Purpose: The present research aims on the one hand to provide a basic understanding of the challenges that young companies in growth face by discussing previous findings on this topic. On the other hand, this research project wants to generate new insights on specific challenges and possible learning processes by means of a theory-based examination of a case study. Design/Methodology/Approach: The author of this study conducts a theory-based case study investigation. The study is based on two theoretical concepts which depict the phenomenon of challenges faced by young companies in growth in an abstract form: On the one hand, the "Tension-Balancing Management" according to Harald von Korflesch, which expresses the fundamental tension within entrepreneurial organizations, which in turn can be seen as a starting point for actual challenges. On the other hand, the "Tipping Points / Absorbative Capacities" framework by Phelps and colleagues, which links challenges (Tipping Points) that young companies will experience during their lifetime with required capabilities (Absorbative Capacities). Guided by these theories, rich data from interviews, observations and documents from the case are collected and analyzed in order to generate insights. Findings: On the one hand, challenges of young growing companies can be described on a superordinate level with the help of the two theoretical concepts. On the other hand, the analysis also shows that, above all, a fine-grained, individual approach is needed to adequately depict challenges and learning processes. Research Limitations: The main limitation of the present study is the single-case design. The fact that only one specific case was examined means that the insights gained from this cannot be automatically replicated to comparable cases. The simultaneous examination of multiple cases could thus make the results more stable. Originality/Value: The qualitative investigation of growth-related challenges by means of a specific case study creates an in-depth and profound understanding of complex interactions in the growth of young companies. In addition, the assumptions of both theoretical concepts are tested on a real case, thus enabling theoretical and practical implications to be identified.

Even with moderate pulse energies and average powers, ultrashort pulse lasers achieve very high peak powers, whose effect on matter is fundamentally different from that of other light sources. The high electric field strength does not only cause an increase of optically nonlinear effects such as second harmonic generation, but it is also responsible for the “cold“ ablation, which leads to colder plasmas. An investigation of these two circumstances in terms of a simplification of the pulse duration measurement and an improvement of the molecular formation in cooling plasmas is the topic of this work. In this context, it is shown that when selecting suitable process parameters, especially when purposefully defocusing the medium, the use of ultrashort pulse lasers improves the spectroscopy of several emitting molecules such as aluminum oxide. Therefore, their detection is possible even without the time-resolving spectrometers required in literature. In addition, ultrashort pulses enable spatially resolved crystallization of zinc oxide on zinc surfaces prepared by basic means. The resulting wurtzites usually align their c-axis approximately perpendicular to the underlying surface and can be used to generate scattered second harmonics. Fiber-based femtosecond lasers with pulse energies in the microjoule range, pulse durations of a few 100fs and very low maintenance requirements have proven to be a powerful instrument for these purposes. For measuring the pulse duration, the high pulse energy also enables the usage of frequency doublers with much lower conversion eciencies. Despite nonuniform crystal axes, the scattering second harmonic generating aluminum nitride has proven to be particularly suitable for optical autocorrelation. Compared to the commonly used monocrystalline beta-barium borate, the sintered aluminum nitride ceramic plates facilitate the adjustment, simplify the material handling and reduce the expenses by two to three orders of magnitude. The method developed in this work is therefore also suitable for confirmatory measurements of the pulse duration during the production process of such systems – especially when the occurring pulse energies are high or rather too high for beta-barium borate.

The history of human kind is characterized by social conflict. Every conflict can be the starting point of social change or the escalation into more destructive forms. The social conflict in regard to rising numbers of refugees and their acceptance that arose in most host countries in 2015 already took on destructive forms – in Germany, right-wing extremists attacked refugee shelters and even killed multiple people, including political leaders who openly supported refugees. Thus, incompatible expectancies and values of different parts of the society led to violent action tendencies, which tremendously threaten intergroup relations. Psychological research has developed several interventions in past decades to improve intergroup relations, but they fall short, for example, when it comes to the inclusion of people with extreme attitudes and to precisely differentiate potential prosocial outcomes of the interventions. Thus, this dissertation aimed to a) develop psychological interventions, that could also be applied to people with more extreme attitudes, thereby putting a special emphasis on collecting a diverse sample; b) gain knowledge about target- and outcome specific effects: Who benefits from which intervention and how can specific prosocial actions be predicted in order to develop interventions that guide needs-based actions; and c) shed light on potential underlying mechanisms of the interventions. The dissertation will be introduced by the socio-political background that motivated the line of research pursued, before providing an overview of the conceptualization of social conflicts and potential psychological inhibitors and catalyzers for conflict transformation. Based on past research on socio-psychological interventions and their limitations, the aims of the dissertation will be presented in more detail, followed by a short summary of each manuscript. Overall, the present thesis comprises four manuscripts that were summarized in the general discussion into a road map for social-psychological interventions to put them into a broader perspective. The road map aspires to provide recommendations for increasing – either approach-oriented or support-oriented actions – by the socio-psychological interventions for a variety of host society groups depending on their pre-existing attitude towards refugees. A Paradoxical Intervention targeting central beliefs of people with negative attitudes towards refugees influenced inhibitory and catalyzing factors for conflict transformation over the course of three experiments – thereby providing an effective tool to establish approach-oriented action tendencies, such as the willingness to get in contact with refugees. Further, the dissertation presents a novel mechanism – namely Cognitive Flexibility – which could explain the Paradoxical Interventions’ effect of past research. By positively affecting a context-free mindset, the Paradoxical Intervention could impact more flexible thought processes in general, irrespective of the topic tackled in the Paradoxical Intervention itself. For people with rather positive attitudes addressing emotions may increase specific support-oriented action tendencies. The dissertation provides evidence of a positive relation between moral outrage and hierarchy-challenging actions, such as solidarity-based collective action, and sympathy with prosocial hierarchy-maintaining support-oriented actions, such as dependency-oriented helping. These exclusive relations between specific emotions and action intentions provide important implications for the theorizing of emotion-behavior relations, as well as for practical considerations. In addition, a diversity workshop conducted with future diplomats showed indirect effects on solidarity-based collective action via diversity perception and superordinate group identification, thereby extending past research by including action intentions and going beyond the focus on grassroot-initiatives by presenting an implementable intervention for future leaders in a real world context. Taken together, this dissertation provides important insights for the development of socio-psychological interventions. By integrating a diverse sample, including members of institutions on meso- and macro-levels (non-governmental organizations and future politicians) of our society, this dissertation presents a unique multi-perspective of host society members on the social conflict of refugee acceptance and support. Thereby, this work contributes to theoretical and practical advancement of how social psychology can contribute not only to negative peace – by for example (indirectly) reducing support of violence against refugees – but also to positive peace – by for example investigating precursors of hierarchy-challenging actions that enable equal rights.

Interest in crowdfunding has been increasing in recent years, both from the economy and the scientific community. Besides artists and entrepreneurs, researchers are now also funding their projects through many small contributions from the crowd. However, the perceived use in Germany does not reflect the benefits of a crowdfunding campaign, especially in international comparison. This study investigates this issue by identifying the motives and barriers for crowdfunding in order to formulate recommendations for research institutions to encourage the use of crowdfunding. By means of a literature review, first insights are gained which are then used to conduct qualitative interviews with eleven researchers who successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign. The results indicate that researchers in Germany use crowdfunding primarily to raise awareness for the subject and the scientific community in general. The initial assumption of the speed of crowdfunding as a motive was contradicted by the experts. The major barriers are the immense effort involved in a campaign and the lack of reputation for the concept of crowdfunding by German scientists. In addition, only subjects and projects with a high public relevance and funding volume of up to five digits are recommended for crowdfunding. Furthermore, the public exposure of the experts during the campaign was identified as an additional barrier. These findings lead to three recommendations for research institutions to increase the use of crowdfunding: Firstly, universities should raise awareness for the subject of crowdfunding as an additional form of research funding and highlight the benefits of a crowdfunding campaign. Secondly, universities should cooperate with crowdfunding partners and utilize the networking capacities of a university. Lastly, universities should provide support to distribute the workload among interdisciplinary teams in order to enhance the effortreturn ratio of a crowdfunding campaign. The chosen methodology and the scope of the thesis enable further research that might examine the perspective of the universities and the conditions in other countries. In addition, a largescale quantitative survey is required to validate the identified concepts statistically.

Das Sündenverständnis Søren Kierkegaards anhand seiner Werke „Die Krankheit zum Tode“ und „Der Begriff Angst“.