Corinna Colette Vellnagel – författare

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Operations Research, grade: Distinction, The University of Surrey (Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences ), course: MA Intercultural Communication with International Business, language: English, abstract: Like every other relationship, the relationship between any manager and any worker has ever since been complex and not easy. It is, amongst other things, affected by jealousy and resentment in terms of salary, responsibility or knowledge and is based on the so-called "e;psychological contract"e; which "e;deals with implicit reciprocal promises and obligations"e; (Cullinane et al.: 2006, p. 115). As soon as people sign a labour contract, they also "e;sign"e; a psychological, an unwritten contract which mainly contains assumptions and beliefs of the two parties (employer and employee) (Rousseau: 1995). "e;This mental model provides a stable understanding of what to expect in the future and guides efficient action without much need for practice."e; (Rousseau: 2004, p. 121)Additional to the differing assumptions and beliefs, goals, commitment, satisfaction and objectives of the two parties vary incredibly. But what are the main reasons that make this relationship so unstable? This work deals with the evaluation of the cause of the inconsistent relation between managers and workers; and concludes with a short review.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: Excellent, The University of Surrey (Department of English), course: Language of Advertising, language: English, abstract: There is advertisement - and there is advertisement: Most ads have the intention to make people aware of a product, service or concept followed by the purchase and therefore "e;support the free-market economy"e; (Reschke: 1998, p. 1); but there are ads whose main aim is to inform people, more precisely to call their attention to a certain topic. Consequently, advertisements cause different reactions: Some ads make people smile or even giggle; some just communicate plane information; whilst others make people think and reflect; and again others literally shock people. Advertising campaigns such as the WWF 9/11 one, the "e;Get unhooked"e; ads or Antonio Federici's banned campaign (q.v. Appendix 1-3) are only three examples on the list of campaigns banned in the 21st century due to unethical content. Those offensive advertisements include "e;messages that transgress laws and customs (e.g. anti-human rights), breach a moral or social code (e.g. profanity, vulgarity) or outrage the moral or physical senses (e.g. gratuitous use of violence, use of disgusting images)"e; (Chan et al.: 2007, p. 608). Researchers found out that adverts, which "e;are incongruent with social norms attract attention and are more likely to be retained in memory"e; (Gulas and Weinberger: 2006, p. 173). Attracting interest can be done on different ways: by either using attention attracting pictures, sounds, signs or just simple words and phrases.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Communications - Methods and Research Logic, grade: Excellent, The University of Surrey (Department of English), language: English, abstract: Generating data can be made for all kind of purposes and in several ways (Milena et al.: 2008), whereas the main focus lies on the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research (Gerson et al.: 2002). When it comes to research most people generally think of the more common, traditional and familiar quantitative research which includes methods such as questionnaires, the creation of theories and models or the accumulation of empirical data (Holliday: 2002). This paper deals with interviewing, more precisely with interview schedules, as a method of generating qualitative data within primary market research. The structure of the work is as follows: Starting up with a the theoretical foundation with regards to interviewing, its possibilities within qualitative research and its configuration possibilities in the first part, the second part deals with the analysis of a workshop held on the topic "e;Generating Qualitative Data: Interviewing"e; within the lecture "e;Introduction to Research Methods"e; in the MA course Intercultural Communication with International Business. Within the analysis of the interview schedule problems, difficulties and limits of working with pre-crafted, semi-structured interview schedules are being identified and pointed out. Although it is not common to write a paper in another but the neutral voice a voice change into the first person takes place due to the fact that this part of the paper (3 Practical Application within the Workshop "e;Generating Qualitative Date: Interviewing"e;) delves into the personal experience and therefore requires a more personalised style. Finally, the paper concludes with a short review of the difficulties occurring when using a pre-crafted semi-structured interview schedule.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Sociology - Methodology and Methods, grade: Merit, The University of Surrey (Department of English), course: Research Methodse, language: English, abstract: Stress is a universally known phenomenon and in stress situations everybody acts and behaves differently; some people stay calm in certain situations while others completely freak out. Stress situations occur every day, but not all are recognised as such. There are stress situations which appear regularly, such as an overstuffed schedule; and there are those stress situations which primarily have nothing to do with a tight schedule, because they only occur once in a while. Imagine the following: You are at an airport and about to fly home, on holidays or away for work and at the airport there is nothing but total chaos because almost all flights have been cancelled due to unpredictable incidents such as bad weather conditions or a volcanic ash cloud, which both occurred in 2010. How do you think would most people react? There are not many ways to find out how people behave in this specific stress situation. Interviewing people at the airport would be an option, handing out questionnaires would be another option; but without a doubt people would not be in the cheer to answer questions or fill out a form; and collecting data afterwards would probably distort the results, because it is not contemporary enough. This paper deals with the research method observation; in order to understand how observation can be used in research, chapter two sets the theoretical background on observation methods, including error sources and application possibilities. The third chapter gives a theoretical approach of evaluating data through observation. This approach deals with people s behaviours while being stranded at an international airport such as Heathrow, Frankfurt or Paris. How do people deal with such a stressful situation? What kind of reactions and behaviours can be observed when people find out that there flight has been cancelled? This kind of stress is not comparable to everyday stress; therefore the working definition of a stress situation used in this work, which is based on the ideas of Barton Cunningham (2000), is as follows: Stress is a universally appearing human response which resulted from the apperception of and distressing and intense experience. It may also be referred to as conflict, anxiety, frustration, conflict, emotional trauma and pressure. Last but not least, the paper concludes with a short review and possible chances and difficulties in chapter four.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Intercultural Communication, grade: Good, The University of Surrey, language: English, abstract: Men and women do not only look different, they literally are different from scratch (Gates: 2008). But does this difference also apply to language and talk? 'Women talk more than men!' - Everybody has already heard of the myth that women are more talkative and use 20,000 words a day, whereas men get by with just 7,000 (Talbot: 2003). However, this has been contradicted by the University of Texas - there is no gender that is more talkative. Moreover, according to the studies, women speak on average 16,215 words and men 15,669 words a day (Mehl et al.: 2007). Language starts in people's heads, but since the areas and sizes of the different brain parts in women's and men's heads are completely unequal it nevertheless is logical that male and female language differs. A female brain has its own relatively big 'Gossip Lobe', whereas the male brain has only got a somewhat smaller 'Guy Talk' area (see Fig. 1). According to the amount of research that has been conducted in this field there are major differences between male and female language. Tabloid newspapers and talk shows tend to suggest that women swear less than men or that women are the more gossipy gender. These assumptions are internalised by the vast majority of the population, but are they really true (Coates: 2004)? Or is all that nonsense? The German publishing group Langenscheidt published a dictionary with the title 'German Woman / Woman German which has especially been created for men so that they can interpret women s messages correctly. This again shows that male and female language varies.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: Excellent, The University of Surrey, language: English, abstract: 'Tarn palko enim ab uo tundo' - Only a handful of people are still able to understand these Livonian words (Viitso: 1990). Reasons why languages such as Livonian are becoming extinct are manifold and the estimated 7000 languages which "e;are being spoken around the world"e; (Colls: 2009, p. 1) are expected to rapidly shrink in the upcoming decades. It is obvious that language extinction and language death have reached an exceptional level in recent years and that the forecast for a striking percentage of the world's dying languages is very high (Hale et al.: 1992). An untold number of languages has already died and the "e;disappearance of languages continues"e; (Wurm: 1991, p. 1) constantly. One reason for this loss is the fact that "e;more and more people switch to one of the dominant languages, especially English, and"e; (Deterding: 2004, p. 27) in consequence miss out on transmitting their endangered indigenous language to their descendents (Crystal: 2000). The problem of language death has only been discovered in the late 1980's and it is assumed that within this century 50% of the currently spoken languages will become extinct and that another 40% will be endangered so that their extinction is no longer ne avoidable - but only if this trend continues (Krauss: 1992). Although, this estimation might sound very pessimistic it is obvious that a drastic reduction of language diversity is on its way. In these premises, thoughts about how to countervail the reduction of diversity have come up within the last couple of years (Hale et al.: 1992; Bobaljik et al.; 1996; Grenoble and Whaley: 1998) with one possibility being to respond to the dying of languages by extensively documenting endangered languages before they actually become extinct. Considering the extent and the speed in which languages die out the task to document is particularly imperative.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Cultural Studies - Basics and Definitions, grade: Excellent, The University of Surrey, language: English, abstract: "e;Time is money"e; (Franklin: 1864, p.129) - Benjamin Franklin stated those words as an advice to a young tradesman in the book of the same name . It was only one of many pieces of advice Franklin gave in order to achieve success and gain wealth (Carstensen, Busse: 2001). Nowadays, this attitude is still current in some cultures; especially profit-orientated societies, such as the United States, Switzerland, Germany or the Netherlands who see time as "e;a precious, even scarce, commodity"e; (Lewis: 2006, p.53). On the other hand, there are cultures which see time in a completely different way - as something that is endless. This exposure to time is culturally dependent; the perception of time, how it is divided and how it is being used varies from culture to culture (Kartari: 1997). This work explores the use of and attitude towards time in Germany and Turkey. The working definition of time used in this work, based on Rusen (1998), is not the physical definition, but the cultural-scientific one: Rusen defines time as a fundamental determinant of human existence which encompasses the human and its world, thinking and being, internal and external, culture and nature. It is a general and elementary dimension of human life that is being experienced as genesis and decline, birth and death, change and constancy; and which needs to be accomplished as experiences through human interpretations so that human beings are able to orientate themselves within the time in order to meaningfully relate their lives to it. The comparing cultural studies lead to the comprehension that time in form of an anthropological constant which equally correspondents to all people does not exist. In fact, time only has miscellaneous cultural-specific concepts with distinct structures.

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Interpersonal Communication, grade: Outstanding, The University of Surrey, language: English, abstract: When you think of great leaders, names like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Bill Gates, Barack Obama or Gordon Brown may come up. But what makes a leader a good leader? Being a good leader requires a lot of things and therefore not everybody can be a successful leader. "e;Leaders can be born, elected, or trained and groomed; they can seize power or have leadership trust upon them"e; (Lewis: 2006, p.104). They can be democratic or autocratic, individual or collective, ascribed or merit-based, imposed or desired (Lewis: 2006). Consequently, there is no such thing as a perfect leadership style which works in every situation and with all followers; there usually is no ideal way of leading - there is only a better or worse way (Larkin: 2008). That is one of the reasons why a good leader needs to have the ability to use many different styles in order to succeed (Broadbent, Kitzis: 2005). It is a false conclusion that the well-adopted hard skills of a manager inevitably lead to economic success. Those hard skills form the foundation of a strong, effective and recognized leader, but nowadays further acquirements are an absolute must. Endurance, universalism, knowledge of human nature, communications, collaboration and work input are inevitable (Eckert, Drath: 2009). Additionally to the fact that it is in any case difficult to find the ideal style for every situation and every follower, cultural differences set up another challenge: communication styles, gender, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, individualistic versus collectivistic, etc. play an important role if it comes to finding the most ideal style (Ledlow, Coppola: 2011). Several scientists support the idea of "e;a culture specific view of leadership indicating that unique cultural"e; (Pasa, Kabasakal, Bodur: 2001, p.565) traits such as religion, language and values require explicit leadership approaches in unequal societies.

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: Distinction, The University of Surrey (Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences), course: Intercultural Communication with International Business, language: English, abstract: What makes people get up in the morning - is it the simple habit, the routine or the sense of purpose? Why do people make promises to do and decide certain things? "e;Some people get more done than others"e; (Riley:1996, p.44); while some drift along, others are goal-setters; and some just cannot get started, whereas others are unstoppable. Why is it so? Why do employees ask themselves if it is worth the reward to make "e;an effort to achieve a goal"e; (Van der Wagen, Davies:1998, p.24)? The answer can be found in the realm of motivation. Motivation, something that according to various book titles1 needs to be understood, belongs to leadership studies and organisational behaviour. Consequently, "e;looking at what motivates people, and to lead them, is essential for every manager"e; (ibid.), because different things might motivate different staff members. One would not expect people to be as complex as they are, but "e;culture, although not the only variable of importance contributes significantly to explain key differences in social behaviour"e; (Treven, Mulej, Lynn:2008, p.33). Factors motivating followers in organisations often differ from culture to culture and do not only diverge from different organisational cultures (ibid.: p.34). There is no proof that motives like need for achievement, intrinsic needs for competence and self-efficacy can be generalised across cultures as the specific factors which drive such motives vary across cultures (Gelfand, Erez, Aycan:2007, p.482). This leads to the area of cross-cultural organisational behaviour, which, as well as culture-specific work motivation, only have a relatively short research history, but they actually date back to the times of Dionysios I. from Syrakus2 and Agathon3. Superscripts by Herodotus, a Greek historian, show that differences in work behaviour already existed throughout the time of the Persian Empire (circa 400 BC) (Herodotus, De Selincourt, Marincola:2003). Trade between the different villages and towns and therefore between the different cultures was "e;widely widespread along the Silk Road"e;4 (Gelfand, Erez, Aycan:2007, p.481). However, researchers have started focusing "e;on cultural differences in career development"e; (Aycan, Fikret-Pasa:2003, p.129) only three decades ago. This new focus has arisen due to globalisation and the increase of multiculturalism in societies and their organisations (Yang et al.:2002). Silk Road"e;4 (Gelfand, Erez, Aycan:2007, p.481).

This research proposes and empirically tests the impact of brand personality dimensions on brand desirability in a cross-cultural context. Further, the concept of brand-self-congruity is tested on its mediating role between brand personality dimensions and brand desirability. The results reveal that certain brand personality dimensions can have a direct and/ or indirect impact on brand desirability. Yet, this effect mechanism has not only been found to be brand-dependent but also culture-dependent. In this context, the mediating role of brand-self-congruity was confirmed across all cultures and brands investigated. Important implications are derived for research and brand management. In different countries, different brand personality dimensions lead to brand desirability. Therefore, brand managers should know their markets, understand cultural differences and adjust their brand strategy accordingly in order to attain brand desirability.