The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the classroom discussion engagement experiences, the challenges faced and strategies for their solution, of eight international Indonesian masters students in one public university in the United Kingdom through a demographic questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that the participants faced some speaking challenges in engaging in discussion, including (1) language barriers, (2) individual matters, and (3) academic culture differences. To cope with those challenges, the participants have undertaken strategies, such as (1) having the verbal response, (2) utilising learning sources, and (3) maintaining a positive motivation.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an ongoing global public health emergency with 74 countries (Sep. 19 2016) and territories reporting evidence of ZIKV transmission since 2015. Total 14 cases of Zika have been reported since January 2016 and all cases have been suspected as infections by mosquito bite on overseas. Vector control strategy of comprehensive national Zika control strategies will be presented on this presentation. To efficiently control Ae. albopictus when Zika inflow into ROK, nine ministers of government held on Zika countermeasure meeting, checked preparatory attitudes and assigned roles of each minster for Zika control. Korea guidelines for Ae. albopictus control were distributed to local governments and related ministers of government and vector control agents in all local government were educated by vector control experts. To block transmission of Zika virus by mosquito bite from overseas travel-associated patients Zika patients in ROK, vector monitoring and control were carried out at surroundings near residences of patients and decreased vector population density.

This study is an exploratory case study of writing strategies that Korean EFL graduate students in applied linguistics employed in the semester-long process of L2 computermode research paper writing with the use of multiple resources. Data for writing processes and strategy and resource use were largely collected from a writing strategy inventory questionnaire and writing logs, which were complemented by a keystroke logging program, video recordings and retrospective recall interviews. The results of the study reveal the influence of genre features and variations across writing stages, strategies, resources, and individual writers. Planning was intermingled with researching. The participants deployed certain strategies only at a particular stage or throughout the whole writing process. The students who had higher education in English-speaking countries used fewer strategies and preferred electronic resources to print resources than those who were educated mainly in Korea. The latter also showed a tendency of employing self-regulatory strategies. Findings from the study suggest that the research paper writing process is resourceful, strategic and individually situated, and it involves complex composing behaviors accompanied by more varied strategies and resources than shown in studies of one-time reading-to-write tasks.

As social media are emerging as essential communication channels for corporates in all areas, luxury jewelry brands have implemented enhanced strategies for brand story videos by creating brand channels on YouTube. In this study, a comparative analysis of the videos made available by Cartier and Tiffany&Co. on their YouTube Brand Channels was conducted, with the aim of identifying their strategic characteristics. The research method encompassed, both literature review and empirical investigations. A quantitative analysis was conducted by means of the ‘HEART’ model, a type of luxury jewelry brand story, and the following common strategic elements were identified. First, in their brand story videos both brands focus primarily on ‘theme’. Second, ‘relationship’ and ‘artisanship’ are emphasized in addition to ‘theme’. Third, the videos incorporate high level aesthetics to stimulate the fantasies and dreams of their audiences. The strategic differences between the brands are as follows. : First, ‘artisanship’ is given the greatest significance along with ‘theme’ in Cartier videos, while ‘relationship’ has prime significance in Tiffany&Co. videos. Second, a difference between a European approach and an American approach towards luxury brand building is evident, with Cartier hosting exhibitions while Tiffany&Co. provides gala videos instead.

The WCPFC CMMs related to tropical tunas have been strongly restricting fishing capacity and operating activities of main fisheries, especially purse seine fishery. In terms of changes in fishing trend by implementing relevant measures of FAD set, the number of FAD set by Korean purse seine fleet showed a decreasing pattern with the lowest level of FAD set proportion among major distant water fishing nations. With regards to the FAD closure, there was no significant change in fishing effort but a drop in catch, especially bigeye tuna during the period of FAD closure. Moreover, it showed closely similar trends between the number of FAD set and bigeye tuna catch. In terms of measures related to the high sea area including a ban on fishing on the HSP and limitation of fishing days on the high sea by flag state, proportions of catch and effort on the high sea had sharply declined after implementing those measures. As relevant measures are expected to be strengthened, it should pay attention to change of coastal nations policies and focus on improving fishing efficiency of unassociated school set with multi-pronged efforts.

The main purpose of the research is to examine how to evaluate good governance, capacity-building, marketing communication strategy, performance measures based on the empirical results. Related literature is reviewed for building the indicator of the research construct. The paper examines the global platform for interface marketing and management for the city context. Governance dimensions include antitrust, liability, consumer protection and intellections. Capability consists of transportation, manufacturing and communication facilities. Performance measures include economic performance and welfare indicators. The research employs the mail survey and interview research methods to collect data from 172 government officers. Good governance, capacity-building strategy, marketing communication strategy, performance measures were reviewed and provided an adequate model for improving policy performance. A city owns good governance and capacity-building, this can attract more business investment for maintaining unique characteristics and competitive advantages. A set of city marketing activities could be an effective policy instrument to achieve the goal of sustainability development and better performance for communicating city citizens. The research also applies the case study and questionnaire survey for examining the research issues empirically. Tainan and Kaohsiung City in Taiwan were selected for research subject for building the measurement indicators. The study tests the predictions of relationships by using mail survey data from chain store and franchise firms and employ structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the research questions. Results show that governance, capacity-building, citizen communication strategies are key factors in reinforcing cities performance. This research suggests the authority governance and capacity-building systems regularly. Meanwhile, the main issue is how to implement good governance, capacity-building, citizen communication strategy toward sustainability development and performance. This research suggests policy assessment, policy recommendation, policy alternatives and city marketing implications in the future. The study ends with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications.

Well-developed listening skills are crucial to success in the marketing profession. Poor listening skills have been rated as the most important contributing factor to salesperson failure (Ingram et al., 1992). Listening errors can result in conflicts, missed business opportunities, alienated relationships, and a waste of time and money (Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). Recognizing the importance of effective listening, organizations such as Pfizer, Ford, IBM have introduced listening training programs for all their personnel (Shepherd et al., 1997). A number of definitions exist for “listening” (e.g., Bergeron & Laroche, 2009). From the marketing perspective, this paper adopts a well-accepted listening definition as “the cognitive process of actively sensing, interpreting, evaluating and responding to the verbal and nonverbal messages of present or potential customers” (Castleberry & Shepherd, 1993, p.36). Prior research has underscored the importance of “active listening” strategies such as active empathetic listening (Drollinger et al., 2006; Bodie, 2011); adaptive selling (Spiro & Weitz, 1990); and listening across cultures (Imhof & Janusik, 2006). However, despite its importance, neither marketing students nor professionals receive coaching or instruction for situations when listening is particularly difficult – i.e., when we are required to listen carefully to another person in the presence of hindrances to communication (distractions, inattention, poor delivery). Salespeople, students, journalists, counselors … are often faced with the task of “tough listening” - when they must listen carefully to a person that is not communicating in an interesting or engaging manner, when the environment is full of distractions, or when they as listeners are fatigued. The major hindrances to effective listening have been well documented, but extant research that addresses how people might overcome those hindrances is scant. The purpose of this paper is to explore the range of strategies that people use to improve their comprehension and empathy of others when they wish to listen carefully but find it difficult to do so. The practice of effective listening is perhaps one of the most human and fundamental components of community, commerce, and culture. Several academic disciplines such as marketing, education, communication, and psychology have closely examined the listening process in an effort to understand and improve it.

The online media streaming industry is relatively new and is becoming increasing popular. It is projected to worth more than the US Box Office by 2017 with a revenue of $14 billion according to a PricewaterCooper report (2014). With online streaming, users typically pay a monthly subscription and get ``all you can eat" content (TV series, movies, music, etc.). Major players in this market include Netflix, HBO, Hulu and Amazon. Password sharing is a concern that has arisen in the industry, this involves a single subscription being shared with multiple others, meaning multiple people have access to the streaming content on just one purchase. Nevertheless, sharing is not without costs, as most firms have restrictions such that only one person can have access to contents at any given time. This means that if Bob and Charles are two friends sharing a subscription, if Bob is streaming the content, Charles cannot stream the content at the same time.

This research examines effects of supplying firms’ transaction specific investments on their firm performance through buyers’ trust and commitment. In this process, the research investigates moderating effects that buying firms’ purchasing strategies, which consist of relational strategy (competitive or cooperative purchasing strategy) and cost-reduction strategy (purchase price-based or total cost-based purchasing strategy), have on buyers’ commitment and suppliers’ performance. The study proposes a conceptual model integrating relationship marketing and purchasing strategy researches regarding business-to-business supplier-buyer relationships and test hypotheses derived from the conceptual model. Data were collected through a survey, and 248 purchasing managers participated in the survey.

In this paper, we review the influence of crisis response strategies in social media on attitude recovery in relation to customer brand commitment. We extend the situational crisis communication theory and the social-mediated crisis communication model to include the role of audience characteristics (i.e., customer brand commitment). The effects of crisis response strategies (i.e., defensive, accommodative) and electronic word of mouth antecedents are discussed because source factors, message factors, and audience factors lead to attitude recovery. We also introduce a framework of the impacts of brand crisis response strategies on customer attitude recovery after exposure to negative word of mouth and response strategies in social media.

Currently, the luxury retail market exceeds one trillion dollars in sales (Aroche, 2015) and is proliferated by the use of celebrities as endorsers and luxury brand ambassadors (Buckley, 2015; Okonkwo 2010). The practice of linking celebrities in luxury brand communications dates back to at least the 1800s and while the successful usage of celebrities is widely documented (e.g., Agrawal & Kamakura, 1995), so too are the stories of catastrophes as a result of celebrity transgression, overshadowing or just poor fit. Even without negative publicity or inappropriate behaviours, the use of a celebrity can still present risks to the luxury brand. For example, where unintended meanings associated with the celebrities are transferred to the luxury brand (Walker & Langmeyer, 1992; Till, 1998) or when the popularity of the celebrity (e.g. Angelina Jolie) overshadows the brand (e.g. St John) (Buckley, 2015; Horwell, 2011; Rossiter & Percy, 1987; Till & Busler, 2000). Overshadowing isn’t the only risk luxury brand managers may encounter when utilising a celebrity to endorse their brand. If, for example, consumers don’t see a match between the brand and the celebrity, or if consumers perceive the celebrity as being irrelevant to the brand, or if the celebrity has lost their appeal and connection with consumers then the celebrity presents a risk for the brand image (Choi & Rifon, 2012; Fleck, Korchia & Le Roy, 2012; Till & Busler, 2000). The choice of the ‘wrong’ celebrity can be an extremely costly mistake, with loss of sales and/or damage to the brand equity and image of the luxury brand being the potential outcome (Carrillat, D’Astous & Lasure, 2013; Folse, Burton & Netemeyer, 2013; Halonen-Knight & Hurmerinta, 2010; Thwaites, Lowe, Monkhouse & Barmes, 2012). Risk reducing strategies and due diligence during the selection process is a lengthy, complicated and complex process (Erdogan, Baker & Tagg, 2001). Luxury brand managers have long called for a more systematic and objective criteria by which to evaluate the potential celebrity risk factors (Okonkwo, 2010; Toncar, Reid, & Anderson, 2007); and this paper takes up that call with three contributions to both the literature and to practice. The first contribution concerns risk reduction strategies and extensions to the current thinking on the celebrity construct (for a thorough discussion on the celebrity construct see Gabler, 2001; Goldman, 2011; Rojek, 2001; Turner, 2004). There is a small stream of research that discusses the non-human celebrity as both a risk reducer for celebrity endorsement and also as an extension of the concept of ‘celebrity’ (e.g., Blewitt, 2013; Callcott & Lee, 1995; Folse et al., 2013; Giles, 2013; Rindova, Pollock & Hayward, 2006). This stream of research is novel and emergent and our work adds to this literature by defending our claim that like firms, animals, mythical beings and fictitious humans, events can also be celebrities. Broadening the conceptualisation of celebrity to apply to more than just real people, allows luxury brand managers to reduce costs, and regain some degree of control over the important image and reputational management of the celebrities with whom they wish to be associated The second contribution is the Celebrity Criterion Checklist, which provides luxury brand managers with a simple, systematic and quick way to determine whether someone or something (an entity) is a celebrity or not (given at least 15 years of debate about the contest term of “celebrity”). The Celebrity Criterion Checklist contains five criterion. If a luxury brand manager finds the entity they are considering fulfils all five criteria, then the brand manager be confident that they are a celebrity. The third contribution is the Celebrity Risk Evaluation Matrix (CREM). The Celebrity Risk Evaluation Matrix (CREM), facilitates higher-ordered assessments of the risk/benefit ratio associated with using different types of celebrities in luxury brand communications in a simple visual representation. Since celebrities are dynamic and have an ongoing narrative, celebrities can and do move between these quadrants and movement will depend on their life-cycle, their behavioural choices, their media presence, their authenticity and their relevance to consumers.

The increasing competition in recent years made more and more firms regard strategic alliance as an important alternative and solution to respond to fierce competition. As a kind of system arrangement among firms, the concept of strategic alliance was first proposed by Hopland and Nigel in the early 1980s, who defined strategic alliance as the collaboration mode in which two or more firms, aiming at joint-owned both market and resources, formed the kind of cooperation to enhance advantages, share risk or cost, and also mutual flow of production factors via different kinds of contracts or agreement. However, even before this definition, many firms have already begun their alliance strategies practices. As a cooperative form, strategic alliance, no matter its specific types, becomes one key choice for firms to acquire, maintain and enhance their market shares and positions. Shrader (2001) found that collaboration to foreign firms become key methods for newly-founded firms and small firms to enter foreign markets, which can bring these firms with suitable knowledge and market information, making these firms expand even faster with lower costs and market risks. The enhancing pace of globalization and internationalization triggered firms’ attentions to external markets, Archibugi and Iammarino (2002) found that fierce changes in internal market forced firms to expand their market and product scopes, making more and more firms realize product and R&D internationalization by searching, choosing and collaborating with foreign firms. Dong and Glaister (2006) found Chinese firms cared more about market positions, international expansion and technology exchanges, while foreign firms tended to enter to Chinese market and learn how to operate in China via strategic alliances. Although, many scholars brought out managerial practices of firms’ strategic alliances, and had already formed theoretical foundations, researches related to market orientation, especially how alliance firms establish and realize their strategic goals and performance goals under market motivation is still lack of studies. In reality, the mechanism how firms’ alliance intention transformed into their strategic or performance goals is still in the black box. Taken alliance firms as research objectives, this paper tends to explore how firms constructed strategic alliance due to market-orientation realize their strategic or performance goals via choice of patent strategies. We introduced patent strategies to establish the matching model, to analyze how firms market orientation influence choices of patent strategies, and their mutual effects on firms innovative performance, in hope to provide to the future studies and managerial practice how firms can choose the reasonable and effective alliance partners according to their own strategic and performance goals. Based on differentiation of market access and market extension motivation, we pointed out that, in order to realize the transformation from alliance motivation to innovation performance, alliance firms had to choose and determine among a set of practical and operational plans. Patent strategies, as a kind of operational plan, were conducive to transformation from alliance motivation to innovation performance. With the framework of market motivation, patent strategy and firms innovative performance, we put forward the hypotheses on how market motivation affect firms’ choices of patent strategies, and also the joint effects of market motivation and patent strategies on firm innovative performance. We selected alliance firms in IT industry as samples, with data from Cooperative Agreements and Technology Indicators Database, USPTO and R&D Scoreboard released by Department for Business, Innovation & Skills of UK, we empirically tested effects of market motivation on choices of patent strategies, and also effects of market motivation and patent strategies on firms innovative performance. Results showed that: different market positions led to differentiated motivations and patent strategies in their strategic alliances, firms with relatively weak market positions tend to pursue strategic profile of patent defensive and leveraging strategies under market access motivation, while firms with strong positions would like to implement patent proprietary and leveraging strategies in market extension motivation. The implementation of patent defensive and leveraging strategies under market access motivation enhanced innovation efficiency of the firms with weak market positions. Since these firms focused more on market positions and opportunities, their market capitalization tended to improve, but the motivation and utilization of patent strategies had no effect on patent output. Similar to these firms, the ones with stronger market position were inclined to strengthen their market opportunities and improve their market capitalization. Results indicated that because of their stronger market positions, these firms showed lower awareness of innovation efficiency and their emphasis on patent output was not high either, which then led to the fact that both market extension motivation and patent strategies used had no effects on firms innovative performance measured by innovation efficiency or patent output.

Since the arrival of omni-channel retailing, which promotes seamless experience for consumers and zero effort commerce, channel integration has been a big issue in both the domestic and the international retail industry. Some researchers have identified problems that can occur in the process of channel integration, such as cannibalization and channel conflict (Coelho & Easingwood, 2003). However, many studies on channel integration report its positive impact on a firm’s revenue growth through improved trust (Schramm-Klein & Morschett, 2006), higher consumer conversion rates (Neslin et al., 2006), and greater cross-selling opportunities (Berry et al., 2010). Regarding the issue of effectively establishing channel integration in order to bring positive synergy to a company, the present study intends to identify a solution within a company’s internal factors. This study aims to provide a strategic perspective on channel integration formation of domestic fashion retailers by identifying some of the key organizational components that drive a firm’s channel integration in this omni-channel era, when the boundaries between online and offline markets are disappearing. This study predicts that organizational structure and strategic orientation are the key components of a fashion retailer’s channel integration implementation in an omni-channel environment. As shown in previous studies, channel integration has a positive impact on a firm’s performance through active and innovative transformation of the organization’s hardware and software (Cao & Li, 2015; Yan, Wang, & Zhou, 2010). In particular, this study introduces channel (extension) strategies (number of different types of channels in both online and offline markets) into channel integration as one of the crucial variables, in addition to the two existing variables. The data were collected through a survey targeting mid-level executives or above, within a business unit of Korea’s fashion companies with over $10 million revenue. Through this selection, a total of 120 samples were used in the final analysis. Hierarchical regression modeling was used to prove the study’s hypothesis. The revenue size of a parent company and SBU was used as a control variable in the level 1 model; channel strategies in the level 2 model; organizational structure in the level 3 model, and organization strategic orientation in the level 4 model, which was used as an independent variable. Integrated back-end system and integrated human resource management, which are the highest levels of channel integration (Cao & Li, 2015; Oh, Teo, & Sambamurthy, 2012), have been used as dependent variables. The main findings of this study are as follows: In a back-end system integration model, organization strategic orientation was identified as the highest level when the organizational structure becomes more centralized, whereas the system integration level is the highest when the model is competitor-oriented and innovation-oriented. In the human resource management integration model, the human resource management integration level is at its highest when the organizational structure becomes formalized and specialized, and organization strategic behavior becomes more competitor-oriented and innovation-oriented.

With its fast growing economy and huge population, China has become one of the most lucrative markets for luxury brands (Zhan and He 2012). In fact, China has surpassed Japan and become the No.1 luxury products spender in the world, accounting more than one-quarter of the global luxury brand expenditure (Artsmon et al. 2012). Chinese middle-class consumers thus have become important targets of luxury brands (Zhan and He 2012). However, China’s culture is different from Western cultures (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012), and Chinese luxury consumers have their distinctive characteristics (Buchwald, 2015). Therefore, Chinese luxury consumption may not follow the trends of Western world (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012). Previous studies have explored Chinese luxury consumers’ perceptions and receptivity of luxury brands in different cultural contexts (Bian and Forsythe 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Zhan and He 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Li, Li and Kanbelle 2012; Oswald 2010, Li and Su 2007; Wang and Ahuvia 1998). However, all those studies have only investigated luxury brands’ marketing strategies in traditional offline worlds. With the emergence of digital technology, luxury brands have started building presence in online world through different digital marketing strategies (Okonkwo 2009). Among all the digital marketing tools, social media marketing has become an increasingly important marketing communication weapon (Kim and Ko, 2012). While the luxury brands have widely accepted social media marketing, the academic research largely lags behind, Only limited number of studies have examined luxury brands’ social media marketing strategies (Tynan, McKechnie, and Chhoun, 2010; Kim and Ko, 2012). No study, to the authors’ knowledge, has been conducted to investigate luxury brands’ social media marketing strategies in connecting with Chinese consumers. In addition, previous studies on luxury brands marketing have conducted either quantitatively (Bian and Forsythe 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Zhan and He 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Li, Li and Kanbelle 2012) or qualitatively (Oswald 2010, Li and Su 2007; Wang and Ahuvia 1998) from either consumers’ or marketer’s perspective. In order to fill the research gaps, the current study is designed to explore the phenomenon with a mixed method by integrating both marketers’ social media marketing strategies and consumers’ interpretation of those marketers’ social media marketing in the contextof China. Specifically, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine marketers’ social media marketing strategies on a Chinese social media platform: WeChat; in the meanwhile, a qualitative study was conducted to explore Chinese female affluent consumers’ interpretations of those social media strategies transmitted via WeChat. Based on the research purpose, two overarching research questions were proposed: R1: Do Western luxury brand use social media platform of WeChat to build social presence, create self-presentation or interact with consumers? R2: What are Chinese female affluent consumers’ perceptions and interpretations of luxury brands’ social media marketing communication strategies via WeChat? Methodology The current study used a mixed methodological approach (Creswell 2014). Specifically, a quantitative content analysis (Krippendorff 2012) and a phenomenological study (Creswell 2012) were conducted to investigate luxury brands’ social media marketing communication strategies via WeChat and Chinese female affluent consumers’ perception toward those marketing communication strategies. Initial Findings Study 1 So far, 50% (N = 60) of the sample was analyzed. RQ1 asked about the luxury brands’ marketing communication strategies. The initial frequencies of each coded variable are reported in Table 1. Table 1. Frequencies of Coded Variables The results showed that more than half of the coded messages had images, showed products/brands in images or videos, provided event, discount and other promotional information, described products’ physical features and attributes, contained celebrities, sought action-based participation, and applied hyperlinks. The initial data suggest that a major use of social media in luxury brand advertising is to build the brand’s social presence by extensively using visuals. Images were found in 44 messages, and 25 of them used 6 or more images. Most of these images showed products or brands. Video also appeared in 14 messages. The initial results also suggest consumer interaction and engagement is restricted to the lowest level. The two major ways of interaction were hyperlinks and action-based participation. A close examination showed that these two were often used together. A hyperlink used anchor text that contained a call for action-based participation, like “read more,” “get the coupon,” etc. A lot of these actions related to consuming content, like reading, downloading or sharing, which is the lowest level of brand related-activeness on branded social media sites (Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit 2011).Additionally, product/brand information and physical features and attributes were frequently mentioned, suggesting that luxury brands use social media for information dissemination. WeChat has a large size of active users, and self-disclosure of information on social media can create a sense of close relationship (Kaplan and Haelein, 2010). High product quality, especially in terms of design and craftsmanship were frequently addressed, suggesting that that social media are used to communicate the nuances of brand’s social meanings. For example, some messages described the conceptualization of the design, the processing of handcrafting, and the meaning of the design, etc. These deeper meaning of a brand is often left out of traditional methods of advertising because of limited space or time. Celebrity was one of the major methods to create social meaning, suggesting that luxury brands use social media to leverage parasocial interaction between celebrities and consumers. Parasocial interaction refers to consumers’ perception of personal relationship with media personalities (Men and Tsai 2013). Among the sample messages, there were interviews with famous designers, advices and recommendations from celebrities about luxury brand and fashion, etc. These messages offer an opportunity for consumers to connect with celebrities, and subsequently, associate luxury brands with these iconic figures (McCraken, 1989). All in all, Western luxury brands largely use social media to build social presence, disseminate information, and communicate brand’s social meanings. Luxury brands frequently interact with audiences on social media but the level of consumer engagement is restricted. Study 2 The participants’ interpretations of WeChat provide a unique context and form a crucial referential framework for them to interpret luxury brands’ marketing communications on this particular social media platform. Specifically, the themes that emerged regarding those Chinese female affluent consumers’ perceptions of the social medium are an intimate friend vs. an everyday assistant, simple vs. complicated, and stickiness vs. interactivity; and, the themes regarding the participants’ interpretation of luxury brands’ marketing communications include inactive, conservative, and distance. Based on their own experiences of social media marketing and from consumers’ perspectives, the participants also provided insightful suggestions for luxury brands to improve their social media marketing to better connect with their consumers. Interpretation of WeChat An Intimate Friend vs. An Everyday Assistant According to the participants, their usage and composition of friends on WeChat has kept changing and evolving. At the initial stage of their usage, all the friends on WeChat were family members and close friends. At that time, WeChat constructed a small, closed, and intimate social circle for them to communicate, socialize, and entertain themselves and their WeChat friends in a carefree and relaxing way. In this sense, WeChat is like a good friend, who can accompany them and chat with them whenever they need him/her. Later, with the number of WeChat friends increasing and expanding, the composition of theirWeChat friends has also become complicated: different social relationships have been added to their WeChat friend list. Accordingly, based on the closeness and remoteness, they categorize their WeChat friends and communicate and socialize with them in a more cautious and delicate way. In this sense, WeChat has also changed to an office assistant who helps them to manage and maintain their social relationships. Simple vs. Complicated With the change of WeChat and the revolution of participants’ usage and experiences, in the life-worlds of the participants, WeChat has transformed from a simple chatting app to a multi-functional personal service hub. At the initial usage of stage, according to the participants, the major function of WeChat is a chatting app to communicate with their friends conveniently. Later, with more functions to be added to WeChat, WeChat has evolved to a complicated personal service hub to serve various personal and commercial purposes for the participants. Stickiness vs. Interactivity According to the participants, WeChat is a unique social media platform with high stickiness but low interactivity. The participants indicated that they use WeChat all the time, and they have to check their WeChat numerous times during a day. In other words, WeChat is considered as a high frequency social media app. In the meantime, the participants felt that WeChat is lacking interactivity when comparing to other social media platforms such as microblogging. They stated that the possible interactive activities on WeChat are very limited. In other words, in the life-world of the participants, WeChat is perceived as a less reciprocative social media platform. Interpretation of Luxury Brands’ Marketing Communication on WeChat Inactive According to the participants, the luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are less active than other brands’ public accounts. Those luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts post information less frequently and seldom interact with followers. This is actually put those luxury brands in a relatively negative marketing position on WeChat. The participants indicated that they follow many public accounts. Because the luxury brands’ public accounts are not very active, without constant reminder, the followers may gradually forget about those luxury brands’ public accounts and stop checking their accounts’ updates. Conservative In addition to be seen as inactive, the luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are also perceived to be conservative. According to the participants, compared to other brands, luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are too serious, less interesting, and lacking entertainment. The participants felt that the luxury brands are very cautious and careful regarding their WeChat presence. Therefore, their WeChat posts are generally too conservative and formal, lacking creativity and uniqueness. As a result, the participants couldn’t remember any impressive and unforgettable post from those luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts.Distance In the participants’ eyes, the luxury brands are perceived to intentionally keep a certain distance from WeChat users. The participants felt that on the one hand the luxury brands are trying hard to connect with their consumers on social media, on the other hand, they are also trying to preserve their luxury brand image on this media platform by alienating general WeChat users. However, the participants felt it is not easy for luxury brands to achieve those two purposes successfully on WeChat. Suggestion of Luxury Brands’ Marketing Communication on WeChat Based on their perceptions and experiences of luxury brands’ social media marketing, the participants offered several insightful suggestions for luxury brands to improve their social marketing endeavors to better connect with their consumers. According to the participants, the most important marketing communication strategy via social media that luxury brands could adopt is to collaborate with opinion leaders (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1957) on social media to humanize, personalize, and entertainize their marketing communications. As the participants indicated, there are many successful and popular personal fashion public accounts on WeChat which have millions of loyal followers. Those personal fashion public accounts usually have unique styles and characteristics that are attractive to and well-liked by their followers. Compared to luxury brands’ official public accounts, those personal public accounts are perceived more humanized, personal, and closer to consumers. In addition, those accounts also have more flexibility to be creative and entertaining thus providing a better social media experience for luxury brands’ consumers. For luxury brands’ own public accounts on social media, the participants suggested that those luxury brands should become more active on social media by posting messages more frequently and constantly reminding consumers of their social presence. In addition, the participants think those luxury brands should be more adventurous on social media by being more creative and expressing more entertaining spirit.

With increasing challenges like climate change, companies are confronted with rising expectations from stakeholders, especially consumers. The paper investigates consumers’ reactions towards CSR strategies using a case-study and focus-groups. Results imply that digitally-based strategies at the core of newly found fashion companies are perceived generally positive, although with mixed impressions.

This conceptual paper is motivated by personal industry experience from over 100 customer-purchasing decisions from the machine tooling industry. The insights suggest that the customer’s ability to pay (ATP) constitutes a key deal-breaker criterion for value-based decision making that up to date has been overlooked in research. Customers may be willing, but unable to pay for the offering with the highest perceived value, simply because they lack the financial resources. The traditional view on value-based marketing strategies proposes that firms must provide offerings that create value for their customers (premise 1: customer need perspective) and that the value created must be superior to competition (premise 2: competitor perspective) while generating profits (premise 3: firm’s perspective). Customers will estimate which offering provides superior value, and they will choose the offering that delivers the highest value. I introduce the customer’s ability to pay as an additional foundational premise suggesting that the firm’s offering must also be within the customer’s budget (premise 4: customer budget perspective). I propose that frontline employees must not only develop a high degree of customer need knowledge, but they must also build-up a high level of customer budget knowledge. I conclude by deriving operative and strategic management implications supported with empirical evidence from the Australian machine tooling industry.

This study aims to introduce the local festival sponsored by KOTRA (Korea Trade- Investment Promotion Agency) in Banteay Meanchey Province in Cambodia, find that the vitalization strategies that allow the local festival concept to be used as a new rural development strategy alternative, and share those strategies with other donor countries and agencies that may want to implement something similar. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis was utilized to derive the internal and external factors found in the process of planning and promoting a local festival. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis was employed to prioritize the factors derived from SWOT analysis. These results would lead to the establishment of applicable vitalization strategies. The vitalized local festival can be a tremendous resource for rural regions in Cambodia by helping maintain the rural societies, support the inheritance of their cultural legacies, and provide additional outlets to sustain local development. Acting as sponsors of these strategies will help donors strengthen the ties and construct international cooperation partnerships with Cambodia.

This study attempts to analyze the characteristics of parent's perception types of online game and suggest personalized intervention strategies for improving parents' perception of online games. The data was collected through the online survey from 345 parents. First, the parent's perception types of online game were classified as 4 types through online game perception scale. Second, the characteristics of parent's perception types of online game were analyzed by integrating the results of this research and previous study. As a result, each type of perceptions has differences in the criteria of positive-negative perception of online games, the attitude and reaction to children’s gaming, game familarity, Internet literacy of parents and etc. Third, based on the characteristics of perception types of online game, we suggest intervention strategies for improving parents' perception of online games. This study holds its significance in suggesting the personalized intervention strategies based on the characteristics of perception types of online game.

본 연구는 학습자 중심 수업이 비판적 사고 전략의 향상에 미치는 영향을 알아보는 것을 목적으로 수행 되었다. 이를 위해 서울, 충청도 소재 4년제 사립대학교의 3학년 학생 260명을 대상으로 플립드 러닝 (flipped learning)을 기반으로 한 학습자 중심 수업 설계를 16주에 걸쳐 적용하였다. 이를 위하여 비판 적 사고 전략 검사의 확인적 요인분석을 실시하였고, 수업 전과 후의 비판적 사고 전략의 수준의 차이를 분석하였다. 또한 수업 전의 비판적 사고 전략 수준에 따라서 수업 후에 변화의 양상이 어떠한가를 알아 보기 위해 상ㆍ하 집단(25%, 75%)으로 분류하고, 이들의 차이를 분석하였다. 연구결과를 살펴보면 첫째, 비판적 사고 전략 검사는 대학생의 비판적 사고 전략을 측정하기에 적합한 요인구조를 가졌음을 확인하였다. 둘째, 학습자 중심 수업은 비판적 사고 전략의 향상에 긍정적인 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 특히 가장 높은 차원인 비판적 반성 전략의 경우 수업 적용 전에 비해 가장 큰 향상 효과가 있는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 수업 전의 비판적 사고 수준이 낮은 집단이 수업 후의 비판적 사고향상의 폭이 더 크게 나타나 하위집단일수록 학습자 중심 수업이 효과적이라는 선행연구 결과와 일치하는 결과를 확인하였 다. 이러한 연구 결과는 몇 가지의 제한점에도 불구하고 비판적 사고의 향상을 위해서는 학습자의 활동 과 개별학습, 협업, 소통이 중시되는 학습자 중심 수업을 충분히 고려할 필요가 있음을 시사하였고, 학습 수준에 따라 학습자 중심 수업을 어떻게 활용할 것인가에 대한 자료를 제공하였다는 측면에서 의의 가 있었다.

Product liability (PL), which began enforcement in 2002, refers to the legal responsibility of the manufacturers or sellers (wholesales or retailers) for the property damage or bodily harm caused by their product. With a strong enforcement of the Product Liability (PL) Act, companies are required to structure and operate a response system to defend or prevent product accidents efficiently, but small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are unable to respond more aggressively due to limitation of management resources. In this manner, it is important to develop response strategies for SMEs to efficiently cope with the PL Act. In this paper, the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) analysis is performed to reveal the impact of the PL Act on SMEs in macro-economic point of view. To formulate SME’s PL response strategy, SWOT analysis is performed to categorize each factors from PEST analysis and AHP is applied to identify the intensities of SWOT factors. The prioritized SWOT factor, results of PEST-SWOT-AHP analysis, are used to formulate SME’s PL response strategies. The study results are briefly summarized as follows. To reduce product defects, it is necessary for SMEs to formulate PL response strategies for each phase of the product life cycle by continuously collecting and analyzing PL cases in the same industry or for similar products. In addition, SMEs should invest more technological effort to ensure product safety. Further, SMEs should spread PL awareness to all staff members by training internal PL experts. Moreover, a SME should enroll in PL insurance and spread this information to its customers so that they become aware that the company is proactively conforming to the PL law.