Christian Herbst – författare

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Business economics - Revision, Auditing, grade: 1,0, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, course: International Accounting, language: English, abstract: The objective of this essay is to evaluate the Kodak financial report 2004 from an investor's point of view. Unlike the management's perspective, which often tries to present the most positive picture possible this analysis is designed to most clearly and critically reflect financial reality, in order to arrive at an estimate of its future potential and value. In deciding whether to buy, hold or sell the company's securities, answers to such questions as follows will be determined in this analysis: - What is the company's record with regard to growth and stability of earnings and cash flow from operations? - How well has the company performed and why? What operating areas have contributed to success and which have not? - What are the company's strengths and weaknesses? How are areas of strengths and weaknesses affecting the company's financial condition and performance? - How risky is the company's financial structure? - How does the company's operating performance compare with its industry competitors? The following chapters will try to concentrate on this questions by dealing with the most important information in a financial report, which is the basic set of financial statements: income statement, balance sheet and statement of cash flows. The statement of shareholder's equity will not be part of this essay, as it is not widely used for analysis and will be shortly covered in the balance sheet chapter. The statements will be discussed and analyzed in detail in the chapters 2-4. In the last chapter, Kodak's background with regard to its firm, industry and economy will be outlined; furthermore, key financial ratios will be calculated and compared to the industrial average. Finally, the investment decision will explained by estimating the future potential and value of the company.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Business Ethics, Corporate Ethics, grade: 1,3, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: The goal of this project is to establish a complete, globally applicable set of values and norms, as well as guidelines and regulations which should be accepted by each employee and manager, no matter in which country he or she works. Concerning the structure of this programme, two parts are distinguished - a theoretical approach to business ethics on the one hand and a concrete framework of ethical guidelines and on the other hand. In the first part a basic explanation about the role of business ethics in a changing business environment is given, followed by an overview of some important concepts of business ethics, social accountability standard SA 8000 and implementation of it. In the second part, we start with a code of ethics, where the necessity and importance of it is pointed out. The highlight is put on important aspects related to corporate governance, which includes especially a set of relationships between a company's management, its board, its shareholders and other stakeholders. The next chapter deals with the code of conduct, in which rules and regulations will for ethical behaviour based on Bauernfeind's values are outlined. The code applies to all employees and managers in all countries where the Company is conducting its business, even if some of the aspects mentioned in this Code of Conduct are not required by law in some of these countries. Furthermore the questionnaire for the company is developed Finally, the project work is summarized and conclusion is drawn.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 2,0, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, course: Cross Cultural Management, language: English, abstract: The recent 20 years have been the era of globalization with enormous growth in international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). In former times, most Western companies did not engage in international business. On the hand their domestic market seemed to be attractive enough and there were sufficient opportunities for growth. On the other hand, companies did not have to take into consideration the specific features of foreign markets, such as foreign languages and "e;strange"e; cultural behaviour. Nowadays, however, the changing business environment has forced most companies to seek opportunities in foreign markets as well. (Compare: Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders, Wong; Page 166) This development has led to the existence of so - called MNCs - multinational companies, which conduct business globally. Nowadays, there is no economy in which foreign companies are not active. In those companies, employees, suppliers and customers come from many different cultures, which has led to an increasing awareness about questions related to Cross Cultural Management (Compare: Bergemann, Sourisseaux; Page 9) In my essay, I will concentrate on this topic and I will try to describe cross cultural management in France. Concerning the structure of this essay, I want to start off by trying to give an explanation of the term "e;culture"e;. Afterwards, I will explain one of the best known models to describe cultural dimensions -Hofstede's 5-D-Model- and point out French and German cultural elements. But my main goal is to show how culture influences the management process and the business behaviour of the French company leaders and to compare these elements to the German business people. I will explain some differences between German and French business people, as far as management and leadership are concerned, by the help of an investigation of small and medium - sized companies. By describing three important features - values and objectives, internal leadership and external leadership I will point out the main differences between German and French company leaders, as far as leading and representing the firm, but also behaviour in daily business life and the relationship to business partners is concerned. Finally, I will point out, what German business people have to consider when they do business with French companies, how they can avoid mistakes in business decisions, how Germans should behave in a French company and draw a conclusion of this essay.

Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Trade and Distribution, grade: 1,7, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: [...] Those milestones will be outlined in the following chapters. Concerning the structure of this thesis, it will start off by giving a general description of the Chinese market and its economic development, as well as trade and investment opportunities and motives. After that, an overview of the Chinese culture will be given, including a description of Chinese behavioural patterns and the difference to German behaviour. Furthermore negotiation style and techniques will be pointed out. Based on all the information given, potential entry strategies will then be pointed out, including each strategy's advantages and disadvantages. Besides, industrial and foreign direct investment opportunities policies regulated by the Chinese government will be illustrated and major investment opportunities will be outlined. This chapter is followed by a description of the choice of location, which also includes an overview about certain investment incentives which are offered in specific regions. The following chapter deals with a complete risk analysis for the Chinese market. The second but last chapter deals with companies, which have managed to enter the Chinese market. This chapter also includes a description of the reasons why these companies have been so successful in accessing the Chinese market. Finally, the most important information will be summarized and a final conclusion will be drawn. Figures and tables are part of the appendix.

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1.0, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: The topic of this essay is project finance. Although it is considered to be a relatively new method of finance, its roots go back to the late 1920's when it was invented to initially provide American wildcatters with longer - term production finance. During the 1930's and 1940's improved engineering techniques were developed, which improved to ability to forecast recovery of oil reserves. banks, which also employed some technical staff applied these techniques, and were thus able to give oil production loans in excess of three years. Or, in other words, they accepted the risk that revenues from oil production would enable the borrower to repay the loan only out of the cash generated by this project. The creditworthiness of the borrower was irrelevant. Nowadays, project finance is not only limited to the petroleum sector, although this sector and other natural resource industries still remain leading users of project finance. A significant part of the project finance market is accounted for by power and other private infrastructure projects. Another significant feature of project finance is, that project finance has nowadays nothing to do with capital constraints, for major international mining, energy or power projects are developed by some of the world's largest companies. Risk management aspects which speak in favour of using project finance are gaining importance. (Compare: Pollio, Page 87) Concerning the structure of this essay, it will start off by giving some basic definitions and characteristic features of project finance. This chapter will be followed by a description of possible applications of project finance. After that, stages of project finance will be outlined. As this essay mainly concentrates on risks and problems that can occur when investments are project financed the following chapter will deal with that. Besides, special problems concerning the Basel II accord will be outlined, and methods how to judge upon risks and minimize the project's risk exposure will be explained. In the last chapter, some examples of project financed investments will be outlined.

Master's Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 1,7, Stralsund University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: PrefaceThe recent years have been the era of globalization with enormous growth in international trade, financial flows and foreign direct investment (FDI). Globalization intensifies interdependence between formerly separated nations, however the world seems to be more fragmented, between the rich and the poor, between the powerful and the powerless, and between supporters and opponents of the new global economy. Current figures reveal the contradiction between those that have managed to benefit from globalization, and those that are considered to be the losers of this period: A girl born in Japan has a 50 percent chance of seeing the chance of seeing the 22nd century, while a newborn in Afghanistan has a 25 percent chance of dying before age 5. The richest five percent of the world s people have incomes 114 times those of the poorest five1, and the world s richest one percent of people receive as much income as the poorest 57 percent.2The developing countries are currently facing two major problems: The first one is income poverty. In order to reduce the share of people living on one Dollar a day, the per capita income has to grow by 3.7 percent annually according to optimistic estimations. However, only 24 developing countries have realized these growth rates in the recent years. On the other hand, more than 127 countries with 34 percent of the world population have not grown at this rate.3 Many countries have suffered negative growth and the share of the poor people has increased, although the public focused increasingly on the poverty problem in the recent years, as it just happened at the Live Aid Concert. The second problem is infant mortality. 85 countries are on the track to reduce infant mortality to one third of the 1990 level, but they comprise less than one quarter of the world population. One the other hand, 81 percent of the countries with more than 60 percent of the world population will not be able to achieve this goal until 2015. Every day, more than 30,000 children die of preventable diseases.4 It is dramatic that many countries that will not achieve this goal are among the world s poorest, i.e. the least developed countries. ---1 Source: UNDP, Human Development Report 2002 , Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, Page 132 Source: Ibidem, Page 193 Source: Ibidem, Page 174 Source: Ibidem