselves unable to say exactly
what position they currently hold on the world market. Another reason is due to
the fact that only a small percentage of Hidden Champions are quoted on a stock
exchange and hence the competitors in the world class are not subject to public
disclosure and therefore do not publish their turnovers.
Jungwirth G. 23
The last criterion is a feature which is not exactly quantified, but rather a
qualitative estimate.
Three of the four specified criteria have also been applied to Austria, however the
sales ceiling had to be adapted to the small and medium-sized structure of the
Austrian economy, because companies with up to € 3 billion annual turnover from
the Austrian perspective are neither referred to as medium-sized nor as "hidden".
In order now to be considered for this empirical analysis, the following criteria
had to be met (Jungwirth, 2010):
- No. 1, 2 or 3 on the world market or no. 1 in Europe
- Turnover under € 200 million
- Corporate headquarters in Austria
- Low public profile
The market share itself was - as with Simon - not independently determined, but
ascertained based on company statements and press reports.
The turnover limit of € 200 million, which is significantly lower in comparison to
Simon, on the one hand better conforms to the image of a medium-sized company,
and on the other hand relates to a finding by Meffert and Klein (2007), which
determined that the strategy of specialization - which is pursued by almost all
Hidden Champions - delivers the greatest potential of success for companies with
less than 200 million annual turnover.
Prior to the start of the field work, in January 2015 191 medium-sized companies
fulfilling these criteria of an Austrian Hidden Champion were ultimately able to
be tracked down.
The Marketing Directors of these companies were then contacted by telephone in
February and March 2015 and 87 of them (response rate: 45.5%) finally agreed to
participate in this study.
3.3 Results of the Study

The telephone survey of the Austrian Hidden Champions did not only concern the
communication activities of these internationally successful companies, but also
posed many questions about other classic marketing instruments. For the sake of
brevity, this article shall only concentrate on the most important findings related
to the communication policy of these companies. First, however, the structural
data of the Austrian Hidden Champions, as well as some general findings will be
presented.
3.3.1 Structural Data of the Austrian Hidden Champions

The world market leaders database, created in 2007 by the University of Applied
Sciences CAMPUS 02 in Graz and regularly updated since then, comprised a total
of 191 Austrian Hidden Champions at the beginning of 2015. These companies
had an average annual turnover of € 53 million and employed on average 405 staff.
70.6% of Austrian Hidden Champions manufacture mainly industrial goods,
17.6% operate mainly in the consumer goods sector and the remaining 11.8% in
the service sector. No less than 63% come from the three sectors of mechanical
engineering, the metal industry and the electronics industry.
More than 80% of the medium-sized Austrian world market leaders are family-
owned companies, which are based mostly in rural areas and are by far the largest
employers there. As expected, their export share is very high (median: 88%) and
also other key figures such as the equity ratio (42%) or the EBIT (around 10%)
are absolutely above average.
Especially noteworthy is the fact that more than three quarters of the companies
surveyed (76.5%) have increased their turnover in the last five years, on average
by 14.3% per year. Another 16.5% of Austrian Hidden Champions had static
turnover during this time of global financial and economic crisis. Only 7% of the
medium-sized Austrian world market leaders suffered declining sales under these
difficult economic conditions (Stocker, 2015).
3.3.2 General Study Results

The surveyed executives of the Austrian Hidden Champions indicated that around
10% of the turnover is invested in research and development (R&D) and that - not
least because of this - a large proportion of the products (78%) can be attributed
to the high-tech category.
The vast majority of customers are longstanding and loyal regular customers
(72.5%), which are responsible for 75.7% of the turnover. However, the intensity
of competition on the companies' key markets is characterized as very intense
(32.8%) or quite intense (55.2%). Although almost all medium-sized Austrian
world and European market leaders operate in niche markets, they have numerous
competitors. There are on average 11.9 relevant competitors on the European
market and on the world market there are even 37.5.
In organizational terms, the marketing activities of the Austrian Hidden
Champions are mostly handled by their own marketing departments (63.5%), in
23% of the examined companies, marketing and sales are combined in a joint
department (Stocker, 2015).
Jungwirth G. 25
3.3.3 Results on Corporate Communication

This chapter sets out how the Austrian Hidden Champions design their
international communication policy. Since the marketing activities of these
companies were already collected in a telephone survey in 2008 (Pfefferkorn,
2008), comparisons can be made in part with the results of the current study, and
initial trends and developments can be derived.
The surveyed medium-sized Austrian world market leaders invest approx. 4.1%
of their turnover in communication activities, in 2008 it was only 3.1%. This
communication budget is set mainly on the basis of targets (43%), but also the
resources available (35%) play a major role in this. Only 12% of the surveyed
companies align this with the competition (Stocker 2015).
In the 2008 survey (Pfefferkorn, 2008), however, 55% of the Hidden Champions
indicated setting their communication budget based on targets. Available financial
resources followed a long way behind (22%), as well as a fixed percentage of
revenue (17%).
63% of Austrian Hidden Champions also work together with an agency in the field
of communication (2008: 71%), the rest handle communication activities
internally. This slight decline could be an indication that the surveyed companies
are increasingly trying to develop internal competencies also in the field of
communication. This would also tally with other findings, according to which the
Hidden Champions manage as many core processes internally as possible and only
outsource the less important corporate tasks. Obviously corporate communication
in these companies is considered increasingly important for international success
(Godefroid & Pförtsch, 2008).
If you ask the Marketing Directors of medium-sized Austrian world market
leaders about their assessment of the importance of classic instruments of
communication, it is evident that trade fairs and exhibitions seem to be by far the
most important for these companies. No less than 67.9% of respondents classify
this classic communication tool as very important and a further 26.4% as rather
important (see Figure 2).
Internal communication and public relations are also very important. Then follow
the communication instruments of specialist magazines, sales promotion and
direct marketing.
The communication instruments of event marketing, media advertising and
sponsoring are much less significant for the Austrian Hidden Champions (Vry,
2007).
Figure 2: Importance of classic communication instruments

(Own description)
This assessment essentially reflects the actual practice of companies primarily

operating in business-to-business markets. Only the very high importance of
internal communication is especially remarkable and was not to be expected in
this form, particularly in medium-sized companies.
Comparing this ranking of the most important classic instruments of communi-
cation with the results of the study of 2008, it is noticeable that there are only
minor shifts. Four of the nine communication instruments even occupy an
identical position as in the last survey (see Figure 3).
Then as now, trade fairs and exhibitions are the most important classic communi-
cation instrument for the Austrian Hidden Champions. But minor changes appear
immediately after this: Thus specialist magazines have lost some importance,
while internal communication and public relations have risen one position.
In addition, the instruments of sponsoring and media advertising have swapped
places at the bottom of the rankings.
Jungwirth G. 27
Figure 3: Ranking comparison of communication instruments (2008 vs. 2015)

(Own description)
If you ask the Marketing Directors of Austrian Hidden Champions about the
importance of digital communication tools for their company, it appears that so-
called website marketing is considered most important. Nevertheless, 39.6% of
respondents consider website marketing very important, a further 45.3% still
rather important.
This is closely followed by the communication instruments of search engine
marketing as well as email marketing and newsletters (Morten Bach, 2006).
The last places in this list are occupied by the digital tools of social media
marketing and mobile marketing, whereby the latter was not even once rated as
very important. Mobile marketing is furthermore identified by more than half of
the companies surveyed (56.6%) as rather unimportant or even as very
unimportant (see Figure 4).
However, email marketing and newsletters are rated by nearly two-thirds (65.4%)
of the surveyed executives of Austrian Hidden Champions as very important or
rather important. Yet, interestingly only 22.5% of these respondents indicate that
they engage in permission marketing. There is either a misunderstanding here
regarding this technical term or one risks legal consequences if one sends emails
or newsletters without the express permission of the customer.
Figure 4: Importance of digital communication instruments

(Own description)
Within the framework of the telephone survey, a few statements were presented
to the executives of medium-sized Austrian world market leaders regarding their
company's communication policy (see Figure 5).
The largest affirmation was obtained by the statement "We integrate many images
into our communication". 43.4% of the respondents fully agreed with this
statement, a further 45.3% rather agreed. Obviously images carry a very great
significance, even in companies that are active in the business-to-business area
and which sell their high-tech products on the world markets.
But also the statement "We tailor our communication to the customer" was mostly
affirmed. Although only 22.6% of respondents fully agreed with this statement,
therefore 54.7% of surveyed executives rather agreed. Obviously it is not only the
products and services of these medium-sized world market leaders that are mostly
tailored to the customer, but also communication is apparently broadly tailored to
the respective customer.
The relatively lowest affirmation was for the statement "Our advertisements have
mainly technical content". Also here, 22.6% of Marketing Directors of Austrian
Hidden Champions fully agreed with the statement, but only 35.8% of respondents
rather agreed. It nevertheless appears that the communication and especially the
advertising of these high-tech companies seems to be dominated by technical
content. But it could be worth considering emphasizing the benefit or even
Jungwirth G. 29
emotional aspects more strongly in the communication of these already successful

companies (Sell & Seibold, 2014).
Figure 5: Statements on the communication policy

(Own description)
3.4 Importance of Communication in the Context

of Marketing
Finally, the question arises of what role communication policy plays when
compared to the other marketing instruments. If you ask the Marketing Directors
of the Austrian Hidden Champions how important the four classic marketing
instruments - the so-called 4 P's - are for the success of their company, you get a
clear answer: The product and brand policy seems to be the single most important
marketing tool of the medium-sized Austrian world and European market leaders.
On a scale of 1 (= very important) to 5 (= very unimportant), product and brand
policy achieves the very high average of 1.34. Following at some distance are
distribution policy (average: 1.83), communication policy (1.89) and the price
policy (1.98).
It is also already known from other studies (Jungwirth, 2009, 2013) that product
policy has a central importance for Hidden Champions. As already mentioned in
chapter 3.3.2, the high expenditures on research & development seem to be the
reason that the products and services of these companies qualitatively outperform
those of the relevant competitors on the world market. This is not just the opinion
of the executives of the Austrian Hidden Champions (Pfefferkorn, 2008; Stocker,
2015), it is also confirmed by their international customers (Jungwirth & Kraus,
2011).
As shown in Figure 6, 67.9% of surveyed Marketing Directors from Austrian

Hidden Champions consider product policy to be very important for the success
of the company, a further 30.2% consider it rather important. The three other
marketing instruments are also majority rated as very or rather important for
business success, however product policy seems to assume a very special role in
this regard.
Communication policy is rated as very important by 39.6% of respondents and a
further 47.2% rate it as rather important (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: Importance of marketing instruments for business success

(Own description)
3.5 Conclusion
Even though the product policy of Hidden Champions seems to be a key factor in
the company's success, communication policy is classified by 86.8% of surveyed
executives as very important or rather important. They have the task of convincing
international customers of these medium-sized world and European market
leaders from Austria of the high quality of their products and services using the
various classic and digital communication instruments. It is thereby important, on
the one hand, to visualize the technical advantages of the mostly highly innovative
products of these high-tech companies, among other ways with the help of images,
in such a way that ideally not only rational arguments, but also emotions are
conveyed. In addition, it is the goal of these companies to communicate as
Jungwirth G. 31
individually as possible with their mostly long-standing and loyal regular

customers in their international business-to-business markets.
Even though the Marketing and Communication Directors of the Austrian Hidden
Champions are faced with great challenges due to these framework conditions,
they nevertheless succeed again and again in making an essential contribution to
the global successes of these largely unknown world market leaders.

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4 Effective Resource Allocation in PR and IR –
Linking the Output and Impact of Corporate
Communications
Monika Kovarova-Simecek 8
Abstract: Corporate communications have become a strategic factor that differ-

entiates companies from their competitors. Studies confirm the positive impact of
a well designed communication strategy on the corporate financial performance.
Consequently, public relations and investor relations should be considered as an
endogenous management process with performance measure-ment as its core
aspect. While we observe a wide range of metrics applied in communications,
most of them do not measure the contribution of PR and IR to the company success
nor do they link the input with the impact of PR and IR activities. However,
a concept linking these two perspectives is considered a crucial point in
communications management enabling an effective resource allocation. This
paper provides a measurement concept applicable in PR and IR which is based
on the findings of prior research, theoretical approaches, and international
measurement guidelines. As a result of a focus group discussion, it presents
insights into the PR and IR measurement practice in Austrian companies exploring
the status quo. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the literature by suggesting a
communications-SWOT-matrix as a new analytical tool which combines the input
and impact perspective, and thus helps assess the effectiveness of PR and IR
measures. Adding a third perspective, the matrix encounters also the requirement
to take the great heterogeneity of stakeholder into consideration.
4.1 Introduction
Public relations and investor relations are strategically important functions which
play a crucial role in establishing a relationship between a corporation and its
investors and public (e.g., Ragas, Laskin, & Brusch 2014; Penning, 2011).
Companies invest therefore considerable amounts of monetary and personal
resources in these functions. A survey conducted annually by BNY Mellon
on investor relations practices worldwide reports a growing task scope and
increasing budgets in investor relations (BNY Mellon, 2015). Another inter-
national survey shows that IR professionals belong to the best paid employees
among communication experts (Laskin, 2008). According to a survey carried out
8
UAS St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences/Austria, monika.kovarova-simecek@fhstp.ac.at

34 Effective Resource Allocation in PR and IR …
by C.I.R.A in 2011, the number of employees in investor relations increased from

2008 to 2011, especially in large-caps (C.I.R.A, 2012). Accordingly, IR and PR
are expected to deliver returns on this investment by contributing to the increase
of company value. The practice of linking the remuneration of PR and IR
professionals to metrics demonstrating communications effectiveness reflects the
performance requirements towards corporate communications (BNY Mellon,
2015). To fulfil the expectations of return on investment becomes, however, more
difficult due to higher legal requirements relating to corporate disclosures and
growing competitive environment, both causing higher costs and putting PR and
IR under pressure.
The prove of effectiveness while working under growing efficiency pressure
requires adequate evaluation and measurement of IR and PR performance,
otherwise, both will continue struggling to demonstrate their contribution the
company success (Van Riel & Fombrun, 2007; Laskin, 2009). However, despite
of the knowledge of the financial impact of PR and IR activities, PR and IR
measurement is hardly on controllers’ agenda and adequate measurement concepts
linking the resource with the impact perspective thus not widely spread in practice
(Manning & Rockland, 2011). Aside from some few studies, the scientific work
on IR and PR measurement investigating the effectiveness of communication
investments is also quite limited so far (Ragas, Laskin, & Brusch, 2014).
This paper contributes to the literature by (1) elaborating a concept of an effective
IR and PR measurement, (2) exploring, against this, the status quo of PR and IR
measurement in Austrian firms, and (3) suggesting an analytical measurement tool
linking the resource and the impact perspective in corporate communications. The
paper is structured as follows: Section 4.2 provides a brief definition of PR and
IR. Section 4.3 gives an overview of academic work as well as international
standards on PR and IR measurement. In section 4.4, we present our focus group
discussion results revealing the status quo and current challenges in PR and IR
measurement among Austrian companies. Section 4.5 shows the communications-
SWOT-matrix as a new analytical tool which aims at measuring the efficiency and
effectiveness of PR and IR activities. In section 4.6 we summarize and discuss out
results.
4.2 Definition Public Relations (PR) and

Investor Relations (IR)
The two main functions of corporate communications focused in this paper are PR
and IR. This paper emphasizes the interdependencies between both functions and
the importance of taking these interactions into consideration when managing
corporate communications. Nevertheless, a brief definition on PR and IR should
Kovarova-Simecek M. 35
outline their specific roles in and contributions to the overall corporate com-
munications.
4.2.1 Public Relations

Both academics and practitioners face a large number of definitions of PR,
whereas the range and diversity of PR terms is even larger among practitioners
than in the academic world. This wide variety is viewed rather critically since it
has a disintegrating affect bearing the risk that PR are regarded as part of other
areas within an organization (e.g., marketing, compliance, or human resources)
and because the most definitions miss communication as a fundamental aspect of
PR (Hutton, 1999). Out of the numerous definitions, “managing strategic
relationships with enabling publics”, which is derived from Cutlip, Center, and
Broom (1994), might be actually considered as a traditional one, relevant to and
accepted by theory and practice since it points out relationship and strategy as
essential concepts of PR and implies effective communication as an essential
tactic or tool, respectively (Hutton, 1999, pp. 209).9
4.2.2 Investor Relations

A widely accepted definition of IR among scholars and practitioners is the one
of National Institute of Investor Relations (NIRI, 2003), the world’s largest
investor relations association, which describes investor relations as “a strategic
management responsibility that integrates finance, communication, marketing and
securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication
between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which
ultimately contributes to a company's securities achieving fair valuation.” (NIRI,
2003, n.p.). The integration of (1) the emphasis of a two-way communication
instead of a one-way flow in terms of a disclosure of financial information and (2)
the redefinition of the strategic goal of investor relations moving away from the
exclusive focus on enhancing the share price to improving the overall company’s
value marks an essential change in the perception of investor relations. Investor
relations are not more regarded as an exclusively financial or technical task but as
a strategically important communications function moving thus closer to public
relations (Laskin, 2008).
9
For critical discourse regarding this definition see Hutton (1999, pp. 209).
4.3 PR and IR Measurement – Literature Review and

International Standards
4.3.1 Literature Review
Both PR and IR are regarded as management functions which in turn imply
planning, control, feedback, and performance measurement as important tasks
(Hutton, 1999). Thus, PR and IR measurement need to be considered an indis-
pensable component of an effective PR and IR. While the importance of the
corporate communications measurement has been intensively discussed among
practitioners and communication experts in recent years, the topic has attracted
scant attention among scholars. Also empirical research on communication
measurement or resource allocation in the corporate communications is still quite
rare (e.g., Penning, 2011; Laskin, 2011; Metzker, 2010). The academic work on
PR and IR is mostly descriptive exploring primarily the actions of corporate
communications with its dimensions input (budgets and resources), internal
processes (organization), and output (activities) (e.g., Cole, 2004; Laskin, 2006,
2009, 2011; Marcus, 2005; Metzker, 2006, 2010; Michaelson & Gilfeather, 2003;
Rieves & Lefebvre, 2002; Marston & Straker, 2001). The majority of studies have,
thus, focused on the efficiency of PR and IR, without, however, exploring the
effectiveness PR and IR activities. In Austria, a study carried out by C.I.R.A.
(2009, 2012) investigates IR activities among Austrian publicly-held companies
and provides also associated metrics collected by the companies. The KPIs
outlined in the study aim at measuring the input and output as well as the processes
of investor relation (e.g., budgets, FTE involved, time until the annual report is
published, preparation time for general assembly etc.), however, no KPIs focus on
measuring the impact. This indicates that the effectiveness and the qualitative and
financial impact of IR activities have not yet been comprehensively included into
IR measurement systems applied in companies.
Some international studies go beyond this perspective and explore the impact of
IR activities by investigating the relationship between various dimensions of IR
such as activities or quality features (e.g., transparency) and the company share
price (e.g., Ragas, Laskin, & Brusch, 2014; Laskin, 2011; Gelb, 2000). In this
context, we observe a controversial discourse on the suitability of the share price
as a valid measure of IR contribution. While some researchers postulate the share
price as the most valid indicator of IR success (e.g., Starkman & Klingbail, 2004),
its suitability is seen very critically by others (e.g., Ragas, Laskin, & Brusch, 2014;
Laskin, 2011). Those scholars argue that it is difficult to prove a causal link
between IR activities and the company share price, since investor relations is only
one of many influencing factors, whereas earnings growth, profitability or
management credibility are demonstrated to have an even stronger impact (Laskin,
2011). Only few surveys examine the effects of communications measures or the
correlations between the resource input and the impact (e.g., Bushee & Miller,
2012) and put the light on the effectiveness of corporate communications. PR and
IR are, thus, hardly investigated from the strategic perspective. This indicates that,
despite of the effort to establish PR and IR as such, they are not yet perceived as
strategic functions.
4.3.2 International Measurement Standards and Theoretical Approaches

In the last decade the measurement and evaluation of PR and IR attracted higher
attention of communications experts and practitioners demanding accountable and
valid measurement methods. The ongoing debate resulted in a new consensus on
communications measurement embedded in several international standards
providing measurement principles for PR and IR, respectively (Macnamara,
2014). The Barcelona Principles which were established in 2010 are regarded as
one of the first recent milestones in the row of emerging measurement standards
and mark a turning point in the corporate communications measurement adding a
new perspective to PR and IR. Corporate communications are hence considered
to be strategically important functions shaping the reputation, and thus, the value
of a company. Based on this perception, the Barcelona Principles provide basic
rules enabling to make communications measurement an effective management
tool. They address quality requirements on measurement systems such as
transparency, consistency, and validity, as well as currently relevant communi-
cations channels such as social media which are clearly supposed to be moved into
the focus of measurement concepts. The Barcelona Principles postulate strategic
communications objectives in terms of intended impact of communications
activities as the initial stage of its communications measurement concept. Thus,
the focus should be led to the measurement of the effects of specific measures
(outcomes) rather than on the activities set by the companies (output). Based on
the objectives defined as the impact to be unfold among companies’ share- and
stakeholder, the process which is necessary to achieve these objectives should be
planned in the next step. The communications value chain is explicitly mentioned
as a supportive tool in this regard (AMEC, 2015).
The standards are consistent with theoretical approaches which (1) state the need
for PR and IR objectives in terms of the impact on share- and stakeholders’
behavior, (2) define different levels of measurement, in particular activities
(output), their qualitative effect (outcome) and financial impact (outflow), and (3)
postulate the differentiation between those levels as a precondition and (4) the PR
and IR value chain as a core tool of an effective measurement (e.g., Volkart,
Cocca, & Moll, 2005, p. 133; Piwinger, 2005, p. 79; Porák, 2005, pp. 163).
4.4 PR and IR Measurement Among Austrian Companies –

Main Findings and Conclusions
The working group on financial communications established by PRVA and CIRA
initiated a focus group discussion on PR and IR measurement which was held
in November 2015. The focus group participants were 15 PR and IR experts
including both academics and practitioners from various industries as well as PR
and IR officers and consultants. Based on the gaps revealed in studies, the
requirement stated in international standards and in theory which we refer to
above, the focus group aimed to explore the status quo of PR and IP measurement
among Austrian companies by discussing three main topics: (1) the imple-
mentation of strategic objectives in PR and IR, (2) the content of measurement,
and (3) the existing organizational and technical preconditions enabling an
effective measurement system.10 Figure 7 displays the concept of PR and IR
measurement which served as basis for the focus group discussion.

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4.4.1 Strategic Objectives

According to the controlling circle, management is based on plans in terms
strategic goals which are further specified as targets and measures. The
implementation of these plans needs to be monitored and reported to ensure that
the goals can be achieved and, in case of deviations, appropriate measures set
timely. Performance measurement is crucial in this regard (e.g., Weber &
10
Due to the exploratory and qualitative character of the study the results may not be generalized
but rather considered to be a basis for further investigations.
Schäffer, 2016). This general concept can be also applied to PR and IR controlling
as part of corporate communications management (Piwinger & Porák, 2005; Porák
& Fieseler, 2009) where the intended qualitative and financial impacts are defined
as strategic objectives, e.g., trust, reputation, market position, attractiveness as an
employer, attractiveness as an investment opportunity, resilience in the event of
crisis, market share, sales, share price, cost of capital etc. This step appears to be
constitutional, since if the targeted impact of communications activities is not
defined, the contribution of corporate communications cannot be measured, and,
in consequence, not managed (Piwinger, 2005; Porák, 2005; Marcus, 2005; Cole,
2003; Metzker, 2010; Rieves & Lefebvre, 2002). Strategic objectives in PR and
IR are not only important to enhance the effectiveness of corporate
communications, but also its efficiency by optimizing the resource allocation in
dependence on the maximum possible impact of a specific measure. However,
despite of the awareness of the importance of goal definition among scholars and
practitioners, Austrian PR and IR experts claim a lack of strategic objectives
specified prior to PR and IR program development and measure implementation.
International studies confirm this gap as a widespread phenomenon (Manning &
Rockland, 2011). According to our findings ad hoc measures prevail even though
they might bear the risk of sunk or higher costs, e.g., due to the lack of
coordination between PR and IR.
Clear goals could also help outline the strategic importance of PR an IR, and might
thus serve as an important justifying argument. We, however, observe a different
need of justification between PR and IR, which might explain why, in particular
in investor relation, strategic goals in terms of impact are hardly specified. Based
on the fact that IR is legally required the need of justification is much lower than
in public relations. From the resource perspective, however, the need of
justification for public relations might be much higher due to its broader focus,
greater audience, and thus the need of higher budgets.
Researchers and experts therefore emphasize the alignment of communications
objectives in terms of the impact of communications measures as an essential step
in corporate communications management and measurement. At the organi-
zational level, the coordination between PR and IR, e.g., with one Head of
Communications, seems to be essential to optimize both the effectiveness and the
efficiency of corporate communications. This is mirrored also in the international
discourse. Penning (2011) argues that based on the interrelationship between PR
and IR and their mutual relevance to each other, a targeted coordination is needed.
4.4.2 Levels of Performance Measurement

In context with corporate communications, we can distinguish various levels of
objectives and metrics ranging from information disclosures to mutual
communication with stakeholders, whereas the communication level is continu-
ously gaining in importance. While information is inherent in the communication,
the opposite cannot be assumed automatically. Thus, in the context of PR and IR
measurement it seems to be important to differentiate between information
(output) in terms of production of messages, e.g., press release, annual report, and
communication (outgrowth) in terms of the successful transmission of the
information, e.g., publication and perception of a press release or an annual report
(Piwinger & Porák, 2005; Porák, 2005). Even though the perception is considered
a crucial point in enabling the impact on PR and IR activities in the first place, and
there exist a wide range of metrics displaying if the company could reach the target
group by a specific measure (e.g., number of clicks, downloads, investors
participating in the general assembly or perceptions studies), the information
(output) still lies in the focus of PR and IR measurement. As a result of the
discussion, two possible reasons for the focus on the information perspective could
be identified: (1) the measurement of perception in particular at the qualitative
level, e.g., perception studies are quite costly and (2) the technical and reporting
systems currently applied in companies allow measure of the output rather than
the outgrowth. As a result, many metrics regularly reported to management cover
aspects which are easily to measure but not necessarily of interest or relevance.
However, it needs to go beyond the first two levels of output and outgrowth to
measure the (targeted) impact of PR and IR. At the first step, the supposed impact
of PR and IR activities is to influence the opinion, and thus the behavior of
company’s share- and stakeholders (outcome), e.g., to increase the number of
purchases or investments in company’s stocks. This further implies an impact on
the financial situation of the company (outflow) in terms of e.g., higher sales,
profitability or share price (Piwinger, 2005). Whereas these aspects are part of
regular and standardized measurement and reporting, they are hardly linked to the
measures which were, whether knowingly or unknowingly, supposed to create this
effect. However, exactly this step is the missing link enabling an effective resource
allocation.
The working group agreed further on that the focus on some few core measures
with the highest probable impact (e.g., newsletter, responsive website) and some
few metrics with focus on the perception aspect (e.g., perception studies every
second year) is more recommendable than the attempt to cover as many activities
options as possible. However, benchmarks within the peer-group are regarded as
essential at all measurement levels.
4.4.3 Precondition of Performance Measurement

Aside from the aspects mentioned above, the basis for a good PR and IR
measurement are information systems which enable specific and activity-based
tracking of resources used. According to the explication above, as a consequence,
first we have to distinguish between information and communication when setting
up a measurement system, i.e., the costs of the information production and
communication should be documented separately by (1) their purpose, (2) the area
in which they occur, e.g., PR, IR, internal communications, marketing etc., and
(3) the project they are associated to (Piwinger & Porák, 2005, p. 27). However,
we have to take into consideration that one measure, e.g., publication of a press
release might concern more than one area (Penning, 2011). At the technical and
administrative level, thus, an accounting system enabling a separate recording and
documentation of information and communication costs need to be established.
The most considerable cost driver in PR and IR are compensation costs, which
makes a time tracking system necessary to document the resource use in the
specific areas and projects, respectively. The discussion results show that this
aspect is, despite of the awareness of its importance and technical possibilities,
widely neglected. However, we observe difference between companies and PR
and IR agencies on the one hand, and project and non-project oriented companies
on the other hand. While PR and IR agencies as well as project-oriented companies
use time tracking systems to evaluate the profitability of their clients and projects,
respectively, other companies neglect using time tracking system in communi-
cations. In this regard, the usability and connectivity of the system with other tools
(e.g., accounting) are considered to be important criteria.
4.5 Communications-SWOT-Matrix
Based on our findings, we developed a corporate communications matrix which
can be applied to manage both public relations and investor relations. The matrix
combines the internal perspective in terms of communication competences of a
company and resources associated with communication measures with the
external perspective in terms of the impact defined as a chance to unfold a positive
effect among stakeholders. A company has communication competence when it
can set a specific communication measure at both the organizational and the
technical level. The organizational and technical feasibility of a communication
measure can be rated from low to high. Each activity set causes monetary and
personal resources, whereas the level of resource use depends on the competences
of the company’s communication professionals. The extent of the resource use
and thus the expenses of a specific communication measure can be displayed
through differently sized circles. As we know from prior research work (e.g.,
Penning, 2011; Wang, 2013), communication measures are perceived differently

by various stakeholders in dependence on their needs, their ability to understand
the content, and the information sources they use to keep themselves informed.
While, for instance, annual reports are perceived as hard to understand and thus
often fail to address retail investors and other stakeholders, news on company
position in the industry or news on CSR activities are more likely to do, and thus
have a higher impact. The chance to unfold a positive effect by a specific
communication activity can be also rated from low to high.
According to our model, companies should ideally focus on those communication
activities which are organizationally and technically feasible exploiting internal
skills, knowledge and capabilities, and, at the same time, on those which are most
likely to address the stakeholders and unfold a positive effect. Considering the
great heterogeneity of share- and stakeholders that corporate communications
might address, it seems essential to expand the matrix by a third dimension
representing the various share- and stakeholders of a company, since both share-
and stakeholders prefer different sources and contents dependent on their
demographic characteristics and their behavior (e.g., Wang, 2013).
Furthermore, the interdependencies between PR and IR have to be taken into
consideration while analyzing especially the impact of the communications
measures. As shown by prior research, PR measures might be of high relevance
to investors, e.g., news on the company position within the industry or strategic
development (Penning, 2011). On the other hand, IR measures originally
addressing investors might lead other stakeholders to invest in the company’s
stocks. Based on these findings, it seems reasonable to design, aside from a
separate PR and IR matrix, a comprehensive corporate communications matrix
which integrates both communication fields as well as the interactions between
them.
However, we have to take some specific phenomena or logics of corporate
communications into consideration when applying the matrix into practice. First,
some communications measures bear a strong symbolic meaning for share- and
stakeholders, e.g., staff magazine for employees, and cannot be neglected in the
portfolio of activities due to rational considerations only. Even though some
communications measures such as corporate brochures or even websites are
demonstrated to be less relevant to investors and public (Penning, 2011),
companies cannot afford to avoid them. Second, to avoid a strategic disadvantage
in relation to competitors, companies also (have to) base their activities on
standards set by law, the industry, and their competitors. For instance, if the
majority of firms within an industry have a twitter account, it might be perceived
as ignorance towards stakeholders not to have one.
Figure 8: Communications-SWOT-Matrix
(Own description)
Notwithstanding, if stakeholders use the information provided in there, neglecting

certain measures expected by stakeholders might be interpreted as lack of
transparency. This perception could, eventually, have a negative impact on the
company’s reputation, and subsequently its value. For these measures, the input-
impact ratio can be optimized only by managing the resource use most efficiently.
Third, the communications strategies vary by business and region, e.g., while trade
fairs are most effective in B2B sector, they might play a negligible role in the
communication strategy in the B2C sector. Therefore, specific adjustments in
terms of the effectiveness of respective communications measures will be needed.
The communications matrix can be considered as an analytical instrument which
provides information about the communication expertise of a company with
respect to specific activities and its compatibility with the external requirements
given by law, industry standards, and, in particular, stakeholders’ communication
needs. The insights provided by the analysis might be relevant to communications
professionals when developing strategic communications plans, allocating
monetary and human resources in accordance with the strategic alignment, setting
up budgets, and assessing the success of communications measures taken.
4.6 Conclusion
This paper provides first a concept of performance measurement in PR and IR
based on and concluding the findings of prior research, theoretical approaches,
and international measurement principles and guidelines. As main pillars of a
prospectively effective measurement concept could be specified (1) the definition
of strategic goals in terms of the targeted impacts of corporate communications,
(2) measurement of different performance levels differentiating between the
activities (input) and the impacts (outcome), and (3) implementation of
organizational and technical environment which enables to link the monetary and
human resources used in PR and IR with the effects triggered by specific
measures.
Second, the paper presents an insight into the PR and IR measurement practice in
Austrian companies as a result of a focus group discussion, whereas the concept
showed above served as a benchmark to explore the status quo and to elaborate
gaps and possible solutions. The discussion results reveal that ad hoc measures
dominate the PR and IR practice while strategic objectives in terms of impacts are
hardly defined. We also observe a wide range of measures applied in corporate
communications, however, without assessing their efficiency and effectiveness
which bears the risk of an inappropriate resource allocation. Overall, strategic
goals expressing the contribution of PR and IR to the corporate value and focus
on a manageable number communications measures with the greatest possible
impact with respect to the value enhancement are considered to be necessary steps
towards a successful PR and IR management. We also see that numerous metrics
are collected and reported, however, these metrics focus on (1) the input
perspective measuring the resource use, (2) the output perspective measuring the
activity level, (3) the combined input-output-perspective measuring the
productivity, or (4) the outcome perspective measuring the quantitative and
qualitative perception of these activities. The measurement hardly comprises the
outcome perspective measuring the impact caused by these measures or their
contribution to it. Most of the metrics are documented and reported by PR and IR
departments, whereas controlling does not seem to consider PR and IR
measurement one of its core tasks. Putting PR and IR measurement on controllers’
agenda as well as a better coordination between PR and IR are, however, seen as
a way to raise the awareness of the strategic relevance of PR and IR. Finally, we
observe the need of a technical infrastructure, organizational alignment, and the
awareness of the importance of measurement, in particular among not project-
oriented and smaller companies, since these aspects are seen as necessary
preconditions of a solid database in turn enabling an effective measurement. Our
results are consistent with findings of prior research and current discourse topics
among scholars. This supports the overall impression that despite of the noticeable
improvement with regard to PR and IR measurement further efforts are needed in

both theory and practice.
Aside from these observations which may serve as a basis for further studies, our
paper contributed to the literature by suggesting a communications-SWOT-matrix
as a new analytical tool which combines the internal and external perspective and
enables and help companies assess both the efficiency and effectiveness of PR
and IR measures. Adding a third perspective representing the companies’ stake-
holders, the matrix encounters also the requirement to take the great heterogeneity
of stakeholder with different characteristics, interests and information behavior,
and thus different communication needs, into consideration.
4.7 Acknowledgements
We would like to thank PRVA (Public Relations Verband Austria) and C.I.R.A.
(Cercle Investor Relations Austria) for establishing the working group Financial
Communications, and thus enabling a focus group discussion on IR and PR
measurement.

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5 Reporting to Machines – Reporting Trends
and XBRL Diffusion Among Austrian Listed
Companies
Monika Kovarova-Simecek11, Tassilo Pellegrini12
Abstract: The requirements towards financial reporting have considerably

changed within the last 15 years. Stakeholders demand not only accurate and
reliable information in shorter intervals, but also customized reports meeting their
information needs. Thus, companies need to develop strategies to cope with the
new affordances of professional investor relations and stakeholder management.
We conducted a survey among publicly listed Austrian firms, investigating
whether they perceive a need to develop new reporting practices and if they have
already started to deal with new sorts of reporting standards, especially XBRL.
The survey examined the state of the art in XBRL diffusion and adoption among
Austrian companies analyzing supporting and inhibiting factors for its application
and rejection. The results of the survey indicate a great awareness for the need of
target-group oriented financial reporting and high relevance of technical reporting
standards in the future. However, Austrian firms show poor preparedness for the
new technological requirements. It’s probable that initiatives are needed to
stimulate the adoption of the new technological standards and pave the way
towards a next generation reporting.
5.1 Introduction
Financial reporting standards such as IFRS and US-GAAP aim to ensure a high
level of transparency of company activities, and thus protect stakeholders’
interests. Currently, companies fulfil the legal requirements by providing a
considerable amount of financial data to all stakeholders without differentiating
their information needs and financial expertise. Doing so, both, governmental
entities and companies assume a high level of financial literacy and widely ignore
the fact that not all users of financial data are financial experts. Users of financial
data have, on the contrary, different levels of financial literacy and different
information needs. For stakeholders, financial data can only be transferred into
decision usable information if users are capable to combine and interpret the data
with regard to specific purposes (Wang, 2013). Applying current technologies, the
responsibility for the usability of financial data is shifted from the companies
11
UAS St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences/Austria, monika.kovarova-simecek@fhstp.ac.at
12
UAS St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences/Austria, tassilo.pellegrini@fhstp.ac.at

50 Reporting to Machines – Reporting Trends and XBRL Diffusion …
(communicators) to the stakeholders (recipients). But, the vast majority of the

users is overwhelmed by the amount and complexity of financial data they are
provided with.
Financial reports reach thus only a limited number of financially literate stake-
holders that are mainly investors and regulators. This phenomenon is enhanced by
the fact that conventional investor relations activities are primarily focused
on these two stakeholder groups (Penning, 2011). Companies fulfil the legal
requirements on financial disclosures by publishing mainly standardized financial
reports which are disseminated to all stakeholders. This “one size fits all”-policy
has hardly changed since the Internet is used for the disclosure of financial data.
Web-based communication of financials remains an extension of Hard-Copy-
based communication, not taking advantage of new digital formats and provision
strategies (Rodriguez Bolivar, 2009; Lester, 2007).
With the increasing proliferation of the Internet as a universal medium for data
exchange and presentation the affordances of financial reporting of publicly listed
companies have changed. As various stakeholders along the information value
chain demand more information in shorter intervals (Oades, 2008), companies
have to develop new reporting strategies that transcend the limitations of static,
paper-based reporting and harness the capabilities of digital publishing media.
According to Rodriguez Bolivar (2009), companies have reacted proactively to
the new affordances by disclosing a greater amount of information, aiming at
diminishing information asymmetries between the management and stakeholders,
reducing agency and contracting costs, reducing the costs of capital, gain investor
confidence and enhance the company value. But, does the provided information
meet the requirements of its stakeholders?
For over a decade companies have used a variety of electronic publication formats
to provide financial data to the public. Formats like PDF and HTML have gained
a broad acceptance among the investor relations community and are being used
widely for documentation and communication purposes. But as stated by
Rodriguez Bolivar (2009, p. 182), “(...) investors are explicitly given prominence
on the website and although ample investor relation information is provided, the
attention to investor relations is not exclusive, and there are other stakeholders
featured on the companies’ websites”, like consumers, employees or regulatory
agencies. All these stakeholders have differing information needs, and it is
difficult to meet these needs by one standardized financial report. Hence,
conventional formats go hand in hand with certain deficiencies when it comes to
the customization of reports for specific target groups and the flexible reusability
of financial data contained in these publications. In short, conventional
technologies limit the scale and scope of reporting innovations, making it difficult
to react to the changing affordances of the financial reporting environment.
Kovarova-Simecek M., Pellegrini T. 51
Over recent years, various business reporting standards have been developed that
among other things address the reuse of financial data. The most comprehensive
and mature format is XBRL, the eXtensible Business Reporting Language, an
expressive XML-vocabulary optimized to represent financial data at a highly
granular level. XBRL separates the presentation layer from the data contained in
it, and thus increases the usability of financial data for purposes such as reporting,
analytics and targeted contextualization. Dunne, Helliar, Lymer, and Mousa
(2013, p. 167) argue that: “Documents rendered by XBRL are digitally-enabled
so that it is easier for stakeholders to extract information directly into spreadsheets,
or any other XBRL-enabled software, without the need to re-key data thus
providing significant improvements in information flows and enhancing inter-
company comparability.” Accordingly, XBRL is perceived to be a promising
standard that meets the requirements of new reporting routines and also challenges
existing (de-facto) standards in the domain of financial reporting (Dunne et al.,
2013; Guilloux, Locke, & Lowe, 2013; Rodriguez Bolivar, 2009).
This paper contributes to the increasing number of works investigating the
diffusion of XBRL as an enabling technology for new reporting routines and
practices. Several country-specific studies have already been provided (for details
see sec. 5.3), but no attention has so far been paid to the adoption of XBRL in
Austria.
To close this gap, we conducted a survey among publicly listed Austrian firms
whether they perceive a need to develop new reporting practices and if they have
already started to adjust to the new circumstances. Aside these general insights,
the survey investigated the state of the art in XBRL adoption among Austrian
companies, analyzing supporting and inhibiting factors for its application and
rejection.
The paper is structured as follows: Chapter 5.2 gives a brief introduction into
XBRL, explaining its evolution and core features. Chapter 5.3 discusses related
work dealing with the diffusion and adoption of XBRL and associated institutional
setups. In chapter 5.4 the authors explain the survey’s methodology and present
the survey results. Chapter 5.5 provides a discussion and conclusion.
5.2 Extended Business Reporting Language –

Description and Evolution
Since 1999 the US based company XBRL International Inc. has been standardizing
XBRL currently providing it to the public under version 2.1. XBRL is a scripting
language based on XML “intended for modelling, exchanging and automatically
processing business and financial information” (Garcia & Gil, 2010, p. 103).
XBRL allows representing financial metadata in a standardized, machine-
processable form by linking reporting facts to standard financial taxonomies (such

as IFRS and US-GAAP) and extend these statements with individual metadata
according to a company’s specific reporting needs (Debreceny, Felden, Ochocki,
Piechocki, & Piechocki, 2009). Thus, XBRL allows maximum flexibility in the
contextualization and reuse of financial data for various reporting purposes
(Gräning, Felden, & Piechocki, 2011). XBRL should be considered as a specific
reporting extension to general purpose electronic business languages like
EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and
Transport) or ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language)
whose main purpose is to represent and align processes between supply chain
partners in a standardized way.13
Recently new methodologies have been introduced to further extend the
expressivity of XBRL by enriching it with other standardized vocabularies and
data sources. This so called Linked Data approach (O’Riain, Curry, & Harth,
2012; Garcia & Gil, 2010) is a profound technological leap in the customization
of financial reports according to the specific needs of various target groups. As
noted by Guillox et al. (2013, p. 266), “(…) the extensibility offers a role back to
the human in the process of instituting regulatory procedures and filing
submissions.” Investors, suppliers, employees, customers, regulators, financial
analysts, researchers might receive comprehensive, yet customized financial data
without selecting the data needed from static documents provided in paper or PDF.
In addition, this new approach would avoid that firms can filter financial
information provided to stakeholders and e.g., present less favorable information
in footnotes of financial reports which are not as strongly received as the main
body of financial reports (Lester, 2007; Rodriguez Bolivar, 2009). XBRL
promises to improve the transparency and accuracy of financial reporting and
allows a higher protection for financial data users. If companies manage to reach
stakeholders in an intelligible way, they gain their trust and could enhance the
company value (Melancon, 2006).
5.3 Diffusion and Adoption of XBRL – Related Work

Despite worldwide efforts to establish XBRL as an electronic reporting standard
in various areas and for various purposes, its broad adoption is still in its infancy
and subject to debate (i.e., Baldwin & Trinkle, 2011; Cong, Hao, & Zou, 2014;
Benson, Clarkson, Smith, & Tutticci, 2015; Dhole, Lobo, Mishra, & Pal, 2015).
13
Additional standards commonly used for business reporting purposes are RosettaNet, ANX,
OFX2, OAGIS.
A relatively small number of countries14 have adopted XBRL as mandatory

reporting standard, while the majority of countries has not touched upon the topic
at all or refer to XBRL as a recommendation for voluntary adoption15 (XBRL
International Inc., 2016). In the following sections we provide a comparison
between the United States of America and Europe according to similarities and
differences in the adoption of XBRL. According to Kernan (2008, n.p.), “XBRL
is evolving everywhere, but unevenly, driven by various stakeholders such as
governments, stock exchanges, banks and other industry sectors”.
5.3.1 XBRL Diffusion in the US

In the United States of America, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
has started in 2009 to use XBRL as mandatory reporting standard for electronic
records, thus stimulating the steady uptake of XBRL among US publicly listed
companies (SEC, 2009). Prior to this in 2008 the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC), a public agency assessing risks in the nation's financial
system, started to collect XBRL records from over 8000 banks on a quarterly basis
(Kernan, 2008). Since then, numerous studies investigated the impact of XBRL
diffusion among the US financial industry. Some of the latest results are presented
below.
Baldwin and Trinkle (2011, p. 1) interviewed a Delphi panel on the potential
impacts of XBRL on the financial industry. They conclude that “XBRL is very
likely to impact corporations, financial reporting, users of financial reports and
auditing. The most likely impacts of XBRL include: increased accessibility of
financial reports, easier regulatory compliance, enhanced availability of financial
reports, facilitation of continuous reporting, and improved efficiency in
investment and business decision making.”
Sinnet (2013, p. 1) conducted a survey among 442 US companies and concludes
that “companies have reduced the amount of outsourcing services used to create
14
Among these countries and institutions are Brazil (SICONFI - Public Sector Account. & Fiscal
Inf. System), Belgium (NBB Annual Financial Statement), Chile (SVS Listed Company
Filing), Columbia (Financial Supervision & Business Registrar), Denmark (Danish Business
Authority), EU (European Banking Authority COREP/FINREP), Germany (German E-
Bilanz), Indonesia (Banking Regulatory Reporting System), Japan (Financial Services
Agency Next Generation EDINET), Mexico (Mexican Securities Regulation), Panama
(Panama Banking Supervision), Peru (Peru Superintendency of Securities), Spain (Spanish
Business Register), UAE (ESCA Securities Filings), UK (HMRC Corp. Tax Returns & Comp.
House Finance. Stmt. Filing), USA (SEC Interactive Data & FFIEC Call Reports).
15
Among the latter case are countries like Austria, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Ireland,
Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, to name but a few.
their XBRL filings, and they expect to further reduce outsourcing over the coming
year. Significantly, over half of large accelerated filers do not expect to use XBRL
professional services for their next annual filing. This trend suggests that larger
filers continue to become confident that they can be self-sufficient with the
preparation and review of their XBRL reports.”
By analyzing the impact of XBRL on analyst forecast behavior Liu, Wang, & Yao
(2014, p. 69) found “a significant positive association between mandatory XBRL
adoption and both analyst following and forecast accuracy.” According to the
authors “the findings not only support the SEC’s requirement of detailed tagging
of footnotes but also show that the benefits of adopting XBRL are realized
regardless of errors found and concerns raised at the early stage of adoption”
Interestingly, Dhole et al. (2015) come to a somewhat contradictory conclusion.
Their survey results conducted among US XBRL filings indicates that the existing
adoption of XBRL among US companies lead to a decline of financial statement
comparability, also due to the company-specific extension taxonomies. Addi-
tionally, they found that selling, general and administrative expense comparability
declined after the mandate, while depreciation comparability did not change.
5.3.2 XBRL Diffusion in Europe

In Europe the circumstances for the diffusion of XBRL differ profoundly as
compared to the US. It is characterized by a nationally fragmented, regulatory
landscape, making it difficult to establish a common reporting standard throughout
the European Union. In a workshop conducted in 2011 by the financial service
provider ICAEW and the University of Birmingham the organizers came to the
conclusion that “(...) there are significant barriers to a pan-European adoption of
XBRL for company reporting in the style of the U.S. SEC’s mandatory
requirement. The democratic right of member states to determine their own filing
arrangements (through Officially Appointed Mechanisms) is both a vital core
principle of the EU’s operating practices and yet a barrier to a timely and effective
response to the challenge of pan European security market supervision, in which
XBRL could play a role. It is also important to take into account that different
regulator implementations have different goals, which must be well defined to
determine precisely what is to be made mandatory” (ICAEW, 2011, p. 3).
In 2007, Rodriguez Bolivar, Caba Perez, and Lopez Hernandez conducted a study
on financial reporting strategies among Spanish regional governments. Back then
none of the surveyed 13 governmental bodies used XBRL, XML or XLS for the
disclosure of financial information. By taking additional aspects into account, the
authors come to the conclusion that “new technologies such as the Internet are not
relevant for Spanish regional governments as a means of disclosing their financial
information among the different users” (Rodriguez Bolivar et al., 2007, p. 163).
Since then various initiatives originating from the Bank of Spain started an
Initiative in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce
have taken place whose aim it was to stimulate the adoption of XBRL among the
public and the private sector. According to Escobar-Rodriguez and Gago-
Rodriguez (2010, p. 105) “the use of the standard is spreading to all areas. In the
public sector, taxonomy for the rendering of accounts by the Local Entities of the
Ministry of Economy and Finance has been developed, on the initiative of the
General Inspectorate of the Administration of the State, the Ministry of Economy
and Finance, and the General Directorate of Financial Coordination with the
Autonomous Communities and with Local Entities. In the private sector, the
taxonomies of the Institute of Accounting and Auditing of Accounts of the
Ministry of Economy and Finance (ICAC) and of the National Commission of the
Securities Market (CNMV) are significant.”
Guilloux et al. (2013) investigate the contestation of two technical reporting
standards - EDIFACT and XBRL - among French government agencies for
purposes of collecting business data for regulatory purposes. By conducting an
actor-network-analysis the authors illustrated the institutional diffusion of XBRL
as an informal competitor to the official EDIFACT standard. According to their
findings “[s]ome proponents originally believed that companies would voluntarily
adopt XBRL to enhance information for investors, but it came apparent that only
regulators had a clear business case for adoption and businesses would not
volunteer to be accountable” (Guilloux et al., 2013, p. 269). They conclude that
“the newness of XBRL’s technology just as regulators need to respond to an
economic crisis and its [XBRL] adoption by French regulators not using
EDIFACT create an opportunity for the challenger to make significant network
gains over the long term” (Guilloux et al., 2013, p. 257).
For the UK Dunne et al. (2013) collected 1733 questionnaires from business
accountants, tax practitioners, auditors and financial professionals. They come to
the conclusion that “awareness of XBRL, and second generation reporting more
generally, resides in key champions but there is little diffusion outside this narrow
set of stakeholders. Regulatory engagement seems to be the only impetus for
diffusion and better channels of communication within stakeholder networks, such
as between regulators, preparers, users and the XBRL community are needed”
(Dunne et al., 2013, p. 167).
At the international level the European Committee of Central Balance-Sheet Data
Offices (ECCBSO) has established the ERICA working group to monitor the
usefulness of XBRL as a tool to reduce the reporting burden for IFRS. The group
is chaired by the Banco de España and comprised of the following members:
Banco de Portugal, Banque de France, Banque Nationale de Belgique - Nationale
Bank van België, Cerved Group spa - Centrale dei Bilanci, Banca d’Italia,
Deutsche Bundesbank, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Bank of Greece and the
European Central Bank. In an activity report from 2010 they come to the
conclusion that “(...) the European commitment to XBRL has meant the creation
of the XBRL Europe entity, with the aim of coordinating the efforts of the different
European XBRL jurisdictions. Finally, some Central Balance Sheet Data offices
belonging to the Committee have developed and are continuing to play a key role
in the diffusion of XBRL as a new tool for dissemination of financial information
in their countries; (...)” (ERICA Working Group, 2010, p. 5).
This brief overview of the XBRL diffusion in the US and Europe outlines a
twofold scenario. On the one side we see various governmental initiatives that aim
at stimulating the adoption of XBRL as technical reporting standard, on the other
side awareness about XBRL exists, but the voluntary uptake of XBRL by
companies and their stakeholders is lagging despite the multiple benefits of the
standard in fulfilling the requirements of a “second generation reporting” (Dunne
et al., 2013). ICAEW (2011, p. 7) conclude that “[t]agging business data using
XBRL is part of the larger movement to create a semantic web to free data for
exchange and automated re-use. It has made significant progress, but faces
important institutional and infrastructure challenges in becoming ubiquitous in
business reporting settings in Europe.”
5.4 Adoption of XBRL Among Listed Austrian Companies

5.4.1 Sample Selection and Methodology of the Research
We conducted a quantitative online survey among Austrian listed companies in
the time period from January 26 to February 9 2016. At the time, the Austrian
stock exchange listed a total of 57 companies from which 39 (68%) were listed in
ATX Prime, 9 (16%) in the Mid Market and 9 (16%) in the Standard Market. We
received a total of 37 responses from which 25 responses were evaluable.
Accordingly, the overall response rate was 44%. The small sample size, which
might be considered as the main limitation of the study, results from the survey
focus on listed companies. For listed companies, financial reporting is a core
strategic issue and innovations in this field are of high relevance. Since the sample
size doesn’t allow examining any cause effect mechanisms, the methodological
approach remains descriptive only. The results presented and discussed here
should be interpreted in the light of this fact.
The sample was structured as follows: All investigated companies are large
enterprises with more than 250 employees and more than 250 Mio. EUR revenue
per year. 18 respondents (76%) are listed in the Prime market and 7 (24%) in the
Mid or Standard market. Apart from health care, all industries according to the
industry segmentation of the Wiener Börse are represented in the sample. The
distribution among the industries reflects the the overall industry distribution at
the stock market and is as follows: industrial goods and services (32%), basic
industries (24%), financials (12%), consumer products (12%), technology and
telecom (12%), utilities (4%), consumer services (4%), miscellaneous (4%). The
majority of the respondents (72%) are investor relations experts, the other
respondents are in charge of controlling (12%), public relation (4%), member of
executive board (4%) or miscellaneous (4%). 64% of all respondents are at the top
or middle management level.
This survey proposes to collect and display descriptive information on first the
current role of financial reporting in the company, second the expected
development of financial reporting in the future and the challenges associated with
the new requirements, and finally the adoption and diffusion of XBRL among
Austrian listed companies and their promoting and inhibiting factors.
Table 2: Sample Structure: This table displays the frequencies regarding (1) the market, in which
the companies are listed, (2) the industry, in which the companies are active, (3) the
working area, (4) the management level of the respondents, and (5) the role of financial
Table 1.1reporting withinThis
Sample Structure: thetable
company.
displays the frequencies regarding (1) the market, in which the companies are
listed, (2)(Own description)
the industry, in which the companies are active, (3) the working area, (4) the management level of the
respondents, and (5) the role of financial reporting within the company.
Outline criteria n (%)

1. Market
1a. ATX Prime 19 (76.0)
1b. Mid or Standard Market 6 (24.0)
2. Industry
2a. Basic Industries 6 (24.0)
2b. Industrial Goods & Services 8 (32.0)
2c. Consumer Products 3 (12.0)
2d. Consumer Services 1 (4.0)
2e. Financials 4 (16.0)
2f. Technology & Telecom 2 (8.0)
3. Working area of respondents
3a. Investor Relations 19 (76.0)
3b. Public Relations 1 (4.0)
3c. Controlling 3 (12.0)
3d. Misc. 2 (8.0)
4. Management level of respondents
4a. Top Management 7 (28.0)
4b. Middle Management 9 (36.0)
4c. Lower Management 4 (16.0)
4d. Staff sections 4 (16.0)
4e. Misc. 1 (4.0)
5. Role of FR within the company
5a. FR is used to fulfill the legal requirements only 3 (12.00)
5b. We plan to make FR an integral component of 5 (20.00)
our communication strategy
5c. We established FR as a central component of 17 (68.00)
our communication strategy
(Own description)
5.4.2 Research Findings

5.4.2.1 Estimated Trends in Financial Reporting and the Relevance of
Technical Reporting Standards
The first section of the survey investigated the current role of financial reporting
in Austrian listed companies. The current status helps to contextualize the findings
in the following sections and provides the basis for their interpretation. The survey
demonstrates that for 68% of all companies, Financial Reporting plays a crucial
role in the corporate communication and goes far beyond the fulfilment of legal
requirements. Further 20% are aware of the strategic relevance of financial
reporting and plan to make financial reporting an integral component of the
company’s communication strategy. Only 12% of the respondents use financial
reporting for fulfilling legal requirements only. Thus, for the majority of Austrian
listed companies financial reporting is important not only in the communication
to investors and regulators, but also to other stakeholders affected by the financial
prosperity of a company such as employees, suppliers etc. There is a high level of
awareness that financial reporting is a decisive factor in the relations between the
company and its environments.
The second section examined the estimated trends in the context of financial
reporting in the future. The findings show some clear trends that reflect the current
discourses and initiatives. A vast majority of the respondents agree or fully agree
that technical standardization (92%) and automatization (84%) in financial
reporting will increase in the future. The need for a higher technical standard-
ization and automatization could result from the assumption that the need for
financial information will increase in general (76%) and will have to be more
target-group oriented (72%) which requires new forms of narration (76%) and
presentation (72%) in financial reporting. Thus, managing the higher amount and
complexity of financial reporting will be a new challenge for controlling, investor
relations, public relations and IT departments. Automatization on top of new
technical standards such as XBRL, seem to be the necessary applications to
manage these upcoming affordances. Implementation of new technological
reporting standards can be entailed with multiple challenges. The two main
hurdles seem to be related to staff and processes. 88% of all respondents think that
the education and training for staff in charge and the need of adjustment of existing
workflows and reporting conventions are the two most important challenges.
Thus, XBRL might be rather a challenge for HR, organization and change
management than for IT management. Another challenge for a sizeable portion of
respondents (80%) is a technical issue concerning the data safety (low data
volatility) and data security (controlled accessibility). Inestimable follow-up costs
and the development of a new financial data policy seem to concern 36% of all
respondents. Missing IT expertise consider 20% of all respondents a challenge.
Table 3: Estimated trends in financial reporting: This table summarizes views of all respondents
regarding the estimated trends in financial reporting. Means reflects a Likert scale
where 1 = fully agree, 2 = somewhat agree, 3 = rather disagree, 4 = disagree. As shown
by the skewness and kurtosis, the data is not normally distributed and mirror clear
Table
Table
Table
Table tendencies.
2 Estimated
22Estimated
2Estimated
Estimated
: Thistrends
table
trends
trends
trends
summarizes
in in
financial
inin
financial
financial
financial
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ofofofimplementation
implementation : This(frequencies)
implementation table
ofofoftechnical
technical
reports
technical theof
reporting challenges
reporting
reporting
descriptive
standards:
standards:
standards:associated
statistics
This
This
Thistable
table with
tablereports
reports
reports the
the
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thedescriptive
descriptive
descriptivestatistics
statisticsof
statistics
with
(frequencies)
(frequencies)
(frequencies)
the implementation ofofof
challenges
challenges
challenges
of new associated
associated
associated
technicalwith with
reporting
with the
the
theimplementation
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implementation
standardsby by all
all
ofofof
new
respondents
new
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reporting
reporting standards
standards
standards byby by
allall
all
respondents
respondents
respondents
Questionnew technical reporting standards
Question
Question
Question Yes No respondents YesYes
YesYes independent NoNo No No of their XBRL
independent
independent
independent ofof
of
their
their
their XBRL
XBRL
XBRL knowledge
knowledge
knowledge (n(n
(n= = 25).
= 25).
25).
Table
Table
Table knowledge
44Challenges
4Challenges
Challenges ofofof (n = 25). ofofoftechnical
implementation
implementation
implementation technical
ntechnical
(%) reporting
reporting
reporting nstandards:
standards:
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(%) This
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(%) ntable
n(%) (%)
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nthedescriptive
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(%) ndescriptive
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statistics
(frequencies)
(frequencies)
(frequencies) ofofof
challenges
challenges
challenges associated
associated
associated with
with
with the
thetheimplementation
implementation
implementation ofofof
new
new
newtechnical
technical
technicalreporting
reporting
reporting standards
standards
standards by bybyall
allall
respondents
respondents
respondents
What
What
What
What
challenges
Question
Question
Question
independent
independent
independent
(Own
challenges
challenges
challenges
implementing
ofofofdo
their do
their
description)
do
companies
do
theircompanies
companies
XBRL companies
XBRL
XBRL have
knowledgehave
knowledgehave
have
knowledge to to
face
toto
face
Yes face
(n(n(nface
by
==25). byby
implementing
=25). byimplementing
25). implementing
implementingNo Yes
Yes
Yes NoNo
No
technical
technical
technical
technical
reporting
reporting
reporting
reporting standards?
standards?
standards?
standards? (n(n =25)
(n(n
=25)
=25)
=25) n (%) n (%) nn(%)
n(%) (%) nn(%)
n(%) (%)
Question
Question a.
Question a.
Adjustment
a.a.
Adjustment
Adjustment
Adjustment of of
existing
ofofexisting
existing
existingworkflow
workflow
workflow
workflow and and
22
andand
conventions
(88.0)
conventions
conventions
conventions 3 (12.0) 22 22
22
(88.0)
Yes
Yes 22
Yes (88.0)
(88.0)
(88.0) 3No
No (12.0)
3No3(12.0)
3(12.0)
(12.0)
What
What
What challenges
implementing
challenges
challenges dododo
companies
companies
companies have
have
have tototo
face
face
face bybybyimplementing
implementing
implementing
b. b.Education
b.b.Education
Education
Education and and
and
and
training
training
training
trainingofof staff
ofof
staff
staff
staff
in incharge
inin
charge
21
charge
charge
(84.0) 4 (16.0) 2121 21
(84.0)
21 (84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0) 4 (16.0)
44(16.0)
4(16.0)
(16.0)
technical
technical
technical reporting
reporting
reporting standards?
standards?
standards? (n(n(n=25)
=25)
=25) nn(%)
n(%) (%) nn(%)n(%) (%)
c. c.
Development
c.c.
Development
Development
Development ofof aofof
new
aanewanew
new
policy
policy
policy
policyforforfor
the
forthe
10
the
use
the (40.0)
use
use
of
useof
financial
ofof
financial
financial
financial
data
15data
data
(60.0)
data 1010 10
(40.0)
10 (40.0)
(40.0)
(40.0) 1515 15
(60.0)
15 (60.0)
(60.0)
(60.0)
What
WhatWhat a.a.a.
Adjustment
challenges
challenges Adjustment
challengesAdjustment
dodo do ofofof
existing
companies
companies
companiesexisting
existing workflow
have
have workflow
haveworkflow
22
tototo face
face (88.0)
facebyand
byand
and
by conventions
conventions
conventions
implementing 3 (12.0) 2222
22(88.0)
(88.0)
(88.0) 33(12.0)
3(12.0)
(12.0)
d. d.
Missing
d.d.Missing
Missing
Missing IT IT
expertise
ITITexpertise
expertise
expertise 5implementing
implementing
(20.0) 20 (80.0) 5 (20.0)
55(20.0)
5(20.0)
(20.0) 2020 20
(80.0)
20 (80.0)
(80.0)
(80.0)
technical
technical b.b.
technical b.
Education
Education
Education andand
and training
training
training of=25)
ofof
staff
staff
staff
21 in (84.0)
inin
charge
charge
charge 4 (16.0) 2121
21(84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0) 44(16.0)
4(16.0)
(16.0)
-up costs e.reporting
reporting
e. reporting
Inestimable
e.e.
Inestimable
Inestimablestandards?
Inestimablestandards?
standards?
follow-up
follow-up
follow-up (n(n(n
follow-up =25)
=25)
costs
costs
costs
costs 8 (32.0) 17 (68.0) 8 (32.0)
88(32.0)
8(32.0)
(32.0) 1717 17
(68.0)
17 (68.0)
(68.0)
(68.0)
c. c.c.
Development
Development
Development ofofofa anew
a new
new policy
policy
policy
10 forfor
(40.0)
for
thethe
theuseuse
useofof
of
financial
financial
financial
15 (60.0)
data
data
data 1010
10(40.0)
(40.0)
(40.0) 1515
15 (60.0)
(60.0)
(60.0)
f.a.a.
f.Adjustment
a.f.
Adjustment
Adjustment
Guarantee
f. Guarantee
Guarantee
Guarantee ofofofofof
data
ofofexisting
existing
data
data existing
data
security
securityworkflow
workflow
security
securityworkflow and
and
21and conventions
conventions
conventions 4 (16.0)
(84.0) 22
21 22
2122
21(88.0)
(88.0)
(84.0)
21 (88.0)
(84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0) 43(16.0)
34(12.0)
43(12.0)
(12.0)
(16.0)
4(16.0)
(16.0)
d. d.d.
Missing
Missing
Missing
b.b.Education
b.Education
Education ITIT
ITexpertise
and expertise
andexpertise
andtraining
training
training ofofof
staff 5
staff
staff(20.0)
ininin
charge
charge
charge 20 (80.0) 215 5(20.0)
2121 5 (20.0)
(20.0)
(84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0) 2020
20 (80.0)
(80.0)
44(16.0) (80.0)
4(16.0)
(16.0)
up costs e. e.e.
Inestimable
Inestimable
Inestimable
c.c.Development
c.Development
Development follow-up
follow-up
follow-up
ofofofaanewanew costs
new costs
costs
policy
policy
policy8for(32.0)
forfor
the
thethe
useuse
use
ofofof 17
financial (68.0)
financial
financialdata
data
data 108 8(32.0)
1010 8 (32.0)
(32.0)
(40.0)
(40.0)
(40.0) 17
1517
17
1515(68.0)
(68.0)
(68.0)
(60.0)
(60.0)
(60.0)
f. f.Guarantee
d.d.f.Missing
d.Guarantee
Guarantee
Missing
Missing IT ofIT
IT ofof
data
data
data
expertise
expertise security
expertise security
security 21 (84.0) 4 (16.0) 2121
521
5(84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0)
(20.0)
5(20.0)
(20.0) 204420
20 (16.0)
4(80.0)
(16.0)
(16.0)
(80.0)(80.0)
e.e.Inestimable
e.Inestimable
Inestimable follow-up
follow-up
follow-up costs
costs
costs 88(32.0)
8(32.0)
(32.0) 171717(68.0)
(68.0)
(68.0)
f.f.Guarantee(Ownofdescription)
f.Guarantee
Guarantee ofof
data
data
data security
security
security (Own(Own
(Own
(Own description)
description)
description)
description) 212121(84.0)
(84.0)
(84.0) 44(16.0)
4(16.0)
(16.0)
(Own description) (Own

(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
(Own
(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
5.4.2.2 Diffusion and Adoption of XBRL Among Austrian Listed Companies

The third section was dedicated to the diffusion and adoption of XBRL. Generally,
the results indicate a poor knowledge of XBRL among Austrian listed firms. A
sizeable proportion of the respondents (68%) don’t know XBRL at all. Only 8 out
of 25 respondents (32%) know XBRL, whereas none of the respondents consider
him- or herself an expert. The level of expertise among those who know XBRL is
predominantly low (75%) or non-existent (12.5%). Only 12.5% describe their
level of expertise as middle. Considering the adoption of XBRL, the survey shows
that XBRL has not been an issue of financial reporting practice at the beginning
of 2016. Only one company already reacted to the upcoming challenges and uses
the new technical standard (12.5%). 25% of the companies are aware of the
upcoming challenges and plan to adopt XBRL within the next 5 years. The vast
majority of 62.5% is hardly aware of the requirements and possible solutions.
They have neither concrete plans to adopt XBRL for the time being (50%) nor
state that they will adopt XBRL at all (13%). No company adopted XBRL
deliberately. If XBRL was adopted, then as part of new reporting routines or in
the course of technological upgrades. The intention to improve to financial
reporting to and communication with stakeholders doesn’t seem to have played a
role at all. Thus, the adoption of XBRL does not seem to be the result of a new
communication culture, but rather a technical issue. Even though 88% of all
respondents haven’t adopted XBRL yet, no special inhibiting reasons could be
identified, apart from high implementation costs (14%). XBRL is rather not an
issue at all (72%) or doesn’t seem to be a mature technology (14%). The
respondents who know XBRL were further asked where they see the key
advantages and disadvantages of XBRL. Reusability (19%) and comparability
(19%) of financial data, higher flexibility and analytical capabilities (14%), and
decrease of processing errors (14%) are seen as the main advantages of XBRL.
Further benefits of the new technology that were recognized by the respondents
are decrease of reporting costs (9%), improved data portability between data
systems (9%), improved findability of the data (9%), acceleration of data
processing and reporting processes (5%), and miscellaneous (5%).
Trustworthiness of the data source or improved data portability between data
systems are not considered an advantage at all. A considerable portion of
respondents see the additional costs to occur as the main drawback, whereas for
25% the implementation costs are expected to be the greatest strain, followed by
the cost of XBRL-software (20%) and additional training costs for employees
(15%). Further disadvantages seen by the respondents are security issues (5%),
complexity of XBRL (5%) and disruption of reporting routines (5%). Missing
software tools or volatility of XBRL are not seen as disadvantages at all. 25% of
respondents see also other, not specific aspects as disadvantages of XBRL.
Table 6: Diffusion and adoption of XBRL: This table reports the frequencies regarding (1) the
spread of knowledge of XBRL among the respondents, (2) the self estimated level of
XBRL expertise among the respondents who know XBRL, and (3) the level of XBRL
Table
Table
Table adoption
5 Diffusion
5 Diffusion
5 Diffusion
andandwithin
adoption
and
adoptionthe
adoption
of of investigated
XBRL:
XBRL:
of XBRL:
This
This
table
This companies
table
reports
table
reports
reports
thethe knowing
frequencies
frequencies
the XBRL.
frequencies
regarding
regarding
regarding
(1)(1)thethe
(1)
spread
spread
the spread
ofof
knowledge
knowledge
of knowledge
ofof of
XBRL
XBRLXBRL
among
among among
thethe
respondents,
respondents,
the respondents,
(2)(2)
thethe
(2)
self
self
the
estimated
self
estimated
estimated
level
level
of
level
of
XBRL
XBRL
of XBRL
expertise
expertise
expertise
among
amongamong
thethe
respondents
respondents
the respondents
who
whoknow
who
knowXBRL,
know
XBRL,
XBRL,
and
and
(3)and
(3)
thethe
(Own
(3)
level
level
theof
description)
level
of
XBRL
XBRL
of XBRL
adoption
adoption
adoption
within
within
within
thethe
investigated
investigated
the investigated
companies
companies
companies
knowing
knowing
knowing
XBRL.
XBRL.XBRL.
Table
Table
Table55Diffusion
5Diffusion
Diffusionand
and
and
adoption
adoption
adoptionofofof
XBRL:
XBRL:
XBRL: This
This
This
table
table
table
reports
reports
reports
the
the
the
frequencies
frequencies
frequencies
regarding
regarding
regarding(1)
(1)
(1)
the
the
the
spread
spread
spread
ofofof
knowledge
knowledge
knowledge
ofofof
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL among
among
amongthe
the
the
respondents,
respondents,
respondents,
(2)
(2)
(2)
the
the
the
self
self
self
estimated
estimated
estimated level
level
level
ofofof
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL expertise
expertise
expertise
among
among
among the
the
the
respondents
respondents
respondentswho
who
whoknow
know
know
XBRL,
XBRL,
XBRL,
Question
Question
and
and
and Question
(3)
(3)
(3)
the
the
the
level
level
level
ofofof
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL adoption
adoption
adoptionwithin
within
within
the
thethe
investigated
investigated
investigatedcompanies
companies
companies knowing
knowing
knowing nXBRL.
(%)
nXBRL.
(%)
XBRL.n (%)
1. 1.
DoDo 1. you
youDo know know
you XBRL?
XBRL?
know XBRL? (n=25)
(n=25) (n=25)
Question
Question
Question1a.1a. Yes
Yes
1a. Yes n7n(%)
7n(%)
(%)
(28.00)
(28.00)
7 (28.00)
1.1.Do
1.DoDo
you1b.
you
you 1b.No
know
knowNo
1b.XBRL?
know No
XBRL?
XBRL? (n=25)
(n=25)
(n=25) 1818(72.00)
(72.00)
18 (72.00)
2. 2.
What
What
2. is
Whatis
your
1a.
1a. your
1a. isYes
Yes
Yeslevel
your
level
oflevel
of
XBRL
XBRL
of XBRL
expertise?
expertise?
expertise?
(n=7)
(n=7) (n=7) 77(28.00)
7(28.00)
(28.00)
2a.
1b.2a.
1b. High
1b.High
No
No2a.
NoHigh 018
18(0.00)
018 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
(72.00)
(72.00)
(72.00)
2.2.What
2.What
What2b. 2b.Middle
isisyour Middle
isyour2b.
your Middle
level
level
level
ofofof
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL expertise?
expertise?
expertise?(n=7)
(n=7)
(n=7) 1 (14.30)
1 (14.30)
1 (14.30)
2c.
2a.2c.
2a. Low
2a.Low
2c.
High
High
HighLow 50(71.40)
50(0.00)
(71.40)
5 (71.40)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
2d.
2b.2d.
2b. Non-existent
2b. Non-existent
2d.
Middle
Middle Non-existent
Middle 11(14.30)
11(14.30)
1(14.30)
1 (14.30)
(14.30)
(14.30)
3. 3.
ToTo what
3.what
To2c.extent
what
2c. extent
2c.
Low
Low extent
Lowhashas
XBRLXBRL
has XBRL
been
beeninstalled
been
installed
installed
in in
youryour
incompany?
your
company?
company?
(n=7)
(n=7)
(n=7) 55(71.40)
5(71.40)
(71.40)
3a.
2d.3a.
2d. We
2d.We3a.
already
already
We already
Non-existent
Non-existent
Non-existentuseuseXBRL
XBRL
use XBRL 11(14.30)
11(14.30)
1(14.30)
1 (14.30)
(14.30)
(14.30)
3.3.To
3.ToTo 3b.
what
what
what3b.We We
extent3b.
extentplan
extent plan
We
has toXBRL
has
hasplan
to
adopt
XBRLadopt
XBRLto been
XBRL
adopt
XBRL
been
been XBRL
within
within
installed
installedwithin
installedthe
ininthenext
your next
inyourthe
your 5company?
next
years
5 years
company? 5 years
company? (n=7)
(n=7)
(n=7) 2 (28.40)
2 (28.40)
2 (28.40)
3c.
3a.3c.
3a. We
3a.We
We
We3c.
have
We have
We no
already have
already no
alreadyplans
useplans
useno
use to
plans
XBRL
XBRLto
adopt
XBRLadopt
to XBRL
adopt
XBRL XBRL
forfor
thethe
for
time
time
thebeing
time
being
being 31(42.90)
31(14.30)
1(42.90)
3 (42.90)
(14.30)
(14.30)
3d.
3b.3d.
3b. We
3b.
WeWe
We3d.
We won’t
won’t
We
plan
plan
plan
to adopt
won’t
adopt
toadopt
to
adopt
adoptXBRL
XBRL
adopt
XBRL
XBRLXBRL
XBRL within
within
within the
thethe
next
next
next55years
5years
years 12(28.40)
2(14.30)
12(14.30) 1 (14.30)
(28.40)
(28.40)
3c.
3c.
3c.
We
We
We
have
have
have
no
nono
plans
plans
plans
totoadopt
toadopt
adopt
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL
for
for
for
the
the
the
time
time
time
being
being
being 33(42.90)
3(42.90)
(42.90)
3d.
3d.
3d.
We
We
We
won’t
won’t
won’t
adopt
adopt
adopt
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL 11(14.30)
1(14.30)
(14.30)
(Own
(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
Table 7: Reasons for and against the implementation of XBRL: This table displays the
Table
Table
Table
6 Reasons
6 Reasons
6frequencies
Reasons
forforand
and
foragainst
and
against
against
thethe
regarding (1) the(Own
implementation
implementation (Own
the implementation (Own
of of
reasonsdescription)
description)
XBRL:ofdescription)
XBRL: XBRL:
This
for Thistable
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andtable displays
table
(2) displays
displays
thethe
reasons frequencies
frequencies
the frequencies
against regarding
regarding
the regarding
(1)(1)
thethe
implementation(1) the
reasons
reasons
reasons
forforandand
for
of (2)and
(2)
reasons
XBRL reasons
(2) reasons
against
against
among against
thetheimplementation
implementation
the implementation
respondents ofof
who XBRL
XBRL
of XBRL
(1) among
knowamongamong
respondents
respondents
XBRL respondents
and whowho (1)
haswho
(1)
know
know
(1) XBRL
already know
XBRL XBRL
and
and
adopted hasand
hasorhas
plan
already
already
Table
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Table6adopted
6adopted
6Reasons adopted
Reasons orfor
Reasons or
plan
forplan
foror
to
and
and plan
andto
adopt
adopt
to XBRL
against
againstadopt
againstXBRL
the
thethe XBRL
within
within
within
thethe
implementation
implementation next
implementation next
the5XBRL:
next
years
5 XBRL:
years
5 (n
years
(n
=This
3)
= (n
3)
and
=and
3)
(2)and
(2)
know
know
(2)the
XBRL
know
XBRL XBRL
andandhave
and
haveno
have
noplans
plans
no(1)
to
plans
to
adopt
adopt
to adopt
XBRL
XBRLXBRL
(n (n
=
to
4).
= (n
4).=
adopt
4).
XBRL within the nextof5ofof XBRL:
years This
(nThis
=table
table
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displays
and displays
displays the
(2) know the
frequencies
frequencies
frequencies
XBRLregarding
regarding
regarding
and have (1)(1)
the
the
no the
plans
reasons
reasons
reasonsfor
forfor
and
and
and
(2)
(2)(2)
reasons
reasons
reasons against
against
against
the
the
theimplementation
implementation
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL among
among
among respondents
respondents
respondents who
who
who(1)
(1)
(1)
know
know
knowXBRL
XBRL
XBRL and
and
andhas
has
has
already
already
alreadyadopted
to adopt
adopted
adopted ororor
plan
plan
XBRL
plan
totoadopt
toadopt
adopt
(nXBRL
XBRL
XBRL
= 4).within
within
within
the
thethe
next
next
next
55years
5years
years(n(n(n
==3)
=3)3)
and
and
and(2)
(2)
(2)
know
know
know XBRL
XBRL
XBRL and
and
and
have
have
have
no
nono
plans
plans
plans
totoadopt
toadopt
adopt
Question
Question
XBRL
XBRL Question
XBRL (n(n(n (Own
==4).
=4).4). description) n (%)
n (%) n (%)
1. 1.
What
What
1. were
What
were the
were
the
reasons
reasons
the reasons
forfor thethefor
implementation
implementation
the implementation ofofXBRL?
XBRL?
of XBRL?
(n(n=3)=3)
(n =3)
Question
Question
Question
1a.1a.
We We
1a.
deliberately
deliberately
We deliberately decided
decided decided
to to
adopt
adopt
to XBRL
adopt
XBRL XBRL 0n(0.00)
0n(%)
n(0.00)
(%)
(%)
0 (0.00)
1b.1b.
We We
1b.
werewere
Weforced
were
forced forced
to toadopt
adopt
to XBRL
adopt
XBRL XBRL 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
1.1.What
1.What
What
were
were
werethe
thethe
reasons
reasons
reasons for
forfor
the
thethe
implementation
implementation
XBRL?
XBRL?
XBRL? (n(n(n
=3)
=3)
=3)
1c.1c.
XBRL
XBRL
1c. XBRL
camecame in
came
in
thethe course
in course
the course
ofofa technical
a of
technical
a technical
upgrade
upgrade
upgrade 1 (25.00)
1 (25.00)
1 (25.00)
1a.
1a.
1a.
We
We Wedeliberately
deliberately
deliberately decided
decided
decided totoadopt
toadopt
adoptXBRL
XBRL
XBRL 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
1d.1d.
XBRL
XBRL
1d. XBRLwas was part
was
part newpart
new reporting
new
reporting
reporting
routines
routines
routines 1 (25.00)
1 (25.00)
1 (25.00)
1b.
1b.
1b.
WeWeWewere
were
were forced
forced
forced totoadopt
toadopt
adopt XBRL
XBRL
XBRL 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
1e.1e.
Misc.
Misc.
1e. reasons
Misc.
reasons reasons
forfor XBRLXBRL
for XBRLadoption
adoption
adoption 2 (50.00)
2 (50.00)
2 (50.00)
1c.
1c.
1c.
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL came
came
came ininthe
inthethe
course
course
course ofofof
aatechnical
atechnical
technical upgrade
upgrade
upgrade 11(25.00)
1(25.00)
(25.00)
2. 2.
What
What
2. were
What
were the
were
thereasons
reasons
the reasons
against
against against
thethe implementation
implementation
the implementation ofofXBRL?
XBRL?
of XBRL?
(n(n=4)
=4)
(n =4)
1d.
1d.
1d.
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL was
waswaspart
partpart
new
newnew reporting
reporting
reporting routines
routines
routines 11(25.00)
1(25.00)
(25.00)
2a.2a.
NoNo2a.
needneed
Nofor need
forXBRLXBRL
for XBRL 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
1e.
1e.
1e.
Misc.
Misc.
Misc. reasons
reasons
reasons for
forfor
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL adoption
adoption
adoption 22(50.00)
2(50.00)
(50.00)
2b.2b.
We We
2b.
use use
We other
other
use standards
other
standards
standards
(e.g.,
(e.g.,
Edifact,
(e.g.,
Edifact,
Edifact,
ebXML)
ebXML)ebXML) 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
2.2.What
2.What
What
were
were
werethe
thethe
reasons
reasons
reasons against
against
against the
thethe
implementation
implementation
XBRL?
XBRL?
XBRL? (n(n(n
=4)
=4)
=4)
2c.2c.
XBRL
XBRL
2c. XBRL
is isnono issue
isissue
no issue 4 (66.67)
4 (66.67)
4 (66.67)
2a.
2a.
2a.
No
No No
need
need
need for
forfor
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
2d.2d.
Implementation
Implementation
2d. Implementation costs
costscosts 1 (16.67)
1 (16.67)
1 (16.67)
2b.
2b.
2b.
WeWeWeuse
useuseother
other
otherstandards
standards
standards (e.g.,
(e.g.,
(e.g.,
Edifact,
Edifact,
Edifact,ebXML)
ebXML)
ebXML) 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
2e.2e.
Immaturity
Immaturity
2e. Immaturity ofof thethe of
technology
technology
the technology 1 (16.67)
1 (16.67)
1 (16.67)
2c.
2c.
2c.
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL isisno
isnonoissue
issue
issue 44(66.67)
4(66.67)
(66.67)
2f.2f.
Missing
Missing
2f. Missing
expertise
expertise
expertise 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
2d.
2d.
2d.
Implementation
Implementation
Implementation costs
costs
costs 11(16.67)
1(16.67)
(16.67)
2g.2g.
Security
Security
2g. Security
issues
issues issues 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
2e.
2e.
2e.
Immaturity
Immaturity
Immaturity ofofofthe
thethe
technology
technology
technology 11(16.67)
1(16.67)
(16.67)
2h.2h.
Misc.
Misc.
2h. reasons
Misc.
reasonsreasons
against
against against
XBRLXBRL XBRL
adoption
adoption
adoption 0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
0 (0.00)
2f.
2f.2f.
Missing
Missing
Missing expertise
expertise
expertise 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
2g.
2g.
2g.
Security
Security
Security issues
issues
issues 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
2h.
2h.2h. Misc.
Misc.
Misc. reasons
reasons
reasons against
against
against XBRL
XBRL XBRL adoption
adoption
adoption 00(0.00)
0(0.00)
(0.00)
(Own
(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
(Own
(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
5.4.2.3 Awareness of the Benefits and Barriers of the Adoption of XBRL

Table 8: Benefits and obstacles of XBRL implementation: Note: This table shows the (1)
advantages and (2) disadvantages of XBL estimated by respondents who know XBRL
and already adopted or plan to adopt XBRL within the next 5 years (n = 3) and know
Table
Table
Table7 7Benefits
7Benefits
Benefits
and
and
and
obstacles
obstacles
obstacles
ofofXBRL
ofXBRL
XBRLimplementation:
implementation:
implementation: Note:
Note:
Note:
This
This
This
table
table
table
shows
shows
showsthe
the
the
(1)
(1)
(1)
advantages
advantages
advantages
and
and
and
(2)
(2)
(2)
disadvantages
disadvantages
disadvantages
ofofof
XBL
XBL
XBL
XBRL
estimated
estimated
estimated
byby
and
by
have
respondents
respondents
respondents
no
who
who
plans
who
know
know
know
to
XBRL
adopt
XBRL
XBRLand
and
and
XBRL
already
already
already
(n
adopted
adopted
= or
adopted
4).
oror
plan
plan
plan
totoadopt
toadopt
adopt
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL within
within
within
the
the
the
next
next
next
5 5years
5years
years
(n(n(n
= =3)
=3)3)
and
and
and(Own
know
know
know
XBRLdescription)
XBRL
XBRL and
and
and
have
have
have
nono
no
plans
plans
plans
totoadopt
toadopt
adopt
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL(n(n(n
= =4).
=4).
4).
Questions
Questions
Questions Know
Know
Knowand
and
andadopted
adopted
adoptedXBRL
XBRL
XBRL Know,
Know,
Know, butbut have
but
have
havenot
not
not
(yet)
(yet)
(yet) adopted
adopted
adopted XBRL
XBRL
XBRL
(n(n(n
= =3)
=3)3) ( n( (n=4)
n=4)
=4)
Yes
Yes
Yes No NoNo Yes
YesYes No No
No
1.1.What
1.What are
are
What arethe
the benefits
benefits
the benefitsofofofXBRL?
XBRL?
XBRL?
1a.
1a.
1a.
Reusability
Reusability
Reusabilityofofof
financial
financial
financial data
data
data 2 22 1 11 1 11 3 33
1b.
1b.
1b.
Comparability
Comparability
Comparability ofofof
financial
financial
financial data
data
data 1 11 2 22 2 22 2 22
1c.
1c.
1c.
Acceleration
Acceleration
Acceleration ofofof
data
data
data
processing
processing
processing 0 00 3 33 0 00 4 44
1d.
1d.
1d.
Higher
Higher
Higher
flexibility
flexibility
flexibilityand
and
andanalytical
analytical
analytical
capabilities
capabilities
capabilities 2 22 1 11 1 11 3 33
1e.
1e.
1e.
Improved
Improved
Improvedfindability
findability
findability ofofof
financial
financial
financial
data
data
data 1 11 2 22 1 11 3 33
1f.1f.
1f.
Improved
Improved
Improved data
data
data
portability
portability
portability between
between
betweenITITIT
systems
systems
systems 1 11 2 22 1 11 3 33
1g.
1g.
1g.
Improved
Improved
Improved cross-system
cross-system
cross-system integrity
integrity
integrity
ofofof
data
data
data 0 00 3 33 0 00 4 44
1h.
1h.
1h.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness ofofof
thethe
the
data
data
data
source
source
source 0 00 3 33 0 00 4 44
1i.1i.
1i.
Decrease
Decrease
Decreaseofofof
reporting
reporting
reporting costs
costs
costs 2 22 1 11 0 00 4 44
1j.1j.
1j.
Decrease
Decrease
Decreaseofofof
processing
processing
processing errors
errors
errors 2 22 1 11 1 11 3 33
1k.
1k.
1k.
Misc.
Misc.
Misc. 1 11 2 22 1 11 3 33
2.2.What
2.What
What
are
are
are
the
the
the
obstacles
obstacles
obstacles hindering
hindering
hindering the
the
the
adoption
adoption
adoption
ofofof
XBRL?
XBRL?
XBRL?
2a.
2a.
2a.
Additional
Additional
Additionaltraining
training
trainingforfor
for
employees
employees
employees 1 11 2 22 2 22 2 22
2b.
2b.
2b.
Implementation
Implementation
Implementation costs
costs
costs 2 22 1 11 3 33 1 11
2c.
2c.
2c.
Disruption
Disruption
Disruptionofofof
reporting
reporting
reporting routines
routines
routines 1 11 2 22 0 00 4 44
2d.
2d.
2d.
Costs
Costs
Costs
for
for
for
XBRL
XBRL
XBRL software
software
software 1 11 2 22 3 33 1 11
2e.
2e.
2e.
Complexity
Complexity
Complexity ofofof
standards
standards
standards 0 00 3 33 1 11 3 33
2f.2f.
2f.
Volatility
Volatility
Volatility
ofofof
standards
standards
standards 0 00 3 33 0 00 4 44
2g.
2g.
2g.
Missing
Missing
Missingsoftware
software
software tools
tools
tools 0 00 3 33 0 00 4 44
2h.
2h.
2h.
Security
Security
Security
issues
issues
issues 0 00 3 33 1 11 3 33
2i.2i.
2i.Misc.
Misc.
Misc. 2 22 1 11 2 22 2 22
(Own
(Own
(Own
description)
description)
description)
5.5 Discussion and Conclusion

The survey results correspond to the findings of research conducted in the US and
other European countries in the recent years. The situation among Austrian listed
companies doesn’t differ significantly from other countries and stock markets.
Moreover, the survey results confirm the generally lack of knowledge about
XBRL which stands in contradiction to the great awareness for the need of target-
group oriented financial reporting and high relevance of technical reporting
standards in the future identified in the survey. This finding is surprising and
worrying with respect to the length of time XBRL has been a topic of discussion
among researchers and governmental and professional entities. Only one third of
all respondents know XBRL, whereas XBRL has been a topic of the AICPA, the
SEC, the IASB, and other major entities since 2004 and experts think that we
reached the tipping point toward the use of XBRL (Lester, 2007). That leaves the
impression that the discourse in the previous years failed to reach the Austrian
companies.
Another fact confirmed by the survey is that private initiatives to implement
XBRL hardly exist and can’t be expected. If new information technologies should
be adopted for more accurate, reliable and customized financial reporting, external
initiatives seem to be necessary to enhance the adoption of XBRL in private
companies.
Neglecting the demand for new reporting standards with respect to customized
financial information provided by new technical standards such as XBRL might
weaken a company’s position in the stock market and in the public perception.
The high share of international investors in the Austrian stock market might even
amplify the negative aspects on not adopting XBRL and a new reporting culture.
International investors compare reporting standards in an international context and
tend to prefer companies and stock markets that answer investors’ and stake-
holders’ demand for new financial reporting standards. However, reacting to these
new affordances means in the current environment a strategic advantage and could
strengthen the company’s position and enhance its value.
5.6 Acknowledgements
We would like to thank C.I.R.A. (Cercle Investor Relations Austria) in helping us
distributing the questionnaire among the publicly listed companies in Austria.

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6 How Politicians in Austria Obtain Information
and Its Consequences for Corporate
Communications Activities
Peter Schneckenleitner16
Abstract: The public affairs activities of companies often have to do with gut
instincts. The communication experts think they know how to communicate most
effectively but until now there is little reliable data available about the politician´s
point of view. Do Austrian politicians still read printed newspapers or do they
focus on social media? Which communications channels do the politicians trust?
We asked the members of the Austrian parliament to examine their information
sources and media use habits. Out of this we draw conclusions for successful PR
work. In this context we show that print media is still the most effective media
type to indirectly reach politicians in Austria. Print media are by far the most
important information sources for Austrian´s politicians and they are assessed as
the most trustworthy. It was also surprising to see the high acceptance of corporate
communications activities in the political sector and that corporate communi-
cations experts are still far away from overloading politicians with content. Quite
the opposite, politicians seem to demand more information coming directly out of
enterprises. And it is inexplicable that there are still members of parliament who
do not receive any information from Austrian companies. It is time for them to
edit their distribution lists.
6.1 Introduction
The initial point of my research was the ever-lasting question for a Public Affairs
specialist: What is the most effective way to transmit my arguments to the most
important decision makers in politics? Which communication channels do they
use and trust? And, how do politicians judge the political communication activities
of companies in general?
Working for over a decade as Political Communications Manager for a large
stock-listed international company, I know that practitioners are often acting
according to their gut instincts and according to single responses to their work. I
experienced that in the end the broad field of political communication there was
16
Kufstein University of Applied Sciences/Austria, peter.schneckenleitner@fh-kufstein.ac.at

68 How Politicians in Austria Obtain Information …
often a kind of blind flight with high hopes, but no specific knowledge about the
needs of its target groups.
With this paper I try to approach this topic scientifically. Supported by a group of
students of the University of Applied Sciences in Kufstein/Austria a survey was
started for all 183 Austrian parliamentarians in Vienna in December 2015.
Although we did not receive representative results (n=33), the findings and the
implications are worthy to be presented.
6.2 From Communication to Public Affairs

Communication is social acting. According to Max Weber an actor has to take the
behavior of others into account and is thus oriented in its course (Weber, 2002;
Abels, 2004). Communication is acting with respect to each other and is therefore
intentional. Asking now for the intention of communication in communication
science two aspects have to be considered. On the one hand the general intention
is the pure message with the goal of mutual understanding. On the other hand,
there is also a specific intention. The communicative actor starts the process
because of a special interest. Only specific interests are triggers for communi-
cation. Therefore, next to the goal of mutual understanding the aim of a
communication process always includes the realization of interests (Burkart,
2002).
It lies in the nature of communication to pursue specific goals although several
fields of communication have difficulties to name that. Especially in terms of
political communication there are often peculiar restraints. None of the fields of
communication dealing with political communication - Public Relations and its
part Public Affairs – officially wants to exercise influence over their stakeholder
groups, at least they do not admit to this. The Public Relations Association Austria
is looking for, “constructive dialogues with superiors and clients, negotiations
with service providers, communication and discussions with representatives of
groups relevant in society, e.g. politicians and journalists.” (Prva, 2016, n.p.). The
Austrian Public Affairs Association defines its core duties in this way: “Public
Affairs are the strategic management of external relations of a company or an
organization. Public affairs arise at the interface of politics, economy and society.
Public Affairs are also known as a company’s “foreign affairs”. Their goal is to
manage and improve a company’s relations with its business environment in order
to represent the company’s interests in politics successfully.” (Oepav, 2016, n.p.).
It is common sense that nowadays politics is mediated (Strömbäck, 2008; Thesen,
2014; Esser & Strömbäck, 2014) which means that mass media are “the most
important source of information and channels of communication between the
citizenry and political institutions and actors, such as political parties, govern-
Schneckenleitner P. 69
mental agencies, or political interest groups.” (Strömbäck, 2008, p. 236). In other

words: Politics “(…) has lost its autonomy, has become dependent in its central
functions on mass media, and is continuously shaped by interactions with mass
media.” (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999, p. 250). Scholars still discuss differences
between mediation, mediatization and medialization, but often these terms are
used synonymously (Livingstone, 2009; Meyen, Thieroff, & Strenger, 2014).
For our research we want to examine the importance of mass media and other
possible information sources for Austrian politicians. Starting from the per-
spective of a public affairs manager we analyze how politicians inform
themselves. Which media channels do they use? Out of this data we draw
conclusions for public affairs activities for companies. In this context and for this
paper it is expedient to use the term “mediation”. While mediation refers to the
simple transmission of messages through media, mediatization addresses the
reciprocal dependency of both systems (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999; Brants &
Voltmer, 2011; Schulz, 2004).
6.3 Public Affairs in Austria

According to a survey (Wippersberg, 2012) conducted in October 2012 some 70
per cent of public affairs specialists in Austria work in in-house departments,
whereas 30 per cent are consultants in a public affairs agency. This means that
public affairs activities are mainly executed directly by companies themselves. It
is not surprising that Austrian PA experts are working predominantly in corporate
communications departments (28 per cent), only 12 per cent work in specific
public affairs departments.
The Austrian public affairs structure and development is still backward. Köppl
and Wippersberg (2014, pp. 33) put it in a nutshell: “As the development of
democracy itself in general is delayed, supported by a still too strong functional
as well as structural role of Austria´s political parties, developments in the field of
professional political consulting are far behind common standards in other
democracies.”
Public affairs covers politics and media and in both fields the Austrian market
offers unique characteristics. In the field of media “Magnitude and power charac-
terize the Austrian media landscape. Magnitude relates to the relatively large
number of media products in proportion to the smallish market of some 8.34
million people who live in Austria (2008; Statistik Austria). Power relates to the
high degree of market concentration, which provides dominant media actors with
influence not only in their respective media markets but also in the political arena.”
(Trappel, 2016, n.p.).
A high level of media concentration is one of the key characteristics of mass media
in Austria. Only a few newspapers dominate the press market. Some clear tenden-
cies for a further growth of tabloids are also seen critically (Vonbun & Schönbach,
2014; Magin, 2015). Experts still state a non-professional proximity between
media and politics both with print and electronic media. Commercialization,
greater significance of tabloid, and concentration do not contribute positively to
this development (Steinmaurer, 2012). These develop-ments especially have
influence on the political sector with some questionable effects. “(2001) there
occurred a merging of the print media which has been worrisome, as more than 60
per cent of the daily and weekly press, and 100 per cent of the production of
political magazines, are issued by this media conglomerate Media Print AG.”
(Thiele, 2009, p. 251). Thiele concludes: “The situation of the Austrian press gives
little cause for optimism.” (2009, p. 254).
Austria´s political situation is tightly connected with the media system and the
main characteristics are roughly the same: Only few players possess much power.
Over the last decades two dominant parties – the Social Democratic Party of
Austria (SPÖ) and the Austrian People´s Party (ÖVP) – shaped Austria´s politics.
Additionally, the system of ´social partnership´, including the Austrian Chamber
of Commerce, the Austrian Chamber of Labour, the Austrian Trade Union
Federation and the Austrian Chamber of Agriculture, shares a close relationship
with the governing parties. “The umbrella federations of the social partners wield
great influence as regard political opinion forming and decision making. Their
cooperation has thus often criticized as a “secondary government” (…).” (Köppl
& Wippersberg, 2014, pp. 32). During the legislative period of the Austrian
Freedom Party and the Austrian´s people´s party (2000-2006) a clear erosion of
the social partner´s influence became apparently (Michalowitz & Talos, 2007)
whereas “(…) these years can be considered as the first booming years of public
affairs and lobbying in Austria.” (Köppl & Wippersberg, 2014, p. 34). Today, after
celebrating 70 years of social partnership in Austria, the federations and chambers
still have significant influence in the political process, especially in times of
economic crises (Steiner, 2015).
Fact is that the Austrians widely accept the still predominant system of the social
partnership: Nearly all managers of chambers and federations receive positive
feedback from the Austrian population (OGM, 2014). For corporate communi-
cation activities it is essential to know the key players in a political process, to
know the stakeholders. In Austria these stakeholder groups are sometimes not only
the politicians themselves, but the social partners, too.
Political communicators in the corporate sector should know how to reach relevant
politicians. Only with this knowledge the most successful placement of their issues
and messages will succeed. Lobbying activities as an instrument of public affairs
are efficient, no doubt about that. Face-to-face communication with politicians is

promising. But there are some obstacles: On the one hand lobbying activities are
proscribed in the political sector, the image of Austria´s political whisperer is
disastrous (Transparency International, 2014). On the other hand, more and more
compliance regulations on both sides – on the political sector and on the corporate
sector – penetrate the systems. Internal regulations, rules or even laws reduce the
possibilities of direct political influence. In this perspective mass media are an
effective and objective communication channels for companies to articulate their
messages directly to policymakers.
When using mass media for transporting messages to politicians an essential
question is to clarify: How do politicians inform themselves about the latest
developments in the Austrian economy and whom do they trust? It was interesting
to see that there are only a few data available about this essential question. A vast
amount of papers are dealing with the interaction of politics and media, with media
logic and political logic, with mediatization or with lobbying. But there are no
relevant figures about the self-information activities of politicians (in Austria).
This can explain that in political communications monitoring and evaluation of
communication processes is still the exception and not the rule. Many of the
political communication experts of large German and Austrian companies act
according to their intuition and experience – not according to hard facts and
reliable data.
6.4 Sources of Information for the Members of

Parliament in Austria
First of all, let’s take a look at the general media use in Austria. According to latest
studies (Verein Media Server, 2015) Austrians older than 13 years spend nearly
nine hours a day with media. By far most of the Austrians daily watch TV (81 per
cent), 65 per cent read newspapers or magazines, 77 per cent listen to the radio
and 71 per cent use the Internet. When looking at the age pattern 51 per cent of
the younger people from age 14 to age 29 use half of the day digital media whereas
people over 40 years use mainly traditional mass media like TV, radio and print.
In terms of gaining information newspaper and Internet are the most important
sources. Readers of newspapers want to achieve mainly topical information (78
per cent), followed by general information/knowledge (45 per cent). When using
the Internet topical information are for 57 per cent of the Austrians important,
followed by general information/knowledge with 50 per cent. Looking at the
media use of TV, radio or magazines the most important motive for using these
channels is entertainment.
Our research roughly reflects the above presented results of media use now
referred to the members of the Austrian parliament. Print media are by far the most
important information source for Austrian´s politicians. 48 per cent ranked print
as very important, 23 per cent described it as rather important. Followed by Online
news, 38 per cent declared them as very important. It is interesting to see is that
information coming directly from companies to politicians is appreciated and
ranked high, too. 43 per cent of the politicians said that company sources are
important (23 per cent very important / 20 per cent rather important). Social
partners as information sources may not be ignored either. On the contrary the
importance of social media channels for gaining information is not proved.
Figure 9: We asked the members of the Austrian parliament: How important are following
information sources for being informed about the Austrian economy and its
companies?
(Own description)
6.5 Whom the Members of Austria’s Parliament Trust

Again there are general data for the Austrian population available. According to a
recent OGM study (OGM, 2015) Austria’s most trustworthy media in political
reporting are TV (+50) and radio (+49). One reason for this might be that direct
quotes are assessed more authentically. Print media are ranked with +37
(proportion trust/non-trust) on fourth place. In this study it is interesting to see that
Google (+14) is ranked on fifth place and thus is ranked higher than online media
(+6).
Our survey reflects other data. From a politicians perspective the most reliable
media are print media. They are ranked way ahead of TV as most important for
the non-political part of Austria´s population. We divided the lobbying/public
affairs section into three parts: corporate representatives (information distributed
directly from companies), social partners (strictly spoken lobbyists but organized
in federations and chambers) and lobbying/public relations agencies (external
service providers). Looking closely at these three categories it becomes obvious
that corporate representatives (56 per cent) and social partners (53 per cent) are
highly trustworthy for politicians. They are ranked on the second and third place,
TV (34 per cent) and Wikipedia (16 per cent) follow. Our survey also gives strong
evidence of the disastrous image of external public affairs service providers and
agencies. It seems that the negative image is tightly connected with the term
lobbying and not with the activities per se. In the end corporate representatives,
social partners, and lobbyists want to achieve the same: their realization of
interests.
Figure 10: We asked the member of the Austrian parliament: Which information sources do
you trust?
(Own description)
6.6 Austria’s Companies and Their Political

Communication Activities
We asked the members of the Austrian parliament if they receive direct
information from Austrian companies. Our firm belief vanished when confronted
with the results: 19 per cent of the politicians do not get any information directly
from companies, no newsletter, info-mail, policy newspapers or others. To further
explore the frequencies of corporate information for politicians another aston-
ishing result was revealed. 29 per cent of the members of parliament claim to get
too little information directly out of companies. In other words: nearly one third
of the politicians want more corporate information coming directly from the
corporate communication departments of enterprises. As opposed to this 26 per
cent of the sample stated that they obtain too much information directly from
corporations. Furthermore, two third of the politicians (69 per cent) fully agree
with the statement: “Corporate information are important and I use it for my
political work.”
We also asked regarding the attributes of political corporate communication
activities. For politicians it is most important get informed early about relevant
economical developments (69 per cent of the politicians agreed with that
statement). Political communication should include clear political demands (63
per cent) as well as details on relevant topics (50 per cent).
We also asked, “How should information be transmitted?” Austrian politicians
prefer digital information (50 per cent), followed by oral information (25 per cent)
and printed material (16 per cent).
6.7 Implications
The collected data can give the inference that media relations is undisputedly
important for public affairs activities. Thus, it makes strategic sense that public
affairs specialists work in or are tightly connected to corporate communications
departments. Covering Austria´s traditional mass media with focus on print media
a high sphere of influence is given by PR activities. Besides that, print and TV are
still tightly connected to online media. The most important online portals like
orf.at, derstandard.at, oe24.at or krone.at are adjuncts of print and TV.
It was surprising to see the extent of acceptance of corporate communications
activities by politicians. Corporate communications experts are still far away from
overloading politicians with content. Quite the opposite, politicians seem to
demand more corporate information. It is inexplicable that there are still members
of parliament who do not receive any corporate information. In this context it is
important that the source of corporate information is (clearly associated with) the
company itself. Our data show that the level of trust from politicians will strongly
be reduced when companies are communicating via external PR/PA/Lobbying
agencies. For the latter it is still a long way to build up a better image.
Austria´s social partnership system remains an important source for the flow of
information to the members of parliament. On the contrary social media do not
play a relevant role for being a valuable information source for politicians.
Nevertheless, recent studies show that social media channels are seen as important
platforms in political campaigns and self-presentation for politicians (Segaard,
2015; Broersma & Graham, 2012). So digital communication channels, especially
social media, are already important tool for reaching voters, seen in the latest
experiences during the Austrian presidential campaign. As an information source
for politicians social media channels are not as important as we assumed.
In terms of argumentation in political corporate communications it was interesting
to see that politicians prefer clear political demands from companies. The fear
from corporate communications specialists from patronizing their political coun-
terparts is baseless.
I know several public affairs and communication experts who claim that only
printed material in political communication is effective. Print is haptically, lasts
longer, and has better chances to be read. As our data show Austrian politicians
prefer digital information followed by oral information. On the one hand the
digital way of spreading information is cheap and fast for companies, on the other
hand digital information has a shorter life span, can be deleted easiest and is in
direct competition with (maybe) hundreds of other daily incoming messages. And
additionally in national parliaments often very strong spam filters prevent any kind
of direct corporate communication activities with politicians.
To sum up, this paper offers useful hints for more effective political communi-
cations activities of companies. Even if the sample was not as high as expected
some of the results were surprising. In the end more questions are open than
answered and it becomes clear: this field of research offers still a huge potential
for future scholars.

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7 Structures and Professionalization of Public
Relations in National Sports Governing Bodies –
a Comparison Between Austria and Germany
Torsten Wojciechowski17
Abstract: This paper investigates the structure and the amount of profes-
sionalization of public relations in national sports governing bodies in Austria and
Germany. The empirical study uses the statutes and the websites of these
organizations as sources of data. The findings shows the similarities and the
differences between both countries and emphasizes the relevance of the organi-
zations size, the regulation in the statutes, and the Olympic status for the
professionalization of public relations of the national sports governing bodies.
7.1 Aim of the Paper and Research Questions

The national sports governing bodies are the central governing organizations in
national sport systems. One of their tasks is internal and external communication
– tasks which can be summarized under the term public relations. The
management of public relations in sports has some specific features (Kaiser, 2012)
and should be seen as part of strategic management (Stoldt, Dittmore, & Branvold,
2006). In the era of increasing commercialization and medialization of sports the
structures of public relations in sports organizations have to become profession-
alized (Isaacson, 2010; Suchy, 2012). This leads to the following research
questions:
- What about the structures of public relations in national sports governing
bodies?
- In what way are they institutionally fixed?
- How professionalized are they?
This paper will provide answers to these questions.
7.2 Current State of Research

Public relations is a relatively young profession and is mainly seen as a tool of
marketing in sports management research (e.g., Hopwood, 2005; Hopwood,
2011). Stoldt et al. (2006, p. 2) define public relations in the following way: “Sport
17
Kufstein University of Applied Sciences/Austria, torsten.wojciechowski@fh-kufstein.ac.at

80 Structures and Professionalization of Public Relations …
public relations is a managerial communication-based function designed to

identify a sport organization’s key publics, evaluate its relationships with those
publics, and foster desirable relationships between the sport organization and
those publics”.
The term public relations implies three factors:
1) As a management function, public relations is on the same level as with other
functions like human resource management or marketing (Hopwood, 2011;
Stoldt et al., 2006). From this perspective public relations can be subdivided
into different topics: print publication development, media relations, new
media, web management and design, promotion and marketing, event planning
and communication, community relations, and integrated communication
(Isaacson, 2010).
2) As communication-based practice, the preconditions of the collaboration and
the exchange of the participating actors become central. A good communi-
cation is essential both for internal processes and for external relationships. In
this regard, the personal contact between public relation staff and the media
staff is of special relevance (Hopwood, 2011; Isaacson, 2010).
3) The nature of public relations is seen to be systematical, focusing especially on
a systematic analysis of the stakeholders and other “publics”. In this regard
public relations is strategic (Hopwood, 2011; Stoldt et al., 2006).
Looking onto the practical work of public relations managers in sports, Stoldt et
al. (2006) conclude that it is primarily focused on media and community relations.
For Hopwood (2005) the focus lies primarily on relationship building. Hopwood
(2005, p. 186) concludes: “A systemic commitment to proactive public relations
is undoubtedly the key, and management commitment to ensuring that the function
is professionally applied and resourced is likely to be rewarded”. Particularly
media relations and (mass) media are seen as critical challenges in the field of
sports (Stoldt et al., 2006; Stoldt, Miller, & Vermillion, 2009). Stoldt et al. (2009,
p. 223) state that, “the practice of public relations in sport is recognized as unique
in several respects”. In their review of the literature they found that public relations
in sports is predominantly oriented by the press agentry and public information
models, the personnel in this field mainly plays a technical role and they are
producers of information. This is in line with the findings of Buchanan and Luck
(2008) who report that not-for-profit organizations mainly follow an organi-
zational-centered approach of communication instead of a consumer-oriented
approach. For the German professional football league Grimmer and Kian (2013)
show that the clubs spokesperson can have a great influence on the traditional – in
this case print – media.
Wojciechowski T. 81
Schaffrath (2012) has investigated the professionalization of sports public

relations and found that regarding sports governing bodies on different levels
(national sports governing bodies, regional sport for all bodies, service facilities
for Olympic sports) and sports clubs from the first (soccer, handball, ice-hockey,
basketball, volleyball, tennis, table-tennis and hockey) and second league (soccer,
handball, ice-hockey, basketball, and volleyball) only about 50 per cent of them
have full employed public relations staffs. The other organizations work with
freelancers (ca. 30 per cent) and volunteers (ca. 15 per cent). In respect of the
professional role of the public relations personnel Stoldt et al. (2009) conclude
that it is related to the organizational culture and that public relations personnel
are facing more challenges than ever before. These challenges mainly emerge
through the digitalization of communication in the last years (Buchanan & Luck,
2008; Dart, 2014; Dimovski & Paunova, 2013). To date only a few studies exist
in this field – for example the work from Gibbs and Haynes (2013) about the
influence of Twitter in sport-media relations or from Hambrick and Kang (2015)
about the use of Pinterest in professional sports.
Having this in mind, it is relevant to look at the structures of public relations in
national sports governing bodies. This can show in what manner these organi-
zations are prepared for the digital future.
7.3 Methodology, Research Design and Data Analysis

The empirical analysis has an exploratory character and builds upon the statutes
and the homepages of the national sports governing bodies in both Austria and
Germany. Using these sources allows one to elicit the institutional regulation of
the field of communication in the national sports governing bodies on the one side
and the amount of their professionalization on the other side – without having the
problem of response bias faced when using surveys. Furthermore, the comparison
between Austria and Germany allows one to look at overall trends and specific
tasks related to nations. These two countries were chosen because they have a
common historical background and are both unitary federal states with a federal
sports system (Armingeon, 2002).
The statutes were analyzed using a content analysis. In this content analysis the
German equivalents of the terms “public relations”, “communication”, “media”
and “press” were used. If there were no findings in the statutes using these terms
the statutes were analyzed in detail additionally. The homepages of the national
sports governing bodies were also analyzed using a content analysis, too. The
focus here was on the staff list. It was checked to see if there were persons
responsible for the public relations/communication/media/press task primarily.
Persons who are “only” responsible for marketing alone were excluded from the
analysis.
The statutes were taken from the websites of the national sports governing bodies
or – if not available there – the management of these organizations was asked per
e-mail to send them to the researcher. At the end 119 statutes from national sports
governing bodies could be analyzed (Austria 57; Germany 62). The analysis of
the homepages included 126 websites from national sports governing bodies
(Austria 64; Germany 62). The difference between the numbers of statutes
compared to the analyzed homepages from Austrian organizations is a result of
the non-availability of some of the statutes from Austrian national sports
governing bodies.
7.4 Results
In this section the results concerning the regulations of public relations in the
statutes of the national sports governing bodies and the amount of employees in
the field of public relations are shown and analyzed in detail.
7.4.1 Regulations of Public Relations in the Statutes of the National Sports

Governing Bodies
The results of the analysis of the statutes show that in both countries around fifty
percent of the national sports governing bodies have regulations regarding
communication and public relations in their statutes – this also means that around
fifty percent have no such regulations at all. There is little difference between both
countries: in Germany 57.7% of the national sports governing bodies have
regulations in their statutes compared to 42.4% in Austria. This difference is
statistically insignificant.
A deeper look at the regulations in regard to the responsibility for the public
relations task shows similarities and differences between both countries (see
Figure 11). In both countries most often the volunteer officials have the
responsibility for public relations tasks (Austria 48.0%, Germany 64.6%) – these
volunteer officials are named in different terms in the statutes: some are clearly
emphasizing the traditional terms like ‘spokesperson’ (German terms:
Pressesprecher or Pressewart), some seem to be more modern like ‘public relations
officer’ (German: Referent Öffentlichkeitsarbeit) or ‘head of department
communication’ (German: Ressortleiter [Verbands-] Kommunikation). These
volunteer officials are followed in Austria by the whole board (20.0%) compared
to Germany where the position of a vice president takes the second place (23.5%).
The results of the analysis of the statutes show that in both countries around fifty percent of the
national sports governing bodies have regulations regarding communication and public rela-
Wojciechowski
tions in their T.
statutes – this also means that around fifty percent have no such regulations at all.
83
There is little difference between both countries: in Germany 57.7% of the national sports gov-
Onlyerning
in Austria oneregulations
bodies have can findinthe responsibility
their forto a42.4%
statutes compared specialized
in Austria.committee alone
This difference
(without defining
is statistically the chairman of this committee responsible).
insignificant.
70,0%
64,6%
60,0%
48,0%
50,0%
40,0%
30,0% 23,5%
20,0%
20,0%
12%
8,0% 5,9%
10,0% 2,9% 4,0% 4,0% 2,9%
0,0%
President Vice Volunteer Board Full-time Committee
President official Employee
Austria Germany
Fig. 1 Responsibility for public relations: a country comparison (N = 59; Chi2 = 0.042; Cramér’s V =
Figure 11: Responsibility for public relations: a country comparison (N = 59; Chi2 = 0.042;
0.54)
Cramér’s V = 0.54)
(Own description) (Own description)
In some cases we find the president responsible for the public relations task and
in very few cases the statutes allocate this responsibility to a full-time employee.
In most cases the volunteers responsible are integrated in the board of the national
sports governing body – which means that there is a good chance that public
relations is part of the organizations strategic decision making.
7.4.2 Professionalization of Public Relations of the National Sports

Governing Bodies
Looking at the professionalization of the communication/public relations task, it
shows that in Germany in around 40% of the national sports governing bodies
there is at least one person working especially in this field. In Austria this holds
true for only approximately 19% of the national sports governing bodies (see
Figure 12). In both countries the majority of the organizations with full-time
employees have one employee (Austria 66.7%, Germany 44.0%). In Germany
respectively 20% of the national sports governing bodies have two or three
employees and a small number of organizations have four or five employees. In

Austria we find a small number of organizations with three or four employees.
There is one organization in each country that exceeds the range of five
employees. In Austria the national soccer association with 10 employees in the
field of public relations and in Germany the equestrian association has eight
employees. The differences in the number of employees between the two countries
are not significant. A few sports governing bodies in Germany work with external
agencies and one (the German soccer association) has founded its own agency.
90,0% 80,7%
80,0%
70,0%
60,0%
50,0% 40,6%
39,1%
40,0%
30,0% 19,3%
20,0%
7,8% 10,9%
10,0%
0,0% 0,0%1,6% 0,0%
0,0%
yes no external internal no information
agency agency
full-time position PR
Austria Germany
Fig. 2 Public relations full-time employees (N = 126; Chi2 = 0.000; Cramér’s V = 0.47)
Figure 12: Public relations full-time employees (N = 126; Chi2 = 0.000; Cramér’s V = 0.47)
These findings
These indicate
findings indicate lessless professionalization
professionalization of the communication/public
of the communication/public relations task in
relations task
Austrian in Austrian
national national
sports governing sports
bodies governing
compared bodies
to Germany. Thiscompared to Germany.
leads to the question of
Thishowleads
it cantobe the question
explained that theof howof itprofessionalization
amount can be explained thatin national
is different the amount
sports of
professionalization
governing bodies onisthedifferent
one side in
andnational
that there sports governing
are country bodies ononthe
specific differences the one
otherside
and that there are country specific differences on the other side.
side.
There areare
There several
severalindicators that
indicators that cancan be to
be used used to explain
explain the amountthe
of amount of the profes-
the professionalization
sionalization ofrelations
of the public the public
task inrelations task
the national in governing
sports the national sports
bodies. governing
The first of them isbodies.
the
The first of them is the overall professionalization of the organizations themselves.
overall professionalization of the organizations themselves. It is to be expected that a more
It is to be expected that a more professionalized organization will be more profes-
professionalized organization will be more professional in the public relations task. But the
sional in the public relations task. But the amount of professionalization of an
amount of professionalization
organization of an organization
is not easy to measure. Shouldis the
not easy to measure.
number Should
of full timetheemployees
number of be
full time employees be taken? This could be difficult because of the financing of these organi-
zations. Some of them get money from state authorities for coaching staff. Should the staff
financed by others be counted? And if yes, how can we identify them? Regarding these prob-
Wojciechowski T. 85
taken? This could be difficult because of the financing of these organizations.

Some of them get money from state authorities for coaching staff. Should the staff
financed by others be counted? And if yes, how can we identify them? Regarding
these problems it seems not to make any sense to take this as a measure.
An option would probably be to take the revenues of the national sports governing
bodies as a measure. The problem here is that the amount of these revenues is not
easy to get for all of the organizations, because they often keep this confidential
(and some of them have special subsidiary service companies where some of their
revenues are accounted). This leads to an indirect measure of income – the number
of members of the national sports governing bodies. When talking about members
here it is meant the individual sports persons who are directly or indirectly member
of the national sports governing bodies. Because of the huge variance of the
membership of the organizations, ranging from 220 members up to 6.8 million
members, this item was grouped for the empirical analysis. The literature
concerning national sports governing bodies gives no useful grouping procedure.
For the analysis presented in this paper the national sports governing bodies were
grouped into five quintiles, where the first covers all organizations up to 4,307
members, the second all between 4,308 up to 14,195 members, the third from
14,196 up to 32,305 members, the fourth from 32,306 up to 148,602 members and
the fifth all organizations with more than 148,603 members. The numbers were
taken from the official statistics of the national umbrella organizations for the year
2013.
The analysis of the relationship between the grouped number of members and the
existence of a full-time employee in national sports governing bodies is significant
both for the overall sample as well as for nation specific analysis (see Table 9). In
the overall sample the relationship is a bit less strong than in the national samples
(Chi2 = 0.000; Cramér’s V = 0.32).
When we look onto the average size of the sport organizations in Austria and
Germany we find a huge difference – in Austria the mean size is 78,164 members
and the median size is 8,923 members, in Germany the mean size is 369,814
members and the median size is 52,067 members. This means that on the average
the German national sports governing bodies have 4.7 times more members than
the Austrian ones (based on the mean) and the median size of the German national
sports governing bodies is 5.8 times more than that of the Austrians. Keeping this
in mind we find one reason for the country specific difference in the profession-
alization of the public relation task – the greater size of the German national sports
governing bodies.
The analysis of the relationship between the grouped number of members and the existence of
a full-time employee in national sports governing bodies is significant both for the overall sam-
ple as well as for nation specific analysis (see table 1). In the overall sample the relationship is
a bit less strong than in the national samples (Chi2 = 0.000; Cramér’s V = 0.32).
Table 9: Relationship between size of national sports governing bodies and full-time
employees (N = 122; Chi2Austria = 0.002; Cramer’s VAustria = 0.53; Chi2Germany = 0.004;
Table 1 RelationshipVbetween
Cramér’s Germany = 0.37)
size of national sports governing bodies and full-time employees
(N = 122;(Own description)
Chi2Austria = 0.002; Cramer’s VAustria = 0.53; Chi2Germany = 0.004; Cramér’s VGermany = 0.37)
membership grouped
quintile 1 quintile 2 quintile 3 quintile 4 quintile 5
full-time employee 5.0 % 13.3 % 16.7 % 12.5 % 80.0 %
no full-time employee 95.0 % 86.7 % 83.3 % 87.5 % 20.0 %
Austria
external agency 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 %

internal agency 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 %
no information 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 %
full-time employee 0.0 % 20.0 % 25.0 % 35.3 % 73.7 %
no full-time employee
Germany
50.0 % 50.0 % 66.7 % 35.3 % 21.1 %

external agency 50.0 % 10.0 % 0.0 % 5.9 % 0.0 %
internal agency 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 5.3 %
no information 0.0 % 20.0 % 8.3 % 23.5 % 0.0 %
(Own description)
Another
When we indicator which
look onto the may
average help
size to sport
of the explain the professionalization
organizations of the we
in Austria and Germany public
find
relation task is the influence of the regulations in the statutes as presented above.
a huge difference – in Austria the mean size is 78,164 members and the median size is 8,923
As we could see in the vast majority of the cases where there is a regulation in the
statutes
members,the public the
in Germany relation taskis 369,814
mean size is allocated
membersto and
voluntary
the medianstaff.
size isThis can
52,067 mem-be
interpreted either as sign for a culture of volunteerism (Thiel, Meier, & Cachay,
bers. This means that on the average the German national sports governing bodies have 4.7
2006) or as a sign for the non-existence of a professional culture (Horch & Schütte,
times more members than the Austrian ones (based on the mean) and the median size of the
2002) – both hindering the professionalization of public relations. The empirical
findings as shown in Figure 13 show that for the overall sample of both countries
there is a strong relationship between regulations in the statutes of national sports
governing bodies and the employment of professional staff in the field of public
relations – nearly half of those organizations without regulations have employed
professional staff compared to nearly twenty percent of those organizations with
regulations. These findings indicate that regulations in the statutes about public
relations hinder the establishment of full-time employees in this field – or probably
it must be interpreted the other way around? Probably the national sports
governing bodies change their statutes and delete the voluntary responsibility for
this task when they begin to employ professional staff in this field. Some
individual cases give hints in the last direction. With the data of this study we
cannot define the causal direction of this relationship. What we see is a clear
indication that we find more professionally employed staff in this field when there
are no regulations in the statutes. And, what we see, too, is that in around 20% of
the organizations having regulations in their statutes which allocate the
responsibility to volunteer staff we find full-time employed staff in this field.
Looking at the voluntary responsibilities as shown in Figure 11 we find no
Wojciechowski T. 87
significant pattern. This finding leads to the question in which way the volunteer
and full-time staff collaborate in this field – a question that we cannot answer here.
90,0%
80,0% 76,5%
70,0%
60,0%
47,3% 47,3%
50,0%
40,0%
30,0%
19,6%
20,0%
10,0% 3,9% 3,6%
0,0% 1,8%
0,0%
yes no external agency internal agency
regulation in statutes: yes no
Fig. 3 Relationship between regulation in the statutes and public relations full-time employee (N = 106;
Figure
Chi13:
2 Relationship
= 0.014; between
Cramér’s V = 0.32) regulation in the statutes and public relations full-time
employee (N = 106; Chi2 = 0.014; Cramér’s V = 0.32)
ThereThere is another possible

is another possible explanation
explanationfor thefor
different amounts of professionalization
the different amounts of profession-in the
alization
field ofinpublic
the field ofinpublic
relations relations
the national in the national
sports governing sports
bodies. This governing
is their bodies.
Olympic status.
ThisSome
is their
of theOlympic status.
national sports Somebodies
governing of the
havenational sports
Olympic status governing
– which bodies
means that they arehave
Olympic status
responsible for –
onewhich
or moremeans that
sports that they are in
are established responsible for oneThis
the Olympic program. or means
morethat sports
that this
are sports
established in the Olympic program. This means that this sports
gets – at minimum every four years – obvious media attention and so forces these
gets – at
minimum every four years – obvious media attention and so forces these
organizations to deal professional with the media. Additionally, they get a share from the media
organizations to deal professional with the media. Additionally, they get a share
fromandthesponsor
mediarevenues of the IOC,
and sponsor which makes
revenues it easier
of the IOC, for which
them to employ
makesprofessional
it easier forstaff.them
to employ
So it is toprofessional staff.national
expect that Olympic So itsports
is to expectbodies
governing thatareOlympic national sports
more professionalized in
governing
the field bodies
of public are more
relations thanprofessionalized
non-Olympic ones. As in shown
the field of public
in Figure relations
4 this expectation canthan
non-Olympic ones. sports
be proved. National As showngoverninginbodies
Figure
which14 arethis expectation
responsible for Olympic cansports
be more
proved.
National sports governing bodies which are responsible for Olympic
often (nearly 40 percent) have professionally employed staff compared to non-Olympic national sports more
often (nearly 40 percent) have professionally employed staff compared to non-
sports governing bodies (about 20 percent).
Olympic national sports governing bodies (about 20 percent).
90,0%
77,6%
80,0%
70,0%
60,0% 52,4%
50,0%
39,7%
40,0%
30,0% 22,4%
20,0%
10,0% 6,3%
0,0% 1,6% 0,0%
0,0%
yes no external agency internal agency
Olympic sport: yes no
Fig. 4 Relationship between Olympic status and public relations full-time employee (N = 112; Chi2 =
Figure 14:Cramér‘s
0.027; Relationship between Olympic status and public relations full-time employee
V = 0.29)
(N = 112; Chi2 = 0.027; Cramér‘s V = 0.29)
7.5 5. Summary
Summaryand Perspectives
and Perspectives
The findings show some differences and some similarities between the two countries. What we
The findings show some differences and some similarities between the two
see is that in both countries nearly half of the national sports governing bodies have regulations
countries. What we see is that in both countries nearly half of the national sports
about public
governing relations
bodies in theirregulations
have statutes allocating this task
about mainlyrelations
public to voluntaryin
stafftheir
of different
statutes
allocating this
positions. task on
Focusing mainly
full-timetoemployment
voluntarywestaff of different
find differences positions.
between Austria andFocusing
Germany on
full-time
showing employment
that the nationalwesports
findgoverning
differences
bodiesbetween
in Germany Austria
are moreand Germany showing
professionalized in the
that the national
public relations sports governing
field than in Austria –bodies in be
which can Germany
explained are more
by the professionalized
different average size of in
the public relations field than in Austria – which can be explained by the different
the organizations in both countries.
average size of the organizations in both countries.
For the overall sample we can identify that larger organizations tend to be more professional-
For the
ized overall sample
than smaller we can identify
ones, organizations without that largerin organizations
regulations tendthe
the statutes concerning to public
be more
professionalized than smaller ones, organizations without regulations in the
relation task are more professionalized in this field than those having regulations and that Olym-
statutes concerning the public relation task are more professionalized in this field
pic sports governing bodies tend to be more professionalized in this field than non-Olympic
than those having regulations and that Olympic sports governing bodies tend to be
moreones.
professionalized in this field than non-Olympic ones.
The main questions that remain open after this exploratory research are what other reasons exist
The main questions that remain open after this exploratory research are what other
for the observed differences (e.g., differences in the organizational culture between national
reasons exist for the observed differences (e.g., differences in the organizational
culture between national sports governing bodies). With the data grounding this
study this cannot be answered. Another question is in which ways the internal
Wojciechowski T. 89
distribution of responsibilities is coordinated in those national sports governing

bodies that have both, volunteer and professional staff responsible for the public
relations task. Here further research is needed to answer this question. The
findings give hints that – because of most of the volunteer staff for public relations
is part of the board of their organization – the public relations practices are part of
the national sports governing bodies’ strategic decision making. This coincides
with the findings from Schaffrath (2012). Another question resulting from the
findings belongs to the technological developments in the field of the media. Are
the national sports governing bodies prepared for the challenges of digitalization?
This question is not easy to answer but the above findings indicate that the national
sports governing bodies are not very well prepared for this challenge. Most of
them do not have full-time employees in this field – and when they have than they
mostly have only one full-time person responsible for public relations. In a digital
age with social networks that can, and sometimes are, used by the public twenty-
four hours a day this is a very poor base for professional communication with the
stakeholders. There seems to be a great potential for development in the future.

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In A. Benz, & G. Lehmbruch (Eds.), Föderalismus. Analysen in
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8 The Moving Network – a New Platform for
Refugees and Their Communicational and
Educational Issues
Gernot Wolfram18, Mafalda Sandrini, Maria Fernanda Prado
8.1 Research Context and Goals

In the current refugee crisis in Germany new educational measures for refugees
and support for their communicative self-representation are a complex challenge
for research projects in the field of media studies and cultural studies. Besides
initiatives carried out with the aim towards solidarity, scientific approaches from
this field focus more and more on structures which help to understand and improve
the internal views, wishes and competencies of refugees. (see also Collier, 2013;
Jeffers, 2012). Based on scientific agency-concepts (see also Assmann, 2011;
Eagleton, 2001; Bhaba, 1994) the central idea in these research projects is
activation and self-formulation of power, knowledge and skills of, and for mi-
grants in the context of transcultural discourses.
This research context was the starting point of a project that intended from its
beginning to address the current refugee crisis by empowering refugees to teach
self-chosen topics in their camps as well as outside the camps. The final goal of
this project would be the development of cohesive self-empowered communities
through the constant sharing of knowledge and a growing network (see also
www.the-moving-network.de). On the basis of sixty qualitative interviews with
refugees in seven different camps in Berlin asking for; wishes, expectations and
future goals, four refugees were chosen to work in cooperation with the project as
so-called Bop-Ambassadors19. With the focus on intercultural education and
media competencies, they developed their own courses and started to teach
regularly in their camps. They had the task, given by the research team, to report
regularly on the content of their course, number of attendees and experiences they
made during. They received a certificate for their work, confirming teaching
experience, and they have the possibility to join regularly academic courses to
learn more about the chosen subjects of their teachings.
18
Macromedia University of Applied Sciences/Germany, g.wolfram@macromedia.de
19
The research project „The Moving Network” was created as a corporation between the
Macromedia University Berlin, the Berlin based association Board of Participation e.V.
and the Allianz Kulturstiftung. The name “BoP-Ambassadors” refers on the Board of
Participation (BoP) e.V.

92 The Moving Network – a New Platform for Refugees …
8.2 The Scientific Concept of the Project

The Moving Network
The idea of The Moving Network is embodied in a model called the Empowerment
Trust Circle (see also Wolfram, Sandrini, & Prado, 2016) which concentrates on
the themes of motivation, trust, the role of multipliers and the process that leads
an individual to participate actively within society. This model suggests initial
stages of networking and learning, in which the individual formulates its personal
needs and goals along with the support and recognition from others. It also outlines
the way in which the person is led to a transformation process, through finding his
or her place in society and participating actively within a community.
The Empowerment Trust Circle model was created from a transcultural and
educational point of view, taking into account the personal needs from refugees
and their desire for social belonging. Due to the new acculturation process they
are going through, it is essential to understand not only cultural factors but also
psychological factors, in order to address the problem in the most effective way
(Berry, 2005).
A focus on education was chosen as through the learning of new sets of skills,
individuals can find motivation, inner satisfaction, empowerment and when
integrated with their own interests and needs, it can also bring a sense of
autonomy. Furthermore, motivating refugees to teach others creates collateral
benefits for both the teacher and student. Not only does the teacher feel
empowered through the sharing of knowledge and by having a role within a
community, but also the student who projects their interests and personal moti-
vations which can consequently lead him or her to find a role through participating
in society (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Additionally, the model emphasizes the role of multipliers, an important factor
when it comes to the responsibility of driving motivation and empowerment to
others. Multipliers are leaders who can support and encourage other individuals,
exploiting their best capabilities and competencies. In the case of this model,
multipliers are present in every stage of the process by inspiring and teaching
others, leading to motivation, empowerment and a greater rate of participation
within the camps (Wiseman, 2011).
The impact of the project relies heavily on the successful identification of potential
multipliers within refugee camps, who are able to share both their knowledge and
values. For the implementation of the model and the identification of opinion
leaders, The Moving Network carried out Pumpuang and Valente’s (2007) self-
selection technique, which requires individuals to volunteer to be an opinion
Wolfram G., Sandrini M., Prado M. F. 93
leader. This method was chosen in order to avoid bias; such as overestimating the
leadership of an individual or obtaining intentionally falsified answers.
Operationally, multipliers or BOP-Ambassadors are people who upon self-
reflection feel empowered by their own abilities to teach certain topics, and are
individuals who are able to adapt well to a new cultural environment. His or her
role is to assist others during their process of personal transformation. The Moving
Network intends to trigger the motivation in designated ambassadors by providing
them a role within refugee communities. This is done through assigning different
tasks and encouraging values and ideals. According to the “purpose theory” by
Daniel Pink (2009), the performance of individuals can be enhanced by clarifying
the relevance and the importance of the tasks, which are undertaken for their
community or peers. Some ways in which this idea is encouraged is by providing
ambassadors the autonomy to choose the topics that are relevant to them and
others, as well as by providing support and materials needed to execute the
learning activities.
Beyond solving primary needs and taking the approach of solidarity, The Moving
Network aims to create an integration process for refugees through encouraging
active participation from individuals within the community. Through the sixty
interviews carried out, we have found that many refugees have the desire to work
as teachers during their time in refugee camps. Therefore, our main objective is to
facilitate their personal wishes and goals and motivate them to actively participate
in society, taking into account the roles they want to play. Furthermore, for a
correct implementation of the model, the ongoing research of the function of trust,
motivation and empowerment and the constant analysis of case studies of BOP
Ambassadors to monitor the results and outcome through methods such as
interviews, focus groups and observation are of great relevance.
8.3 From Solidarity to Cooperation

As a basic assumption, this article supports an approach that is based, not on
traditional solidarity, but rather cooperation, as an undeniable requirement to
encourage full participation of refugees in society. Most of the projects carried out
on the basis of solidarity worked efficiently by helping refugees on a practical
base. However, it is our belief that a paradigm shift is needed in order to provide
a sustainable approach on a long-term basis (Sennett, 2013). By embracing a
cooperation perspective, refugees will be able to find their place, both figuratively
and spatially, in society, steering clear of the suburbs, the banlieu situated at cities’
margins, which is often seen as a cradle of criminality, degradation and exclusion
(Augé, 2010). Exclusion has a clear connotation that implies a rift between an
internal and an external space, a fracture between what is in and what is out of a
frontier, a border that can be physical as well as sociological (Augé, 2010).

Integration has been perceived as a leitmotif in a way that it is as noble as naïve
(see also Collier, 2013), without entirely understanding the negativity that is often
assigned to people who should be integrated. Those who must be integrated do not
live in the city for a long time, is not suddenly a citizen, and does mostly not
necessarily speak the language sufficiently. By accepting an approach based on
cooperation, on the mutual exchange of knowledge and experience, it will allow a
more realistic participation. Of course for this, a bilateral action is necessary.
Indeed, if society requires refugees to accept values, beliefs and norms, it is also
essential that there is an offer of how they can become visible and members of
public discourses. (see also Wolfram, 2015) In order to transform the word
integration (and its communication) into a positive concept, a powerful leitmotif,
it is necessary to begin cooperating soon in the camps, by improving the
communication and the relationship between managers and refugees and to
organize a common communication between ‘people from here and there’.
8.4 Simmels’ Metaphor of “Bridge and Door”

Georg Simmel, in his essay “Bridge and Door” (1909), provided a valuable
metaphor regarding how these two tangible architectural elements represent the
tendency to divide and connect everything. The two items, and the concepts they
symbolized, presuppose each other in a balanced ambivalence; whereas the bridge
emphasizes the unification, the possibility of a direct link, the door highlights an
inherent dualism proper of human beings, their inclination to disconnect in order
to be able to correlate (Simmel, 1909).
Camps can be seen as the apotheosis of the door. It is the space where this
dichotomy accentuates its meaning; the camp is the expression of the connection
with the society but also the materialization of segregation and relegation. Camps
are what Marc Augé calls non-lieu, non-place: those spaces based on the present,
without a collective memory where people cannot establish a bond with the
external world (Augé, 2010). Therefore, the process of cooperation must be the
starting point to build a sense of collectivity and expectations, based on equality
and on the recognition of the heterogeneity of these groups. Refugees have
different nationalities, beliefs and backgrounds. The only thing they share with
certainty is the status of being a refugee. Therefore, the process of cooperation,
must be the starting point in order to build a sense of collectivity and expectations,
based on equality and on the recognition of the heterogeneity of these groups. The
first step toward cooperation, per the suggestion of the research approach of the
Moving Network, should be examining these unique factors, highlighting diversity
and emphasizing the capabilities of individuals (see also Wolfram et.al., 2016).
8.4.1 The Importance of Trust

During the field research phase, it emerged that the trust plays an important role
in encouraging integration. Trust can have different connotations and
interpretations but in this context it can be seen as a powerful mechanism to
influence social behavior and personal goals (Orkeny & Szekelyi, 2009).
A key aspect of the integration process has been the identification of the so-called
Trust Circles, peer-groups formed by people who share the same nationalities,
languages and values. At the beginning, Trust Circles are often the most important
drivers for cohesion, the trigger to start formulating purposes in a new cultural
environment (see also Herreros, 2004). These Trust Circles are also fundamental
elements to keep individual identities intact; to find familiar components and the
possibility to share memories and experiences as a way to maintain the roots of a
community. However, it is important to expand the Trust Circle, after a first phase
of adaptation, in order to be able to initiate active participation in the new society
and to establish the first basis for cooperation. The task of multipliers, those
empowered leaders, is exactly to act as a bridge between the refugees’ community
and German society. Multipliers are seen as facilitators and communicators who
can enlarge the visibility and network of other refugees. This step is essential in
order to make trust a powerful instrument of integration. Indeed, if on one hand
trust is an important tool for cohesion between same ethnic groups, on the other
hand it can be the cause for disintegration within the community. By delimiting
the social interaction to people who have the same socio-cultural identity there is
the risk of fostering isolation and segregation (Orkeny & Szekelyi, 2009). For this
reason, it is important to establish a strong trust between three different vectors:
refugees of various ethnicities, refugees and managers but also managers and
refugees. Trust is, in this panorama, the significant ingredient that can allow for
worthwhile cooperation, but as it has already been said, it is crucial that all the
players put themselves in the game. Trust is the element that can strengthen
cooperation in the long run, it is the principle that can transform Simmel’s door
into a bridge by linking individuals with different backgrounds and positions in
society (Simmel, 1909).
8.4.2 Advantages of Self-Organizing Activities

There are different ways of establishing a connection based on trust, coherently
on what this article is promoting. One of the most efficient approaches towards
this is to create a link between managers and refugees. In the context of refugees’
camp for example, it is to stimulate self-organizing activities. The organization of
workshops would be the starting point for sustainable cooperation, higher
motivation and an easier future inclusion. The self-organizing activities present
advantages for both refugees and managers; for the former they can be interpreted
as an opportunity for:
- Expanding the Trust Circles and creating a new network based on the sharing
of the same learning goals and interests.
- Learning new things.
- Encouraging participation and integration.
- Fighting against depression through active involvement.
For the latter, these activities can benefit in terms of:
- Saving resources.
- Saving time by starting to prepare refugees for inclusion on a practical level.
- Increasing motivation.
- Achieving administrative processes within camps through cooperation.
- Generating good communication between managers, workers and refugees.
- Using resources efficiently within refugee camps.
The nature of those activities should always be related to cultural education, but
not in a strictly academic connotation since it would be possible to benefit from
various kinds of projects. Since all individuals come from different backgrounds
and levels of education, as well as expectations and goals, it would be impossible
to consistently propose the same uniform program. It is exactly by recognizing
this heterogeneity of talents, that managers should show their trust toward
refugees’ potentials, through the enhancement of single capabilities and by
treating them on an equal level. The role of multipliers is precisely to plan these
activities and guide other people in doing the same based on the different unique
skills each one presents. The BoP Ambassadors, who started collaborating with
The Moving Network project, are an example of how this cooperation can be
productive and of how the concept of multipliers can generate dynamic and
valuable insights for both sides. They showed disparate expertise, able to enrich
the participants as well as helping managers in the processes of training people
within the camps: from German courses to workshops for Gender diversity and
Women's rights, from Dancing lectures to Intercultural communication classes.
Of course, it would be naive to assert that everything can easily be managed and
that there will not be problems; some the BoP Ambassadors are facing obstacles
in the process of organization of the activities. It is, however, a future goal of the
project to investigate why these problems arise and in which way it would be
possible to improve the whole approach. It can be assumed that some problems
are related to cultural differences that can lead to misunderstandings; on the other
hand, it has been observed that often managers did not take the refugees’ proposals
seriously, by giving gratuitous justification like the impossibility to provide chairs,
for one instance. An improvement could be to present a more specific program,
especially when the proposals concern topics with cultural or political signifi-
cance, in order to give potential future and current managers a full overview of
how the workshops can, and will be organized.

Assmann, A. (2011). Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft. Grundbegriffe,
Themen, Fragestellungen (2nd ed.). Berlin, Germany: Erich Schmidt.
Augé, M. (2010). Per una antropologia della mobilità. Milano, Italy: Jaca Book
Spa.
Berry, J. W. (2005). Acculturation: Living successfully in two Cultures.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 29, 697-712.
Bhaba, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. London, United Kingdom: Pearson.
Collier, P. (2013). Immigration and multiculturalism in the 21st century. London,
United Kingdom: Allen Lane.
Eagleton, T. (2001). Was ist Kultur? Munich, Germany: C. H. Beck.
Herreros, F. (2004). The problem of forming social trust: Why trust? New York,
NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jeffers, A. (2012). Refugees, theatre and crisis: Performing global identities. New
York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Orkeny, A., & Szekelyi, M. (2009). The role of trust in social integration of
immigrants. Demografia, 52(5), 124-147.
Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivate us. New York,
NY: Riverhead Books.
Pumpuang, P., & Valente, T. (2007). Identifying Opinion Leaders to Promote
Behavior Change. Health Education and Behavior, 34, 881-896.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic
definitions and new directions. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https:
//mmrg.pbworks.com/f/Ryan,+Deci+00.pdf
Sennett, R. (2013). Together: The rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation.
London, United Kingdom: Penguin.
Simmel, G. (1909). Bridge and door. In N. Leach (Ed.), Rethinking architecture,
a reader in cultural theory. London, United Kingdom: Routlege.
Wiseman, L. (2011). Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter.
New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Wolfram, G., Sandrini, M., & Prado, M. F. (2016). Teachers for life: Empowering
refugees to teach and learn in new environments. Berlin, Germany:
Board of Participation.
Part B:
Master Thesis
Abstracts
9 Factors of the Successful Implementation of a
Crowdfunding Campaign
Carina Amann20
Abstract: Crowdfunding is a relatively young phenomenon. The aim of Crowd-

funding is, to raise capital from a large amount of people (the crowd), in which
each person makes a small contribution, to finance a project, an idea or a product
on the Internet. Constantly many Crowdfunding campaigns reach their funding
goal and the projects can thus be realized. At the center of this work there should
be the project initiators and with which factors they can influence the ongoing
campaign positively, so that it is ultimately successful.
9.1 Introduction
The origin of social media and finance platforms in the World Wide Web was
virtually simultaneously. The aim of Crowdfunding is to raise money for
investment through the use of social networks. Instead of raising money from a
small group of experienced investors, the idea of Crowdfunding is to raise
capital from a large amount (the crowd), where each individual makes a small
contribution. The investors in crowdfunding are also the multipliers that will help
to spread the project online and offline. Experts say that crowdfunding will
establish itself as a future type of business financing, since it is getting more
difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises, to obtain the necessary credits or
loans from banks (Grabs, Bannour, & Vogl, 2014).
Subsequently, the initial situation and the problem statement will be identified,
followed by the research goal and the concrete research questions. This is fol-
lowed by the explanation of the theoretical background and the methodological
approach.
9.1.1 Problem Statement

Little is known about those people who publish their projects on a crowdfunding
platform, what their motivations are to raise money online and how they can
support their ongoing projects successfully.
20
Kufstein University of Applied Sciences/Austria

102 Factors of the Successful Implementation of a Crowdfunding Campaign …
Some crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Startnext provide manuals on

the implementation of a crowdfunding campaign. Various magazines offer tips on
how to run a successful campaign. Scientific literature on crowdfunding currently
exists mainly in the form of so-called working papers or articles in professional
journals and journals such the ones of Belleflamme, Lambert, and Schwienbacher
(2010, 2013), Lambert and Schwienbacher (2010), and Mollick (2013) which are
used amongst other papers for this work. The study from Mollick (2013) The
dynamics of Crowdfunding: An exploratory study is of great importance for the
present master thesis. In his work he deals with success factors of crowdfunding
on the importance of family and friends as well as the use of social networks, e.g.,
Facebook. Agrawal, Catalini, and Goldfarb (2011, 2013, 2015) also deal with the
importance of the contributions from family and friends, as well as geographical
considerations. Belleflamme et al. (2013) kept the focus on factors for successful
crowdfunding from the initiator’s point of view. These studies are crucial and are
the fundamentals of the empirical research.
Constantly many Crowdfunding campaigns reach their funding goal and the
projects can thus be realized. The most original and therefore most familiar type
of crowdfunding is the so called reward-based crowdfunding. For a financial
contribution, the donors receive a goodie as a thank you or the possibility to
preorder the product (Homerocket, n.d.).
This master thesis focuses on finding out the factors for the successful
implementation of a Crowdfunding campaign using scientific literature and then
verifies this with a reasonable number of qualitative interviews with experts. As a
result, implications for practice are derived and suggestions for (potential) project
initiators are given.
9.1.2 Theory
One of the main challenges of crowdfunding is the asymmetry of information
between donors and the initiator. It is based on the principal-agent-theory and
examines economic relations, in which a business partner has information
advantages over the other. The principal-agent-theory assumes that the principal
(client) and the agent (representative) are informed asymmetric, with the result
that the economic agents can be restricted in their decision-making (Pratt &
Zeckhauser, 1985). Crowdfunding is usually based on a considerable distance
between the parties and the initiators can penetrate the flow of information and
decide which data are disclosed. Asymmetric information can be crucial for a bad
contract, or even prevent the formation of a contract altogether (Schwienbacher &
Larralde, 2010). In well-known publications, which have already been mentioned
Amann C. 103
before, is also referred to the problem of information asymmetry in the case of

crowdfunding.
9.1.3 Research Questions

Since the existing research, particularly on the side of project initiators is still
widely untouched, the central aim of this thesis is to provide an in-depth analysis
of the entrepreneur side of crowdfunding, so those people who want to implement
an idea or a product via crowdfunding. The focus will be put on those factors that
can make the successful financing of a crowdfunding campaign possible. In this
thesis the existing success factors will be proved for validity. Therefore, the
following research questions should be examined:
- Can the success factors given be confirmed by the statements of the experts?
- Which factors enable the successful implementation of a crowdfunding
campaign?
9.1.4 Methodology
At the beginning there will be given an overview of the basics and the different
types of Crowdfunding, followed by the description of a typical Crowdfunding
process. For the representation of an ideal Crowdfunding process, the project
“Liebe & Lose” was chosen to show the need for a variety of activities to achieve
a successful funding. This is followed by the description of already scientific
explored success factors, which were selected and placed in a relevant order for
this work. As a next step, the empirical research includes qualitative interviews
with experts and qualitative semi-structured interviews with project initiators.
When the results are obtained, the previously selected factors will be associated
with the research results and will be checked for validity. The aim should be also,
to derive additional tools for a successful financing of a Crowdfunding campaign.
In the end implications and concrete recommendations for practice are derived and
discussed, which can lead to a successful crowdfunding campaign.
9.2 Results
To sum up, it can be said, that the factors funding goal, campaign period, high-
quality campaign, geographic aspects, family and friends, pitch-video, story-
telling, rewards, transparency and the use of social networks have a significant
influence on the outcome and therefore also on the successful financing of a
Crowdfunding campaign. A frequently mentioned factor for a successful crowd-
funding campaign during the interviews with the experts is the importance of an
intensive preparation of the project. However, the influence of each factor in turn
104 Factors of the Successful Implementation of a Crowdfunding Campaign …
depends on other factors and it largely depends on their interaction with each
other. Other instruments are offline events, media coverage and accompanying
campaign marketing.
In case of the asymmetric information the initiators should be aware, that due to
the large distance, they must disclose any information concerning their project for
the prospective to win them as supporters. Since dealing with asymmetric
information is the responsibility of the initiator, it can affect the building of the
crowd and the success factors subsequently can be influenced. Forming a Crowd,
which feel confident and support the project, is the most critical element in order
to be more profitable with crowdfunding than with traditional forms of financing.
Crowdfunding as a form of financing is a very extensive and complex issue, which
is accompanied by numerous peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, it has
great potential for further studies, especially because the development continues
and repeatedly creates new trends and preferences.

Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., & Goldfarb, A. (2011). The Geography of Crowd-
funding. NBER Working Paper, 16820, 1-61.
Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., & Goldfarb, A. (2013). Some Simple Economics of
Crowdfunding. NBER Working Paper, 19133, 1-46.
Agrawal, A., Catalini, C., & Goldfarb, A. (2015). Crowdfunding: Geography,
Social Networks, and the Timing of Investment Decisions. Journal of
Public Economic Theory, 24(2), 253-274.
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2010). Crowdfunding: An
Industrial Organization Perspective. Paper presented at Digital Business
Models: Understanding Strategies, Paris, France. Retrieved from
http://economix.fr/pdf/workshops/2010_dbm/Belleflamme_al.pdf
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2013). Crowdfunding:
Tapping the right crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 585-609.
Grabs, A., Bannour, K., & Vogl, E. (2014). Follow me! Erfolgreiches Social
Media Marketing mit Facebook, Twitter und Co. Bonn, Germany:
Galileo Press.
Homerocket. (n.d.). Was ist eigentlich Crowdfunding? Retrieved February 18,
2016, from https://www.homerocket.com/crowdfunding
Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2010). An Empirical Analysis of Crowd-
funding. Social Science Research Network, 1578175, 1-23.
Mollick, E. (2013). The dynamics of Crowdfunding: An exploratory study.
Journal of Business Venturing, 29, 1-16.
Amann C. 105
Pratt, J. W., & Zeckhauser, R. J. (1985). Principals and Agents: The Structure of
Business. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Schwienbacher, A., & Larralde, B. (2010). Crowdfunding of Entrepreneurial
Ventures. In D. Cumming (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Entre-
preneurial Finance (pp. 369-391). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford
University Press.
10 How Much Digitalization Can a Human Tolerate?
An Empirical Study of Causes and Effects of Technostress
Due to the Use of Smartphones
Lisa Fritz21
Abstract: This research studies the creators and outcomes of technostress due to
smartphone usage and how users cope with it. There is little research about the
negative consequences of smartphone usage, so at first, recent studies on overload
of information and communication systems will be presented and discussed. The
transactional model of stress by Lazarus serves as the theoretical basis of this
thesis to understand the origin of stress and especially of technostress. To examine
smartphone user behavior and user’s feelings regarding smartphones, eight semi-
structured interviews will be conducted. The results show that smartphones have
occupied an important place in our society and have become indispensable.
Mobile phones are constant companions and are used up to several hours a day.
Above all, this intensive use, the constant connectivity and the urge to multitask
are creating technostress. As a result of constantly checking the phone other
activities are interrupted. This leads to less concentration, productivity and overall
satisfaction. The subliminal use of the smartphone can even lead to dependency.
Furthermore, the frequent use causes interpersonal conflicts and can change one’s
social behavior. To reduce or to avoid technostress, the smartphone usage and/or
the interruptions need to be minimized.
10.1 Introduction
Digitalization has a huge impact on our lives. The rapid progress of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) is changing our way of living and
thinking. It has never been so easy to consume and share information and with
launching the smartphone, this has become independent of time and place. Almost
every question can be answered by a search engine, many needs are now covered
by apps and interpersonal interactions can be held in social networking sites. ICT
have become an important part of people’s lives and an indispensable part of
modern society. At this rapid pace of development, the question arises whether
humans can still follow this progress or if it leads to a discrepancy between
technological progress and humans’ uptake (Ogburn, 1969; Ellul, 1964). On the
21

one hand, digitalization and technological achievements are constantly creating

new ways of communication and networking. On the other hand, humans are
overwhelmed by these increasing number of contact points and possibilities
(Robinson, 2014; Rosen & Samuel, 2015; Hemp, 2009). This means, ICT can
become a burden. Users feel overloaded by the large amount of information,
communication, interruptions and system features. In this context, researchers
often use the term technostress (Salanova, Llorens, & Cifre, 2013; Ayyagari,
Grover, & Purvis, 2011; Ragu-Nathan, Tarafdar, & Ragu-Nathan, 2008; Coklar &
Sahin, 2011). Other researchers are focusing on different aspects of the
phenomenon. Karr-Wisniewski and Lu (2010) talk about information overload,
communication overload and system feature overload. Soucek and Moser (2010)
as well as Whittaker and Sidner (1997) are concentrating on e-mail overload as a
result of the e-mail flood, especially in the professional life.
So many recent researches have already investigated overload and stress due to
the use of ICT. This paper focuses on technostress due to the use of smartphones
and quests its causes and effects. So the research questions are:
- What are the causes of technostress due to smartphone use?
- What are the outcomes of technostress and how do smartphone users cope
with them?
10.2 Technostress
So there are many shapes of overload due to the use of ICT. There is information
overload, communication overload, e-mail overload, system feature overload and
social networking services overload. Information overload occurs when a person
is confronted with more information than it can process with (Karr-Wisniewski &
Lu, 2010). But ICT provide more than just information. The term information is
always in context to knowledge. So Cho, Ramgolam, Schaefer, and Sandlin (2011)
talk about communication overload. With the spread of ICT, the acceptance of
informal, not informative and non-work related conversations via messengers or
mobile devices increased. If the complexity, frequency and/or ambiguity is higher
than a person wants or can cope with, it can lead to communication overload.
Especially in work life, knowledge workers have to deal with a lot of communi-
cation, in particular with e-mails. So researches, like Kammerer, Hetzenecker,
Sprenger, and Amberg (2012) have focused on the antecedents of e-mail overload.
Another specification of communication overload is social networking services
(SNS) overload. SNS provide a platform for individuals to express themselves and
to get in touch with friend, acquaintances and a variety of other people. But
because of the growing social needs, SNS can lead to physical and mental strain
(Lee, Son, & Kim, 2016).
Fritz L. 109
Due to the fact that a smartphone combines various parts of information and
communication technologies, it seemed wrong to focus on one of these overload
phenomena. So this research focuses on technostress. Wang, Shu, and Tu (2008)
define technostress as a reflection of anxiety, tension or concern that arises when
people use ICT. It can lead to emotional and psychological repulsion which
prevents people from using this technology. Tarafdar, Tu, and Ragu-Nathan
(2010) define technostress as a stress that arises when an individual is unable to
cope with computer usage. This excessive demand is a result of constant multi-
tasking, permanent connectivity, information overload, frequent feature changes,
continuous learning, work-related uncertainty and technical problems. Tarafdar,
Tu, Ragu-Nathan, and Ragu-Nathan (2011) found five conditions, which are
creating technostress: Techno-Invasion, Techno-Overload, Techno-Uncertainty,
Techno-Insecurity and Techno-Complexity. The excessive use of ICT and techno-
stress in professional life cause stressors and lead to work-home conflicts, work
overload and role ambiguity (Ayyagari et al., 2011). Salanova et al. (2013) name
technostrain and technoaddiction as consequences of technostress.
10.3 The Transactional Model of Stress

To understand how stress arises, this research uses the transactional model of
stress by Lazarus as theoretical basis. Richard Lazarus is a well-known stress
researcher and in 1984, he and Susan Folkman were presenting a model to explain
the origin of stress. They assume that stress is not a purely biological phenomenon,
but a complex construct that is produced by a constant interaction between an
individual and his environment. The focus is on a cognitive appraisal process, in
which a person decides whether a stressor leads to stress or not and what coping
strategy is selected in a stressful situation. People evaluate situations individually.
Under the same conditions, a person can respond with anxiety or depression while
another one is considering this situation as a challenge instead of a threat (Lazarus
& Folkman, 1984).
10.4 Research Methodology

Due to the fact that technostress by smartphone use isn’t researched sufficient, a
qualitative approached was chosen. Eight semi-structured, problem-centered
interviews were conducted to find out the creators of technostress due to the use
of smartphones, what is seen as a burden and how individuals cope with them.
Diversification played a big role when selecting the interviewees to get a broad
scope of opinions. Four women and four men were chosen and they differ in their
age, their affinity for technology, their level of education and their profession. The
analysis of the interviews was conducted with the qualitative content analysis by
Mayring (2002, 2010).
10.5 Results
The results of this research and the answers to the research questions can be shown
in the following figure, which is based on the transactional model of stress by
Lazarus (Lazarus & Launier, 1981; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The abbreviations
FOMO, FOBO and Nomophobie mean fear of missing out, fear of being offline
and No-Mobile-Phone-Phobia.
$%"!
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!&!%('% &$%%"$% &" %&$%% )! &*

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Figure 15: Causes, outcomes and coping strategies of technostress due to the use of smartphones
(Own description)
Fritz L. 111
10.6 Limitations and Further Research

In terms of limitations, it has to be noted, that the sample of eight interviews is not
representative and the results can therefore not be generalized, although they gave
a good insight into the smartphone usage as well as into the creators and outcomes
of technostress. Furthermore, all of the interviewees are located in Salzburg and
are full age. As a further limitation, the self-evaluation can be mentioned.
Participants were asked how they feel during the use of a smartphone and what
they consider stressful or uncomfortable. But a self-evaluation in this area is very
difficult, because the respondents have no comparative value.
In terms of future studies, a larger research should be examining the causes and
effects of technostress due to the use of smartphones to cover all parts of Austria
or other countries and all ages. Since the self-evaluation is insufficient, an
additional evaluation of usage data could be informative.
The results of this study can be seen as a framework for further research. The
author identified creators and outcomes of technostress caused by smartphones.
Now it is time to examine the different areas of the negative effects in greater
detail.
10.7 Conclusion
The study examined the causes and effects of technostress due to the use of
smartphones and the usage behavior. It appeared, that smartphones have a very
high status in modern society and have become indispensable. The mobile devices
are almost taken everywhere and used up to several hours daily. This intensive
use, the constant urge to multitask and the permanent interruptions have become
a big burden to users. Users can develop fears, real interactions are less and people
retreat into a world of illusions. The intensive use and the interruptions lead to a
reduction in productivity and also in satisfaction. It seems, that users are constantly
checking the screen.
Technostress can be called a dark side of smartphone use. This study represents
an attempt to understand the creators and outcomes of technostress and how
intensive the use of smartphones has become. It is believed, that the results of this
research can be used as a basis for further research in this area and as a thought-
provoking impulse for smartphone users and companies, using smartphones as a
working device.

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Antecedents and Implications. MIS Quarterly, 35(4), 832-858.
Cho, J., Ramgolam, D. I., Schaefer, K. M., & Sandlin, A. N. (2011). The Rate and
Delay in Overload: An Investigation of Communication Overload and
Channel Synchronicity on Identification and Job Satisfaction. Journal of
Applied Communication Research, 39(1), 38-54.
Coklar, A. N., & Sahin, Y. L. (2011). Technostress levels of social network users
based on ICTs in Turkey. European Journal of Social Sciences, 23(2),
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87(9), 82-89.
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suchungen, Maßnahmen (pp. 213-259). Berlin, Germany: Huber.
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sequences of technostress for end users in organizations: Conceptual
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Salanova, M., Llorens, S., & Cifre, E. (2013). The dark side of technologies:
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Soucek, R., & Moser, K. (2010). Coping with information overload in email
communication: Evaluation of a training intervention. Computers in
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Tarafdar, M., Tu, Q., & Ragu-Nathan, T. S. (2010). Impact of Technostress on
End-User Satisfaction and Performance. Journal of Management
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Tarafdar, M., Tu, Q., Ragu-Nathan, T. S., & Ragu-Nathan, B. S. (2011). Crossing
to the dark side. Communications of the ACM, 54(9), 113-120.
Wang, K., Shu, Q., & Tu, Q. (2008). Technostress under different organizational
environments: An empirical investigation. Computers in Human
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11 Customer Reviews: The Importance of Personal
Factors That Influence the Consumer Reaction
Within Webshops
Michaela Gahbauer22
11.1 The Importance of Product Reviews

On the one hand the rapid spread of the internet makes it possible for consumers
to compare offers on the market (Park & Lee, 2009; Henning-Thurau & Walsh,
2003), on the other they can express their experience and opinions in the form of
electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and interact with each other (King, Racherla,
& Bush, 2014). The generic term eWOM includes different types and technologies
such as blogs, tweets, forum, chats etc. (Cheung, Luo, Sia, & Chen, 2009; Dhar &
Chang, 2009; Kozinets, De Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010). However, the
following paper concentrates on product reviews, which are the commonly used
type of word-of-mouth (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009; Duan, Gu, &
Whinston, 2008) beside customer ratings.
Various studies (Park & Kim, 2008; Schlosser, 2011; Sen & Lerman, 2007) have
confirmed that consumers rely on product reviews. These are, in addition to
advices from family members and department stores employees, the most
commonly used source of information before making a purchasing decision
(Fretwell, Stine, Sethi, & Noronha, 2013). According to a study from kjero.com
and the Freie Universität Berlin 95.4 % of the users of this Kjero platform have
already used online reviews as a source of information (Gottschalk & Mafael,
2014). According to this survey, 23.5 % of customers constantly considers reviews
before making a purchase and 19.5 % think that their purchase was influenced by
these reviews. Therefore, product reviews are becoming increasingly important
for practice and for science.
The strong scientific research interest can be explained by eWOM’s influence on
sales figures (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Duan et al., 2008) as well as the
consumer behavior (Chen, Wang, & Xie, 2011; Hennig-Thurau & Walsh, 2004;
Jalilvand & Samiei, 2012; Jiménez & Mendoza, 2013; Wang, 2011).
The different research results may on the one hand be traced back to the frequently
discussed valence in the literature, which stands for positive, negative or reviews
that contain positive as well as negative aspects (Lee & Youn, 2009; Park & Lee,
22

116 Customer Reviews: The Importance of Personal Factors …
2009). Based on these above-described research deficits and the associated

research recommendation – to examine the persuasiveness of product reviews that
contain both sides of arguments (Li & Zhan, 2011) as well as to examine the utility
of positive and negative product reviews (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010), – this paper
examines which valence appears the most credible, most convincing and most
useful from the consumer point of view. To test this research projects, the
following research question was formulated:
Which valence of product reviews has the greatest impact on the perception
regarding credibility, usefulness and persuasiveness?
On the other hand, different research findings from the literature exist due to
individual factors. For example, studies have examined how expertise and
involvement moderates the purchase intention (Doh & Hwang, 2009; Park & Kim,
2008; Cheung et al., 2009). Since research is still at the beginning concerning this
aspect, many researchers ask for examining how individual differences influence
the reaction of consumers (Zhang, Craciun, & Shin, 2010; Chakravarty, Liu, &
Mazumdar, 2010). This paper contributes exactly at this point because it involves
personal variables in the study, as has been suggested by Floh, Koller, and Zauner
(2013). This approach is theoretically founded upon the psychological choice
model of Hansen (1976) and other scientific theories. In this paper the expertise
of the reader, the involvement and attitude towards a brand were classified as
individual factors and their moderating influence will be tested in the empirical
part.
Considering the increasing importance of eWOM for consumers as well as for
businesses, it is interesting to investigate the functioning of eWOM using
individual factors and to explore the reasons why some reviews have more
influence than others. For this research project another research question was
formulated:
How do individual factors (expertise, involvement and attitude toward the brand)
affect the relationship between the perception of the product reviews and purchase
intent in webshops?
For companies that rely on eWOM by selling online products, it is particularly
important to understand the impact of reviews on consumer choice (Zhu & Zhang,
2010; Kim, Mattila, & Baloglu, 2011). It is especially important to recognize how
individual factors affect the perception of product reviews and the possible
purchase intention. Therefore, the findings in this paper should help companies,
who use product reviews as marketing measures, to implement their eWOM
strategy.
Gahbauer M. 117
To answer the two research questions, a quantitative method in form of a question-

naire design is used to show causalities for both research questions.
11.2 Empirical Analysis

The core objective of this master thesis is to confirm the effect of moderators on
the relationship between the perception of product reviews and purchase intent.
For this research, a research model was developed based on the study by Xu, Chen,
and Santhanam (2015). As the following Figure 16 shows, the original model of
these three authors was extended by three factors (expertise, involvement and
attitude toward the brand). Consequently, this research model consists of the three
independent variables credibility, usefulness and persuasiveness and the depen-
dent variable purchase intent.
Influence of factors
• expertise
• involvement
• attitude toward brands
Perception of product
reviews
• credibility purchase intent
• usefulness
• persuasiveness
Figure 16: Research model

(Own representation)
The assumed relationships are verified by using SPSS 23.0 and PROCESS 2.15.
The questionnaire used was based on valid scales. In the literature, reviews of
hotels, movies and books are most commonly used for study purposes (Floh et al.,
2013). These product categories are extended in the present paper. Therefore,
extended in
electronic the present
products, paper. Therefore,
especially iPhoneselectronic products,
are selected especially
because iPhones
of one are selected
reason:
electronic products are often purchased online and customers rely on the rely on
because of one reason. Electronic products are often purchased online and customers
experience of other consumers, because electronic devices usually are very
the experience of other consumers because electronic devices usually are very complicated.
complicated (Park, Lee, & Han, 2007).
(Park, Lee, & Han, 2007).
In order to determine a relationship between the perception of product reviews and
purchase intent, it must be examined first of all which product reviews are
In order to determine a relationship between the perception of product reviews and purchase
perceived credible, useful or convincing in terms of valence. For this purpose, a
intent, was
pretest it must be examined
carried first
out with 84ofvolunteers
all which product reviews are of
the construction perceived
which credible,
is shownuseful or
below.
convincing in terms of valence. For this purpose, a pretest was carried out with 84 volunteers
For the construction
whose pretest the author of below.
is showed this paper created nine product reviews by herself
which differ in their valence as Table 10 shows. In general, the product reviews
were
For created following
the pretest theofrecommendations
the author of Mackiewicz
this paper created nine and by
product reviews Yeats (2014).
herself which differ in
their valence as Table 1 shows. In general, the product reviews were created by
Table 10: Construction of the Pretest
recommendations of Mackiewicz and Yeats (2014).
(Own description)
Investigation concerning valence Product type

credibility positive arguments iPhone 6S
negative arguments
two sided arguments
usefulness positive arguments iPhone 5S
negative arguments
two sided arguments
persuasiveness positive arguments iPhone 6
negative arguments
two sided arguments
Table
The results of this pretest show 1: construction
that reviews whichof include
the pretest
positive and negative
aspects are perceived as credible, useful and persuasive. Therefore, these product
(own representation)
reviews are also used for the main study.
The
Theonline
resultsquestionnaire
of this pretest was
showcreated with which
that reviews the tool “SoSci
include Survey”
positive and sentaspects
and negative to are
students from FH Kufstein and University of Innsbruck. The survey period was
perceived as credible, useful and persuasive. Therefore, these product reviews are also used
from 22.3.2016 to 10.04.2016. At the end of the survey period 236 completed
for the main study.
questionnaires were gained, but 18 of those could not be of further consideration
The online questionnaire was created with the tool “SoSci Survey” and sent to students from
FH Kufstein and university of Innsbruck. The survey period was from 22.3.2016 to
Gahbauer M. 119
because the subjects had already participated in the pre-test and would influence
the research. Consequently, the data of 218 students could be analyzed.
11.3 Results and Discussion

The results of this research show that nearly 60 % of participants consider product
reviews, for example on Amazon, as a source of information. After recommend-
dation from friends (80 %) product reviews are the second most used information
source, which emphasizes the importance of research interest concerning product
reviews (Willemsen, Neijens, Bronner, & De Ridder, 2011; Cheung et al., 2009).
Furthermore, as already mentioned, the first research question can be answered by
the finding, that product reviews containing two-sided arguments are perceived as
the most credible, most useful and most persuasive ones. Regarding the
moderating influence, the paper shows very interesting results. Many studies show
a negative relationship between expertise and perception of product reviews
(Cheung, Xiao, & Liu, 2012). In this study this negative effect could not be
confirmed. On the contrary, it was found that the expertise has a positive influence
on the usefulness and persuasiveness of product reviews.
Derived from the Theory of Reasoned Action, it was assumed that positive
attitudes toward a brand have an impact on the persuasiveness of the product
review. The author of this paper could confirm a significant moderating effect.
This suggests that people who love, for example, the brand Apple perceive reviews
that contain positive arguments as more convincing. Moreover, it was empirically
confirmed that the link between credibility and purchase intent will be moderated
by the attitude toward a brand. The assumption that involvement has a significant
effect on the perception of product reviews could not be confirmed in this paper.
This finding agrees with the results of Fan, Miao, Fang, and Lin (2013).
The second research question can be answered by the fact, that the interaction
between the perception of product reviews and the purchase intent will be
moderated by the expertise of the recipient and the attitude toward a brand. In
detail, it was found that the relationship between the credibility and purchase
intent will be moderated by the attitude towards a brand. In addition, the results
showed that the interaction between persuasiveness and purchase intent is
moderated by the expertise as well as the attitude toward a brand. Finally, it could
be empirically confirmed that the relationship between usefulness and purchase
intent is moderated by the expertise of the reader. Thus, the psychological choice
model of Hansen (1976) can be transferred to eWOM because environmental
factors can be equated with personal factors.
11.4 Implications for Management

The results of this empirically realized study showed that individual characteristics
play an important role in the perception of product reviews and thus have a special
importance for management. The results can be seen as to which personal factors
need to be considered in terms of an eWOM strategy.
For example, product reviews could be assigned to the categories of experts and
ordinary people. On the one hand experts and ordinary people catch sight only of
those product reviews which are of particular importance for their purchase
decision. On the other hand, this could counteract the information overload.
The finding that the attitude toward a brand has an influence on the perception of
product reviews is also very important for management. For example, people with
a positive attitude toward a brand may be asked to offer a solution for those
reviews where a problem is described. Thereby the credibility as well as the
persuasiveness of product reviews would increase.
11.5 Limitations
As already mentioned, this paper could not find a significant relationship between
involvement and the perception of product reviews. Probably this is due to the
product category. Consequently, it is recommended to test the influence of
involvement based on experience goods and not on search goods. Although some
studies like Lee, Rodgers, and Kim (2009) have used a student sample, these
results can not be transferred without further notice to the public. In the present
paper the author only used purchase intent and consequently no actual purchases
which would probably have led to different results as postulated by Schindler and
Bickart (2012).
According to the relevance of user-generated content as well as the ever-
increasing importance of eWOM, it is expected that product reviews will remain
a fascinating subject in the future. Despite the fact that involvement did not have
a moderating influence and the relationship between expertise and persuasiveness
was only marginally present, the paper shows some very interesting results
regarding consumer individuality and their perception of product reviews. The
new findings presented in this paper and the outstanding issues should encourage
researchers to investigate consumer characteristics further in order to present the
consumers with the most important product reviews for them.
Gahbauer M. 121

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12 The Impact of Web Design on Brand Perception
An Example: The Multi-Utility Brand IKB
Barbara Griessner23
Abstract: Local utility-providers such as the public utility company ‘Innsbrucker

Kommunalbetriebe’ (IKB) are in greater competition since the energy market has
been liberalized in Austria in 2001. Those companies focus since then on
strengthening customer loyalty and increasing customer satisfaction in order to
reduce the willingness of customers to change their energy provider. The
constitution and communication of a strong corporate brand is one of the strategies
to raise customer loyalty. The company's website is an increasingly important
channel, which influences the communication and perception of the brand by its
stakeholders. The thesis aims at exploring how website design affects brand
perception of this type of business and how it effects trust and customer
satisfaction. At the same time, it investigates if the impact of website design on
trust and satisfaction is moderated by the type of customer that interacts with the
website. To answer the research questions, qualitative interviews (semi-structured
interviews) were conducted. The results of the investigation lead to a number of
hypotheses that should be explored as part of future studies.
12.1 Introduction
The Internet is continuously growing and also a primary source of information for
consumers. It allows consumers to interact and gain information about brands and
to compare offers and to get an idea about the identity and values of an
organization. The corporate website is an increasingly important communication
channel and contact point for target groups of a company and has the potential to
provide the identity of the corporate brand and influence its image (Schenkmann
& Jönsson, 2000).
Companies increasingly recognize the importance of a responsive, customer-
oriented web presence and invest in new online technologies in order to get the
attention of their target groups to gain competitiveness (Al-Qeisi, Dennis,
Alamanos, & Jayawardhena, 2014). Local power companies such as the
‘Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe AG’ (IKB) have to deal with stronger compe-
tition since the energy market has been liberalized in 2001 in Austria (Mader,
23
Kufstein University of Applied Sciences Austria

2002). This requires new profiling and differentiation strategies. Utility companies
such as the mentioned provider also try to strengthen customer loyalty and to
increase customer satisfaction in order to reduce the willingness of customers to
change provider (Hartmann & Ibáñez, 2007). The formation of strong brands is
receiving an increased attention by these companies as a strong brand can help to
gain and maintain loyalty (Kapferer, 2013). This is shown by current rebranding
efforts of companies such as the IKB and similar companies (Salzburg AG). Those
companies recognized that as part of the rebranding process, all communication
channels have to be considered within the process and put a special effort on the
relaunch of their corporate websites.
12.2 Research Question and Methodology

The aim of the thesis is to gain insights about the impact of aesthetic web design
on the perception of corporate brands and to answer the following research
questions:
- How does web design influence brand perception of website users?
- How does web design influence brand trust and satisfaction?
- Are personal traits such as the belonging to a certain target group (business or
private customer) moderating the impact of web design on brand perception,
trust and satisfaction?
To answer the research questions, the current state of research on the topics above
mentioned was collected. The results of the literature review showed that already
lot of researchers explored the influence of web design on consumer reactions,
particularly in the context of online shops. However, there are few insights on how
aesthetic web design influences the perception of the corporate brand. At the same
time literature shows that there are little scientific articles about branding of multi-
utility companies. For this reason, the implementation of an empirical study to
answer the research question was essential.
For this reason, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Six clients of the IKB
(three private and three business customers) were interviewed. The interviews
were conducted in two stages. At the beginning demographic information and the
customers’ perception of the corporate brand IKB was surveyed. Subsequently the
customers attended a user experience test which was carried out as part of the
website relaunch of the corporate website. The customers were able to test
different use cases on the still unpublished IKB website. After the testing phase
the main part of the interview was conducted. The data was analysed by applying
a qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2008). Furthermore, secondary data in the
form of the results of a quantitative customer survey was consulted in order to
draw further conclusions (IKB, 2015).
Griessner B. 127
12.3 Theoretical Background

Kaplan and Kaplans Landscape Preference Framework (1989) provides a
theoretical basis for this research.
Kaplan and Kaplans (1989) research examined physical systems (landscapes) in
order to discover patterns that allow users/observers to more identify and process
information more efficiently and effectively. The results of the authors studies
showed that people perceive environments holistically, and accordingly, do not
respond to single stimuli, but on the sum of those environmental stimuli. Based on
Kaplan and Kaplans (1989) model physical environments were analyzed with the
aim of collecting design factors that make it easier to process information at that
are at the same time appealing and leading to positive reactions (Lee & Kozar,
2009). The model has already been applied to online environments (Rosen &
Purinton, 2004; Yeh & Li, 2014; Brunner-Sperdin, Scholl-Grissemann, &
Stokburger-Sauer, 2014).
12.4 Literature Review

Marketing research has recognized the importance of the online channel and
delivered already findings about the influence of certain characteristics of a site
present on the reactions of users. The influence of web design on consumer
behavior has gained much attention in recent academic research. Some studies
found out that aesthetic design has an impact on the success of e-commerce sites
(Porat & Tractinsky, 2012). Numerous empirical studies already identified the
influence of web design on the success and quality of a website, its impact on
product perception and buying behavior in online shops (Eroglu, Machleit, &
Davis, 2003; Ha & Lennon, 2010; Wells, Valacich, & Hess, 2011; Wang, Minor,
& Wei, 2011; Chen, Lin, & Chen, 2012) and the general preference for aesthetic
sites compared to less aesthetic websites (Schenkmann & Jönsson, 2000;
Lindegaard, Fernandes, Dudek, & Brown, 2006). Only a few studies address the
impact of a site-visit to the perception of a corporate brand (Müller & Chandon,
2004).
Academic studies have been focused in the exploration of aesthetic design to
single cues. Example of such cues are the content and the structure of a website
(Richard, 2005; Harris & Goode, 2010; Richard, Chebat, Yang, & Putrevu, 2010),
the user-friendliness (Porat & Tractinsky, 2012), the aesthetic form and
attractiveness (Wang, Hernandez, & Minor, 2010; Porat & Tractinsky, 2012) as
well as the entertainment value (Richard et al. 2010; Mazaheri, Richard, &
Laroche, 2011). Rosen and Purinton (2004), Singh, Dalal, and Spears (2005), Lee
and Kozar (2009), Demangeot and Broderick (2010) as well as Brunner-Sperdin
et al. (2014) investigated the performance of a website as a unit based on two cues,
comprehensibility (sense-making) and the degree of involvement (involvement)
of the user of the website. This master thesis is based on this approach and follows
a holistic and creative theoretical approach based on the Landscape Preference
Framework (LPF) of Kaplan and Kaplan (1989), in order to investigate the
association of web design and the perceived brand image.
As mentioned several authors already studied the influence of aesthetic web
design on the success of a website. By now the correlations between aesthetic
webdesign and its influence on brand perception have not received much attention
by academic research. Bolchini, Garzotto, and Sorce (2009) already showed that
an investigation of this relationship should be added to the current academic
discussions.
Brunner-Sperdin et al. (2014) examined the influence of aesthetic web design on
customer satisfaction and loyalty, and stress that trust in companies could be
another dependent variable and should be studied within further investigations.
They also highlight that personal traits of the consumers could be moderating the
impact of aesthetic webdesign on consumers’ reactions. Singh et al. (2005), and
Lin and Lee (2012) also suggested before that different user and customer groups
perceive websites in a different was.
The current research complements existing literature with an analysis of the
influence of web design on brand perception, trust and customer satisfaction.
Furthermore, it is examined if the belonging to a certain target group (private and
business customers) is moderating the perception.
12.5 Results and Hypotheses

As this paper represents only an extract of the master thesis, only the results
concerning the impact of web design on brand perception will be presented.
The study showed, that modern, clear, structured and pictured design can lead to
positive reactions of the customers and can have an impact on the customers’
perception of a brand. The modern design of the new IKB-Website changed the
brand associations of the customers. While the company was perceived relatively
sober and governmental before interacting with the website, after having seen and
navigated on the website those associations were not mentioned any more by the
interview. Furthermore, the results showed, that the utility-brand was perceived as
more “in a process of modernization” before participants visited the website. After
the website-interaction the brand was perceived as modern and “on the pulse of
the time”. This leads to the following hypotheses:
Griessner B. 129
- H1: If the design of the corporate website is liked, the corporate brand is
perceived in a more positive way.
- H2: Modern web design leads to more timely and modern perception of the
corporate brand.
Furthermore, the results of the interviews showed that the structural setup of the
website influences the perception of the scope of the services. A complete and
overseeable navigation facilitates the communication of a broad range of services
and makes the corporate brand seem more transparent to its customers:
- H3: The clearer the structure of a website, the more transparent the corporate
brand seems to be to its customers.
- H4: The clearer the structure of a website, the more reliable the corporate brand
seems to be to its customers.
Visual brand identity is reflected in the design of corporate websites as the
corporate design guidelines have to be considered. Colors have a strong impact on
how website design on the perception of the website (Hijikala, Minami, &
Nishida, 2002). The visual identity of the brand IKB was judged in a very positive
way by the interviewees. As a result, the website design and the elements of the
visual identity that were reflected on the relaunched website leaded to pleasure.
The results leaded to the following hypothesis:
- H5: The more positive the reaction to the visual identity of the brand, the more
positive the perception of the website design and brand.
12.6 Limitations and Implications

The qualitative research has been conducted by studying the perception of web
design and brand image and identity on one specific example. This could be a
possible limitation of the study. Further research should apply the research to a
broader range of utility-providers. Furthermore, the interviews have been
conducted with existing customers of the company of investigation. As they could
already be influenced by previous experiences with the company further research
should consider to inquire people which do not have any relationship with the
object of research.
12.7 Conclusion
This study aims in studying the impact of aesthetic web design on brand
perception of local multi-utility-providers such as the IKB. The majority of current
and past research of aesthetic web design is limited to the examination of online
shops or the influence of aesthetic design on the preference of the website or the
buying behavior. Academic studies are mainly focused on the research of

individual cues such as content and structure, user-friendliness, aesthetic and
appeal, entertainment value etc. This study focuses in the investigation of the
holistic effect of web design and its impact on the perception of a brand based on
the gestalt theoretical approach of Kaplan and Kaplan (1989). This approach can
be derived that websites represent environments that one hand transmits
information (‘make sense '), on the other hand involve the observer (‘promote
exploration’). Accordingly, these two determinants of aesthetic web design are
focused in the investigation. The study is based on qualitative data which is gained
by conducting structured interviews. The results show that the brand perception is
influenced by visual appearance (corporate design). The brand strategy should
therefore include a suitable concept as far as the visual identity on different
communication channels is concerned. Furthermore, the study shows that the
redesign or introduction of a communication channel may have an impact on the
image and perception of the customers.

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13 Fascination Neon Signs
Digital Experience Worlds in Public Space
Christina Haslwanter24
Abstract: Fascinating brands are very successful, achieve high customer loyalty
and are especially recession-resistant (Stüwe, 2003). Neon signs are the
appropriate means to emphasize brands. In this master thesis the phenomenon of
fascination will be regarded analytically. At the beginning of the 20th century the
audience was enthused again and again by technical achievements. The digital
media of the 21st century enables new ways of interaction and networking. In this
fusion of the public space with the virtual room new potentials occur for
companies to get the attention of the audience. This tension results in following
research question:
How can companies use illuminated advertising and digital displays in
combination with digital marketing to fascinate the audience?
To answer this question psychological determinants will be considered with
literature and scientific studies. Moreover, the topic light splits up in a prism of
the elements colour, attractiveness, attention, emotion and aesthetics. How these
individual factors are linked together and finally cause fascination will be under
examination. After a semiotic consideration of the term fascination different views
and theories will be used to show how the fascination can be used in marketing.
The research perspective of Schmid (2007), the „economy of fascination” is used
to regard the topic from a semiotic and action-theoretical perspective. Through the
changed role of the audience in interactive and participative systems new
opportunities arise, to evoke fascination. Different programs like interactive,
reactive and autoactive systems will be considered to show how the fascination
shifted in the last decades to virtual experience worlds in public space.
13.1 State of Research

The current state of research shows that there are existing studies to the visual
design of illuminated advertising and studies that touch the interaction field media
art in public space. Other publications work on the issue with communication
theories. But there is a lack in considering the topic from the phenomenon of
24

fascination, especially under considering the topic from the research perspective
of Schmid (2007) the „economy of fascination”.
13.2 Method
The topic and the research question will be processed with the hermeneutic
method. In this proceeding the question will be discussed with existing theories,
reinterpreted and illustrated with practical examples. The topic fascination neon
signs will be regarded analytically to give companies an idea how they can use
light and digital media in public space in combination with digital marketing to
fascinate the audience.
13.3 Summary and Main Findings from Literature

To consider the topic from the three perspectives media (light and digital media),
structures in public space and the audience the research question splits up in three
sub questions that summarize the main findings from literature and bias the
discussion and allegations of different authors from the theoretical part.
Subquestion 1: Which characteristics of light and digital media are fascinating?

In search of the origin of fascination primarily visual elements are considered that
catch the attention of the audience. The high radiance of light (Wurm, 2009) or
the increased attractiveness through contrast effects (Greule, Felsch, & Lemke,
2009) for example are design elements that draw all the attention of the audience.
Colors, luminosity or lighting effects bring rhythm and moments of tension into
the city and finally build the cityscape (Waldenfels, 2004). According to surveys
illuminated advertising brings significant character to large cities and a fascinating
identity (Wurm, 2009). This visual identity consists of marks (Waldenfels, 2004)
that are used as classification systems (Kronhagel, 2010). In contrast open systems
like moving and interactive images can bring elements of surprise that capture the
gaze (Kronhagel, 2010). Further analysis shows that visual elements that draw the
attention are the fundamental requirement to cause fascination (Waldenfels,
2004). According to Stüwe (2003), the vibrant and enchanting phenomenon of
fascination is an individual world of emotions. For this reason, the consideration
must go beyond visual aspects. At the first moment of perception of these visual
elements and messages instincts, efforts, preferences and interests of the observer
decide if and how to engage with the media or the brand (Waldenfels, 2004).
Individual needs like control, sense or emotional experiences can motivate to
activate the audience. If a consumer can reach an operational objective in a way
of satisfying the needs he or she will get in touch with media in public space (Frey,
Haslwanter C. 135
2012). An aesthetic experience is the visualization of needs (Schweppenhäuser,

2007). Illuminated advertising has an advertorial purpose to catch the attention of
the audience. According to Schweppenhäuser (2007), the criticism of the aesthetic
of advertising is that it wants to manipulate and seduce to consumption. Therefore,
it uses features and structures that make the advertising noticeable or appreciable.
The aesthetics of light refers on its own shape. Light emphasizes emotions,
positive or negative (Jing Xu & Labroo, 2014). With light the consumer connects
pleasant and warming effects and ambience (Hasse, as cited in Wurm, 2009). The
fascination as a moment of tension between the aesthetic experience and reflection
of the observer is also called an aesthetic emotion (Kasten, 2010). The step-by-
step analysis shows that the phenomenon of fascination cannot be reduced to any
characteristics of light or digital media. It is always in context with the relation of
a person and its environment that Lazarus describes as person-environment-
relationship where emotions are generated (Lazarus, as cited in Schützwohl,
2009). An aesthetic experience is always connected with an ecological and social
context that Markovic (2012) describes as subject-object-relation.
Subquestion 2: Which structures can be used in the city as interface between the
media and the audience?
The structures as interface function have a special importance in this master thesis
because according to Kronhagel (2010) there is a critique of the digital media in
public space that they detach from used physical relations of concrete places to
catch the attention. Humans can develop and unfold themselves only in reliable
structured spaces. The discourse of the “economy of fascination” in this thesis
shows that digital marketing is a possibility for brands to connect with digital
media in public space. In this context Bürkner (1999) talks about a re-anchoring
process in times where a flood of information causes a complex world. The
audience activities interaction and participation belong to decisive characteristics
of digital media. Technical interfaces in the public space can connect the active
audience with the virtual space. By including the audience companies can achieve
an increased perception so that customers can identify with the brand and the
message (Daab, 2006). According to Thrift (2004), in this adventure area city the
accumulation of urban infrastructures can be defined as objects-in-relation.
Together with the media content and the characteristics of mediation of digital
displays they are the intermediary between the real and the virtual space (Calvillo,
2012). In these media structures the attention is medially bound or captivated. The
aim is to find new expressions within these structures (Kronhagel, 2010) to enable
an aesthetic way of interaction between human and machines to cause fascination.
The evocation of fascination with interactive media as interface is a duality of
structures that are organized recursively (Miebach, 2014). On one side the actor
determines the interaction with the digital media and influences the aesthetic
experience. On the other side the programmed interface has a control function that
enables or restricts the aesthetic interaction. Within this process as action model it
decides in which way the audience is included and how the advertising comes into
effect. According to Porombka (2001), the term interaction between human and
machines is dissolved out of the action theoretical concept because there is a
difference between machine function and human action. How the consumer can
be led through the virtual room in public space will be further more discussed in
the thesis.
Subquestion 3: How can fascination be generated with interactive, digital media

and which opportunities evolve for digital marketing through the new active role
of the audience?
Interactive and participatory systems built new structures in public space. Digital
intermediaries, as the practical examples show, become prosthetic devices that
expand the functions of the body of the actors (Giannetti, 2004). The human
modifies the content through his action and also the characteristics of the
advertising message on a digital display (Kronhagel, 2010). This can be very
fascinating. For example, when the display has an oversize dimension in public
space. The actor can modify the course of the activity through deliberate decisions.
The perceived freedom over the sequence of the events is not a figure of the natural
living environment. A programme determines the possibilities of sequences
(Giannetti, 2004). This virtual control can be an instrument of power to evoke the
fascination. This consideration is a contradiction to the “economy of fascination”
that mentions the powerlessness of the fascinated observer (Schmid, 2007). The
dependent relationship of the consumer to stagings in public space that Schmid
(2007) describes in his research perspective can be broken through an interactive
process. The machine provides structural components or resources that enable or
restrict the action of the actor. The advertising message of the company shifts into
the background. The interactive game and the experience of the actor become
more important. The advertising contains valuations and connotations that go
beyond the original meaning of the product or the company. Therefore, an
aesthetic experience is possible (Schmid, 2007). It is a seduction through symbols
and signs that can be used as attention-getting strategy. According to Franck
(1998), the attention for a brand becomes the most important value and asset. In
this hybrid campaigns connect the virtual with the public space and so the contents
can be requested location-independent over a website or an App and are not fixed
with the first perception of a digital display in the city.
Haslwanter C. 137
13.4 Results
The main results of this thesis focus on the research question:
How can companies use illuminated advertising and digital displays in
combination with digital marketing to fascinate the audience?
The evocation of the phenomenon of fascination appears more obvious at first
glance by conventional neon signs than with digital displays. The impression
arises from the trivial of the light, the colors and the messages. In digital marketing
the operating modes are not as obvious, the view goes through the media
(Waldenfels, 2004). In terms of a fascinating aesthetic the observer will be
transported by an interactive, digital display in a virtual experience world without
understanding the function of the technology (Giannetti, 2004). The practical
examples, which are not portrayed in this paper in detail, but in the full master
thesis show that the new fascination that companies can create with digital media
is not the guarantee of an aesthetic experience. It is the idea of what is possible
together with the community. The result of this thesis is that it is not the individual
that is fascinating but the rhythm of the society that can be expressed in numerous
stagings in public space. According to Struppek (2012) individualization and
location-independence destroy the old rhythm of the city and their social systems.
The internet as a system basing on openness that enables cooperative exchange
replaces the public space. This master thesis formulates a possible redefinition of
the phenomenon of fascination in public space. The new collective rhythm of the
internet that is composed out of individual actions and different needs of the user
can be transferred with light and digital media in the public space and become
visible.

Bürkner, H. J. (1999). [Review of the book Sozialgeographie alltäglicher
Regionalisierungen: Globalisierung, Region und Regionalisierung, by
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Calvillo, N. (2012). Media structures, prototypes and collective prostheses. Digital
facades as public infrastructure. In S. Pop, G. Tscherteu, U. Stadler, &
M. Struppek (Eds.), Urban Media Cultures (pp. 320-324). Stuttgart,
Germany: Avedition.
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reception. In C. Gansel (Ed.), Telling stories: Literature and evolution
(pp. 172-194). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
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science, media and art system. Vienna, Austria: Springer.
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reaction. In TU Illmenau (Ed.), Lux Junior conference transcript 2009
(pp 1-10). Illmenau, Germany: Technological University of Ilmenau.
Jing Xu, A., & Labroo, A. (2014). Incandescent affect: Turning on the hot
emotional system with bright light. Journal of Consumer Psychology,
24(2), 207-216.
Kasten, I. (2010). Powerful feelings. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
Kronhagel, C. (Ed.). (2010). Mediatecture. The design of medial extended rooms.
Vienna, Austria: Springer.
Markovic, S. (2012). Components of aesthetic experience: Aesthetic fascination,
aesthetic appraisal and aesthetic emotion. Iperception, 3(1), 1-17.
Miebach, B. (2014). Sociological action theory (4th ed.). Wiesbaden, Germany:
Springer VS.
Porombka, S. (2001). Hypertext. To the criticism of the digital myth. Munich,
Germany: Wilhelm Fink.
Schmid, H. (2007). Economy of fascination: Strategies of attention and
entrepreneurial urban policy. In C. Berndt, & R. Pütz (Eds.), Cultural
geographies (pp. 289-316). Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.
Schweppenhäuser, G. (2007). Aesthetic: Philosophic basics and key terms.
Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Campus.
Schützwohl, A. (2009). The cognitive emotion theory of Richard S. Retrieved
January 19, 2016, from http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/psychologie/ae/AE
02/LEHRE/Lazarus.pdf
Struppek, M. (2012). Urban Screens. The urban interaction potential of public full-
video surfaces. In S. Pop, G. Tscherteu, U. Stalder, & M. Struppek (Eds.),
Urban Media Cultures (pp. 282-286). Stuttgart, Germany: Avedition.
Stüwe, B. (2003). Fascination. Marketing in the roller-coaster of emotions.
Wiesbaden, Germany: Gabler.
Thrift, N. (2004). Remembering the technological unconscious by foregrounding
knowledges of position. Environment and Planning D: Society and
Space, 22, 175-190.
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Germany: Suhrkamp.
Haslwanter C. 139
Wurm, F., & Professional association of signage FVL. (Eds.). (2009). Signatures
of the night. The world of illuminated advertising. Stuttgart, Germany:
Avedition.
14 Intercultural Online Communication of
International Companies in High-Context
and Low-Context Cultures
Christina Kniewasser25
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether cultures are expressed
through websites of international companies, and how online communications
through websites have developed in recent years. Starting with a literature review,
three research questions are formulated. By use of qualitative content analysis,
based on the company McDonald’s, the research questions can be answered. The
findings confirm that international companies do communicate differently in
various cultures.
14.1 Introduction
Methods of communication vary from culture to culture. The topic of intercultural
communication plays a major role in business and with the increasing importance
of the internet, the importance of culture specific communication in webdesign
grows too.
The topic of this paper is how online communication - particularly visual - varies
in different cultures, how it has developed in recent years, and how cultural
awareness is expressed through web design. This will be demonstrated through an
analysis of the communication of McDonald’s.
There has been no prior examination of the communication of the same company
and website at different timeframes. The analysis examines the same company
more than 10 years after the previous study was undertaken. This fact can be seen
as a research gap.
14.2 Theory
As a basis of the empirical part certain theoretical aspects must be understood.
25

142 Intercultural Online Communication of International Companies …
14.2.1 Culture
Culture is a complex construct, with varying definitions and including different
aspects. As Hall (1959, p.43) said: “Culture is a word that has so many meaning
already that one more can do it no harm.”
In summary, culture is a shared, learnt and symbolic system of values, views, and
attitudes, which influences the perception and the mind of a person (Collazos &
Gil, 2011). Culture is the reason for the moral concept, the norms, the identity, the
beliefs, the worldview, and the language of an individual. Culture influences the
social environment, the relationship to other people, and shows people what is
good and what is bad (Yousefi, 2014).
Gudykunst and Kim (2003) say that communication is communication. No matter
whether it is between strangers or friends, the transmitting and interpretation of
intercultural communication is influenced by certain factors: cultural, socio
cultural, psycho-cultural and situational. The success of intercultural communi-
cation depends on the familiarity of the conversational partners with each other:
communication is more successful when both parties understand how the other
interprets and assimilates information.
The theories for the following qualitative content analysis are based on both
Edward T. Hall’s and Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Hall is the progenitor
of the term intercultural communication, and sees culture as communication and
communication as culture. He thinks culture is a form of communication, because
culture connects people (Hall, 1959). He classifies cultures as either high-context
or low-context, depending on several different factors (Müller & Gelbrich, 2014).
Hofstede defined several cultural dimensions based on a study undertaken within
the IBM company. He identified systematic differences in national cultures based
on five dimensions: Power Distance, Individualism / Collectivism, Masculinity /
Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Longterm Orientation / Shortterm
Orientation (Bolten, 2007).
14.2.2 Cultural Awareness in Webdesign

In over 50 years no widely-accepted agreement has been reached as to whether
communication should be standardized or localized. On one hand standardization
of products, processes, and even websites is cheaper; on the other localization can
better satisfy the needs of consumers and so lead to greater success. The question
is: Where is the most lucrative point on the scale (De Mooij, 2014)?
Kniewasser C. 143
The trend is towards a middle way – the glocalization. This means that marketing
is as global as possible but as local as necessary. A global framework is made, but
adapted from culture to culture (Bolten, 2007).
Over the last years, various authors (Marcus & Gould, 2000; Singh & Pereira,
2005; Usunier & Roulin, 2010; Calabrese, Capece, Di Pillo, & Martino, 2014)
investigated the possibility that the cultural dimensions of Hall and Hofstede can
be integrated through certain elements in websites, and therefore enable a cultural
adaption of the webdesign.
Studies show that customers display a more positive attitude and greater trust
towards websites adapted to their own culture and so by extension perceive the
companies behind those websites in a better light (Singh & Pereira, 2005).
14.3 Research Questions

In order to deal with said topic, the following research questions were established:
- How do international companies communicate in different cultures via website?
- Does the online communication demonstrate an awareness of cultural
differences?
- How did online culture-specific communication develop in the last 13 years?
14.4 Methodology
The method used for this topic is the qualitative content analysis adapted by
Mayring (2008). The results are compared with the results of Würtz’s analysis
from 2003. Würtz (2006) has already undertaken an analysis on McDonald’s, and
found that McDonald’s does adapt its websites in several ways. The comparison
makes it possible to discover if any differences have emerged since then.
With the qualitative content analysis communication like text, pictures, graphics,
illustrations and videos can be analyzed. The content analysis is a widely used
method in the field of media- and communication studies (Atteslander, 2010).
Particularly in the field of intercultural and cross-cultural communication content
analysis is a common method to determine whether cultural aspects or cultural
dimensions are expressed through websites (Calabrese et al., 2014; Kim & Kuljis,
2010; Singh & Matsuo, 2004; Singh, Zhao, & Hu, 2005; Usunier & Roulin, 2010).
The use of the qualitative content analysis is appropriate for the evaluation of
visual and electronical data. The fast pace of the internet can be a problem for the
documentation of the data, but this problem can be solved with screenshots or
videos (Lamnek, 2010).
Mayring (2008) considers the most important aspect of the content analysis to be
the sequence of the method, which has no standard rules but must be defined in
advance. Therefore, this analysis is adapted to the material, the theories, and the
questions, and includes the following steps: definition of the material, analysis of
the situation, characterization of the material, direction of the analysis, theory-
driven differentiation of the question, determination of the technique of the
analysis, definition of the categories, analysis, preparation of the results.
Based on the theoretical findings of Hall and the categorizations of Würtz (2006),
the analysis includes the main categories High-Context and Low-Context
Cultures, as well as the subcategories animation, collectivistic and individualistic
values, persons alone or together with the product, transparency, linear and
parallel navigation, and the category other which has been added by the author.
14.5 Results
The results of the analysis show that online communication of international
companies in various cultures does differ.
McDonald’s online communication is culturally adapted but not as extensively as
expected of an international succesful company. The cultural dimensions of both
Hall and Hofstede can be found, but it can be assumed that these are created
intuitively and not deliberately. Some cultural dimensions correlate but do not
exclude one another.
Considering the development of the McDonald’s websites since 2003, it can be
determined that the way McDonald’s communicates online has slightly changed
in some respect and in some countries, but for the most part remained unchanged.
The following table shows an overview of the examined categories.
In terms of animation the websites dispense with background sound. There is also
a change regarding the people in connection with the products: fewer connections
between people and products are made today – they focus on either the product or
the person. The navigation shows some changes too: The High-Context Websites
open new browser windows on the same page now. Regarding the collectivism
and individualism as well as the transparency no changes could be determined.
There is a slight adaption of the examined Asian High-Context cultures to the
western Low-Context cultures.
Kniewasser C. 145

Table
11: Overview of the results
(Adapted from Würtz, 2006, p. 295)
2003 2016
2003 2016
Category Tendency Tendency Tendency Tendency
Category Tendency
High-Context Tendency
Low-Context Tendency
High-Context Tendency
Low-Context
High-Context Low-Context High-Context Low-Context
Animation High use of Low use of High use of Low use of
Animation High use
animation of Low use of
animation High use ofno
animation, Low use of
animation
animation
(especially animation
(effects for animation, no
sound animation
(especially
moving people) (effects
texts,…)for sound
moving people) texts,…)
Collectivistic / Collectivistic Individualistic Collectivistic Individualistic
Collectivistic
individualistic/ Collectivistic
values Individualistic
values Collectivistic
values Individualistic
values
individualistic
values values values values values
values
Persons alone Images of Images show Few people People without
Persons
or alone
together Imageswith
people of Images show
lifestyle, people Few people
with products, People without
products or with
or together
with the people
productwith lifestyle, people
with or without with
moreproducts, products
unbrandedor with
with the
product product with or without
products more
illustrations unbranded
products
product products illustrations products
Transparency Exploratory Clear and goal- Exploratory Clear and goal-
Transparency Exploratory
approach Clear and goal-
oriented Exploratory
approach Clear and goal-
oriented
approach oriented
approach approach oriented
approach
approach approach
Linear and Lots of menus, Few menus, browser Few menus,
Linear
paralleland Lots of menus,
new browser Few menus,
browser browser
windows open Few menus,
browser
parallel
navigation new browser
window opens browser
windows open windows open
on same page browser
windows open
navigation window
new pageopens windows
on open
same page on same page windows
on open
same page
new page on same page on same page
Other Lots of images Minimalistic
Other Lotsillustrations
and of images Minimalistic
design
and illustrations design
14.6 Managerial Implications and Limitations

The Master thesis offers valuable insights into cultural variations in online
communication, and supports marketers in avoiding cultural misunderstandings in
the digital world. This thesis can facilitate the analysis of the customers’ needs
and the following cultural adaption. It also raises awareness that intercultural
online communication does influence the digital economy, and that it can be used
for a targeted communication with the customer. The results outline valuable
suggestions for web designers and marketers regarding which communication
patterns are needed in different cultures. The key to successful communication lies
in the appropriate use of the communication patterns of the respective culture.
14.7 Conclusions and Further Research

The results show that international companies communicate in a culture specific
manner. Since 2003 some communicative aspects have slightly changed, however
the majority don’t display large changes. In summary, it can be said that the
cultural adaption of websites for international companies is indispensable in order
to be able to communicate purposefully with international clients. One possibility
for further research of cultural adaption in communication is to examine the
different content McDonald's publish on social media channels. Moreover, the
results show important insights into the current implementation of culturally
adapted online communication, confirm previous studies, help to optimize future
websites, and should inspire other researchers to undertake further research.

Attsslander, P. (2010). Methoden der empirischen Sozialforschung. Berlin,
Bolten, J. (2007). Einführung in die Interkulturelle Wirtschaftskommunikation.
Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Calabrese, A., Capece, G., Di Pillo, F., & Martino, F. (2014). Cultural adaption of
web design services as critical success factor for business excellence: A
cross-cultural study of Portuguese, Brazilian, Angolan and Macanese
web sites. Cross Cultural Management, 21(2), 172-190.
Collazos, C. A., Gil, R., (2011) Using Cross-cultural Features in Web Design
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De Mooij, M. (2014). Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural
Paradoxes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gudykunst, W. B., & Kim, Y. Y. (2003). Communicating with Strangers: An
Approach to Intercultural Communication. New York, NY: McGraw-
Hill Higher Education.
Hall, E. T. (1959). The Silent Language. New York, NY: Doubleday & Company.
Kim, I., & Kuljis, J. (2010). Applying Content Analysis to Web-based Content.
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Germany: Franz Vahlen.
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content analytic study of U.S. and Japanese Web sites. Journal of
Business Research, 57(8), 864-872.
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Web Sites for the Global Marketplace. Oxford, United Kingdom:
Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
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A cross-national comparision of China, India, Japan, and US.
International Marketing Review, 22(2), 129-146.
Usunier, J. C., & Roulin, N. (2010). The Influence of High- and Low- Context
Communication Styles on the Design, Content, and Language of
Business-to-Business Web Sites. Journal of Business Communication,
47(2), 189-227.
Würtz, E. (2006). Intercultural Communication on Web sites: A Cross- Cultural
Analysis of Web sites from High-Context Cultures and Low-Context
Cultures. Journal of Computer-Meditated Communication, 11(1), 274-
299.
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Einführung. Darmstadt, Germany: WBG Wissenschaftliche Buch-
gesellschaft.
15 Massive Open Online Courses and Big Data:
A Metamorphosis of the Academic World?
A Study on Digital Innovation in Education
Michael Koch26
Abstract: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were acclaimed by many

journalists and academic writers as a means by which people from underdeveloped
countries can be provided with higher education. However, it has turned out that
the majority of MOOC students are people who have already attained higher
education degrees. Nevertheless, both MOOC enrolment and MOOC provision
have grown almost exponentially in the last four or five years. Many experts say
that European countries seriously lag behind in MOOC adoption without
delivering evidence. I therefore compare and evaluate the numbers of published
MOOCs and their topical diversity to evaluate the market shares of Austrian,
German, and US universities to determine whether there is a need for action in the
middle European countries.
15.1 Introduction
Within the last five to ten years, new digital forms of learning and teaching have
evolved in the Internet. Universities all over the world produce videos, online
tutorials, and online courses and place them online. Today, these so-called
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are provided by the best universities in
the world (MIT, Harvard, Cambridge and so forth). With more and more MOOCs
inflating the internet, a substantial part of academic education can already be
covered online. More than that, MOOCs deliver large quantities of top-quality
data about the intelligence, talents, diligence, strengths, weaknesses, and problems
of learners.
In January 2013, journalist and triple Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman
wrote a much respected article in the New York Times about the way he thought
MOOCs would change the world. Friedman claimed that MOOCs had the
potential “to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems”,
and that they were able to make us reimagine higher education such that everyone
could compile their own set of lectures from the best professors of the world,
26

150 Massive Open Online Courses and Big Data …
creating their very own learning path. The only thing students would have to pay
is the nominal fee for the certificates of completion (Friedman, 2013). Friedman
quoted MIT president Leo Rafael Reif, who said that a new world was unfolding
with MOOCs and that everyone would have to adapt. I wanted to find out in my
research whether this assumed vast academic metamorphosis was not just
happening in the minds of some writers and journalists and evaluate whether four
years later Friedman’s and Reif’s vision is about to come true. And if so, I wanted
to know if the phenomenon is also advancing outside the USA, particularly in
Germany and Austria.

There are two main ways research on MOOC adoption has been conducted so far.
The first approach used to target the consumer side by qualitative and quantitative
analysis of students’ behaviors and attitudes, whereas the second one would
evaluate the supply side by evaluating opinions and perspectives of the academic
staff and quantifying MOOC provision. Relatively few studies approach
qualitative aspects on the consumer side. Xing et al. (2015) examined the relation
between student motivation and MOOC finish rates. They found out that extrinsic
motivation (certificates, awards, badges) is a stronger predictor of student
engagement in MOOCs than intrinsic motivation (the will to learn something).
But extrinsic motivation is differently coined in distinctive students groups.
Dillahunt, Wang, and Teasley (2014), for example, executed a quantitative
consumer side study on MOOC learners who self-reported an inability to afford a
formal education. The study says that this group of students is significantly more
likely to be awarded a MOOC certificate than students who can engage in classical
higher education. Onah (2014) found out that the main reasons for high MOOC
dropout rates were the level of difficulty, the lack of digital and learning skills to
the lack of will and support to finish the course.
Concerning quantitative approaches on the consumer side, a report on MOOCs
published by Class Central, a Californian online education platform that aggre-
gates courses from MOOC platforms, says the number of MOOC students
essentially doubled to 35 million enrollers in 2015 (Shah, 2015). But most of these
users already have a higher education background. Christensen et al. (2013) found
that more than 44% of all students who enrolled at the University of
Pennsylvania’s MOOCs (second largest MOOC provider on Coursera at the time)
had an education beyond a Bachelor´s degree, 79.4% of the students had a
Bachelor’s degree and 83.0% had a post-secondary degree (2 or 4 years). The
acceptance of MOOCs also differs within countries. Concerning Europe, the
OECD Digital Economy Outlook (2015) saw a national variation in MOOC
Koch M. 151
enrolment among Internet users in the year 2013 from 16% in Finland to about
3% in the Austria (which scored second to last before the Czech Republic).
Based on a series of interviews with academic staff, Hollands and Tirthali (2014)
state that up to now most interviewees saw MOOCs as cost-ineffective. The
scholars also stated data gained from MOOCs was not used to improve courses.
Extending reach and access of the university was seen as the main motive for
developing MOOCs. An EADTU report from 2015 on institutional motivations
and strategies on MOOCs gathered more differentiated data and found that the
weight of the motives for the provision of MOOCs differed substantially between
the EU and the USA. While increasing the visibility of the institution prevailed
every-where, driving student recruitment was much more important to US
institutions than to European ones (Jansen & Schuwer, 2015).
15.3 Model
If the impact of MOOCs on academic education will come even close to Thomas
Friedman`s forecast, substantial parts of the German and Austrian University
system will be seriously jeopardized within the next ten to twenty years as more
and more students will prefer the flexibility of MOOCs delivered by academic
celebrities from Anglo-American top universities. Thus, in my thesis I asked the
question if the USA, in relation to Austria and Germany, dominates the MOOC
market in a potentially problematic way.
I approached the research question through supply analysis. Bauer (2001) argues
that problematic power structures on markets often derive from a combination of
high market shares and high product heterogeneity provided by one supplier.
Accordingly, I compared the current market shares of the USA, Germany, and
Austria by means of the quantity of MOOC supply within a given time-frame. The
differentiation of MOOC provision was analyzed through the analysis of MOOC
distribution in different academic fields. Moreover, I wanted to find out if there is
a strong market concentration within the respective countries. This was done
through an investigation of course provision per university. Although participating
in MOOCs is usually free, price politics is an important factor when it comes to
certificates. I therefore also scrutinized the price politics in the USA, Germany,
and Austria concerning MOOC accreditation. This data was used to discuss the
connection between market power and price level. My investigation covered only
courses with a starting date between March 15, 2016 and April 15, 2016.
I created the following research model leading from four independent variables to
two dependent variables.
MOOCS from A smaller percentage American MOOC

American Universities Amerivan universities of universities located certificates are priced
published more have a greater topical in America started higher than
MOOCs per capita varienty concerning MOOCs than in German and Austrian
adacemic disciplines Austria and Germany authentications
Figure 17: Research model – independent and dependent variables

(Own description)
15.4 Method
I conducted my research through non-participating, indirect quantitative online
observation. For the validity of this method the exact characteristics of the
research object and the main units it belongs to have to be defined, the time-frame
and the geographic focus of the observation have to be specified, and the
operational procedure must be straightened. I therefore created a comprehensible
and traceable online observation system that followed clear regulations. The
MOOC had to have a fixed starting date, it had to be officially provided by a
university and the MOOC contents had to be accessible free of charge. The item
measured was the online-availability of a MOOC from a certain country within a
certain time period. The availability of one MOOC within the defined period of
time was counted as one data point. Moreover, the following attributes were added
Koch M. 153
to the data: the name of the MOOC, the providing university, the country the
university is located in, the MOOC platform, the academic field (I defined nine
different academic fields), the availability of a certificate, the price of available
certificates, and the duration of the course. As the size of the population differs
substantially in the three countries, MOOC provision was compared per million
inhabitants.
15.5 Findings
American Universities started 0.615 MOOCs per million people living in their
country. Austria launched 0.115 MOOCs per million and Germany 0.045.
Figure 18: Number of MOCCs from Austria, Germany and the USA per million inhabitants
offered from March 15, 2016 to April, 2016
(Own description)
On the basis of these numbers hypothesis one was verified. American universities
offered considerably more MOOCs per capita than Austrian and German ones.
Concerning academic disciplines, American courses covered all nine fields of
study with numbers ranging from 66 (business & economics) to 10 (health).
German courses were delivered in only two academic disciplines (business and
economics and computer science) and academic MOOCs in Austria only covered
the field of education. Therefore, hypothesis two could also be verified. The
product diversity of the American market outperforms the German and Austrian
markets by far. Concerning market concentration, it turned out that the five leading
universities provided 39% of all MOOCs, the remaining 61% were delivered by
48 different universities. In contrast, every single MOOC from Austrian and

Germany was delivered by a different university. Therefore, hypothesis three was
also declared true. Hypothesis four stated that the average costs for MOOC
certificates were higher in the USA than in Germany and Austria. It turned out
that average certificate costs in Austria were zero, in Germany certificates cost $
55.4 and an average American one was at $ 55.06. As German certificates were
slightly more expensive, hypothesis four was falsified.
Thus, three out of four answers clearly indicated that a potentially problematic
American dominance could be affirmed. The answer to hypotheses four showed
that the prices for MOOC certificates did not substantially differ between
Germany and the USA, while in Austria provision of MOOCs is still in such an
early state that certificates are free. I therefore concluded on grounds of these
results that MOOC pricing was not relevant to the final result of my study.
15.6 Conclusion
I have found out in this study that American universities and institutions almost
totally dominate the MOOC market in relation to Austria and Germany. The state
of adoption in the latter two countries is not satisfactory. Austrian MOOC
production is so small that we cannot talk about a MOOC market. With Iversity,
Germany has a well-functioning platform, but open course provision by German
universities is rather low. If middle European countries do not want to endanger
their self-determination of higher education, initiatives must be launched soon.
15.7 Further Research

Although the provision of MOOCs can accurately be screened, MOOC provision
per country has neither been measured by official institutions nor been examined
by scholars up to now. This is the research void my investigation tried to fill.
However, my investigation only covered three countries. To receive a complete
picture of the development of the global MOOC market, MOOC provision from
all countries should permanently be screened. Such an ongoing study might even
dig deeper and provide information about professors, course-structure, and
provide tag clouds and a content-analysis of the course abstract.

Bauer, H. (2001). Marktmacht. In H. Diller (Ed.), Vahlens großes Marketing-
lexikon (pp. 1059-1060). Munich, Germany: Beck.
Koch M. 155
Christensen, G., Steinmetz, A., Alcorn, B., Bennett, A., Woods, D., & Emanuel,
E. J. (2013, November 6). The MOOC Phenomenon: Who Takes Massive
Open Online Courses and Why?. Retrieved February 18, 2016, from
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2350964
Dillahunt, T., Wang, Z., & Teasley, S. D. (2014). Democratizing Higher
Education: Exploring MOOC Use Among Those Who Cannot Afford a
Formal Education. The International Review of Research in Open and
Distance Learning, 15(5), 177-196.
Friedman, T. L. (2013, January 26). Revolution Hits the Universities. Retrieved
February 18, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion
/sunday/friedman-revolution-hits-the-universities.html?_r=1
Hollands, F. M., & Tirthali, D. (2014). Why Do Institutions Offer MOOCs?
Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 18(3), 1-19.
Jansen, D., & Schuwer, S. (n.d.). Institutional MOOC strategies in Europe. Status
report based on a mapping survey. Retrieved March 27, 2016, from
http://www.eadtu.eu/home/policy-areas/open-education-and-
moocs/news/248-institutional-mooc-strategies-in-europe
Onah, D. (2014). Dropout Rates of Massive Open Online Courses: Behavioural
Patterns. In EDULEARN (Ed.), 6th International Conference on
Education and New Learning Technologies 2014 (pp. 5825-5834).
Valencia, Spain: IATED Academy.
Shah, D. (2015, December 21). By The Numbers: MOOCS in 2015. How has the
MOOC space grown this year? Get the facts, figures, and pie charts.
Retrieved March 24, 2016, from https://www.class-central.com/report/
moocs-2015-stats/
Xing, Y., Li, H., Kornhaber, M. L., Suen, H. K., Pursel, B., & Goins, D. D. (2015).
Examining the Relations among Student Motivation, Engagement, and
Retention in a MOOC: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach.
Global Education Review, 2(3), 23-33.
16 Consumer Ethnocentrism in the Online
Purchasing Process
Jennifer Kübel-Bertsch27
Abstract: A conscious shift from internationally to locally produced products

especially in the food trade can be observed since the turn of the millennium but
has so far not been considered for the online purchasing process. The present study
deals with a preference for locally manufactured consumer goods in the online
purchasing process measured by a willingness to pay more for those products. The
work is based on an online survey which verifies the importance of local product
offers on the Internet and demonstrates demographic characteristics of a target
consumer group for these products and their buying motives. The results of the
survey confirm the desire for a higher proportion of locally manufactured products
for the market Austria across all consumer segments. In general, two thirds of all
consumers interviewed are willing to buy locally manufactured products instead
of international alternatives when purchasing online. This preference for locally
manufactured products can be measured through the willingness to pay an average
of 24 percent more for those products. A particularly strong focus is evident for
families with children and people with high values of consumer ethnocentrism,
which leads to an increased perception of the quality of locally manufactured
products. The current work analyses the meaning associated with the importance
of the quality of products based on their country of origin in a price-sensitive
environment and discusses the conflicting economic and ethnocentric interests of
consumers.
16.1 Introduction
According to Papadopoulos (1993), Sennett (1998) and other authors an
increasing importance of the product origin caused by the progressive glob-
alization and global capitalism can be observed since the turn of the millennium
(Ray & Anderson, 2000). Achrol and Kotler (2012) recognize a link between the
on-going regionalization shown by a return to local product purchases and post-
modern marketing approaches that postulate a general change of values of
Western societies. These values included awareness for sustainable purchasing,
environmental awareness and conservation and protection of resources (Achrol &
Kotler, 2012).
27

158 Consumer Ethnocentrism in the Online Purchasing Process
The core objective of the present work is to evaluate the importance of the local
product origin in the online purchasing process based on the results of a survey in
the marketplace Austria. A key element is to clarify whether consumers prefer
products from their own region when purchasing online in spite of the in-
creasing globalization and if this preference can be measured through a differing
willingness to pay for those products. Online purchases offer the advan-
tage of a quick comparison of prices due to comparison portals (Peterson,
Balasubramanian, & Bronnenberg, 1997). Generally, the high competition leads
to tightly calculated prices by the suppliers. Degeratu, Rangaswamy, and Wu
(2000) refer to the high price sensitivity of consumers when purchasing online
compared to a lower price sensitivity when purchasing offline. On the other hand,
Degeratu et al. (2000) also refer to the importance of giving further product
information when offering products online as consumers are unable to prove
products physically. The products origin can be seen as a trustworthy signal
providing further product information. Therefore, it is to prove if the high price
sensitivity or the product origin do have a stronger impact on the decision making
process when purchasing online. The current master thesis proves this with
reference to the following research questions:
- To what extent can a preference for locally manufactured consumer goods in
the online purchasing process in the marketplace Austria be observed?
- Does the target group show a willingness to pay more for locally manufactured
products?
- Which particularities in terms of demographics or buying motives can be
observed?
16.2 Literature Review and Consideration of Model

The positive or negative influence of the country of origin of a product on the
purchase intention or the purchasing behavior of consumers in relation to that
product is described as Country-of-origin-effect or CoO-effect (Amine, Chao, &
Arnold, 2005; Elliott & Cameron, 1994; Reierson, 1966; Schooler, 1965). Many
previous studies are limited to the isolated consideration of CoO-effect in the
purchase decision process (Usunier, 2006). The current master thesis proves the
model by Ha-Brookshire and Yoon (2012), which is originally based on a study
of the buying behavior of sustainably manufactured products in the US, for the
online purchase process. This model creates a connection between the product
origin and perceived price of products (see Figure 19).
Kübel-Bertsch J. 159
Demographic Prior Knowledge Sustainability

Chatacteristics Product Attribute Perceived Price
• Age • Familiarity • Multi-level

• Gender • Expertise • country of origin
• Marital status designations
• Education
• Income
Figure 19: Conceptual Model

(Reproduced from Ha-Brookshire & Yoon, 2012, p. 448)
For the current master thesis, the model by Ha-Brookshire and Yoon (2012) has
been adapted (see Figure 20) as Ha-Brookshire and Yoon (2012) declare the non-
measurability of buying motives for locally manufactured products as a gap in
their research. The adapted model not only takes demographic factors and the prior
knowledge (experience) with locally manufactured products into account, it
measures the influence of these factors on the willingness to pay more for those
products. Apart from that the influence of the consumer ethnocentrism is measured
and observed. Ethnocentrism refers to the belief in the superiority of ones’ own
nation (Keller & Sumner, 1911), where after ethnocentrism of consumers refers
to the conviction of the superiority of products manufactured in ones own nation
(Shimp & Sharma, 1987). It is assumed that for people with high consumer
ethnocentric values the benefits of locally produced products involve functional
aspects but also economic, moral and social considerations.
Figure 20: Underlying Model

(Adapted from Ha-Brookshire & Yoon, 2012, p. 448)
16.3 Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses

Demographic factors and consumers’ prior knowledge about locally manufactured
products are moderating factors on the preference and willingness to pay more
for locally manufactured products. The current master thesis considers four
hypotheses based on the model of Ha-Brookshire and Yoon (2012). H1/a expects
that demographics do (not) show an impact on the willingness to buy or pay more
for locally manufactured products.
The product preference of consumers is strongly influenced by their prior
knowledge and experiences with similar products (Rao & Monroe, 1988). This
knowledge is subconsciously re-used in new purchase situations (Josiassen &
Harzing, 2008; Sprotles & Kendall, 1986), which implies that people who have
already purchased locally manufactured products are more willing to re-purchase
those products. H2/a implies a significant correlation between the frequency of
purchases of locally manufactured products in the online purchasing process and
the repurchase intention.
Consumer ethnocentrism is expected to have a strong impact on attitudes towards
locally manufactured and imported products. Sharma, Shimp, and Shin (1995)
indicate that the ethnocentrism of consumers can lead to an overestimation of the
product attributes mainly the attribute of quality of locally produced products and
an underestimation of imported products. H3/a considers the product quality as
the main reason for purchasing locally manufactured products online.
Few studies explore the impact of product origin on the price perception or
willingness to pay, even fewer studies explore this impact for online purchases. A
willingness to pay more for products from a favorite country of origin was
discovered by some authors among them Ha-Brookshire and Yoon (2012),
Guzmán, Abimbola, Drozdenko, and Jensen (2009), and Drozdenko and Jensen
(2005), but all of them did focus on offline purchases. H4/a proves if consumers
are (not) willing to pay more for locally manufactured products when purchasing
online.
16.4 Method
The hypotheses based on the model in Figure 20 were investigated by studying
the online purchasing behavior of Austrian consumers. As a data collection
procedure an online survey was carried out. Respondents were asked to reveal
their attitudes towards locally manufactured products, their online purchasing
behavior of those products and their willingness to pay for a selection of
locally manufactured products. Furthermore, they had to provide demographic
information. A total of 185 people took part in the survey, of which 162
questionnaires could be used for evaluation. The study is based on a random

selection.
16.5 Results
According to the results of the survey, 66 percent of all consumers pay attention
to the product origin when purchasing online. This proves that there is a preference
for locally manufactured products online. In general, the results show that people,
who rate the product origin positively, are frequently willing to pay more for
locally manufactured products.
A strong negative linearity is shown between the two factors price and product
origin. Extremely price sensitive consumers do pay less attention to the product
origin than less price sensitive consumers. Generally even price sensitive
consumers are willing to pay more for locally manufactured products. While they
are willing to pay up to seven percent more for those products, the average
willingness to pay more for locally manufactured products is 24 percent. Although
75 percent of all consumers specify the price to be more important than the product
origin when purchasing online, 74 percent of the consumers are willing to
purchase locally manufactured products even if they are slightly more expensive.
The wish for a healthy, sustainable and conscious lifestyle (Ray & Anderson,
2000) even if it is connected with a monetary disadvantage can be manifested for
the online purchasing process as well as for the purchasing process in general. The
desire for further local product offers is shown by consumers of all demographics.
The family situation does have a measurable impact on the perception of locally
manufactured products. Families with children more often buy local products than
families without children, however they do not show a higher willingness to pay.
Apart from the family situation no significant relationship between demographic
characteristics and the preference of locally manufactured products was observed
(see results of Ray & Anderson, 2000; Ueltschy, 1998; Bailey & Pineres, 1997).
A strong impact of the consumer ethnocentrism on the preference of and
willingness to pay more for locally manufactured products can be confirmed.
Furthermore, the results confirm that consumers who have had experience with
locally produced products plan to purchase more of those products in the future.
As for the motives of purchasing locally manufactured products consumers
mention the higher quality of those products followed by the economic reasons
like the preservation of local jobs and the support of the domestic economy. It can
be observed, that consumers with strong ethnocentric values and thus a
particularly positive evaluation of products from their own nation, show a higher
rating of the quality of locally manufactured products than consumers with low
ethnocentric values. In summary, the current master thesis clearly shows that the
divergence of global and regional interests does not exclude but that both interests
rather complement each other. 95 percent of the consumers take advantage of the
online purchasing process but two thirds of all consumers do prefer local to
international product offers even when purchasing online.

Achrol, R. S., & Kotler, P. (2012). Frontiers of the marketing paradigm in the third
millennium. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40, 35-52.
Amine, L. S., Chao, M. C. H., & Arnold, M. J. (2005). Executive insights:
Exploring the practical effects of Country-of-Origin, animosity, and
price–quality issues: Two case studies of Taiwan and Acer in China.
Journal of International Marketing, 13, 114-150.
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17 The Influence of Apps on the Media Usage
Behaviour of Recipients by the Example of
“Die Tagespresse”
Andreas Leitner28
Abstract: With the particular lack of scientific data for the use and impact of
mobile applications in Austria, companies are forced to base decisions on the
implementation and design of mobile applications on primarily non-scientific
studies. Because of that, the purpose of this paper is not only to provide starting
points for future research but also to measure and analyze the media usage
behavior of consumers, to determine potential differences in the consumptions
behavior of recipients via apps.
17.1 Introduction
The progressive fragmentation of the media landscape leads to an unprecedented
quantity of media channels, recipients can use for consuming media content
(ARD-Forschungsdienst, 2006). The increasing number of media channels does
not only result in new potentials and obstacles for companies, but also in an
increasing degree of substitutability. Digital technologies are considered to be one
of the main causes of this ongoing change in the media industry. Content
nowadays won’t be shown once and then forgotten, it will be constantly clipped,
linked, rediscovered and built into new content (Thompson, 2009, as cited in
Doyle, 2010). This requires fundamental changes in the marketing planning
process. Therefore this paper is going to evaluate the importance of a cross-media
approach for planning marketing campaigns and furthermore providing user data,
allowing scientifically sound realizations of cross media campaigns.
17.2 Theoretical Framework

For this paper, two theoretical frameworks are essential to not only identify
factors, influencing the ongoing change of the international media landscape but
also to deliver conclusions on why those factors become increasingly important:
The “Uses- & Gratification Approach” and the “Technology Acceptance Model”
(TAM). While the “Uses- & Gratification Approach” tries to identify reasons for
the ongoing change of the media landscape and in media usage behavior of
28

166 The Influence of Apps on the Media Usage Behaviour of Recipients …
recipients, the “Technology Acceptance Model” makes factors evident that play
an essential role in the adaption of new technologies, such as apps (Yeou, 2016).
17.2.1 “Uses- & Gratification Approach”

The main reason for the increasing amount of content, being consumed via mobile
phones lies in the insight that consumers consume media to satisfy needs. Media
channels therefore don’t only compete against other media channels but also
against different sources satisfying human needs and vice versa (Palmgreen,
1983). Because of the underlying functionality of mobile phones, which allows
recipients to consume content almost anywhere and anytime, mobile devices have
a huge advantage over almost all other channels of need satisfaction, which could
be one of the main reasons, mobile devices becoming more and more important
internationally (Meyen, 2004).
17.2.2 “Technology Acceptance Model”

The “Technology Acceptance Model” provides conclusions on the essential
factors, responsible for the acceptance of new technologies. According to Davis,
Bagozzi, and Warshaw (1989), the most important factors influencing the
acceptance of apps are the “perceived usefulness” and the “perceived ease of use”
of an application. Those two factors, combined with the “design” decide, whether
a new technology is going to be accepted and used by consumers or not and
therefore plays a vital role for companies, considering the implementation of
mobile applications.
17.3 Research Question and Hypothesis

In order to deliver relevant results and starting points for future research, the
following research questions and hypothesis were established:
(1) How do apps influence the media consumption behaviour of recipients?
- H1: Content via apps is viewed longer than on the website.
- H2: Users consume more content via apps than on the website.
- H2: App-users are more likely to interact with content than website-users are.
(2) How is the media consumption in apps is perceived by users?

- H1: App users believe, that they consumed content longer than on the website.
- H2: App users believe, that they consumed more content than on the website.
Leitner A. 167
- H3: App-users believe, that they are more likely to interact with content than
website-users are.
17.4 Methodology
For gathering profound data, an “all-around” approach has been conducted.
Therefore, the results, presented in the following chapter consist of data from three
different methodologies:
(1) First of all an expert interview with the founder of “Die Tagespresse” has been
conducted. The aim of this interview was to identify reasons and obstacles for
companies for implementing a mobile application. While the interview is more of
a “bonus” to the actual data analysis, it allows for a more detailed view on the
topic and opens interesting starting points for future research as well insights for
companies.
(2) The actual focus of this paper lies in the analysis of the generated data about
the media consumption behavior of recipients. Based on data from the web-
analysis tool “Google Analytics”, the author examines potential differences in the
media usage behavior of recipients, whether they use a companies’ app or website
for consuming content. For answering the established hypothesis, four key
performance indicators have been analyzed:
- the average time, users spend reading articles via app or via browser
- the average number of articles read per visit
- the number of shares
- the number of participations in surveys
(3) For the third part, an online survey has been conducted, to see if consumers
are aware of their change in behavior using apps and thus preventing misinter-
pretations of the collected data in part II.
17.5 Results
Results shows, that there is a significant difference in the media consumption
behavior of recipients, consuming content via apps rather than on the website. An
analysis of the average time, users spend reading articles of “Die Tagespresse”
shows, that recipients spend much longer (93 percent longe) reading articles via
mobile applications than they do on the website. This could either be an indicator
that users consume content in apps more intensely or that they are simply
overwhelmed by a bad usability of the application. To avoid misinterpretations,
the online survey asked users how they perceive the apps usability. Because over
90 percent of the test persons stated that the app is “clear” and “easy to use”, it
168 The Influence of Apps on the Media Usage Behaviour of Recipients …
seems save to say, that users actually consume content via apps more intense than
they do on the website.
An entirely different trend can be seen, looking at the number of articles consumed
via apps. Recipients view fewer articles in apps, than they do on the website. While
the average user views 1.12 articles via app, the number increases to 2.06 articles
per visit. The more stationary the device used, the more articles are being read by
the consumers. The difference is still marginal. More interesting than the actual
number of articles consumed per visit, is the fact, that users have the impression
of consuming more articles in apps than they would on the website. This could
also be an indicator for a higher involvement of app users and therefore for a better
advertising impact of ads displayed in apps.
For the indicators “shares” and “participation in surveys”, no significant
difference can be identified. Still the results from the survey show a different
picture, than the “Google Analytics” data does. Based on the survey, participants
seem to be far less likely to share articles via apps than on the website. On the
other hand, app-users are far more likely to participate in surveys than they would
be on the website. This implies, that users differentiate between different kinds of
interactions, which should be considered when measuring the success of online
campaigns.

The main limitation of this thesis lies in the poor comparability of the results for
other industries. While the conclusions are valid for companies and platforms in
the media sector, media consumption behavior of recipients might vary drastically
in other industries. Nonetheless this thesis delivers valuable insights for the
Austrian region and for further researches. While the author was able to identify
differences in the media usage behavior, it would be interesting for future studies
to examine reasons why consumers use apps differently than other digital
channels. Another important issue for future investigations would be the degree,
to which mobile devices already replace other sources of needs satisfaction,
helping to explain and solving potential future challenges.
17.7 Conclusion
This Master’s thesis provides valuable data regarding the influence of apps on the
media consumption behavior of recipients. Not only does this thesis prove that
there is a difference in how recipients use apps but also does this “all-around”
approach deliver valuable starting points for future research. So do findings imply,
that users seem to consume content via apps with a higher involvement, than on
Leitner A. 169
the website, which results in a better advertising impact of ads displayed in mobile
applications. For platforms financed primarily through advertising, the results of
this thesis can be a valuable basis for justifying higher advertisement prices in
apps.

ARD Forschungsdienst. (2006). Determinanten der Mediennutzung. Media
Perspektiven, 9, 490-494. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1SNocAC
Davis, F. D., Bagozzi, R. P., & Warshaw, P. R. (1089). User Acceptance of
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47239515618464
18 Morally Questionable, Opportunistic Product
Returns
An Analysis of the Consumer Behavior to Order Products
on the Internet with No Concrete Purchase Intention
Jana Katharina Lochner29
Abstract: There are more and more consumers who order products on the internet
without having a concrete purchase intention. Nevertheless, morally questionable
and opportunistic product returns still remain a relatively underexplored research
field. Due to the occurring negative consequences of increased product returns
both for online retailers and the nature, it is relevant to address the motivation and
attitude of the practicing consumers. Thus, the aim of the study is to find out what
overall reasons and attitudes there are for consumers to generally order products
on the internet with no purchase intention and if they make use of any justifications
regarding their behavior (with reference to the neutralization theory of Sykes and
Matza, 1957). As a research method, qualitative semi-structured interviews are
conducted with consumers who occasionally act the indicated way. The results
show that the consumers almost only refer to garments within their statements and
that the predominant reasons for exercising the behavior is the need to compare
various articles of clothing at home and the fact that the consumers commonly
assume beforehand that not all products are going to meet their demands and
expectations. Furthermore, they apply a range of justifications in order to dissolve
the cognitive dissonance that results from the discrepancy between their attitude
and the exerted behavior. In the end, three additional techniques of neutralization
could be proposed: Comparison with other people or circumstances, Downplaying
the negative consequences and Moderating own behavior.
18.1 Introduction
As the internet is increasingly becoming an area for trade, the electronic commerce
has been gaining more and more importance and seems to be an indispensable part
of the lives of today’s consumers (Heinemann, 2012). Furthermore, there are many
users nowadays who occasionally order products on the internet with no concrete
purchase intention (Keilmann, 2013; Hampe, 2014; Asdecker, 2016). Thus,
numerous online shoppers already take a potential return into account while
29

172 Morally Questionable, Opportunistic Product Returns
ordering (Wachter, Vitell, Shelton, & Park, 2012; Pur, Stahl, Wittmann,
Wittmann, & Weinfurtner, 2013).
According to the right of withdrawal, every consumer in Austria has the right to
send any purchased item back within 14 days without giving any reasons
(Bundeskanzleramt Österreich, 2016). Therefore, customers have the possibility
to consciously exploit those regulations, which is referred to as opportunistic
behavior. Returns bring negative consequences with them, though. For the online
retailer, there is additional cost with reference to the transport and processing of
the returned goods. Both more employees and an operative return management
process are needed (Pur et al., 2013; Asdecker, 2016). Besides, product returns
have a negative impact on the environment regarding the emerging CO2-emissions
from transporting the respective goods.
While different thematic priorities concerning consumer ethics (e.g.,
Papaoikonomou, Ryan, & Ginieis, 2011; Gruber & Schlegelmilch, 2014), the
general reasons for product returns (e.g., Foscht, T., Ernstreiter, K., Maloles, C.,
Sinha, I., & Swoboda, B., 2013; Lee, 2015) and the impact of different return
policies on the consumer behavior (e.g., Ramanathan, 2011; Bower & Maxham,
2012; Powers & Jack, 2013) have been examined a lot so far, only a few
researchers have combined those areas and specifically addressed morally
questionable or unethical product returns in online shopping.
So far, most of the researchers have addressed themselves to the reasons of
morally questionable returns only with regard to the so-called deshopping (King,
Dennis, & Wright, 2008) or unethical retail disposition (Rosenbaum, Kuntze, &
Wooldridge, 2011) which is referred to consumers who order a good, use it and
send it back afterwards. But to the best of the knowledge and belief of the author,
other reasons (as well as attitudes and justifications) regarding morally question-
able, opportunistic returns have not been investigated so far. Thus, the aim is to
elicit a first tendency here. The author of this paper pursues the target to take a
closer look at this topic from the perspective of the practicing consumers. In detail,
it is about goods which are purchased for one self and which are not being returned
due to any defect.
This leads to the following research questions:
- Why do consumers order products on the internet with no concrete purchase
intention?
- What attitude do they have with reference to this morally questionable,
opportunistic behavior and what (if any) justifications do they utilize?
Lochner J. K. 173
A behavior is considered to be morally questionable when the practicing consumer

does not act according to the „guidelines regarding appropriate or inappropriate
behavior” (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010, p. 129) which apply to the coexistence of a
group of people or a society. With reference to the justifications, the author wants
to find out whether the interviewed consumers make use of (some of) the
techniques of neutralization that have been postulated by Sykes and Matza (1957)
within the framework of their neutralization theory, and if there are other
justifications to be added in the end. Moreover, there are some important
additional components that are being looked at to gain more precise insights into
the respective consumer behavior.
18.2 Methodology
The study is all about inquiring the views of the involved subjects (Flick, Von
Kardorff, & Steinke, 2010) within a rather underexplored realm. Especially when
sensitive, morally questionable topics are the focus of a research, qualitative
interviews are suitable so that the subjects are given the opportunity to speak
openly about their behavior (Iacobucci & Churchill, 2006; Lee, 2015). In total, six
semi-structured interviews (Scheele & Groeben, 1988) are conducted with
consumers who occasionally order products while already knowing that they are
going to send them back after their delivery. With reference to the neutralization
theory, a qualitative methodology also seems to be appropriate (Papaoikonomou
et al., 2011; Rosenbaum et al., 2011). In order to analyze and interpret the gained
study results, a qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2008) is conducted.
18.3 Results
Results show that all of the interviewed consumers (almost) exclusively refer to
garments when talking about their questionable product returns (see Pesendorfer,
2012). Moreover, they place great importance on the haptic (see Abishek, Sinha,
& Vohra, 2013; Berg, 2015). Thus, the actual purchase decision is made after the
product has been delivered and not while ordering which implies that the
purchases are impulse purchases (Foscht & Swoboda, 2011) being driven by
emotions.
As for the reasons for ordering products while already knowing they are going to
be sent back to the retailer, five out of six respondents explain that they would like
to be able to compare products at home.
“I just ordered three pairs of shoes and already knew beforehand that I was going
to decide for only one pair at the end. […]” (5/2.47)
Lee (2015) also found out that one out of a few motives for sending goods back to
the retailer is to order more products than actually needed. Moreover, some
respondents talk about the fact that they usually assume they will not keep all of
the ordered clothes. Other reasons seem to be the desire of feeling joy and having
an exciting experience as well as the fact that a product is only needed once.
With reference to the shipping and return costs, almost all of the consumers make
sure they do not have to bear costs themselves. And some of them consider to only
buy products which will definitely be kept after the delivery when having to pay
for the delivery or return. Regarding the provided product information by the
online retailer, it becomes evident that the interviewed consumers mostly do not
trust the product pictures and thus need to view and feel the ordered articles in
reality. As for the effort for returning products, most of the interviewees do not
really think about it when sending items back to the sender. The paying options
are important for all of them since five out of six respondents always pay for
account when giving the possibility to do so. They want to make sure that they
only pay for the items which will be kept at the end. As far as the own friends are
concerned, the interviewees react totally differently. While no one generally
speaks with their friends about the behavior in question, some think that their
friends might potentially have an influence on their intended behavior and others
would simply not tell them anything about their actions in order not to have to
make any changes.
Most of the consumers usually do not think a lot about potential negative
consequences of their behavior regarding product returns. Nevertheless, they
sometimes reflect about the consequences for both the retailer and the nature and
start feeling bad for their behavior after rethinking it. They keep acting this way,
though, while making use of a range of justifications like the following:
“[…] It doesn’t really matter if I order one piece or more because the postman
has to come by anyway […]” (2/15.16)
“It is not the case that I order something of which I know that I am definitely going
to send it back again. I assume that I could actually need it […]”
(5/12.33)
“[…] Why should I keep it when someone else has already returned it? (1/16.14)
18.4 Discussion
Consumers who order products on the internet with no concrete purchase intention
act this way predominantly out of the reason that they want to compare products
at home and that they usually assume while ordering that not all the articles will
meet their demands and expectations. Additionally, some consumers have the
Lochner J. K. 175
desire of feeling joy and having an exciting experience while others only need a
product once which leads to a morally questionable return. Interestingly, all the
interviewees refer to garments when talking about their questionable behavior.
Moreover, having to pay for delivery and product return and the provided paying
options seem to have a potential influence on the intention to exercise the morally
questionable, opportunistic behavior in the future. Very detailed product
information and the effort for returning a good do not have any impact on the
intention. A potential influence of the own friends remains unresolved due to very
different statements.
Furthermore, the practicing consumers feel bad about their own behavior and
make use of a range of justifications. This implies that they try to dissolve the
cognitive dissonance that results from the discrepancy between their attitude and
the exerted behavior. In the end, they use the neutralization technique Condemning
the condemners (Sykes & Matza, 1957) by stating that the online retailer is
responsible for handling the occurring consequences, One-Time Usage Crime
(Rosenbaum et al., 2011) by stating that one product is only needed once and
(sensu lato) First-Time, Only-Time Crime (Rosenbaum et al., 2011) by stating that
the behavior is not being exercised often anymore. In the end, three additional
techniques of neutralization could be proposed: Comparison with other people or
circumstances, Downplaying the negative consequences and Moderating own
behavior.
Table 12: Extended Techniques of Neutralization

(Own description) 6 666 6666 6 6
– –––––––– –
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Technique
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition
Definition Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Operational Context
Comparison with other

A circumstance in which
“I am not the only person
people or circumstances one draws a comparison
people or circumstances
one draws a comparison
behaving that way.”
with other people’s actions
or similar situations.
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the
Downplaying the A circumstance in which
“The online retailer can
negative consequences
negative consequences one addresses arguments
one addresses arguments
sometimes even derive a
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the
indicating that the benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
benefit from it.”
consequences are not as
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
bad as expected.
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own
Moderating own A circumstance in which
“While ordering, I always
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior
behavior behavior one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or
one moderates or hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
hope not to have
downplays his/her own
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
to send it back.”
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior.
behavior. behavior.
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
Depiction
1:Depiction
Extended
1:1:
1:Extended
1:Extended
1:
Extended
1:
1:
Extended
Extended
1:
Extended
Extended
1:
Extended
Techniques
Extended
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
Techniques
of Neutralization
ofof
ofNeutralization
ofNeutralization
of
Neutralization
of
of
Neutralization
Neutralization
of
Neutralization
Neutralization
of
Neutralization
Neutralization
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
(Source:
Own
(Source:
(Source:
Own
Own
Own
depiction)
Own
Own
Own
Own
depiction)
depiction)
Own
depiction)
depiction)
Own
depiction)
depiction)
depiction)
depiction)
depiction)
5 5555555L5IMITATIONS
L
5L
LIMITATIONS
LLIMITATIONS
LLIMITATIONS
L LIMITATIONS
IMITATIONS
IMITATIONS
IMITATIONSFAND
IMITATIONS
IMITATIONS
AND
AND
AND
AND FF
FURTHER
AND FURTHER
FURTHER
URTHER
AND
AND
AND FFURTHER
FURTHER
URTHER
AND FRURTHER
RR
URTHERRESEARCH
R
URTHERRRRESEARCH
ESEARCHR R
ESEARCH
ESEARCH
ESEARCH
ESEARCH
ESEARCH
ESEARCH
ESEARCH

First of all, limitations evolve from the qualitative research design and the sample
of the current study. Due to the small number of study participants, their same
educational background, (mostly) same gender, and around same age, a
generalizability of an entire user group cannot be ensured. Moreover, the results
can only be referred to garments. Besides, it is possible that some of the
respondents might not have told everything regarding their morally questionable,
opportunistic return behavior since they could have been embarrassed or ashamed
of some of their own actions. Most of these limitations lead to the conclusion that
conducting a quantitative survey building upon the gained insights would be
advisable as a next step. One could possibly concentrate on single motives and
research them in more detail or take a closer look at the return policies of specific
online retailers, i.e., and examine whether they have an influence on morally
questionable, opportunistic product returns. It would also be interesting to find out
if the evolved techniques of neutralization prove themselves with a bigger sample
or if new ones can possibly be derived. For the online retailers, it is advisable to
track customer histories and to specifically address those users who send
noticeably many items back by calling upon their conscience with targeted
communication measures. Last but not least, since most of the consumers do not
know much about the process of delivering and returning products, educational
work might be necessary and helpful.

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19 Success Factors in Digital Communication of
Crowdfunding Projects of Social Entrepreneurs
in German Speaking Countries
Verena Stephan30
Abstract: Crowdfunding is becoming an increasingly used alternative to finance

companies of social entrepreneurship. However, it is not yet clear, why crowd-
funding projects fail or get successfully funded. Therefore, the purpose of this
master thesis is to analyse, how and in what way communication can influence the
success of a crowdfunding project. The literature has already identified some
success factors that generally apply in the context of crowdfunding. This master
thesis is going to check them for validity in the context of social entrepreneurship
and to analyse, if they could have an impact on the success of social projects. The
analysis takes place considering the theoretical field of intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation, Self-Determination and Warm Glow Theory. The methodology for
the review of existing success factors in crowdfunding of social entrepreneurship
and generating new knowledge is in this case composed of the qualitative
structured and qualitative comprehensive content analysis of 37 successful and 37
non-successful projects in the field of social business on the German platform
Startnext. The results include the verification of some already identified success
factors and is based on the assumption that the response of intrinsic motives for
crowdfunding projects in social entrepreneurship can have a positive impact on
the success. The analysis shows new prospects for communication as well
and could therefore support future communication planning of crowdfunding
campaigns in social entrepreneurship.
19.1 Introduction
Crowdfunding (CF) is becoming an increasingly used alternative to finance new
companies within Web 2.0 (Agrawal, Catalini, & Goldfarb, 2013; Cholakova &
Clarysse, 2015; Mollick, 2014; Ordanini, Miceli, Pizzetti, & Parasuraman, 2011).
CF is going to be more important in different areas. One of them is Social
Entrepreneurship (SE). This intends to create a social value and the increase of
social welfare (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006). A balance of social and
economical interests is intended to be formed (Liu, Eng, & Takeda, 2015). Within
CF, entrepreneurs of the SE can use all channels of Web 2.0, such as Social Media
30

180 Success Factors in Digital Communication of Crowdfunding Projects …
(SM), to communicate. CF platforms themselves are located within the SM

landscape (Wu, Sun, & Tan, 2013) and CF projects can also have other SM
channels to communicate. This analysis is going to analyse how the
communication in CF of SE must be designed to finance a project successfully.
The relevance, especially to carry out investigations for communication in the CF
in SE is high because social entrepreneurs often pay too less attention on
marketing (Kalb, 2015). It is therefore necessary to find out what makes a project
for the backer attractive. This raises the question whether the success or failure of
a CF campaign of the same underlying dynamics is affected as other conventional
forms of investment of entrepreneurial companies, or, with the crowd as an
investor, there might be far less rational selection processes at work.
19.2 Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

The research in CF (Belleflamme, Lambert, & Schwienbacher, 2014; Hemer,
2011; Mollick, 2014) as well as in SE (Dacin, Dacin, & Tracey, 2011; Smith,
Cronley, & Barr, 2012), is between “nascent” and “intermediate” (Edmonson &
McManus, 2007). Ordanini et al. (2011) inspire to do qualitative research to find
out why someone becomes a backer. Therefore, they encourage the comparison of
successful and unsuccessful CF projects on a platform in order to identify success
factors (Ordanini et al., 2011). Research gaps in this area are also shown by
Belleflamme et al. (2014), and Gerber, Hui, and Kuo (2012). Agrawal et al. (2013)
demonstrate networking as a communication measure. Kuppuswamy and Bayus
(2013) show that updates in the final days of the funding period help to achieve
the funding target. After a broad analysis of the existing literature, Lehner (2013)
deals with CF associated with SE and outlines the implications for research in this
area. The perceived quality factor appears to be a key success factor (Mollick,
2014), although it is subjected to an information asymmetry (Gompers & Lerner,
2004; Myers & Majluf, 1984). A framework by literary compensation of previous
research is provided by Beaulieu, Sarker, and Sarker, (2015), by forming an
ecosystem around CF and provide a comprehensive analysis of the literature, when
it is getting clear that it is still unknown, how communication can be used
effectively. Cholakova and Clarysse (2015) examine in what way the type of CF
platform has an impact on the willingness to invest and show previous research,
which demonstrates that backer support CF projects on reward-based CF
platforms because of intrinsic and on equity-based platforms because of extrinsic,
likely monetary motives (Collins & Pierrakis, 2012), but also because of a mixture
of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Hemer, 2011). They come up with the
point that future research may explore the benefits of a combination of financial
and non-financial compensation particularly for social projects (Cholakova &
Clarysse, 2015).
Stephan V. 181
In the literature review it became clear that there is broad agreement about the
likely success factors in CF. There are some success factors that can affect the
communication in CF in SE. The most important are marketing communication
(Burtch, Ghose, & Wattal, 2013; Liu et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2012), especially
used in form of direct communication within SM (Heinonen, 2011), networks
(Agrawal et al., 2013; Belleflamme et al., 2014; Beier & Wagner, 2015; Cassar,
2004; Mollick, 2014; Ryu & Kim, in press), frequency in communication through
updates or blogs (Beier & Wagner, 2015; Cordova, Dolci, & Gianfrate, 2015;
Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Moreno & Martinez, 2013; Stegbauer, 2011; Thies,
Wessel, & Benlian, 2014), building trust for reducing information asymmetries
(Agrawal et al., 2013; Austin et al., 2006; Cholakova & Clarysse, 2015; Lin,
Prabhala, & Viswanathan, 2013; Mair & Marti, 2006; Naskrent & Siebelt, 2011;
Herzenstein, Sonenshein, & Dholakia, 2011), storytelling (Allison, McKenny, &
Short, 2013; Frydrych, Bock, Kinder, & Koeck, 2014; Herzenstein et al., 2011;
Martens, Jennings, & Jennings, 2007; Ordanini et al., 2011;), attractive rewards
(Allison et al., 2013; Cholakova & Clarysse, 2015; Frydrych et al., 2014; Gerber
et al., 2012; Gerber & Hui, 2013; Ryu & Kim, 2016), quality (Martens et al., 2007;
Mollick, 2014), positive language, humor and human interest language (Allison,
Davis, Short, & Webb, 2015; Ryu & Kim, 2016; Vettin & Todt, 2004).
As some success factors could be identified by the literature review which are a
form of communication or may be affected by communication, it is the goal of this
empirical study to verify or falsify them for the field of SE and to recognize other
than the mentioned success factors. Agrawal et al. (2013) emphasize the need for
economic theories to explain and capture different aspects and forms of CF and
its underlying dynamics as well as the motivation of the backer. A study by Allison
et al. (2013) points out, that language, when it is formulated in an of the Warm
Glow Theory appropriate manner, considerably influences the financing of
microcredit. The Warm Glow Theory assumes that people help others to feel better
about themselves (Anderoni, 1990). With this, Allison et al. (2013) show in a field,
which is related to the CF of social projects, that communication or language can
have a positive effect in compliance of certain rules on the funding process and
can influence potential investors positively in their decision making process.
Those giving only from selfish motives are emotionally rather difficult to
influence and must be won with rational arguments and clear calculations. Persons
acting on the basis of warm glow or altruistic motives are more easily convinced
by storytelling or emotional factors. Gently, one should deal with the fact that
intrinsic motivation can be mitigated by foreign regulation and that the
demonstration of the profitability of the project motivates only selfish backer.
19.3 Research Methods

The research is based on a qualitative research strategy. By applying the summary
and structured, qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2010) the success factors in
CF of SE should be identified (Mayring & Fenzl, 2014). It should be checked
whether the identified success factors also apply to CF projects in SE and if other
results can be obtained. Therefore, all successfully and unsuccessfully funded CF
projects from the category Social Business on the CF platform Startnext, that were
completed by March, 22nd 2016, are investigated. There is only reward-based CF,
in which both intangible and tangible rewards are given. Since the possibility of
linking economic and social objectives will be taken regularly by young social
entrepreneurs, these areas start to merge (Belleflamme et al., 2014; Belleflamme,
Omrani, & Peitz, 2015; Mollick, 2014).
The sampling process is done in accordance with the basic assumptions of
Grounded Theory (Strübing, 2014). Therefore, contrasting cases are selected and
examined in detail in terms of their underlying use of communication methods,
motivation influencing content and rhetorical possibilities. At the time, the
analysis takes place, a total of 81 CF projects in the category Social Business have
been completed of which 39 projects successfully and 42 projects were unsuccess-
fully financed. For the analysis, the data set of each 37 successfully and 37
unsuccessfully funded projects are taken after checking their completeness.
19.4 Results
The results show that not only the diverse use of various communication channels
but more over the nature of the communication and the linguistic presentation of
the essential content can influence the success of a CF project. It turns out that the
communication of successful CF projects is clearly more structured in a way that
literature recommends than the communication of unsuccessful CF projects is.
Therefore, the most success factors for communication in CF can be confirmed
for the category Social Business on the platform Startnext. These are in detail
storytelling, emotionality, humor, attitude or positive language, building up
networks, involvement, regular communication viablogs or update tools and
signaling quality. Not directly confirmed can be Media Richness Theory and
videos as the strongest medium as well as the external network care. The most
important findings are:
- The use of storytelling, humor and emotion in videos have a positive effect on
the degree of the founder’s sympathy and project success.
- The more frequent and different contents are repeated, the more likely is the
project's success.
Stephan V. 183
- The more relationship-oriented and personal communication is, the more likely
is the project's success.
- A high level of information has a positive effect on project success.
- The stronger intrinsic motives are addressed, the more likely is the project's
success.
- The stronger the response of intrinsic and extrinsic motives are mixed in the
communication within a project, the less likely the success of the project is.
19.5 Discussion and Conclusion

19.5.1 Contributions to Research and Practice
The focus of social entrepreneurs on the basics of their ideas and the repetition of
these basics are identified as extremely critical factors for the success. Essentially
important is the gained knowledge of the influence of the rewards. The analysis
shows, that successfully funded projects offer rewards, which are influencing
intrinsic motives more often than unsuccessful projects. The focus was more often
directed to intrinsic than to extrinsic motives in the successful projects. Focusing
on warm glow-oriented motives was recognized as purposeful and can be accepted
as essential for communication in the CF of the SE.
19.5.2 Limitations and Further Research

The causality of the blog posts and updates will remain open. It raises the question
whether founder blog because they were funded or because they want to encourage
the financing. Moreover, previous studies show, that by the mere presence of SM
channels no statement about the success of a CF campaign can be taken (Beier &
Wagner, 2015; Mollick, 2014). A thorough research revealed that currently no SM
analysis tool offers the possibility of a retroactive analysis of the interaction and
other key-performance indicators. Therefore, this is a limitation of this thesis. It
can be assumed that the length of the video could have an impact on the success
of a project: Long videos may overtax and very short videos misinform backer. A
quantitative analysis of the video length with a higher number of CF projects could
generate more insights here.

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20 Marketing Aspects in the Game Design Process of
Free-To-Play Mobile Games
Felix Winter31
Abstract: Due to the shift from the Pay-to-Play business model to the Free-to-
Play business model, game publishers are facing new challenges. Free-to-Play
mobile games are free to download, thereby often played by millions of people.
Publishers earn money through the sale of virtual in-game goods and currencies
as part of the well-established Free-to-Play business model. However, only a
select few publishers make a profit using this business model, since only around
2 % of all players actually spend money here.
20.1 Introduction
This paper is based on the challenges which free-to-play mobile game publishers
are facing. According to developers, marketing is the biggest challenge of the free-
to-play business model (Smith, 2016). Visibility is a big problem, since daily over
500 new mobile games are published and developers have to invest a huge amount
of money to get new people to download the game. Those campaigns are cost
intense and publishers must spend several dollars per game install (Deloitte,
2016). Since only 2 % of the players spend money in free-to-play mobile games,
only a few publishers make a profit with free-to-play mobile games (Geet, 2013).
The biggest challenge of free-to-play game developers is marketing (Smith, 2016)
and how they can utilize marketing aspects in order to incentivize the purchase of
virtual goods and currencies and how to tie players to the game. The goal is that
the customer-lifetime-value exceeds the acquisition costs for new players
20.2 Method
On account of the brief research history of Free-to-Play mobile games, a literature
review was carried out in order to determine the marketing aspects studied thus
far. In the empirical part of this master thesis, the two top grossing mobile games
of the four top grossing categories have been examined with respect to the
marketing aspects identified in the literature. Each game was played 10 minutes
per day over a time period of 3 weeks
31

190 Marketing Aspects in the Game Design Process …
20.3 Gaming Industry

Due to the growing economic and social aspects, videogames have become an
important part in scientific research (Jöckel, 2012). The first mainstream
videogames were arcade gaming machines back in the 1970s (Sellers, 2001).
Gaming consoles for home television followed this and in 1989 the Nintendo
GameBoy has been released. The GameBoy was unique since it was the first
gaming console where players were able to play while on the go (Jöckel, 2012).
Jöckel (2012) points out that since the introduction of powerful mobile devices,
such as the Apple iPhone in 2007, mobile platforms particularly greater
importance.
The gaming industry has become the fastest growing form of entertainment
(Jöckel, 2012). In 1999 the global industry revenue were at 32 billion US-Dollars
(Williams, 2002) and Galarneau (2014) adds, that the global revenue is predicted
to be 86 Billion US-Dollars. Galarneau (2014) continues, that the prediction of
mobile games revenue will be 35 Billion US-Dollars and mobile games will, like
in 2015, be the biggest segment within the video gaming industry. With the rapid
grow of mobile games, the free-to-play business model has established. At the
free-to-play business model the game is offered for free to download and revenue
will be generated through virtual item sales in the game (Hamari, 2015).
According to Statista (2016) 92 % of all games in Apples App Store are free-to-
play games.
20.4 Pay-To-Play vs. Free-To-Play Business Model

In free-to-play mobile games, publishers generate revenue through in-app-
purchases by selling virtual items and virtual currencies in the game (Luton, 2013).
This is different from traditional pay-to-play business models, where every
customer pays the same price to access the game. Pay-to-play business models
have a fixed price point and every customer who is not willing to pay this - but
any cheaper price - gets lost. Additionally, you lose potential players who are
willing to pay more money. Free-to-play mobile games offer different price points,
which make it more efficient and sustainable (Hamari & Järvinen, 2011). Fields
and Cotton (2012) add, that the potential of micro transactions for players with a
smaller budget and for people who want to spend bigger amounts of money
doesn’t get lost in the free-to-play business model.

The literature review results indicate that publisher integrate marketing aspects in
the free-to-play game design process in order to incentivize the purchase of virtual
Winter F. 191
goods. Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) found out, that virtual currency influences
the demand of virtual goods. Publishers are more flexible by using virtual
currencies, since they can offer virtual goods, which are not dividable. Bond
(2013) found out, that publishers also use dynamic pricing where according to
Kannan and Kopalle (2001) the price changes over time. In free-to-play this
happens due the game-design, where the price changes by player level. Pride and
Ferell (2014) focuses on psychological pricing strategies and adds, that because
of psychological pricing strategies, the price occurs more attractive to customers.
Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010). Luton (2013) adds that special occasions, such
as Black Friday or Thanksgiving, can also drive virtual item sales in virtual worlds
and Hamari and Lehdonvirta (2010) continue that publishers can also invent their
own special occasions based on the fiction of the game. Boutin (2010) found out,
that artificial scarcity is another important aspect, which stimulates virtual item
sales. Kollewe and Keukert (2014) add that this happens due offer limitation, or
limitation
so of the
invent their ownstorage
specialmechanics. Hamari
occasions based on and Lehdonvirta
the fiction (2010)Boutin
of the game. found(2015)
out that
publishers create demand of virtual goods, by planned obsolescence where
found out, that artificial scarcity is another important aspect, which stimulates virtual virtual
goods
item disappear
sales. Koleweover time, or (2014)
and Keukert by usingaddthem. Boutin
that this (2010)
happens dueadds
offerthat this makes
limitation, or
virtual goods
limitation of theeven moremechanics.
storage desirable Hamari
and theandperceived usefulness
Lehdonvirta (2010)increases.
found outMrotz
that
(2013) found
publishers createout that push
demand notifications
of virtual goods, byare the best
planned way to drive
obsolescence wherecustomer
virtual
retention
goods in free-to-play
disappear over time, ormobile games
by using them.and Luton
Boutin (2013)
(2015) addsadds thatmakes
that this push vir-
noti-
tual goods should
fications even moreonlydesirable and if
be sent out, thethey
perceived
have ausefulness increases.
value for the player.Mrotz
Luton(2013)
(2013)
found out that
mentions thatpush
thenotifications
trigger forarepushthe best way to drive
notifications customer
should be retention
based onin player
free-
to-play mobileofgames
motivations and games.
playing Luton (2013)
Ungeraddsand that push(2011)
Novak notifications
found should onlygame
out, that be
sent out, if they have a value for the player. Luton (2013) mentions that
updates drive customer retention and Sunico (2016) adds that updates are also used the trigger for
push notifications
to modify should be
the economy ofbased on player motivations of playing games. Unger and
the game.
Novak (2011) found out, that game updates drive customer retention and Sunico
(2016) adds that updates are also used to modify the economy of the game.
20.6 Findings
The in the literature identified marketing aspects were used to analyze the two top
Findings
crossing
The in themobile games
literature of the marketing
identified four top crossing
aspects categories
were used on
to the Apple
analyze theApp
twoStore.
top
crossing mobile games of the four top crossing categories on the Apple App Store.
Table 13: The four top crossing categories and their top crossing mobile games on the Apple
Table 1: the four
App topincrossing
Store 2015 categories and their top crossing mobile games on the
Apple App (Adapted
Store in 2015 (Appannie,
from Appannie, 2016)
2016, n.p.)
Category Game 1 Game 2

Strategy Clash of Clans Game of War – Fire Age
Puzzle Candy Crush Saga Candy Crush Soda Saga
Sport MADDEN NFL Mobile 8 Ball Pool™
Racing Racing Rivals Real Racing 3
The results indicate that the marketing aspects identified within the literature
also appear in the Free-to-Play mobile games analyzed. They also demonstrate
similarities in the marketing aspects of these games, most notably in terms of
pricing and virtual goods. The developers make use of waiting mechanics,
The results indicate that the marketing aspects identified within the literature also
appear in the Free-to-Play mobile games analyzed. They also demonstrate
similarities in the marketing aspects of these games, most notably in terms of
pricing and virtual goods. The developers make use of waiting mechanics, planned
obsolescence and artificial scarcity in order incentivize the purchase of virtual
goods.
Table 14: Price tiers in the analyzed free-to-play mobile games

(Own description)
Price tiers: $0,99 $1,99 $4,99 $8,99 $9,99 $14,99 $19,99 $20,99 $39,99 $49,99 $74,99 $99,99
Candy
$0,99 $4,99 $9,99 $14,99 $19,99 $20,99 $39,99 $74,99
Crush Saga
Candy
Crush Soda $0,99 $4,99 $8,99 $14,99 $19,99 $20,99 $39,99 $74,99
Saga
Clash of
$4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
Clans
Game of
War - Fire $4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
Age
Racing
$1,99 $4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
Rivals
Real Racing
$1,99 $4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
3
Madden
$4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
NFL Mobile
8 Ball
$1,99 $4,99 $9,99 $19,99 $49,99 $99,99
Pool™
Felix Winter
20.7 Conclusion
University of Applied Sciences Kufstein - Tirol
To become a successful free-to-play game publisher it is essential to integrate the

identified marketing aspects of this thesis. Daily over 500 new mobile games are
launched on the Apps Store but mobile games publishers are less lucrative
(Deloitte, 2016). Those marketing aspects need to be considered in the game
design process by designing virtual goods and mechanics that stimulate virtual
item sales. Also publishers must integrate customer loyalty mechanics to retain
customers in the long term.
A limitation of this paper is, that during the analyses no in-app-purchases effected,
so it was not possible to identify how those publishers segment paying users vs.
non-paying users. Further research could consider this limitation by playing the
games on two devices, where in-app-purchases will be done on one device and no
in-app-purchases will be done on the second device. Another further research field
could be a survey of non-paying player, to find out why those people do not yet
spend money in free-to-play mobile games and how to convert them into paying
players. Free-to-Play business models could also be researched further; an
Winter F. 193
interesting business model could be a hybrid business model using free-to-play

and monthly subscriptions. This hybrid business model is based on the idea of
Real Racing 3 were people can buy a VIP treatment for their cars. With this
treatment, players do not have to wait when upgrading the car in the workshop by
buying it via in-app-purchase. If players by a VIP treatment, it is valid for one car
and people do not have to renew the VIP status if bought once. Instead of a single
in-app-purchase it would be interesting to see how a subscription model for virtual
items would work.

Appannie. (2016). Top Apps on the iOS Store. Retrieved March 28, 2016, from
https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/top/
Bond, J.-M. (2013, August 26). The power of free-to-play app pricing. Retrieved
April 3, 2016, from https://www.engadget.com/2013/08/26/the-power-
of-free-to-play-app-pricing/
Boutin, P. (2010). How to make virtual goods valuable? Make them scarce.
Retrieved March 28, 2016, from http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/03/
how-to-make-virtual-goods-valuable-make-them-scarce/
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en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/tmt-pred
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Mechanics. Boca Raton, FL: Focal Press.
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Retrieved March 2, 2016, from http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/
2014-global-gaming-stats-whos-playing-what-and-why/
Geet, A. (2013). Only 2.2% of Free-to-Play Mobile Users Actually Pay. Retrieved
November 10, 2015, from https://gamerant.com/free-to-play-games-
profits-statistics/
Hamari, J. (2015). Why do people buy virtual goods? Attitude toward virtual good
purchases versus game enjoyment. International Journal of Information
Management: The Journal for Information Professionals, 35(3), 299-
308.
Hamari, J., & Järvinen, A. (2011). Building customer relationship through game
mechanics in social games. In M. Cruz Cunha, V. Carvalho, & P. Tavares
(Eds.), Business, Technological and Social Dimensions of Computer
Games: Multidisciplinary Developments (pp. 348-365). Hershey, PA:
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Hamari, J., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2010). Game design as marketing: How game
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Germany: Herbert von Halem.
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and Implications for Consumer Behavior. International Journal of
Electronic Commerce, 5(3), 63-83.
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für den erfolgreichen Online-Shop. Cologne, Germany: O’Reilly.
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T Becker, P Schneckenleitner, W Reitberger, A Brunner-Sperdin-Conference Proceedings Trends in Business Communicati

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Timo Becker

Peter Schneckenleitner Alexandra Brunner-Sperdin

ISBN 978-3-658-17253-4 ISBN 978-3-658-17254-1 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017931353

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer Gabler imprint is published by Springer Nature

The communication landscape has changed dramatically in recent years. Former

Part A: Scientific Papers .................................................................................... 1

1 Live Demonstrations as Means of Services Marketing and Brand

Part B: Master Thesis Abstracts ..................................................................... 99

9 Factors of the Successful Implementation of a Crowdfunding Campaign 101

Abstract: Governmental entities such as law enforcement agencies and

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

1.2 The Live Demonstrations Explained

Figure 1: The Belgium scenario

1.3 Results of the Live Demonstrations

1.4 Security Authorities as a Market - Drawing Conclusions

terminology and operational procedures differs significantly. On this subject,

stakeholders: researchers and academics, manufacturers and service providers,

1.5 List of References

2.2 Special Characteristics of the Sports Market

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

large number of the institutions involved are non-profit organizations such as

a) the team’s success in the past,

2.2.1 Ticket Markets

2.2.2 Secondary Ticket Markets

2.3 Empirical Evidence from Germany

2.3.1 Facts and Circumstances

2.3.2 Descriptive Statistics

2.3.3 Hypothesis Testing

5 Frequent use of OSM implies less use of BLACK.

Against this background, offering an authorized secondary market cannot be seen

2.4 Summary and Outlook

2.5 List of References

Abstract: This article deals with the importance of corporate communication

3.1 Initial Situation

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

medium-sized enterprises, by investigating only small and medium-sized German

3.2 Austria's Hidden Champions

3.3 Results of the Study

3.3.1 Structural Data of the Austrian Hidden Champions

3.3.2 General Study Results

3.3.3 Results on Corporate Communication

Figure 2: Importance of classic communication instruments

This assessment essentially reflects the actual practice of companies primarily

Figure 3: Ranking comparison of communication instruments (2008 vs. 2015)

Figure 4: Importance of digital communication instruments

emotional aspects more strongly in the communication of these already successful

Figure 5: Statements on the communication policy

3.4 Importance of Communication in the Context

As shown in Figure 6, 67.9% of surveyed Marketing Directors from Austrian

Figure 6: Importance of marketing instruments for business success

individually as possible with their mostly long-standing and loyal regular

3.6 List of References

Simon, H. (2007). Hidden Champions des 21. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt, Germany:

Abstract: Corporate communications have become a strategic factor that differ-

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH 2017

by C.I.R.A in 2011, the number of employees in investor relations increased from

4.2 Definition Public Relations (PR) and

4.2.1 Public Relations

4.2.2 Investor Relations

4.3 PR and IR Measurement – Literature Review and

4.3.2 International Measurement Standards and Theoretical Approaches

4.4 PR and IR Measurement Among Austrian Companies –