Junior Management Science, Volume 6, Issue 3, September 2021

  1. Max Lindner, Sustainable Food Consumption of German Millennials: Exploring the “Attitude Behavior Gap”, 424-467
  2. Nele Braun, The Role of the European Central Bank in a Sustainable Financial System, 468-488
  3. Elif Gürlek, Corporate Taxation in the U.S. and Canada – A Comparative Analysis, 489-506
  4. Markus Probst, No Mon, No Fun? A Discrete Choice Analysis of the Preferences of Medical Students for Work on the Countryside , 507-546
  5. Tim Leonard Hermes, The Impact of Community Involvement on Game Life-Cycle: Evidence based on Gaming Platform Steam, 547-567
  6. Leonie Rinke, Cross-border Tax Group, 568-589
  7. Konstantin Spring, Backtesting the Expected Shortfall, 590-636
  8. Victoria Roth, Talking is Silver, Doing is Gold? – The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Financial Performance, 637-672
Read Issue
Submit Your Thesis Now
Keep Up To Date

Sustainable Food Consumption of German Millennials: Exploring the “Attitude Behavior Gap”

Max Lindner, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Master thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 424-467

This thesis picked up on the recent trend of sustainability and sustainable development by investigating the sustainable food consumption of German Millennials regarding an assumed gap between their attitude and their actual consumer behavior. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, a multi-step, qualitative research process was developed in order to find explanations for the attitude behavior gap. The process triangulated data from questioning ten German Millennial consumers via qualitative interviews, observing these consumers during a regular grocery shopping trip and analyzing the products they bought. The study revealed the following barriers preventing the participants from consuming according to their attitude: price, lack of knowledge on part of the consumers, insufficient sustainable product ranges, consumers minimizing the time spent for grocery shopping, habitualized purchase decisions and in exceptional cases a desire for unsustainable products. Accordingly, recommendations were derived for sustainable food manufacturers and supermarket chains, public policy and consumers. Additionally, this thesis contributes to consumer research on the attitude behavior gap as well as on behavioral research by applying and extending the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Keywords: Sustainable consumption; attitude behavior gap; consumer behavior; food consumption Verbal Protocol Analysis; Theory of Planned Behavior.

Read article

Go to article page

The Role of the European Central Bank in a Sustainable Financial System

Nele Braun, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Bachelor thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 468-488

The Paris Agreement acknowledged climate change as an urgent threat to the planet and human society. To fulfil the aim of
limiting global warming, public and private investments and especially long-term investments are supposed to shift towards
sustainable practices. Given the high investments required to pursue a sustainable financial system, it will be essential to
involve the financial sector, as well as its participants and authorities. This thesis discussed the role the European Central
Bank (ECB) could play in a transition towards a sustainable financial system. First, the framework conditions and the need
for a sustainable financial system were explained, in particular the recent developments like for instance the introduction of
the EU Taxonomy regulation, a classification system for sustainable activities which aims to provide clarity and limit the risk
of green washing. After that, it was outlined how climate-related risks can spread to the financial system and why central
banks are concerned of them. Three links for the relation between climate change and the financial system were identified –
physical risks, transition risks and liability risks. In particular, the impact of climate change on price stability, financial stability
and the portfolio management of central banks were examined. The objectives and the strategy of the ECB were described,
to establish a base for the subsequent analysis of their instruments. Furthermore, the European Green Deal, an answer of the
European Union to the challenges caused by climate change was presented.

Keywords: Sustainable finance; green finance; central banking; sustainability.

Read article

Go to article page

Corporate Taxation in the U.S. and Canada – A Comparative Analysis

Elif Gürlek, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Bachelor thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 489-506

As the degree of global trade integration increased, corporate taxation became a border-crossing matter that obliged governments to reassess the tax attractiveness of their jurisdictions. The U.S. and Canada are two major players of today’s trade landscape and the corporate tax environment of these two countries impact MNEs investment decisions. Historically, Canada offered a more favourable tax environment compared to its neighbour. However, the U.S. tax reform, TCJA, challenged Canada’s tax attractiveness. This paper aims to assess the similarities and differences of both countries’ tax systems after the tax reform based on the tax attractiveness criteria. Following, the paper examines lessons that can be derived for Canada to regain its strong position in the global tax attractiveness scenery. The U.S. and Canada have the potential to set an example for lawmakers and show that it is possible to create a corporate taxation environment that preserves governments’ interest whilst creating attractive taxation policies in the eye of MNEs.

Keywords: Corporate taxation; United States; Canada; tax attractiveness; Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Read article

Go to article page

No Mon, No Fun? A Discrete Choice Analysis of the Preferences of Medical Students for Work on the Countryside

Markus Probst, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Master thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 507-546

Keywords: Landärztemangel; Discrete-Choice-Experiment; Medizinstudenten in Deutschland.

Read article

Go to article page

The Impact of Community Involvement on Game Life-Cycle: Evidence based on Gaming Platform Steam

Tim Leonard Hermes, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Bachelor thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 547-567

Later stages of the product life-cycle are characterized by diminishing sales and declining prices. Especially firms with substantial product development costs, as is the case in the video game industry, are dependent on long product life-cycles to amortize initial costs. This confronts firms with the fundamental challenge of maintaining the value of their product from the consumer’s perspective and thus delaying the natural price decline. We investigate whether product features that facilitate community involvement and interaction are an effective means to keep the product stimulating and relevant in the long run. Using extensive data from the PC video game market, we show that the inclusion of interactive, community-engaging features allows firms to both charge higher prices and delay the natural price decline of their product. However, for one of the investigated features we find the opposite effect, which we explain by subsequent analysis. Thereby, we gain valuable insights into the importance of robustly designed incentive systems in community-focused features. Our findings could help firms in their efforts to design attractive and economically viable products with prolonged life-cycles.

Keywords: Product life-cycle; digital goods pricing; user communities; co-creation; digital gaming platforms.

Read article

Go to article page

Cross-border Tax Group

Leonie Rinke, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Bachelor thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 568-589

The tax group for income tax purposes enables the income of a subsidiary to be attributed to the income of a parent company for corporate income tax and trade tax purposes. This makes it an important institution in German tax law, but in the cross-border case it harbors many ambiguities and problems. In this paper, therefore, the potential case constellations of a cross-border tax group are identified and examined for the possibility of forming a tax group. At the beginning, a brief description of the prerequisites and legal consequences of the tax group is given. Subsequently, a distinction is made between an inbound and an outbound situation as well as between a foreign domicile in an EU or EEA state and a foreign domicile in a non-member state. In particular, the problem areas in which the domestic application of law conflicts with EU case law are adressed. The results show that the ECJ case law has so far only been implemented by German courts to a limited extent. This leads to a legal situation which is to be classified as contrary to EU law, but which will probably only change through proceedings before the ECJ.

Keywords: Organschaft; § 14 KStG; internationale Gruppenbesteuerung; Niederlassungsfreiheit.

Read article

Go to article page

Backtesting the Expected Shortfall

Konstantin Spring, University of Konstanz (Master thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 590-636

Backtesting of risk measure estimates is an integral part for an effective risk management. With the growing importance of the Expected Shortfall (ES) to potentially replace the Value at Risk (VaR) as a primary measure for market risk this also calls for suitable backtesting solutions. Although a variety of approaches has been proposed in the past, there is still an on-going discussion whether the ES can be properly backtested. The thesis adds to this discussion in the following way. Five of the most promising backtests for the ES are implemented, compared based on theoretical properties like empirical size and power and tested against ES estimation models which are fitted to historical returns of the S&P 500. In addition, all backtests in scope are assessed against a set of criteria which reflect their practical applicability for both regulators and financial institutions. Results presented within this thesis confirm that backtesting the ES is indeed not much more complicated than backtesting the VaR. Backtesting ES might be conceptually less straight forward, but there are multiple promising approaches which allow for a reasonable validation of ES estimation models.

Keywords: Expected shortfall; backtesting; risk measures; statistical test.

Read article

Go to article page

Talking is Silver, Doing is Gold? – The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Financial Performance

Victoria Roth, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Master thesis)
Junior Management Science 6(3), 2021, 637-672

Sustainability has become an omnipresent topic in the media and public as well as private debate. Stakeholders see the responsibility to promote sustainability with companies, pressuring them to increase their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The relationship between CSR, being a means to satisfy a firm’s stakeholders, and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) is extensively debated in academics. This thesis contributes to this debate and tries to overcome measuring inaccuracies of previous studies by strictly categorizing CSR activities into CSR communication and CSR commitment. A total of 656 annual and CSR reports were examined, and variables representing these CSR activities were carefully and elaborately created, resulting in, among other things, a CSR communication breadth index, as well as an accurate assessment of communication quantity. A panel data analysis on European firms across industries over the observation period of eight years was conducted. The results reveal that only CSR communication has an influence on CFP. While standalone CSR reports and communication breadth have a positive influence, high levels of communication quantity have a negative effect.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; corporate financial performance; CSR commitment; CSR communication; stakeholder theory.

Read article

Go to article page