On 1 August 2008 the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law entered into force, introducing a comprehensive framework for competition law to the Chinese market. One set of the new rules pertains to merger control. China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) was nominated as the authority responsible for enforcing merger control in China and has been actively doing so ever since. Recent years have established China as one of the most important merger filing jurisdictions for cross-border mergers alongside the EU and USA. This work evaluates the Chinese merger control law regime and MOFCOM's decision-making practice after more than five years of application. In particular, it assesses which policy goals (competition policy goals or industrial policy considerations) prevail in the written law and its application and provides suggestions for a further improvement of the law - with the aim to develop a transparent merger control regime that promotes long-term economic growth in China.

The People s Republic of China s tax policies and international obligations are as multifaceted and dynamic as they are complex, developing closely with the nation s rise to the world s fastest-growing major economy. Today, after decades of reform and the entry into the World Trade Organization, China has developed regulatory systems that enable it to provide stable administration, including a tax structure. China s main tax reform can be attributed to the enactment of the Enterprise Income Tax Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2008. Chinese tax regulations include direct taxes, indirect taxes, other taxes, and custom duties and from a collection point of view, China s tax administration adopts a very devolved system, with revenue collected and shared between different levels of government in accordance with contracts between the different levels of the tax administration system. With respect to international treaties, China has established a network of bilateral tax treaties and regional free trade agreements. This publication describes in detail China s complex tax system and policies, as well as major bilateral treaties in which China has entered into using country-by-country analysis.

Lorenzo Riccardi is Tax Advisor and Certified Public Accountant specialized in international taxation. He is based in Shanghai, where he focuses on business and tax law, assisting foreign investments in East Asia. He is an auditor and an advisor for several corporate groups and he is partner and Head of Tax of the consulting firm GWA, specializing in emerging markets.

Today Japan is still the second largest and most important consumer market in the world. This book discusses the development of Japanese consumerism, particularities of Japanese consumer behaviour and consumer rights, new consumer groups and emerging trend in the Japanese market.

Sustainable entrepreneurship focuses on how the environment is embedded within business practices. This book examines collaboration strategies and initiatives for sustainable entrepreneurs with a wide variety of partners, and demonstrates how they can be used to increase overall performance and achieve global competitiveness. Based on the latest empirical evidence from emerging economies, the book's respective chapters address sustainability issues in connection with knowledge creation and learning, outsourcing, and the roles of universities, consultants, and the public sector.

Marketers interested in designing effective strategies to tap the increasingly lucrative mature market presently must look for relevant information in several disciplines and need the background to translate it into a decision-making framework. This book systematically organizes information scattered among various fields of scientific inquiry; it interprets and presents information, making it easier for the busy decision maker to find out how older consumers behave and why. By presenting and interpreting relevant information in a marketing decision-making context, the book provides the bases for developing effective marketing strategies.

Next, the author discusses both specific and general aspects of behavior that have implications for marketing strategy. Specifically, the book helps the reader understand how changes in mental processes in late life might affect the way an older person responds to marketing stimuli, and how lifestyles of mature persons can form the bases for designing effective marketing strategies. Finally, the author discusses specific aspects of older consumers' consumption and behavior in the marketplace, including mass media use, expenditure and consumption patterns, shopping habits, product/service acquisition process, as well as behaviors following purchase. At the end of each chapter, the author outlines several implications of the material presented that will be of interest to marketers, retailers, advertisers, social workers, public policy makers, and students of human behavior. The book ends by summarizing key points, drawing conclusions, and making recommendations to various groups interested in serving the mature market. The results of hundreds of studies are reviewed and presented in such a way that they can be used by practitioners. The book begins with an examination of the older consumer market and its characteristics. Age-related changes in late life and theoretical explanations for them are discussed next to help the reader understand human behavior in general and consumer behavior in particular.

Most economists will agree that the task of understanding and teaching Veblen is not an easy one. Locating a book for the non-specialist is even harder, and hence the purpose of this book. This pioneering text fully delivers what its title promises - Veblen in Plain English. For the non-specialist and student alike, Professor McCormick illuminates the ideas of Veblen in a manner that is well written and easy to understand. This is a refreshing and most welcome addition to literature on Veblen. The foreword is by Dr. Rick Tilman, another noted expert on Veblen.

Employee training has been identified as an important factor in the survival of banking business, particularly in a globally competitive economy with uncertainty as in Nigeria. The Nigerian banking industry faces a number of challenges in relation to employee development. This study investigated the effects of training and manpower development on employee performance in Nigerian banking industry. The survey research design was used. The population of the study comprised 30,006 employees in the Nigerian banking industry from which a sample of 379 respondents was selected using purposive sampling technique. The population was broken into various strata in line with the hierarchy of office seniority. The study concluded that there is need for the Nigerian banking industry to adopt manpower training as an innovative tool for improving employee performance in today's dynamic banking environment.

Positive consumerism is the backbone to a strong economy. Examining the relationship between culture and marketing can provide companies with the data they need to expand their reach and increase their profits. Global Observations of the Influence of Culture on Consumer Buying Behavior is an in-depth, scholarly resource that discusses how marketing practices can be influenced by cultural preferences. Featuring an array of relevant topics including societal environments, cultural stereotyping, brand loyalty, and marketing semiotics, this publication is ideal for CEOs, business managers, professionals, and researchers that are interested in studying alternative factors that impact the marketing field.

Learn the techniques and practical tasks involved in designing and running a research project The Practice of Market Research: From Data to Insight, 5th edition, by McGivern offers a thorough introduction to the practice of market and social research. It is structured around the research process - from defining the problem to be researched to communicating the insight which the research produces. An ideal companion for a market research student or anyone doing a research project, the book takes you through data analytics and data mining in a market research context, in addition to explaining the ethical, legal and regulatory context in which research operates. The 'Industry Insights' draw real-world examples from successful market research projects in companies such as Formula One, BBC, IBM, PayPal, Twinings and Volvo. There are also examples of research on social issues including the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-social behaviour, HIV/AIDS, cancer support and many more. The new edition supports the MRS Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research Practice. This is a great applied marketing research text that will be suitable for students going beyond the basics of research and learning about how marketing research works in practice Ben Lowe, Professor of Marketing, Kent Business School, University of Kent Marketing research clearly explained as a professional practice - with practical advice on issues to consider and ways forward - and as an academic discipline with methodological and theoretical concerns. Dr Philippa Ward, Reader in Services Marketing, University of Gloucestershire About the author: Yvonne McGivern has worked on both the agency and the client side and currently works as a consultant. She taught research methods at Queen's University Belfast and at Trinity College Dublin. She is Joint Chief Examiner for the MRS Advanced Certificate in Market and Social Research Practice. Pearson, the world's learning company.

The series seeks to illuminate, highlight, and spotlight (intercultural) communication in the world of business. This second volume focuses on China in an intercultural business context. Due to China's growing importance in today's world, it is imperative to obtain some insights into Chinese culture in order to begin to understand Chinese business practices. By examining the issue from a Western and a Chinese perspective, a more comprehensive view becomes possible. What appears baffling to Western managers may become understandable after a comparison with and contrast to the Chinese perspective. This is what this volume accomplishes: Shed light on misperceived aspects of intercultural business encounters.

Paco Underhill, the Margaret Mead of shopping and author of the huge international bestseller Why We Buy--praised by The New York Times as "a book that gives this underrated skill the respect it deserves"--now takes us to The Mall, a place every American has experienced and has an opinion about. The result is a bright, ironic, funny, and shrewd portrait of the mall--America's gift to personal consumption, its most powerful icon of global commercial muscle, the once new and now aging national town square, the place where we convene in our leisure time. It's about the shopping mall as an exemplar of our commercial and social culture, the place where our young people have their first taste of social freedom, and where the rest of us compare notes. Call of the Mall examines how we use the mall, what it means, why it works when it does, and why it sometimes doesn't.

Marketing Research and Modeling addresses state of the art developments including new techniques and methodologies by leading experts in marketing and marketing research. This work emphasizes new developments in Bayesian Decision Analysis, Multivariate Analysis, Multidimensional Scaling, Conjoint Analysis, Applications of Conjoint and MDS technique, Data Mining, Cluster Analysis, and Neural Networks.

Understanding consumer choice is central to modern marketing, thought and practice. This volume presents a ground-breaking approach to the analysis of brand choice which is relevant to both marketing practice and social science. This unique analysis reveals the causes of consumer choice that underlie patterns of brand selection; the role of price and non-price elements of the marketing mix in influencing brand choice; a novel means of describing the structure of markets in terms of the combination of utilitarian and symbolic benefits consumers obtain from their purchases and a new means of analyzing consumer behaviour in terms of elasticity of demand.

A host of internationally recognized experts have been brought together to examine one of the most important sectors in today's world economy, the information sector. The study utilizes the most recent quantitative and econometric research on the media and information sectors and their markets. Most of the work presented is from two international conferences and other invited conferences.

Business model innovations are conceived and implemented by a special type of entrepreneur: business model pioneers. This book presents 14 compelling case studies of business model pioneers and their companies, who have successfully introduced new business ideas to the market. The examples range from industries such as retail, media and entertainment to services and industrial projects. For each example, the book provides information on the market environment at the time of launch and illustrates the driving forces behind these business models. Moreover, current market developments are highlighted and linked to the evolution of the business models. Lastly, the authors present the profile of a typical business model pioneer.

Database marketing is at the crossroads of technology, business strategy, and customer relationship management. Enabled by sophisticated information and communication systems, todaya (TM)s organizations have the capacity to analyze customer data to inform and enhance every facet of the enterprisea "from branding and promotion campaigns to supply chain management to employee training to new product development. Based on decades of collective research, teaching, and application in the field, the authors present the most comprehensive treatment to date of database marketing, integrating theory and practice. Presenting rigorous models, methodologies, and techniques, and illustrating them through dozens of examples, the authors cover the full spectrum of principles and topics related to database marketing. The first part of the book describes the contemporary context of database marketing and its impact on business performance. Parts 2-4 present database marketing tools, including how to collect the data and perform analysis. Chapters 5-7 focus on the key concept of lifetime value of the customer (LTV); chapters 8-10 focus on the basic tasks of compiling data, field testing, and predictive modeling; and chapters 11-19 cover the statistical methods used primarily in predictive modeling. Parts 5 and 6 focus on specific problems addressed by database marketing. They largely draw on the tools described in Parts 2-4. Part 5 covers customer management activities, including acquiring customers (Chapter 20), cross- and up-selling (Chapter 21), frequency reward programs (Chapter 22), Customer Tier Programs (Chapter 23), Churn management (Chapter 24), multi-channel customer management (Chapter 25), and acquisition and retention management (Chapter 26). Part 6 focuses on the marketing mix, particularly communications (Chapters 27 and 28) and pricing (Chapter 29) issues. The result is a comprehensive treatment of the field of database marketing, including strategic issues, tools, and problem-solving, that will serve as an essential resource for both professionals and academics in marketing and related areas.

This is an excellent in-depth overview of both well-known and very recent topics in customer management models. It is an absolute must for marketers who want to enrich their knowledge on customer analytics.

-Peter C. Verhoef, Professor of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen

"A marvelous combination of relevance and sophisticated yet understandable analytical material. It should be a standard reference in the area for many years."

-Don Lehmann, George E. Warren Professor of Business, Columbia Business School

"The title tells a lot about the book's approach-though the cover reads "database," the content is mostly about customers and that's where the real-world action is. Most enjoyable is the comprehensive story - in case after case - which clearly explains what the analysis and concepts really mean. This is an essential read for those interested in database marketing, customer relationship management and customer optimization."

-Richard Hochhauser, President and CEO, Harte-Hanks, Inc.

As media evolves with technological improvement, communication changes alongside it. In particular, storytelling and narrative structure have adapted to the new digital landscape, allowing creators to weave immersive and enticing experiences that captivate viewers. These experiences have great potential in marketing and advertising, but the medium's methods are so young that their potential and effectiveness is not yet fully understood. Handbook of Research on Transmedia Storytelling, Audience Engagement, and Business Strategies is a collection of innovative research that explores transmedia storytelling and digital marketing strategies in relation to audience engagement. Highlighting a wide range of topics including promotion strategies, business models, and prosumers and influencers, this book is ideally designed for digital creators, advertisers, marketers, consumer analysts, media professionals, entrepreneurs, managers, executives, researchers, academicians, and students.

The subject of this book is supply chain logistics planning optimization under multiple uncertainties, the key issue in supply chain management. Focusing on the strategic-alliance three-level supply chain, the model of supply chain logistics planning was established in terms of the market prices and the market requirements as random variables of manufactured goods with random expected value programming theory, and the hybrid intelligence algorithm solution model was designed. Aiming at the decentralized control supply chain, in which the nodes were unlimited expansion, the chance-constrained stochastic programming model was created in order to obtain optimal decision-making at a certain confidence level. In addition, the hybrid intelligence algorithm model was designed to solve the problem of supply chain logistics planning with the prices of the raw-materials supply market of the upstream enterprises and the prices of market demand for products of the downstream enterprises as random variables in the supply chain unit. Aimed at the three-stage mixed control supply chain, a logistics planning model was designed using fuzzy random programming theory with customer demand as fuzzy random variables and a hybrid intelligence algorithm solution was created. The research has significance both in theory and practice. Its theoretical significance is that the research can complement and perfect existing supply chain planning in terms of quantification. Its practical significance is that the results will guide companies in supply chain logistics planning in the uncertain environment.

A well-planned marketing orientation strategy that keeps customers informed is the first step to building a long-term relationship with customers and providing them with appropriate incentives. The difficulty with providing a winning strategy in a highly competitive market, however, stems from responding to the specific needs of the customers. Customer Satisfaction and Sustainability Initiatives in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is an essential reference source that links together three highly relevant topics in the business of modern economy-innovation, customer satisfaction, and sustainability-and analyzes their synergies. Featuring research on topics such as e-business, global business, and sustainable innovation, this book is ideally designed for business consultants, managers, customer service representatives, entrepreneurs, academicians, researchers, and students seeking coverage on directing sustainable companies.

Netnography has become an essential tool for qualitative research in the dynamic, complex, and conflicted worlds of contemporary technoculture. Shaped by academic fields, industries, national contexts, technologies and platforms, and languages and cultures for over two decades, netnography has impacted the research practices of scholars around the world. In this volume, 34 researchers present 19 chapters that examine how they have adapted netnography and what those changes can teach us. Positioned for students and researchers in academic and professional fields, this book examines how we can better use netnographic research to understand the many ways networked technologies affect every element of contemporary business life and consumer existence. Netnography Unlimited provides an unprecedented new look at netnography. From COVID-19 to influencer empathy, gambling and the Dark Web to public relations and the military, AI and more-than-human netnography to video-streaming and auto-netnography, there has never been a wider or deeper treatment of technocultural netnographic research in one volume. Readers will learn what kind of work they can do with netnography and gain an up-to-date understanding of the most pressing issues and opportunities. This book is a must-read for those interested in technology, research methods, and contemporary culture.

A major objective of this book is to identify the key determinants of
successful inter-firm collaborations in the telecommunications industry in Australia and China, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative research methods as complementary methodologies. The findings will provide essential information and suggestions for businesses, researchers and policy makers and shed light on how to concretely improve the performance of business collaborations. Inter-firm collaboration has become increasingly important in the global
economy, as firms now rely on collaborations to access new resources, new technologies, skills, the latest market information, new markets and knowledge, to accelerate innovation, to reduce costs, and to overcome government policy barriers.

First published in 2000. This is Volume 9, No 2 of the Journal of Consumer Psychology. Although there is growing interest in cultural differences in consumer behavior, focused and systematic consumer research on the topic is still in its infancy. The contributors to this special issue address the conceptual and methodological issues that are central to conducting cross-cultural research, including selecting or blending emic and etic research approaches, achieving measurement equivalence, expanding the cultural constructs and geographical regions under investigation, and understanding mediating processes. In the process, they review the progress that has been made in addressing these issues in consumer psychology and suggest a number of priorities for future research in this important domain.

This book deals with the concepts of leadership and communication in business organizations, initially on a general level and then in detail through an analysis of specific cases. First the book provides a contextual framework to explain the role and importance of the topic. The foundation is provided by selected behavioural and situational theories. Then 15 different leadership models and their respective communication strategies are specified. The interaction of leadership and communication is examined explaining organizational communication and its tools. In the third part the book looks in detail at the glass, textile and confection industries. It examines the relationship between socio-demographic variables of employees, leadership types and communication styles and systems of managers in these sectors. The results of this study provide researchers and professionals with a number of suggestions for more effective organizational communication and better leadership practice.