Luxury Consumption Behavior: A Value-Based Segmentation of the US Consumers

The USA is the largest consumer of luxury goods (Deloitte, 2014). However, very little is known about ways to market luxury brands (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). This is especially true in the context of the USA luxury market. To date, few studies have addressed issue of luxury market consumer segmentation within the context of the USA. Therefore, in the present study, attempt is made to segment the USA luxury market based on the Luxury Value Perception (LVP) model proposed by Wiedmann, Hennigs, and Siebels (2009). To our knowledge, this is the first study to exclusively focus on the USA luxury market segmentation based on the LVP model. It is posited that the present study has some theoretical and practical implications

What can we do to Attract and Retain Young People to our Company as we Find it Difficult to Attract Employees at all Levels?

Question: As the workforce ages we are finding it a challenge to recruit new employees at all levels. So our question involves what can we do to attract and retain young people to our company? We have some insight into how to attract employees but where we would like your help is how to design our work and career paths to maintain the employees

Toward a New Definition of Pro Bono

Every day, nonprofit groups around the country are meeting a wide variety of community needs, often with volunteer and corporate philanthropic assistance. Yet while these organizations are doing important and innovative work, they often cannot take their ideas to scale, in part because they lack the professional skills needed to operate as efficiently as possible, or to successfully plan for their growth. To help rectify this situation, The President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, together with several key private and government partners, convened The Summit on Corporate Volunteerism in February 2008. Toward a New Definition of Probono, produced out of this summit, makes the case for utilizing probono volunteer services

How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution

An investigation into hotel group and luxury fashion designer collaborations

This article is a preliminary exploration, aiming to identify the drivers of a plethora of developments led by luxury fashion designers. It was found that both luxury fashion designers and the hotel companies realised a strategic fit between brands and products offer, based on the consumer demand for the luxury experience. One common motive amongst the two industries was to capitalise on each other’s brand reputation, particularly known for its capability to provide quality and luxury products. This article also identified that the Chinese market has the potential to grow and could be a lucrative location into which to expand the luxury fashion designers’ hotel concept

What Are the Best Practices to Promote High-Ranking Female Employees Within Organizations?

Companies still have a long way to go to ensure gender diversity especially in leadership positions. Recent research indicated that although entry-level men and women are hired at an increasingly equal rate, women often times reach a mid-career “the glass ceiling”. Our research investigated the best practices and drew insights on how to tackle the gender diversity challenge

Collaborative Engagement Approaches For Delivering Sustainable Infrastructure Projects In The AEC Sector: A Review

The public sector has traditionally financed and operated infrastructure projects using resources from taxes and various levies (e.g. fuel taxes, road user charges). However, the rapid increase in human population growth coupled with extended globalisation complexities and associated social/political/economic challenges have placed new demands on the purveyors and operators of infrastructure projects. The importance of delivering quality infrastructure has been underlined by the United Nations declaration of the Millennium Development Goals; as has the provision of ‘adequate’ basic structures and facilities necessary for the well-being of urban populations in developing countries. Thus, in an effort to finance developing countries’ infrastructure needs, most countries have adopted some form of public-private collaboration strategy. This paper critically reviews these collaborative engagement approaches, identifies and highlights 10 critical themes that need to be appropriately captured and aligned to existing business models in order to successfully deliver sustainable infrastructure projects. Research findings show that infrastructure services can be delivered in many ways, and through various routes. For example, a purely public approach can cause problems such as slow and ineffective decision-making, inefficient organisational and institutional augmentation, and lack of competition and inefficiency (collectively known as government failure). On the other hand, adopting a purely private approach can cause problems such as inequalities in the distribution of infrastructure services (known as market failure). Thus, to overcome both government and market failures, a collaborative approach is advocated which incorporates the strengths of both of these polarised positions

The Economics of Medical Tourism A Case Study for the USA and India

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a simple Ricardian model of international trade for health care industries of the USA and India. Our motivation is to illustrate that specialization and free trade result in gains from international trade. We will shed some light on the economics of outbound as well as inbound medical tourism. By adopting the model of comparative advantage to the costs of medical surgeries, we will show that trade between our two model countries – India and the USA – is beneficial to both of them. By specializing on the type of surgery they are most efficient in producing, it will enhance the well being of both nations. Numerical examples and graphical presentations help to support our arguments. In addition, we will lift some of the more restrictive assumptions. By including transportation costs, barriers of trade as well as a larger variety of surgical services, the central message of the beneficial effect of specialization still remains, even though the general picture becomes slightly blurred. There is evidence for support of a more multi-polar international system of trade in medical services.medical tourism, Ricardian model, comparative advantage, international trade, gains from trade