CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ROMANIA

The purpose of this paper is to identify the main opportunities and limitations of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The survey was defined with the aim to involve the highest possible number of relevant CSR topics and give the issue a more wholesome perspective. It provides a basis for further comprehension and deeper analyses of specific CSR areas. The conditions determining the success of CSR in Romania have been defined in the paper on the basis of the previously cumulative knowledge as well as the results of various researches. This paper provides knowledge which may be useful in the programs promoting CSR.Corporate social responsibility, Supportive policies, Romania

Ethnography of Reading Comic Books

This thesis explores why adults read comic books. This research used the ethnographic method and interviewing eleven people, four women, seven male, as its primary source. Based on information and common themes gathered from interviews, I built this thesis into one introduction, three body chapters, and a conclusion. In the first chapter, I argued that comics could function the same as myths and explained this function and related examples under the “mythic effect” name. In the second chapter, I discussed how my informants use reading comics as a means to escape their everyday lives and how sometimes this escapism carries a nostalgic feeling for some of them. At the end of this chapter, I demonstrated that reading comics can be considered a stigmatized activity and how my informants react to the common stereotypes around reading comics. The third chapter is about the relationship between comics and gender. I analyzed this relationship in two parts: representation of gender in comics and reading comics as a gendered activity. I concluded that reading comics for my informants has more meanings than just entertainment. It can inspire them to make changes in the real world and alter their perspective. Also, media and the internet have significant roles in broadening comics’ audiences and challenging gender dynamics and stereotypes around reading comics

Professor/practitioner case development program - 1996 case studies

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1342/thumbnail.jp

Les applications bancaires mobiles peuvent-elles fidéliser la génération Y?

Abstract: Despite an exhaustive research, very few academic papers regarding loyalty in the context of mobile banking application exist in the marketing, technologies and banking literature. However, banking corporation have launched mobile banking applications in the Quebec's market and are now interested in knowing if this new distribution channel can generate value for their new upcoming important market: The Generation Y (Gen-Y). This research aims to analyse the impact of mobile banking services on Gen Y's loyalty. An experimentation with three scenarios presenting a different banking service (online or mobile) was performed. The results show there are no significant differences between the type of services (between scenarios). Furthermore, it seems that, at the time of this investigation, loyalty was greater in the online context than on any of the remaining mobile context. This observation was consistent in all perceived value dimensions. The results of our structural equation modeling demonstrate a significant relationship between variables Under study. Therefore, depending on the choice of modelization : (1) perceived emotional value has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction ; (2) perceived functional value - Quality - Display has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction; (3) perceived functional value - Quality - Security has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction; (4) perceived functional value - Quality - Control over financial matters has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction ; (5) perceived emotional value - Familiarity has a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction and (6) customer satisfaction has a significant positive impact on customer loyalty. Given these results, it seems that marketing managers should aim to increase the perceived functional value - Quality and perceived emotional value of mobile banking services for Generation Y users. Aspects such as Display, Security, Control over Financial matters and Familiarity seems to bring value to Gen-Y. They should also segment the Gen-Yers based on their annual income and also on their level of parental dependence in order to better target this segment that could really generate behavioural loyalty.||Résumé : Malgré une recherche intensive, très peu de recherches académiques concernant la loyauté dans le contexte des applications bancaires mobiles existent dans la littérature marketing, bancaire ou des technologies. De plus, les corporations bancaires, ayant lancé des applications bancaires mobiles dans le marché Québécois, sont maintenant intéressées à savoir si ce nouveau mode de distribution génère de la valeur pour leur prochaine clientèle cible d'importance : la génération Y (Gen-Y). Cette recherche a pour but d'analyser l'impact des services bancaires mobiles sur la loyauté de la génération Y. Une expérimentation avec trois scénarios présentant différents services bancaires (Internet ou mobile) fut entreprise. Les résultats démontrent qu'il n'y a pas de différences significatives selon le type de distribution des services bancaires. Qui plus est, il semble qu'au moment de l'étude, la loyauté était plus significative dans le contexte des services bancaires en ligne que dans les contextes mobiles présentés dans les scénarios et ce, pour l'ensemble des dimensions de la valeur perçue analysées. Les résultats de notre modélisation à l'aide d'équations structurelles indiquent une relation significative entre les variables à l'étude. Ainsi, selon le modèle analysé : (1) la valeur émotionnelle perçue a un impact positif significatif sur la satisfaction du consommateur ; (2) la dimension « apparence visuelle » de la valeur fonctionnelle perçue relative à la qualité a un impact positif significatif sur la satisfaction du consommateur ; (3) la dimension « sécurité » de la valeur fonctionnelle perçue relative à la qualité a un impact positif significatif sur la satisfaction du consommateur ; (4) la dimension « contrôle des finances personnelles » de la valeur fonctionnelle perçue relative à la qualité a un impact positif significatif sur la satisfaction du consommateur ; (5) la dimension « familiarité » de la valeur émotionnelle perçue a un impact positif significatif sur la satisfaction du consommateur et (6) la satisfaction du consommateur a un impact positif significatif sur la loyauté du consommateur. Compte tenu de ces résultats, les gestionnaires marketing devraient concentrer leurs efforts sur les dimensions de la valeur fonctionnelle relatives à la qualité perçues par la génération Y lors de leur utilisation des services bancaires mobiles. Il en est de même pour les dimensions de la valeur émotionnelle perçues. Les dimensions telles que l'apparence visuelle, la sécurité, le contrôle des finances personnelles et la familiarité semblent générer de la valeur pour les Gen-Y. Les résultats suggèrent aussi de segmenter la génération Y en se basant sur leur revenu annuel ainsi que sur leur niveau de dépendance parentale afin de mieux cibler les individus de la génération Y pouvant réellement générer une loyauté comportementale

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia

Online retail : service quality derivation, market segmentation and organisational analysis.

The recent rise of the internet as a commercial trading channel has left retail marketers facing several challenges. As in any marketplace, customer intelligence is the lifeblood of organisational success online, yet no thoroughly tested and validated model exists to reliably capture customer service requirements. Traditional service quality models are an insufficient and inflexible means to capture the unique nature of the internet medium while those emergent models of online behaviour developed thus far have typically been of limited scope, sample size, sample breadth and not validated in continued practice. Beyond the problem of identifying customer demands, there remains a problem of how to group together customers for segmentation purposes. In the contemporary marketplace as a whole there is growing fragmentation and individuality with demographics no longer precise enough to be useful beyond describing broad definitions of product class users. E-businesses also face a pressing challenge in addressing customer alignment in the 'value creating' marketing and operations departments. There is a need to move beyond the limiting scope of only considering marketing in relation to customer focus and to incorporate a wider consideration of organisational focus with true measures of customer requirements. Within this thesis each of these issues is addressed. With the support and collaboration of four internet companies, one of the largest surveys of online customers undertaken to date has been completed (n-3403). This has allowed for the construction of a new model of online customer service demands, validated with confirmatory factor analysis, generating a nine factor solution that comprehensively describes customers service demands. Secondly, a wide range of situational factors have been analysed for their suitability as a means of segmenting the marketplace. Structural equation modelling has provided a strong finding that finreripral measures account for far greater variance in customer demands than demographics, confirming the limited usefulness of demographics online and providing a superior replacement. An analysis of marketing and operations personnel in the four supporting companies also provided evidence that marketers were better at understanding customer requirements than their operations colleagues and that in all companies a generally good understanding of customers had resulted in high levels of customer satisfaction. Overall, this body of work stands apart in terms of holism of analysis (customer service quality, segmentation and organisational understanding), depth of analysis (extensive literature review and generation}, depth of research (sample size of n-3403) and rigour of analysis (iterative statistical process) making contributions to the academic body of knowledge and nature of managerial practice in the areas of online retail customer service, market segmentation and organisational analysis

Increasing domestic consumption of South African wines : exploring the market potential of the emerging Black middle class

The South African wine market is undergoing changes at both the producer and retail levels, such as the influx of the new brands and new consumer demands with respect to health, biodiversity concerns and ethical issues. Although South Africa has no dominant wine culture and South Africans are predominantly beer and brandy drinkers, the industry has to develop the local market, especially the black consumer market. The most powerful marketing trend in the South African economy in the last 10 years has been the emergence and growth of the black middle class, increasingly referred to as Black Diamonds, which have emerged as the strongest buying influence in the economy. This has seen the propagation of a westernized culture in local communities. There is an overwhelming desire among the latter group to have access to a lifestyle they believe is their right. Making inroads in understanding this market presents a good opportunity since this is an important economic group. Black wine drinkers have to overcome individual families' attitudes to wine drinking. It is high on the industry’s agenda to swing the emerging black middle class market from high-end whiskies, cognac and beer, to wine while at the same time promoting the wine culture because this market is still hugely untapped. They also seek to vanquish the illusion of wines as a drink for white people by focusing on young upcoming black professionals as a target market. The data in this study was collected from an integration of a consumer behaviour survey (through a choice based conjoint analysis undertaken at the Soweto wine festival in Johannesburg); as well as personal interviews with industry stakeholders and reference group discussions. The study found that although there is limited consumer knowledge about wines and low levels of brand awareness, black consumers are willing and yearning to learn more about wines as they view them as an aspirational lifestyle beverage. The study also asserts that women are significantly more adventurous than their male counterparts in terms of experimenting with wines although the latter exhibit a higher willingness to pay for what they consider to be premium wine brands. Black consumers are still unsure about what wine attributes are important in choosing a wine. The industry needs to increase its efforts in educating and understanding this diverse market as the cultural attitudes towards wine are indeed changing. The study identified four wine consumer market segments among the Black Diamonds. The industry’s target market should be focused on women and the “Start me up” age group as they show the highest willingness to learn about wines and pay for brands that they consider to be premium brands as has been the case in all new wine markets. While still focusing on the 4 P’s of marketing, various new brand communication platforms can be explored to reach this market. These include co-opetition, extended service offerings, wine tourism and e-marketing. The success of the domestic market will be determined by new innovative insights into this market and complimentary market strategies.Dissertation (MSc(Agric))--University of Pretoria, 2009.Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmentunrestricte

Exploring the relationship between social network sites and the consumption of cultural goods through the lens of affordances

This thesis presents research theorising the use of social network sites (SNS) for the consumption of cultural goods. SNS are Internet-based applications that enable people to connect, interact, discover, and share user-generated content. They have transformed communication practices and are facilitating users to present their identity online through the disclosure of information on a profile. SNS are especially effective for propagating content far and wide within a network of connections. Cultural goods constitute hedonic experiential goods with cultural, artistic, and entertainment value, such as music, books, films, and fashion. Their consumption is culturally dependant and they have unique characteristics that distinguish them from utilitarian products. The way in which users express their identity on SNS is through the sharing of cultural interests and tastes. This makes cultural good consumption vulnerable to the exchange of content and ideas that occurs across an expansive network of connections within these social systems. This study proposes the lens of affordances to theorise the use of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods. Qualitative case study research using two phases of data collection is proposed in the application of affordances to the research topic. The interaction between task, technology, and user characteristics is investigated by examining each characteristic in detail, before investigating the actual interaction between the user and the artifact for a particular purpose. The study contributes to knowledge by (i) improving our understanding of the affordances of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods, (ii) demonstrating the role of task, technology and user characteristics in mediating user behaviour for user-artifact interactions, (iii) explaining the technical features and user activities important to the process of consuming cultural goods using social network sites, and (iv) theorising the consumption of cultural goods using SNS by presenting a theoretical research model which identifies empirical indicators of model constructs and maps out affordance dependencies and hierarchies. The study also provides a systematic research process for applying the concept of affordances to the study of system use