Open Access

Background More than 10 million Syrians have left their homes and sought refuge in neighboring countries, including Europe, since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in March 2011, and immigration continues to this day. This cross-sectional study included Syrian refugees residing in and around Hannover, Germany. We investigated whether general socioeconomic factors (e.g. age, sex, housing, asylum duration) were predictive factors for the quality of life (QOL) of Syrian refugees in Germany. Methods The QOL of Syrian refugees was assessed using the WHOQOL-BREF tool, a questionnaire assessing the QOL in four domains: Physical health, psychological, social relationships and environment. A total of 114 Syrian refugees, aged between 18 and 45 years, who obtained one of the following statuses, asylum, refugee protection or subsidiary protection, were included. The QOL domain and total scores of Syrian refugees in Germany were compared with a Western norm and Sub-Saharan population. Data were analyzed with the Spearman Rho correlation coefficient, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U test and multivariate linear regression. Results More than 65% of the participants (62.3% male, 37.7% female) were between 18 and 29 years old, and 45% had lived in Germany for less than four years. The lowest QOL score was reported in the social relationship’s domain (60.5%), while the psychological score was lowest in participants aged 40–45 years (P = 0.011). The age was significantly negatively associated with physical health (P = 0.010), psychological (P <  0.001) and the total QOL (P = 0.005). Asylum duration was associated with the environment domain (P = 0.040), the short-time refugees were less satisfied than the longtime refugees, and with aspects of the psychological domain in Enjoying life and Concentration ability (P <  0.001 and P = 0.033, respectively), yet was not associated with total QOL or total domain scores. There were significant associations between housing and the psychological domain (P = 0.032) and housing and the social relationship domain (P <  0.001). The refugees who living in camps registered a lower score in psychological than residents of apartments and houses, and the single refugees had a higher score than those married and divorced (P = 0.032 and P = 0.035, respectively). Conclusions The Syrian refugees participating in this study showed a low QOL score in the assessment of all domains compared to the normal population, especially regarding social relations and psychological; it was associated with socioeconomic factors, such as housing, asylum duration and marital status. This calls for urgent societal and political efforts to strengthen the social living conditions of Syrian refugees in Germany.

Für die Verwendung im privaten und öffentlichen Raum sollen Pflanzen den gegebenen klimatischen Verhältnissen, hier insbesondere den Temperaturen in der kältesten Jahreszeit, angepasst sein und dauerhaft gedeihen können. Bereits seit dem 19. Jh. werden Pflanzen Temperaturbereichen (Winterhärtezonen) zugeordnet, die Auskunft darüber geben, welche winterlichen Tiefsttemperaturen von der jeweiligen Art toleriert werden. Mithilfe von Winterhärtezonenkarten – für den europäischen Raum durch die Karte von Heinze & Schreiber (1984) – kann ermittelt werden, welche Winterhärtezone am potenziellen Pflanzort vorliegt. Klimaänderungen in Europa ergeben jedoch die Notwendigkeit für eine Aktualisierung der Karte. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine mit einem Geoinformationssystem (GIS) erstellte neue Winterhärtezonenkarte für Europa mit der aktuellen Referenzperiode 1991–2020 vor, die erstmals ganz Europa in Halbzonen unterteilt und im Bearbeitungsgebiet mesoklimatische Effekte berücksichtigt. Dazu wurden Daten von 11 814 Wetterstationen verwendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine Verschiebung der Winterhärtezone von 1951–1980 zu 1991–2020 in den meisten Gebieten Europas um eine Halbzone (+2,77 °C). Für die korrekte Verwendung der Winterhärtezonenkarte wird zudem ein Raster des Standardfehlers ergänzt. Dieses zeigt Unsicherheiten des Modells auf, die durch eine ungleiche Datenverteilung und Komplexität des Klimaregimes in einigen Gebieten erklärt werden können.

Organizational culture, environmental sustainability, and digitalization have an impact on the business development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME). Dimensions associated with organizational culture (e.g., attitudes, norms, assumptions) give a sense of identity and determine behavior. The latter include general approaches concerning the organizational impact on the natural environment (environmental sustainability) or the adoption of digital technologies (digitalization), which can cause profound transformations of the business model. These three concepts have been investigated separately and scarce attention has been paid to their relationship. To enable SMEs to successfully manage this complex relationship, our study cumulates existing knowledge, offering the first integrative view on organizational culture, level of environmental sustainability, and level of digitalization and their interactions. Through a systematic literature review protocol supplemented where possible by meta-analysis we selected 80 significant papers out of 811 peer-reviewed papers analyzed. We developed a network map to display the relations between the three concepts. Quantitative path analysis was used on three bidirectional main paths. For qualitative analysis we developed a novel extension to the Belief-Action-Outcome (BAO) framework, presented for the first time in the paper. Our findings reveal thirteen key dimensions and identify ten links between the key constructs. Strategic orientation, internal capabilities, management, and attitudes are the most investigated cultural dimensions. Furthermore, we integrated interchangeably used terms (e.g. Green IT and Green IS) introducing the novel concept of green digitalization tools. The meta-analysis revealed trends in applied research methods, geographical locations of research, top journals, and a growing interest in the relationship. Finally, we identify gaps in existing research and challenges for future research.

We use a movie industry project-by-project data set to analyze the principal–agent problem in slate financing arrangements. Under this specific film financing regime, which has become a significant mode of raising capital in Hollywood over the past decade, an external investor concludes a long-term contract with a film producer and commits to cofinance a larger number of future film projects of that particular partner. In line with our theoretical conjectures, slate cofinanced movies receive poorer quality ratings and yield considerably lower return rates. Our data suggests that a substantial part of these performance differences may be attributed to adverse project selection and producer moral hazard.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices by US small and medium-sized manufacturers and explore whether there are discernible differences in product and process innovation that can be explained by differences in their adoption. Design/methodology/approach This research uses descriptive statistics and probit regression analysis of survey data from 295 small and medium-sized US manufacturers in seven industries. Findings There are significant industrial sector differences in the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices, larger and older companies are more advanced in their adoption of these practices, and companies adopting these practices are outperforming their competitors in terms of product and process innovation. Originality/value This research assesses US industry sector differences among small and medium-sized manufacturers in the adoption of environmental management and collaboration practices and differences in product and process innovation linked to this adoption.