Fakultät Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hohpublica.uni-hohenheim.de/handle/123456789/22

Die Fakultät vereint Forschung und moderne Lehre nach internationalen Standards. Das Hohenheimer Modell verzahnt dabei betriebs- und volkswirtschaftliche, sozial- und rechtswissenschaftliche Aspekte.

Homepage: https://wiso.uni-hohenheim.de/

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Associations between individual factors, environmental factors, and outdoor independence in older adults
(2020) Schehl, Barbara; Leukel, Jörg
The degree to which individuals can accomplish outdoor activity by themselves or require support is an important facet of successful aging. While prior research focuses on participation in outdoor activity, understanding of older adults’ outdoor independence is limited. We adopt an ecological approach to examine the role of individual factors and environmental factors in explaining outdoor independence. Our sample comprised older adults aged 65 + living in a medium-sized city in Germany (N = 1070). The results show that being male, younger, and healthier was positively associated with outdoor independence, while living together was not. Further, outdoor independence decreased with higher levels of perceived environmental barriers. This negative association was moderated such that it was stronger for the less healthy and older participants. Based on our empirical findings, we offer insights for policy makers, urban planners, and community groups to design age-friendly communities and consequently facilitate outdoor independence among older adults.
Leveraging regionally sourced natural fibers for coreless filament winding in sustainable construction
(2026) Rossa, Alina J.; Bozó, Daniel Christopher; Mindermann, Pascal; Gresser, Götz T.; Schuenemann, Franziska
This study investigates the potential of regionally sourced natural fibers (NF) as sustainable feedstocks for coreless filament winding (CFW), an innovative and resource-efficient composite fabrication method for construction. As the sector moves towards bio-based materials, flax has emerged as a benchmark due to its compatibility with CFW and favorable mechanical properties. However, supply chain vulnerabilities and price volatility highlight the need for regional alternatives to flax fibers. By assessing hemp, miscanthus, lavender, nettle and wheat straw cultivated in Baden-Württemberg (BW), this paper links crop sustainability and fiber suitability with the broader aim of strengthening local biomass utilization within the bioeconomy. A multi-stage evaluation framework compares environmental, economic, social, and technical indicators against flax, focusing on biomass availability, input intensity, ecosystem services, land-use competition, and fiber properties. The results identify hemp as the most promising alternative due to its high fiber output, low cultivation inputs, beneficial ecosystem services and mechanical performance. Nettle offers strong mechanical performance but faces agronomic limitations, while lavender presents niche potential under integrated production systems. Miscanthus and wheat straw, while unsuitable for direct CFW due to fiber morphology, may serve as supplementary feedstocks through modified processing. These findings underscore the role of local biomass streams in creating robust regional value chains, contributing to the resilience and sustainability of the bioeconomy. While the focus of this study is on BW, the framework can be transferred to other regions and may serve as a practical tool for policy, industry, and research seeking to advance circular approaches in bio-based construction.
Metropolitan, urban, and rural regions: how regional differences affect elementary school students in Germany
(2025) Schwerter, Jakob; Bleher, Johannes; Doebler, Philipp; McElvany, Nele
This study examined how regional differences affect elementary school students using the representative German Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 data (N = 3,959 fourth-grade students; M_{Age} = 10.34 years; 49% girls; 71% from a nonimmigrant background) by combining bootstrapping, multiple imputations, principal component analysis, and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). Grouping regions into rural, (sub-)urban, and metropolitan, we found that students from rural and metropolitan areas are 10.9% and 15.1% more likely, respectively, to receive an academic track recommendation than their urban counterparts. Similarly, rural and metropolitan students are 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations more likely to enjoy school and be interested in reading than their urban counterparts. Aside from students’ backgrounds and skills, many of the characteristics explaining this regional difference are structural, directly affected by policy decisions. Variables directly and indirectly influenced by policy help explain regional differences, but nonpolicy variables reduce regional differences in academic track recommendations the most.
Navigating the social dilemma of autonomous systems: normative and applied arguments
(2025) Bodenschatz, Anja
Autonomous systems (ASs) become ubiquitous in society. For one specific ethical challenge, normative discussions are scarce: the social dilemma of autonomous systems (SDAS). This dilemma was assessed in empirical studies on autonomous vehicles (AVs). Many people generally agree to a utilitarian programming of ASs, but do not want to buy a machine that might sacrifice them deterministically. One possible way to mitigate the SDAS would be for ASs to randomize between options of action. This would bridge between a socially accepted program and the urge of potential AS users for some sense of self-protection. However, the normativity of randomization has not yet been evaluated for dilemmas between self-preservation and self-sacrifice for the “greater good” of saving several other lives. This paper closes this gap. It provides an overview of the most prominent normative and applied arguments for all three options of action in the dilemmas of interest: self-sacrifice, self-preservation, and randomization. As a prerequisite for inclusion in societal discussions on AS programming, it is ascertained that a normative argument can be elicited for each potential course of action in abstract thought experiments. The paper then progresses to discuss factors that may shift the normative claim between self-sacrifice, self-preservation, and randomization in the case of AV programming. The factors identified in this comparison are generalized into guiding dimensions for moral considerations along which all three options of action should be evaluated when programming ASs for dilemmas involving their users.

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