Moritz Loock

Sustainability: How Stakeholder Perceptions Differ from Corporate Reality:

A strong reputation is widely acknowledged to be the most valuable asset of a firm, and sustainability has become an important component of corporate reputation. Many stakeholders, from customers to investors to employees to purchasing managers, report that sustainability is an important factor in their decision-making processes. However, sustainability messages have become ubiquitous–almost table stakes–for most large firms. In such an active marketplace, especially for firms who have not pursued leadership positions, it is difficult for companies to use sustainability to create meaningful differentiation from competitors and thus benefit from their investments. There is often a major gap between stakeholder perceptions and firm performance. Firms that integrate sustainability into their culture and business practices are better able to integrate sustainability messaging into mainstream communications.

Best in Class or Simply the Best? The Impact of Absolute Versus Relative Ecolabeling Approaches

Although research has widely investigated labels across a range of product domains, one understudied area is the use of absolute versus relative rating approaches to information provision. For example, under an absolute rating approach to vehicle ecolabels, the consumer is informed of the actual amount of fuel consumed during use of a vehicle compared with that of all other vehicles on the market. Under a relative rating approach, the fuel consumption is communicated in relative terms, comparing the vehicle only with others in the same class. The current research illustrates that switching from an absolute to a relative rating approach can lead to a reversal effect in the perception of a cars environmental friendliness. For example, a sport-utility vehicle can be perceived as either environmentally friendly or not, depending on the type of rating approach used. The authors demonstrate that visual representation drives this effect, using a colored alphabetical rating scale to communicate environmental performance.

Talking about a Better Place: How Shai Agassi is Creating a Mass Market for Electric Vehicles

According to creation theory, opportunities do not exist independently of entrepreneurs; instead they are created by the actions of entrepreneurs. However, little is known about the process of how opportunities are actually acted upon. We explore the role of communication in opportunity enactment by analysing an extreme case: Shai Agassi and the frequently cited business model innovation of his company Better Place, with which he wants to eliminate the car industry’s dependence on oil. For the first time, we take a look at the practice of communication of the case and find patterns that play a vital role in creating a market. The findings of our case study research can help entrepreneurs to understand communication practices for changing an established industry. The findings also further advance our understanding of entrepreneurial practices within creation theory.

What Kinds of Photovoltaic Projects Do Lenders Prefer to Finance

Discussions of innovation in renewable energy have covered different types of energy production (e.g., Nguyen, Gheewala, & Sagisaka, 2010; Sookkumnerd, Ito, & Kito, 2007; Yusoff, 2006), different industries (e.g., Narodoslawsky, Niederl-Schmidinger, & Halasz, 2008; Smyth, o Gallachoir, Korres, & Murphy, 2010), or have focused on different geographic regions (e.g., Kaldellis, Simotas, Zafirakis, & Kondili, 2009; Smyth et al., 2010; Sookkumnerd et al., 2007; Zuluaga & Dyner, 2007). However, a crucial aspect has been rarely discussed: financing. Project financing is a central challenge for the diffusion of renewable energies, as it claims a major percentage of overall renewable energy investments (United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP], 2010) and requires huge amounts of debt capital: Debt ratios of 80 percent or even 90 percent are common (Johnson, 2009; Bottcher, 2009; Wuppertal Institute [WI], 2010).

Determinants of Credit Allocation for Photovoltaic Projects : Research Outline and Preliminary Findings from Conjoint Experiments with German Financing Experts

An increasing concern for photovoltaic (PV) projects is a shortage of capital in the medium term. PV project financing is an urgent topic due to a fundamental lack of knowledge about how debt capital providers evaluate this class of infrastructure projects. Moreover, after recent turbulences on the financial markets it is unclear how the availability of capital for renewable energy projects will develop. In this context financing models are decisive especially for medium- and large-scale PV projects, since large shares of debt capital are needed: Practitioners assume debt ratios of up to 80% or even 90%. As there is only limited academic research on project characteristics and their impact on credit allocations, the focus is on lenders’ preferences for different project types. The explorative research approach therefore addresses the following question: Which types of PV projects do lenders prefer to finance? We try to answer this question by conducting an Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint experiment (ACBC) with German experts in renewable energy project financing (banks, savings banks, consultants, project developers). To get robust and relevant results we clearly define our research scope: medium- and large scale ground-mounted installations being subject to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) as of 2009. Initially, we supposed that from a lender’s perspective two attributes might be of utmost importance: First, Debt Service Cover Ratio (DSCR), indicating the security of loan repayment. Second, a hardly discerned but assumingly important aspect is the project initiator who is the central stakeholder during project development. This attribute is conceptualized by referring to possible project initiators’ business models. Examples are vertically integrated PV manufacturers, financial investors, service providers, and regional or multinational utilities. To provide for an as authentic as possible conjoint experiment, six attributes with 22 attribute levels in total were developed through literature studies and expert interviews. The six attributes are: DSCR, system capacity, brand/low cost technology, project initiator, maintenance concept, and equity ratio. Our survey, taking place from January to March 2010, is still online as this working paper is being written; thus, results are preliminary. We report from a sample size of 1.240 choice tasks conducted by 30 interviewees; 40 to 50 experts are expected to participate in the end. So far, the empirical data do not support our assumptions regarding the outstanding importance of DSCR and project initiator. Instead, our preliminary results are suggestive of a “brand bias” in lenders’ decisions.

Geschäftsmodellinnovation und Heuristiken: Das Beispiel E-Mobility bei Siemens

Wie konnen Unternehmen mit neuen Technologien Geld verdienen? Das ist eine Frage des Geschaftsmodells, lautet eine plausible Antwort. Aber was sind Geschaftsmodelle? Der Aufsatz definiert Geschaftsmodelle als Konfigurationen von Heuristiken, einfachen Daumenregeln. Eine solche Perspektive ist besonders im Bereich von technologischen Innovationen nutzlich, da oft weder massenmarkttaugliche Technologien noch erfolgreiche Benchmarks oder breite Kundennachfrage real existieren. Die Geschaftsmodellierung muss daher robuste Annahmen uber eine unsichere Zukunft treffen. Aufbauend auf diesem Verstandnis ist Geschaftsmodellinnovation ein modellbildender Prozess der Konfiguration von Heuristiken. Am Beispiel E-Mobility und der Firma Siemens werden Stufen des Prozesses charakterisiert.