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The coronavirus affects the strongly export-oriented Swiss economy in a situation where political and economic developments are already making the cross-border exchange of goods and services difficult. For this reason, the question arises of how Switzerland can maintain or strengthen its position in global competition in the export business during an unprecedented period of crisis such as the current one.
In order to find an answer to this question, this paper critically examines the existing government support measures for Swiss exporters in times of COVID-19. The fact that Switzerland has so far not taken any specific support measures for exporters raises the actual research question of whether there is a specific necessity and demand for a special export promotion. To answer this research question, various expert opinions are compared and overall conclusions are drawn. By rapidly introducing and adapting the already existing instruments – liquidity assistance and an expansion of short-time work benefits – the federal government was able to ensure the survival of many companies. According to the authors of this paper, this focus of government support in times of crisis is just right for a small national economy in the short term and therefore preferable to a specific support of exporters. Nevertheless, given the high relative importance of foreign trade for Switzerland’s overall economic performance, there can be no recovery of national economy without a recovery of foreign trade.
In order to attract new students, German universities must provide quick and easy access to relevant information. A chatbot can help increase the efficiency in academic advising for prospective students. In this study we evaluate the acceptance and effects of chatbots in German student-university communication. We conducted a qualitative UX-Study with the chatbot prototype of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences (HSO), in order to determine which features are particularly relevant and which requirements are made by the users. The results show that acceptance increases if the chatbot offers quick and adequate assistance, furthermore, our participants preferred an informal communication style and valued friendly and helpful personality traits for chatbots.