impEct No. 2 is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Albert Roth: His academic retirement began in February 2006. This issue therefore begins with a tribute to his work at the Faculty of Business Studies at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
The essays section comprises seven contributions. Latin America is represented by three articles:
Prof. Norma Fuller sheds light on the consequences of the crisis that the concept of culture is undergoing in the social sciences - a worthwhile read for International Business students as well. An additional translation of the essay into German should help her remarks to gain a broader resonance among us.
Lawyer Valentin Bartra comments on the developments of the UN climate conferences up to 2005, focusing in particular on the perspective of the non-signatory states of the Kyoto Protocol.
In her essay,Prof. Pilar Arango highlights some of the implications of the free trade agreement with the USA and Canada, countries that are committed to very different economic styles. Examining the role of trust between the trading partners is therefore a worthwhile task.
Dr. Daniel Roche from France is working in a related field: as part of an empirical project, he is trying to determine the relationship between results orientation and ethical principles among sedentary and non-sedentary salespeople.
A contribution from Spain focuses on a support project for business start-ups in Ecuador:
Javier Espina and Vicente Arregui examine the success factors of the measures initiated and argue for a holistic support concept that also includes the first phase of self-employment.
Graciela Padoani David and Miguel Gil Palacios address a topic that is very topical not only in France: improving access to vocational and academic education for disadvantaged young people.
young people. Society will have to be judged by the way in which it finds concrete answers to exclusion or hinders it.
With a contribution on personality development, Werner Müller-Pelzer joins the debate on how the social and personal deficits of university graduates can be remedied. With a philosophically accentuated approach, he attempts to use the rhetorical situation for self-observation and situational competence.
Research projects and announcements
In the Projects and Reports section, we once again talk about the German-Jordanian University. Prof. Albert Roth hadalready reported on this in impEct No. 1.
Now he documents the progress that has been made in agreeing a joint study program.
This is followed by a block of reports revolving around a project by Dr. habil. Gerd Held, namely the identification of implicit success factors in Franco-German cooperation between industrial companies. On this occasion, the diploma theses of two 2006 graduates are documented, which dealt with competence centers in Germany and France.
Finally, Eva Conraud presents a report on her research project, which was already described in impEct No. 1, but has now been modified.
The report concludes with data collected in 2005 from graduates of the Franco-German International Business study program.
Dortmund, December 2006
Werner Müller-Pelzer