How are medium-sized industrial companies affected by the current geopolitical crises? How does this affect their foreign activities? Dr André Pahnke gave answers to these questions in his lecture "Development trends in global value chains from the perspective of Mittelstand companies" as part of the research discussion at the University of Siegen in mid-January. He said that China generally remains an important procurement market for entrepreneurs – not least because the country has a monopoly on some raw materials. At the same time, other Asian countries are coming into focus as possible alternatives. North America is becoming increasingly important, especially for exporting companies. However, the EU internal market remains the most important market overall due to the high level of legal certainty and reliable framework conditions.
Dr Markus Rieger-Fels talked in his presentation “The role of experience and objective risk factors in climate risk perceptions of German businesses” about factors that influence the expectations of German businesses concerning their future susceptibility to extreme events such as extreme heat, extreme precipitation, or flooding.
Businesses that have already experienced such events consider such events more probable in the future compared to businesses without such an experience. In addition, industry and location play an important role in the probability assessment. In contrast, prior experience does not influence the expected consequences of such extreme events. Instead, risk factors such as firm size, industry, and location are decisive for the vulnerability assessment.
