This book focuses on three core knowledge requirements for effective and thorough data analysis for solving business problems. These are a foundational understanding of: 1. statistical, econometric, and machine learning techniques; 2. data handling capabilities; 3. at least one programming language. Practical in orientation, the volume offers illustrative case studies throughout and examples using Python in the context of Jupyter notebooks. Covered topics include demand measurement and forecasting, predictive modeling, pricing analytics, customer satisfaction assessment, market and advertising research, and new product development and research. This volume will be useful to business data analysts, data scientists, and market research professionals, as well as aspiring practitioners in business data analytics. It can also be used in colleges and universities offering courses and certifications in business data analytics, data science, and market research.

The book introduces the concept of 'smart technologies', especially 'Internet of Things' (IoT), and elaborates upon various constituent technologies, their evolution and their applications to various challenging problems in society. It then presents research papers and case studies based upon inception, application and implementation of IoT-based smart technologies for various application areas from some of the most technologically conservative domains like agriculture and farming to the most advanced areas such as automobiles, financial transactions and industrial applications. The book contents is thus applicable not only to academic researcher, but also to interested readers from industries and corporates, and those involved in policy making. Excerpt from the Foreword (read the complete text on Springerlink): "This book contains besides the two introductory chapters, written by the project leaders from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and TU Clausthal (TUC), Germany, the different areas of research work done within the INGPAR (Indo-German Partnership in Advanced Research, founded by DAAD in Germany and UGC in India) project so far by the Indian and German young researchers. It offers new perspectives and documents important progress in smart technologies. I can say without reservation that this book and, more specifically, the method it espouses will change fundamental ideas for cutting-edge innovation and disruption in the smart technology area." - Prof. Dr. Thomas Hanschke, President, TU Clausthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany

Designed to meet the needs of both the public relations education and public relations practitioner communities, this comprehensive text explores the types of research most used in public relations practice. The first introductory-level volume to treat the subject in depth, "Public Relations Research" provides a theoretical framework for reader application, defines the knowledge necessary for public relations research, elaborates upon informal and formal research methods, and describes the techniques involved and provides models for subsequent use.

Following an introductory chapter that redefines the nature and role of public relations research, the book is divided into two major sections. The first deals with informal research methods and covers research foundations, environmental monitoring, informal research, secondary research, and the use of computers in research. In Part Two the authors describe formal research methods, addressing issues such as intermediate research considerations, the use of survey questionnaires, data and content analysis, reporting survey results, and quasi-quantitative procedures. Ideal as an undergraduate and graduate level text in public relations, this volume will also be an indispensable guide to research practice for entry-and-junior-level public relations specialists.

"A pragmatic account that will ground your right brain sensibilities in tried, true, and new ways of bringing what you make to market." --Pamela Diamond, Director of Marketing & Communications, American Craft Council

• Pointers for getting started, selling, exhibiting at trade shows, pricing, and marketing to turn a hobby into a profitable business
• Updated for the digital age, with new sections on creating effective websites and blogs, marketing with social networks, selling online, and using smartphones and tablets for payments
• Previous editions sold more than 180,000 copies

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.

This study argues that the defining feature of contemporary advertising is the interconnectedness between consumer participation and calculative media platforms. It critically investigates how audience participation unfolds in an algorithmic media infrastructure in which brands develop media devices to codify, process and modulate human capacities and actions. With the shift from a broadcast to an interactive media system, advertisers have reinvented themselves as the strategic interface between computational media systems and the lived experience and living bodies of consumers. Where once advertising relied predominantly on symbolic appeals to affect consumers, it now centres on the use of computational devices that codify, monitor, analyse and control their behaviours. Advertisers have worked to stimulate and harness consumer participation for several generations. Consumers undertook the productive work of making brands a part of their cultural identities and practices. With the emergence of a computational mode of advertising consumer participation extends beyond the expressive activity of creating and circulating meaning. It now involves making the lived experience and the living body available to the experimental capacities of media platforms and devices. In this mode of advertising brands become techno-cultural processes that integrate calculative and cultural functions. Brand Machines, Sensory Media and Calculative Culture conceptualises and theorises these significant changes in advertising. It takes consumer participation and its interconnectedness with calculative media platforms as the fundamental aspect of contemporary advertising and critically investigates how advertising, consumer participation and technology are interrelated in creating and facilitating lived experiences that create value for brands.

Despite the fact that the globalization process tends to reinforce existing inequality structures and generate new areas of inequality on multiple levels, systematic analyses on this very important field remain scarce. Hence, this book approaches the complex question of inequality not only from different regional perspectives, covering Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and Northern America, but also from different disciplinary perspectives, namely cultural anthropology, economics, ethnology, geography, international relations, sociology, and political sciences. The contributions are subdivided into three essential fields of research: Part I analyzes the socio-economic dimension of global exclusion, highlighting in particular the impacts of internationalization and globalization processes on national social structures against the background of theoretical concepts of social inequality. Part II addresses the political dimension of global inequalities. Since the decline of the Soviet Union new regional powers like Brazil, China, India and South Africa have emerged, creating power shifts in international relations that are the primary focus of the second part. Lastly, Part III examines the structural and transnational dimension of inequality patterns, which can be concretized in the rise of globalized national elites and the emergence of multinational networks that transcend the geographical and imaginative borders of nation states.

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.

This proceedings volume examines transformation in marketing to better understand current and future standing of the marketing field. From whether there is a need for transformation in our field; what methodological transformations are necessary; historical looks at how the field has transformed and continues to transform; how learning institutes are transforming and how marketing theory, practice, consumption practices and people are transforming as the world continues to change. It is by understanding these changes and transformations that marketers have a better knowledge of the discipline. Featuring the full proceedings from the 2017 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) World Marketing Congress (WMC) held in Christchurch, New Zealand, this book contains research from scholars and practitioners from around the globe analyzing the need and drivers of transformation in marketing. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses, and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complementing the Academy's flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.

This book explores how contemporary organisations are abandoning conventional tactics in order to survive and grow in an incessantly shifting business landscape, analysing fundamental aspects of management, marketing and strategy from an interdisciplinary perspective. Focusing on the paradigms of neuro-marketing, innovative change management, motivational creativity, and customer data management, to name a few, the authors provide practical learning outcomes which reflect how organisations are seeking to adopt innovative means to innovative ends, targeting capacity building in multiple ways. Ultimately, this edited collection implicitly defines an organisational philosophy that incorporates functionality, but also embraces business notions pertaining to wider contextual transformations and environmental developments. Theoretical and practical contributions highlight the importance of multidisciplinary research to practical business success, making this book an invaluable read to both scholars and business executives.

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.

While many analyses have examined disinformation in recent election campaigns, misuse of 'big data' such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and manipulation by bots and algorithms, most have blamed a few bad actors. This incisive analysis presents evidence of deeper and broader corruption of the public sphere, which the author refers to as post-communication. With extensive evidence, Jim Macnamara argues that we are all responsible for the slide towards a post-truth society. This analysis looks beyond high profile individuals such as Donald Trump, Russian trolls, and even 'Big Tech' to argue that the professionalized communication industries of advertising, PR, political and government communication, and journalism, driven by clickbait and aided by a lack of critical media literacy, have systematically contributed to disinformation, deception, and manipulation. When combined with powerful new communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and lack of regulation, this has led to a 'perfect data storm'. Accordingly, Macnamara proposes that there is no single solution. Rather, he identifies a range of strategies for communication professionals, industry associations, media organizations and platforms, educators, legislators, regulators, and citizens to challenge post-communication and post-truth.

Discount Schedule Analysis (DSA), a technique illustrated and explained in this management book, provides analytical tools for increasing profits by linking prices and discounts to management decision making. According to the authors, the most direct way for many manufacturers to affect the bottom line is to reduce the prices paid for goods and services. It is possible to achieve this profit leverage effect without switching suppliers or even requiring suppliers to reduce prices. The authors show how to analyze published quantity discount schedules to find out how the seller sets prices and how to break schedules down into fixed and variable (cost) components. With this information, corporate buyers can exploit vendors' price and quantity discount schedules to maximum advantage. Conversely, corporate vendors can forestall revenue losses and undesirable side effects of discount schedules by constructing schedules according to examples in the book.

Using actual price schedules, the authors analyze the ideas, theory, hazards, and advantages inherent in the schedules. They examine how quantity discounts are set, whether the price-setting practices are consistent, and whether the discounts meet their stated objectives. The book explains the gray market phenomenon and how to profit from it. It shows how to evaluate the true costs of such common sweeteners as free delivery, installation, and delayed payment. The authors also analyze purchasing requirements for Just in Time (JIT) inventory systems. The book offers valuable methodologies for both the buyer and the seller. Purchasing managers as well as managers responsible for cost accounting, marketing, sales, finance, and legal areas will benefit.

Al Ries and Jack Trout, two of the world's most successful marketing strategists, call upon over 40 years of marketing experise to identify the definitive rules that govern the world of marketing.

Combining a wide-ranging historical overview with a keen eye for the future, the authors bring to light 22 superlative tools and innovative techniques for the international marketplace. The authors examine marketing campaigns that have succeeded and others that have failed, why good ideas didn't live up to expectations, and offer their own ideas on what would have worked better.

The real-life examples, commonsense suggestions and killer instincts contained are nothing less than rules by which companies will flourish or fail.

Bringing together theoretical and empirical studies from the Journal of Information Technology, this book provides a definitive guide to research discovered on the growing global sourcing phenomenon. Paying particular attention to Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), theoretical chapters explore insightful ways of thinking about the different facets of outsourcing, and provide useful information to practitioners and researchers. Empirical chapters report the findings of 405 major research studies into the risks and successes of relationships between customer and vendor, the development of trust in these relationships, the factors affecting locations for offshoring, and specialized offshoring organizations such as captive centres. In this comprehensive study, the editors present an expert review of the historical development of this field, and offer analysis of emerging findings and practices for the future.

This comprehensive book is designed to serve as a primary text for the Advertising Management course that follows the more general Principles of Advertising course. It can stand alone, or, for instructors who prefer a case-based approach, it can be adopted together with "Cases in Advertising Management" (978-0-7656-2261-7) by the same authors. "Advertising Management" covers a full range of topics for a semester-long course, including financial management, business planning, strategic planning, budgeting, human resource management, ethics, and managing change. There is even a unique section on 'managing yourself' and your own career in advertising. The text includes plentiful figures, tables, and sidebars, and each chapter concludes with useful learning objectives, summaries, discussion questions, and additional resources.

Recognize the con artist before you get taken! Schulte exposes dozens of telephone, mail, and computer-based scams, explaining how they work and how you can avoid becoming their next victim.

"... a must for anyone who wants to be informed about ways consumers can be fleeced by phone-room sharpies". -- Chicago Tribune

The practice of city branding is being adopted by increasing numbers of city authorities around the world and it is having a direct impact on public and private sector practice. The author captures this emerging phenomenon in a way that blends a solid theoretical and conceptual underpinning together with relevant real life cases.

Customers consider many crucial factors, even subconsciously, when purchasing a product or engaging a service provider, consequently building a sense of trust which is decisive towards their user experience through to customer experience. This book helps companies understand how to structurally develop, communicate, and promote reasons for customers to buy products and services, starting from the psychological basis of communicating information and moving on to methodical applications. It is based on a psychological perspective in understanding the customers' reasons to believe in product or service offerings; promotes a way towards simplicity of business anchoring on emotion and experience; helps learn the tactics of systematic persuasion.