Transformational Leadership of Sales Managers and Job Satisfaction of Sales Associates in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Industry in Taiwan

Literature review in sales content supported the theory that sales manager\u27s transformational leadership has a vital influence on the job satisfaction of sales associates, while job satisfaction has significant influence on the sales associates\u27 work behaviors. Very limited studies have extensively examined the relationship between sales managers\u27 transformational leadership and sales associates\u27 job satisfaction, while recent research has focused on how transformational leadership applies to sales management situations. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between transformational leadership of sales managers and job satisfaction of sales associates in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry in Taiwan. In addition, this study also analyzed the relationship between sales associates\u27 demographic variables and sales managers\u27 transformational leadership and sales associates\u27 job satisfaction. The population in this research was identified as sales associates from four multinational sales organizations in the FMCG industry of Taiwan, resulting in 123 individual surveys for analysis. The design of this proposed research was a quantitative, non-experimental, and correlation study with regression analysis. Transformational leadership and job satisfaction questionnaires were applied as the instruments to conduct this research. The findings supported the hypothesis: there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the sales managers\u27 transformational leadership and sales associates\u27 job satisfaction in the FMCG industry in Taiwan. The result identified the predictors of sales managers\u27 transformational leadership on the sales associates\u27 job satisfaction through regression analysis. The analysis also revealed several differences between sales associates\u27 demographic variables and their perceptions of the sales managers\u27 transformational leadership and job satisfaction

Multi-party quantum private comparison based on entanglement swapping of Bell entangled states within d-level quantum system

In this paper, a multi-party quantum private comparison (MQPC) scheme is suggested based on entanglement swapping of Bell entangled states within d-level quantum system, which can accomplish the equality comparison of secret binary sequences from n users via one execution of scheme. Detailed security analysis shows that both the outside attack and the participant attack are ineffective. The suggested scheme needn't establish a private key among n users beforehand through the quantum key distribution (QKD) method to encrypt the secret binary sequences. Compared with previous MQPC scheme based on d-level Cat states and d-level Bell entangled states, the suggested scheme has distinct advantages on quantum resource, quantum measurement of third party (TP) and qubit efficiency.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Protective effect of catalpol on isoproterenol-induced myocardial injury in Wistar rats

The neuroprotective effects of catalpol had been well demonstrated in many studies. Nevertheless, little work was done to investigate the cardioprotective effects of catalpol. This study was designed to explore whether catalpol protected myocardium against isoproterenol (ISO)-induced myocardial injury through attenuating oxidative stress and suppressing inflammation. Histopathological changes were assessed by hematoxylin and eosin staining. Results show that catalpol could effectively suppress the histopathological changes including myocardial structure damage and leucocyte infiltration. Oxidative stress and antioxidant status were also analysed. Results show that catalpol could significantly attenuate the increase of myocardial malondialdehyde (MDA) and renew the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD). Furthermore, the results of real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western-blot analysis showed that catalpol could inhibit the upregulation of the expressions of tumor necrosis factor-β (TNF-β) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) caused by ISO. In conclusion, our data suggest that catalpol had a protective effect against ISO-induced cardiotoxicity in rat, by maintaining endogenous antioxidant enzyme activities and alleviating inflammatory response. This study provides novel insights that catalpol treatment could be an approach for the prevention of ischemic heart disease.Key words: Catalpol, isoproterenol, inflammation, oxidative stress, myocardial injury