Irina Tiemann

ABSTRACT „Ohne Additive wird heute kein Lack mehr hergestellt, kein Auto lackiert, keine Oberfläche versiegelt, kein Kunststoff produziert. Obwohl nur in kleinen Mengen zwischen 0,1 und 1 Prozent zugesetzt, sorgen Additive ganz entscheidend für die Charakteristik des Endprodukts. Additive bestimmen, wie hart, matt oder glänzend Lacke sind, welche Eigenschaften Kunststoffe besitzen.“

Education in the field of Entrepreneurship at German higher education institutions (HEIs) has a rather short history. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship as an academic discipline has been very successful since the late 1990s (Schmude, Welter & Heumann, 2008, S. 292 ff). In 1997-1998 the first professorship in entrepreneurship was established at the European Business School (ebs) (Uebelacker, 2005, S. 103) whereas for the year 2014, 120 German professorships in entrepreneurship were listed by the support group FGF (Förderkreis Gründungs-Forschung e.V.) (FGF e.V., 2013). The growing number of professorships in entrepreneurship shows a positive trend towards the quantitative improvement of education in entrepreneurship. A trend of qualitative improvement has also taken place at many universities over the last years. Entrepreneurship centres have increasingly emerged at many universities. They are often set up across different academic disciplines, enabling the qualification, consulting, an...

This paper presents the results from an empirical survey of chemical suppliers, which examines the influence of customer relationship functions on supplier involvement in customer new product development (NPD) from the supplier's perspective. Using multiple regression analysis, we can demonstrate a positive influence between the direct functions (e.g., profit, volume) of customer relationship and supplier involvement in customer NPD. Differentiating between innovative and non-innovative suppliers leads to distinctive differences. While the direct functions are a strong predictor for the supplier involvement in the non-innovative supplier group, in the innovative group only indirect functions (innovation, market, scout and access functions) influence the supplier involvement. These results show that mutual support in the NPD and open network are the imperative triggers for the involvement of innovative suppliers. The obtained results provide theoretical as well as practical implications for the supplier involvement in customer NPD.