Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2022-02-02"
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- Behavioral intentions of an electric vehicle purchase : impact of different factors on the purchase behavior of an electric vehicle of german consumersPublication . Engels, Leonard Jörg; Mendonça, Cristina Soares PachecoDemand for electric vehicles has grown rapidly in recent years. One of the main drivers of the increase in demand is the environmental damage owed to traffic. This is because the environment is harmed by the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by a vehicle without an alternative drive system, like vehicles with a petrol engine. The problem is also well known in Germany. As a measure to reduce CO2 emissions in road traffic, the German government offers incentives in the form of monetary subsidies. Such incentives aim to motivate consumers to purchase an electric vehicle in order to reduce environmental pollution. This dissertation will investigate which factors motivate German consumers to purchase such an electric vehicle. As a tool, this study used the theory of planned behavior (TPB) by Ajzen (1991) after it was extended by Shalender & Sharma (2020) and adapted to the aims of this study. The extension added the predictors of moral norm and environmental concerns to TPB’s variables: attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Findings of this study show a significant effect of the five mentioned predictors on purchase behavior. Thus, this research suggests it is important to consider these factors when developing interventions to increase electric vehicle purchase.
- Hedonic food consumption : the impact of healthy labels, salient health goals, and purchase targets on consumers’ representations and purchase intentionsPublication . Sousa, Raquel Correia de; Braga, Ana Sofia Bilreio JacintoOver the years, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of making health and wellbeing decisions, not only as an ill individual, but also as a consumer. Additionally, consumers are progressively more concerned not only with their physical health, but also with their psychological health. Consumers want to make healthier choices, that can be supported by nutritional labels, but also want to experience the pleasure associated with eating certain foods, which can contribute to their psychological well-being. This dissertation examines consumers’ pleasure and diet expectations, physical and psychological health representations, purchase intentions, preferences, and level of anticipatory guilt towards hedonic products, depending on Health Saliency (Healthy Label vs. No-Label), Health Goals (Physical vs. Psychological), and Purchase Target (Self vs. Friend). The interactions between these variables were also explored. The study comprised an online survey, where participants were randomly assigned to one of two Health Goals (Physical or Psychological) and to one of two Purchase Targets (Self or Friend). Results revealed that the presence of healthy labels on hedonic products leads to a decrease in consumers’ hedonic representation of those products. Furthermore, findings indicate that both consumers with a focus on psychological health and consumers purchasing for others express higher purchase intentions, pleasure, and enjoyment for hedonic foods, and they were also shown to believe that those products are better to make them feel emotionally well, when compared to consumers with a focus on their body’s health and consumers purchasing for themselves.
- Equity research valuation : Fraport AG - Airport Services WorldwidePublication . Gahrens, Christian Alexander; Martins, José Carlos TudelaOn March 11, 2020, Covid-19 was officially announced as a global pandemic inflicting global challenges, economic, financial, and healthcare crises. In its wake, the travel industry was set to a complete halt resulting in international passenger freefalls of 95% in the subsequent month. Thus far, airport stocks are still trading below cruising altitude, marking one of the most damaged industries worldwide. Therefore, this thesis aims to analyze the intrinsic value of Fraport AG – Airport Services Worldwide, to exploit the effect of the pandemic and form an investment decision. The recovery profile is determined by unfolding vaccination rollouts, lifting travel restrictions, and increasing consumer spending power. Based on these assumptions, the intrinsic value per share, derived from the DCF analysis, should be €65.54 as of December 31, 2021. Based on the closing price of €59.18, the upside potential amounts to 10.7% and suggests a buy recommendation in the short run. However, the share price is expected to grow at 8.2% CAGR to €89.70 in 2025, proposing a hold recommendation in the long run. Scenario, sensitivity, and Monte Carlo analyses reveal more upside potential. Lastly, the results are compared to the target price of AlsterResearch AG.
- Well-being and engagement in home office : how the personality traits openness and ambiguity intolerance affect the well-being and engagement of employees in home officePublication . Engels, Katharina Ursula; Mendonça, Cristina Soares PachecoBased on the theory of person-environment fit, this master's thesis investigated the influence of the personality traits ambiguity intolerance and openness on the subjective well-being and engagement of employees in two different home office models. I assumed that the personality traits ambiguity intolerance and openness have a positive effect on the subjective well-being and engagement of employees and that this relationship is moderated by the type of home office. A total sample of N = 142 was used to test the hypotheses via multiple regression. Although not all correlations in this study are moderated by home office as assumed, basic correlations emerge that allow us to identify possible starting points for supporting engagement and wellbeing of employees in home office. In this study, high ambiguity intolerance represents a conducive factor for increasing engagement in working at home office fully, while low ambiguity intolerance represents a conducive factor for increasing engagement in working at home office partially.
- Morality x Price trade-off : what is the price of your values?Publication . Rodrigues, Inês Morgado Luz; Braga, João Pedro Niza JacintoThis dissertation explores why consumers buy from extremely low-price vendors, and if they make ethical inferences when looking at a product’s price. Past research has shown that price is a cue for quality or sustainability, for example, but this study goes a step further in the field of ethics. To do so two studies were made where the objective was the same, but there were two main differences: one analyzed the impact of self-actor consumer behavior, and the other studied the impact of moral actions on consumer behavior. Consumers believe they are more intelligent than others, and they feel smarter while buying a cheaper product. Doing a moral action led them mainly to consistency, and not recognizing their actions as immoral but the company as so. The main finding was that consumers don’t make ethical inferences based on price, and this leaves ethical companies with a challenge on their hands: figure out what cues deliver their message in the best way. A gap is left for unethical companies to operate, since consumers aren’t still aware of their practices, and are still looking only for the best price.
- “You’re on Mute” : can the workplace impact creative performance?Publication . Caetano, Sandra Meneses; Braga, João Pedro Niza JacintoThe ongoing pandemic times have most likely permanently changed the way we work. Our homes became our office, and we were now presented with the challenge of juggling professional and personal matters within the same space. Despite the unfortunate circumstances and innumerous challenges associated, it allows for a greater understanding of how working from home practices impact one’s performance and general well-being. Can working from home actually foster creativity? As previous research suggests a strong link between spatial distance and enhanced creative performance (Jia, Hirt, & Karpen, 2009), this dissertation attempted to test if the same effect applied on an extremely relevant real-life context. As such, two different studies were conducted to compare performance on creative tasks between individuals at the office and at home and test distance as a mediator of this effect. In Study 1, participants were asked to imagine themselves either working from home or at the office while in Study 2, participants were directly tested while working from home or at the office. Although individuals at home displayed a significantly superior performance than those at the office on both studies, distance alone does not seem to be the reason why.
- The impact of national culture in cognitive biases and its relationship with workplace teams’ formationPublication . Pereira, Joana Sousa; Mendonça, Cristina Soares PachecoThe environment we live in is known to influence our decisions. Culture has been studied and examined within several spectrums by many people. Also, we already understood that our decisions are not completely rational due to the existence of cognitive biases, a field of study that has been growing interest in the current times. This study aims to relate the two concepts, by trying to understand if being from one type of culture (measured through Hofstede’s cultural dimensions) can influence the level of cognitive biases, more specifically: optimism bias, confirmation bias and intuitive thinking bias. Additionally, I try to extrapolate the implications found into the workplace environment when trying to form multicultural teams to see if it is possible to balance cognitive biases by joining people from opposite cultures. The results of this study show a significant relationship between three of the six cultural dimensions with optimism bias and between two cultural dimensions and intuitive thinking bias. Regarding confirmation bias, no significant relationship was found. Finally, the implications of these results are discussed, along with some limitations and ideas for future studies.
- Equity valuation thesis : the Walt Disney CompanyPublication . Alves, Diogo Miquel Regalo; Martins, José Carlos TudelaThe goal of this dissertation is to evaluate the American diversified multinational media and entertainment conglomerate, the Walt Disney Company traded at the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker: “DIS”. An extensive and detailed analysis is performed according to the diverse opinions within the academic literature. Considering the different models to assess the fair value of the company, the most appropriate approaches are selected and compared to J.P.Morgan equity report.
- The fama and french six-factor model : evidence for the german marketPublication . Novak, Daniel Georg; Barroso, Pedro Monteiro e SilvaThe Fama and French models have influenced the research around multi-factor asset pricing in the past decades as no other approach (Fama and French 1993; 2015; 2018). In search of patterns and bias that tend to explain stock performances, investors and financial theorists continuously investigate the three-, five-, and recent six-factor models and their individual factors in different markets. In their well-known papers, Fama and French developed the models over various years based on data for the US market starting in July 1963. Almost simultaneously with the enhancement evolved also more research regarding the models’ applicability and robustness in other markets outside the US. However, even though insights about the international evidence of the models increased, significant research on the German market is still rare. The present work analyzes the explanatory power of the Fama and French Six-Factor Model (FF6) on average stock returns in Germany. Data is collected from Thomson Reuters Datastream and Worldscope for the time between July 1982 and June 2021 and I create factor portfolios according to the criteria defined by Fama and French. The evaluation shows a tendency for superior performance of the Fama and French Six-Factor Model over the previous three- and five-factor models. While big stocks seem to perform better than small stocks, there is indication for value and momentum premiums in the German market. Nevertheless, the results reveal only weak evidence for the explanatory power of the Fama and French Six-Factor Model on average stock returns in Germany.
- Statistical analysis and evaluation of stigmatization in a managerial environmentPublication . Büngers, Nadja; Jacinto, SofiaThe concept of mental health is not accepted universally in our society and, accordingly, does not enjoy the same attention as physical health. People suffering from a mental illness not only have to cope with their symptoms, they face prejudices, wrong stereotypes and stigma regularly. Hence, one intention should be to set an end to stigma, also within the working context. Especially during the ongoing Covid19-pandemic our health and the well-being of the people we care about is a matter of daily concern. The threat to our physical health is immense; nevertheless, due to lockdowns, minimization of social contacts and recommendations to stay home, we are further reminded that a good health itself is characterized not only by physical health, but also by our mental health. The aim of this dissertation is to clarify the process of stigma of mental illnesses and create awareness about it as understanding the concept of stigma is a prerequisite to decide on strategies for its reduction. The findings of this study illustrate that stigma is impacted by the causal attribution of illness; humans tend to make more stigmatizing judgments when an illness is a mental illness that is attributed to mind compared to an illness that is physical and attributed to the body. Furthermore, this research found that mere information about mental illness issues is not a sufficient way to reduce stigma which leads to the proposal of seminars and workshops within a managerial context to educate employees about stigma and reduce it.