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Why do consumers make different decisions even when socioeconomic conditions are similar? The present article examines the effects of human values-as formulations of motivational goals-on the decision to purchase electricity storage for a photovoltaic system, a phenomenon hardly explored in prior research regarding highpriced household investments. About 50 percent of photovoltaic-system owners in Germany are also owners of an electricity storage. This study aims to explore the more deeply rooted motivational factors behind these different decisions to extend our understanding of consumers' decision-making processes regarding energyefficiency investments. It is based on an online survey of 460 owners of residential photovoltaic systems in Germany in 2019 and focuses on the interplay between higher-order values, purchase decisions, perceived risk, and environmental concern.The analysis of the higher-order values showed direct effects of conservation and self-transcendence and indirect effects of openness to change and self-enhancement, both mediated by perceived risk.

In 2014, a scandal involving fraud and power shook the Volkswagen Group with far-reaching consequences that are yet to be fully revealed. This article examines the Volkswagen emissions scandal in terms of corporate governance failure. After a chronological review of the events that led to this extraordinarily damaging revelation, the main differences between the American and the German board system are described. Although Germany’s two-tier board is often considered superior to the American board system, weaknesses in the area of corporate ethics and culture that led to the crisis in the Volkswagen case are identified. The particular constellation within the Volkswagen group and its ownership structure reveals failures in management ethics that led to a certain kind of behaviour among employees that was not explicitly mandated by the management but was, nevertheless, in its interest in regard to achieving company goals.

In purchase behavior research, the personal dispositions of consumers can play a decisive role. This becomes relevant especially in very narrow target groups when socio-demographic constraints are very similar. In the present study, three types of continuity and change in the Big Five personality traits are investigated. While the Big Five personality traits have been extensively studied at the population level over the last decades, there is very little research at the individual level. This study is intended to fill the gap by investigating individual change and ipsative stability using representative panel data. Across four assessments, separated by four years, of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) from 2005 to 2017, a total of 58,502 participants (ages 16–103, 53% female) completed a 16-item personality short test. An exploratory structural equation analysis revealed very good model fit over age in all four observations. Individual change of a trait is examined by Asendorpf's IS indicator while ipsative stability is measured by the double-entry intra-class correlation coefficient. The results showed that in both domains, stability showed an inverse u-shape with a peak between the ages of 40 and 50.