In the world of e-commerce, security has quickly become of paramount importance. This unique book provides an in-depth understanding of basic security problems and relevant e-commerce solutions. From designing secure Web, e-commerce, and mobile commerce applications to securing internal networks to providing secure employee/user authentication, this cutting-edge book gives professionals the tools they need to solve their e-commerce security problems.

This volume undertakes the important task of envisioning a regional history of Asia based on its unique internal characteristics, going beyond the usual West/non-West dichotomy. The "regional trade zone of modern Asia" was debated in the 1980s. Since then, Japanese historians of the socioeconomic history of Asia have explored how the traditional trade relations that had developed over the centuries in Asia responded to the so-called Western impacts in the mid-nineteenth century, including the opening of ports and tariff reduction under free trade regimes and the advance in transportation technology. Against this academic background, the four chapters in this volume examine how overseas Chinese, some of the key actors in regional and local trade, dealt with their Western counterparts, and how Asian commodities penetrated other parts of the world through the newly created web of global commerce. The book reviews discuss theoretical issues to explore various connections among and comparisons of the economies in the region. This volume provides readers with critical insights into the Asian region in the past and present by investigating the long-term trajectory of its linkages to the global economy.

Ephemeral stores, also known as pop-up stores, have existed since the beginning of trade between consumers. They appeared in city centres, villages or other convenient places where they proposed an offering and then disappeared as soon as its offering was wearied. This is a very similar experience to the current phenomenon; ephemeral stores appear unannounced and disappear without notice or can morph into something else. Brands adopt these stores because of the array of benefits they present and their characterizing features. Consumers, on the other hand, are not only positively reactive to ephemeral stores, they actively demand these novel, engaging, satisfying or beneficial stores more than ever as they provide them with constant change and surprise. Focusing on ephemeral retailing, this book aims to provide a clear understanding of what it is, how it developed and why it gained importance in today's busy retail scene. As many brands are adopting ephemeral stores into their distribution channels or using them as unique touchpoints, this book proposes a categorization of ephemeral retailing, explaining different ephemeral store vocations based on different brand strategies and objectives. With many professional opinions about ephemeral stores and a body of academic research developing, this book aims to combine all knowledge about the topic into one concise publication: it clarifies, consolidates and creates a clear understanding about the topic of ephemeral retailing that will inform future research and activity. The book is written for academics, students and retail professionals with an interest in relevant fields such as retail marketing and management, brand management and distribution.

This book looks at the recent emergence of "new ordinary consumption," in urban China and defines new ordinary consumption as a consumer practice in which people routinely integrate products and items, traditionally reserved for special occasions, into their daily lives, to accentuate their own well-being. The book, through the case study on the adoption of cut flowers and upscaling non-floral goods, provides insights on how deal proneness and high price sensitivity pose challenges to many market retailers. It also proposes how to go about resolving these challenging issues in retail through the alteration of perceived reasons to consume. The author also examined social media marketing narrative that two direct-to-consumer floral goods sellers used, to guide consumers away from the social and cultural baggage of consumption, thereby giving more consideration to products reshaping consumers' motivation, and driving the purchase. Heeding the findings of floral startups that awakened consumers' aspirations to redefine their everyday personal lives, and making such aspirations a profitable business, this interesting case study suggests that it is time to revisit the appeal of conspicuous consumption in the present-day Chinese markets. Anyone interested to learn more about the Chinese consumers and their novel consumption habits would find the book a useful reference.

Markets are usually discussed in abstract terms, as an economic organizing principle, a generalized alternative to government planning, or even as powerful actors in their own right, able to shape local and national economic destinies. But markets are not abstract. Even as the idea of the market seduces politicians around the world to take advantage of their abstract qualities, they constantly run up against material reality. Markets are always somewhere, in place, and it is in place that the smooth theories of markets falter and fail. More than simply being embedded in particular places, markets necessarily emerge in the various political, social, cultural, and environmental relations that exist in and between places. Markets shape places, but the reverse is also true. This collection of essays approaches markets from the ground up, and from a part of the world often still regarded as peripheral to global capitalism: the South Pacific. With a wide variety of case studies, including on indigenous economies, childcare, agriculture, wine, electricity metering, finance, education, and housing, the authors show how complex local, social and cultural politics matter to how markets are made within and between places, and the insights that can be gleaned from studying markets in this part of the world. They explore the way superficially similar markets work out differently in different places, and why, as well as examining how market relations are constructed in places outside and on the edges of the centres of Western capitalism, and what this says back to how markets are understood in those centres. The book will be of particular interest to scholars and students working in and between economic geography, cultural economy, political economy, economic sociology, and more.

Highlighting an important emerging trend in FDI to Africa, this book consists of important contributions focusing on an increase in trade and investment between African countries. An area that until now has received little attention, this volume aims to define the key issues and explores the challenges and outcomes that have characterized Africa-to-Africa internationalization, providing guidance on directions for future research. Africa-to-Africa Internationalization includes both conceptual and empirical contributions, illustrating the practical issues in intra-African trade and investment. Providing readers with a deep sense of the realities and challenges of cross-border investments within the region, the cases included in the book are useful pedagogical materials for faculty members interested in teaching international business in the African context.

Trade and the Environment presents the most important published articles and papers which are essential to an understanding of the complex interrelationship between trade and the environment - an area which reflects the increasing concern about the protection of the earth's environment and natural resources. The book examines the subject from three perspectives. The first section offers an economic analysis of the trade and environment relationship, including the problems of cost and the methodological approaches to analyses of trade and environment; and exploration of how international and national trade and environment policies affect each other and an investigation of how firms and corporations adjust their strategies to respond to environmental regulation. The second section, which is devoted to the legal aspects of the conflict between trade and environmental policies, explores the implications of existing international trade agreements for good environmental practice and investigates the effects of national environmental laws on international trade. The final section is concerned with government policy and the way in which national governments construct international 'regimes' which affect the interplay between trade liberators and environmental regulators. Trade and the Environment provides a clear insight into an area of current concern and points to future issues in the rapidly emerging trade and environment regime.

* Goes beyond branding theory to provide real-world solutions for beleaguered fashion retailers * Covers the full spectrum of fashion brands, from mass market to luxury * Co-authored by a consultant with 30 years' experience in fashion and interior design, and a postdoctoral researcher at the renowned Sorbonne

* Goes beyond branding theory to provide real-world solutions for beleaguered fashion retailers * Covers the full spectrum of fashion brands, from mass market to luxury * Co-authored by a consultant with 30 years' experience in fashion and interior design, and a postdoctoral researcher at the renowned Sorbonne

This book presents a series of studies analyzing critical factors that promote and constrain textile & clothing (T&C) production and trade in the Belt & Road (B&R) countries, and forces that drive the restructuring and transforming of global T&C supply chain and operations in the B&R context. The book also offers insights into the challenges and opportunities for T&C manufacturing in B&R countries through interviews with T&C experts, and also examines how Hong Kong can strengthen its "super-connector" role by facilitating sustainable trade and development in the T&C industries, as well as discussion on the impact of global trade wars on T&C trade. In the studies presented in this book, they offer topics ranging from the macro-economy, international business environment and strategies, logistics and supply chain, policy changes, to sustainability. The studies offer descriptive, theoretical and empirical analyses that explore T&C business and management related opportunities and challenges that are derived from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Econometric analysis with the gravity model is applied to T&C trade and extended to cover other areas that have not been considered in previous studies, such as production costs, export supply chain costs, technologies, demographical factors, and factors related to the business environment and policies, including qualitative variables. Studies using in-depth interviews and linear regression analysis are also present to explore new factors for T&C trade and production relocation to B&R countries.

Companies and policy makers are prioritizing environmental, social, and governance goals as part of their strategies. Academic research has started to focus on these issues, but many important matters require deeper investigation and reflection, especially in specific sectors. This book focuses on the sustainability issues within the retailing and services sectors. Starting the discussion around research-knowledge on CSR, the authors discuss the strategic aspects of managing sustainability in retailing and service companies and offer recommendations to effectively manage the marketing levers for sustainability. Readers will benefit from an in-depth analysis of the social responsibility practices of major retailers and their strategies. The authors also take an inside view of CSR by studying the angles of employee perception and job satisfaction, financial performance, and the more recent impact of COVID-19. Using this approach, they highlight the system of relationships existing between stakeholder-related concepts and organizational factors and how they affect sustainability strategy.

Shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2022 The world's retail sector has been devastated in recent years by two unstoppable forces: internet shopping and the Covid-19 lockdown. The result: huge numbers of prestigious brands have gone under, or are now a shadow of their former selves, and large parts of the world economy have fallen into a recession, with reduced employment and incomes across large parts of society. High streets and shopping malls lie half-empty, causing a vacuum at the heart of our communities and societies, and many discretionary products have simply become too expensive for people to buy on a regular basis. There is now an urgent need to regenerate our local shopping areas, so how can retailers and brands respond to this crisis? Fortunately, new shoots of recovery are emerging from the wreckage of the old order - new brands, new ways of providing value, and new and innovative methods of creating interest to draw in consumers, all of which have the potential to kick-start the retail economy. Retail Recovery offers a comprehensive analysis of these new forces that are changing the way in which we browse for and buy products, and how we experience and engage with the brands themselves. It includes in-depth interviews with some of the most innovative players in the UK, Europe and North America, in the hope of drawing out key learning points for the rest of the industry. It also provides essential guidelines for governments, as they strive to rebuild and reinforce the retail spaces within our communities, allowing them to create a more effective economic lifeline for retailers, shoppers, retail workers, manufacturers and distributors.

The first-person account of the family that changed the American retail landscape.

Longtime Dollar General CEO Cal Turner, Jr. shares his extraordinary life as heir to the company founded by his father, Cal Turner, Sr., and his grandfather, a dirt farmer turned Depression-era entrepreneur. Cal's narrative is at its heart a father-son story, from his childhood in Scottsville, Kentucky, where business and family were one, to the triumph of reaching the Fortune 300--at the cost of risking that very father/son relationship. Cal shares how the small-town values with which he was raised helped him guide Dollar General from family enterprise to national powerhouse.

Exploring three generations of a successful family with very different leadership styles, Cal Jr. shares a wealth of wisdom from a lifetime on the entrepreneurial front lines. He shows how his grandfather turned a third-grade education into an asset for success. He reveals how his driven father hatched the breakthrough dollar price point strategy and why it worked. And he explains how he found his own leadership style when he took his place at the helm--values-based, people-oriented, and pragmatic. Cal's story provides a riveting look at the family love and drama behind Dollar General's spectacular rise, pays homage to the working-class people whose no-frills needs helped determine its rock-bottom prices, and shares the life and business lessons of one of 20th-century America's most compelling business leaders.

This write-in workbook is an invaluable resource to help students improve their Maths and English skills and help prepare for Level 1 and Level 2 Functional Skills exams. The real-life questions are all written with a Retail context to help students find essential Maths and English theory understandable, engaging and achievable. Written by Carole Vella, a lecturer with a wealth of experience in the Retail and Business Administration industry, this workbook is an invaluable resource to support Maths and English learning in the classroom, at work and for personal study at home.

* Designed as a core textbook for a broad range of essential Marketing courses and modules, with textbook pedagogy included throughout to aid understanding and cement learning. * Uniquely practical and applied in its approach with an emphasis on employability, with a 25,000-word running case study embedded within each chapter, which enables students to 'progress' through a 'marketing career' by applying their newly learned knowledge into realistic and modern context. * Unlike the competition in the area, this is a concise textbook, which is user-friendly for a wide, international readership.

* Designed as a core textbook for a broad range of essential Marketing courses and modules, with textbook pedagogy included throughout to aid understanding and cement learning. * Uniquely practical and applied in its approach with an emphasis on employability, with a 25,000-word running case study embedded within each chapter, which enables students to 'progress' through a 'marketing career' by applying their newly learned knowledge into realistic and modern context. * Unlike the competition in the area, this is a concise textbook, which is user-friendly for a wide, international readership.

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is dominated by major Western brands. The dominance of such major brands extends to burgeoning Asian markets. These conglomerates often rely on packaging as a strategic tool to entice Asian consumers. This book illustrates how packaging as a marketing tool is more than simply changing the label or translating the brand into vernacular language. It examines how different packaging elements (e.g. information, imagery, packaging type) can help to communicate product values to Asian consumers. Drawing upon rich knowledge of the Asian CPG markets with extensive findings from fieldworks in the key Asian markets, this book explains how Western brands are localising their packaging design in Asian markets. It provides invaluable insight into how major Western CPG brands have relied heavily on their packaging strategies to compete not only against domestic brands but also against other foreign brands. The book includes in-depth interviews with brand managers of several major Western CPG brands and retailers, and sheds light on emerging trends of CPG packaging in Asia.

The ability to collaborate, particularly in new manufacturing technology development, is becoming a corporate competence that will determine which companies survive in the next decade. With the advent of the telecommunications and information infrastructure realized in the 1990s, companies that can effectively collaborate to get new technologies applied will stand a greater chance of remaining competitive in today's market.

Collaborative R&D offers the methods and metrics for developing collaborative technology programs and partnerships, both within the industry and between major competitors. R&D experts Allen and Jarman provide a complete map for collaboration, taken from their collective years of experience in creating, promoting, and managing many collaborative R&D initiatives over the past decade. They include the guidelines for determining what technology development areas are appropriate for collaboration, and what ingredients need to be in place for it to be successful.

The authors' experiences are detailed in a format that walks the reader through the process of identifying, starting, and managing collaborative R&D programs. Having developed these programs with companies like Ford, Texas Instruments, Boeing, AT&T, and Kodak, Allen and Jarman include numerous real-world examples, which show how to choose collaborative partners, how to use the government in establishing R&D programs, successful management techniques, means of addressing intellectual property, and how to address accounting concerns.

The book also illustrates the significant benefits of collaborative R&D, helping managers and technology professionals realize its value by enabling them to make the most knowledgeable decisions and take the best actions possible, in any given situation. Among some of the benefits that have resulted from the authors' collaborative programs:

• Pratt & Whitney developed software tools that enabled them to keep one of their plants from closing.
• Ford reduced a two-week design process to four hours.
• An acceleration by at least a year in 32 key Printed Wiring Board research tasks resulted in research savings of about $35.5 million.

  Collaborative R&D is valuable reading for any business that plans to thrive in a new global economy where all available financial and human assets will need to be leveraged for the greatest return—and with minimal risk.

  "R&D means innovation, productivity, and growth—the three things our economy needs the most. This important new book explains how and why the R&D revolution is transforming American industry, a theme everyone who cares about the future of our economy should understand." —Jerry Jasinowski, President, National Association of Manufacturers.

  "Allen and Jarman provide the definitive pathway to competitive advantage through collaborative R&D, the new tool for cost-effective innovation in the twenty-first century." —Leo Reddy, President, National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing.

  "Collaboration among companies is very new in American industry. Most companies are still striving to have their own employees collaborate with each other. This book portrays the strength and power of intercompany collaboration." —Jack E. Swindle, Senior Vice President, Texas Instruments.

  "This is a must read for any entrepreneur thinking of becoming involved in cross-organizational collaboration, for any corporate executive concerned about how cross-organizational R&D collaboration will help his company to remain competitive in the future, and for any manager who is responsible for managing people involved in cross-organizational collaborative efforts." —Dr. Ann Majchrzak, Professor of Information Systems, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

  "Collaborative R&D is mandatory reading for any enterprise leader looking to expand and leverage market influence." —Mike McEvoy, Vice President, Advanced Engineering and Design Center, Baxter Healthcare Corporation.

Offering a holistic approach to positive luxury, this comprehensive book provides a novel framework grounded in the new paradigm of Transformative Luxury Research (TLR) stream. TLR helps luxury businesses and researchers develop in-depth knowledge about the mechanisms and factors that shape the future of positive luxury thinking and doing while promoting collective and individual well-being outcomes, social justice, eco-friendly practices, and sustainable growth, involving various stakeholders, communities, and institutions across developed and developing countries. Through a wide range of empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions, examining the social, environmental, organizational, political, and cultural issues in responsible luxury marketing, this book explores the relationship between luxury consumption, production, and well-being outcomes. It offers a comprehensive overview of how luxury businesses can transform their practices and thus play an active role in promoting positive luxury within the industry and beyond along with enhancing their competitiveness, innovation, and profitability. The idea of well-being outcomes and sustainable growth, as applied in the TLR agenda, calls for synergistic theoretical and practical approaches. The content of this book, through different exciting chapters, will generate novel ideas to promote positive luxury business models leading luxury firms to transform their practices by advancing the current understanding of ethical and responsible business practices, which contribute to individual and collective well-being within the luxury field.

This book provides a solid overview of trade and business opportunities in the Pacific Alliance, focusing on the key drivers of economic growth and development in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico. It addresses the political, economic, and social benefits that accrue when commerce and markets are made freer, and implications this poses for American businesses. Further, it surveys how key economies of Latin America have learned from past failures and are poised to capitalize on them in the future. It will offer a detailed understanding for business scholars, practitioners, and entrepreneurs looking to explore new business ventures in dynamic trade union.

Summarizing the extant research on marketing communications, social media and word of mouth, this book clarifies terms often incorrectly and interchangeably used by scholars and marketers and provides principles of effective marketing communications in social media for different brand types and in different geographic markets. Conversations among consumers on social media now have an unprecedented ability to shape attitudes toward people, products, services, brands and to influence buying decisions. Consequently, the digital era brings to the fore the importance of interpersonal relations and the power of personal recommendations. This book is the first to empirically investigate how the form and appeal of marketing communications in social networks influence electronic word of mouth, including an examination of brand type and geographic market. The author focuses on motivations and reveals why people exchange opinions about brands, products and services in the digital environment. The book summarizes the existing research on marketing communications, social media and word of mouth, provides a cutting-edge knowledge based on the analysis of the actual behavior of consumers and rules of effective marketing communications in social media. This research-based book is written for scholars and researchers within the fields of marketing and communication. It may also be of interest to a wider audience interested in understanding how to use social media to influence electronic word of mouth.

Data analytics underpin our modern data-driven economy. This textbook explains the relevance of data analytics at the firm and industry levels, tracing the evolution and key components of the field, and showing how data analytics insights can be leveraged for business results. The first section of the text covers key topics such as data analytics tools, data mining, business intelligence, customer relationship management, and cybersecurity. The chapters then take an industry focus, exploring how data analytics can be used in particular settings to strengthen business decision-making. A range of sectors are examined, including financial services, accounting, marketing, sport, health care, retail, transport, and education. With industry case studies, clear definitions of terminology, and no background knowledge required, this text supports students in gaining a solid understanding of data analytics and its practical applications. PowerPoint slides, a test bank of questions, and an instructor's manual are also provided as online supplements. This will be a valuable text for undergraduate level courses in data analytics, data mining, business intelligence, and related areas.