My Writings

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Papers

Note: The links lead to PDF versions of the respective paper. All papers are in German.

Conflicts of Interests between Venture Capitalists and Startups regarding the Exit (Sep 23, 2003 - thesis): My thesis discusses the goals, motivations, and frameworks that venture capitalists (VCs) and startups face regarding the exit. I use institutional economics for the analysis, and I show in detail what types of conflicts can arise and how one might go about solving them.
-- The thesis was awarded the "TENTE Stiftung Dr. Dietrich Fricke-Preis 2004" by the Erich-Gutenberg-Stiftung.
Vertical Integration or Outsourcing: A Strategic Make-or-Buy Decision (Apr 27, 1998 - seminar paper): The paper uses the transaction cost approach to attain guidelines and decision support for management. It is further shown how the limits of the transaction cost approach can be overcome by qualitative-strategic, costing, and hierarchical approaches. It is concluded that only an eclectic theory can do justice to the complex make-or-buy decision.
The Balanced Scorecard: Controlling and Operating the Corporation's Strategic Goals (Jan 05, 1999 - seminar paper): The paper explores concepts and applications of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in the context of value-based management. The main part details the Kaplan/Norton balanced scorecard. Corporate implementation is covered in the third part (two actual examples in the appendix). Finally, the BSC concept is critically evaluated.
Cultural Change: Requirements and Stages of the Change Process (Jan 13, 1998 - seminar paper): The paper discusses what has to happen to succeed in a process of cultural change. Several descriptive and normative models of cultural change are being elaborated. The main part condenses from the cited literature the requirements of successful cultural change and puts them into a web of interdependencies.

Articles & Essays

Stock Options vs. Stock: An Incentives Perspective (Jan 10, 2004): Discussing the difference between employee compensation with stock options or stock from an incentives perspective, especially taking into account shareholder goals.
Challenges for Corporate Strategy Formulation as a Result of Rapid Economic Change (May 07, 2003): An essay discussing whether the corporate strategy processes have inherently changed in recent years.
The Problems with Venture Capital and Entrepreneurs (Jun 07, 2003): Why I think the venture capital model is a valuable one, despite frequent criticism by entrepreneurs.
A Distributed Product Review Data Standard (Mar 10, 2003): A write-up of a rough technological concept I had been carrying with me for a while.
Business Automation: When "not yet" is the better answer (Dec 16, 2002): Short comments about an important issue.
The Importance of Product Management for Internet Companies built on Scale (May 19, 2003): Discussing the (in my opinion) most important value driver for many Internet companies, although it is frequently neglected in practice.
Future in Review Conference (FiRe): Not so much an article, this is a series of summaries of talks at a conference I had attended in May 2003.

Book Contributions

In 1998/1999 I was the project coordinator for a research project on crisis management at DaimlerChrysler with Prof. Armin Töpfer of Dresden University of Technology. Two books resulted from that project, all in German language. The translated book titles are "Sudden corporate crises" and "The A-Class: Elchtest, Crisis Management, Communications Strategy".
In 2000, while at Bertelsmann, I helped write a book article about the price comparison service I was working for. The book title is "Silicon Valley - Made in Germany".