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This article presents an analysis of a seemingly mundane consumption object, the Mars Coat King, a manual grooming device employed within Afghan hound breeding and exhibition cultures, to develop current conceptualizations of the consumption object in consumer culture theory (CCT). In doing so it extends theory of the ontology of, and relation between, subject and object into the realms of the post-humanist. The chapter illustrates how by employing post-humanist theory, the consumption object can be conceptualized as a mutable, contradictory and active entity within complex consumption cultures and when conceptualized as such, can enrich understanding of consumption objects within consumer research.

In the Theory of Continuous Competitiveness (CC) developed in Chapter 1, we specified two sufficient conditions, one of which, PSPG Ratio, is found to integrate IMP2 [Industrial Master Plan 2] strategic thrusts 1 and 2. Customized hitech products (PS: Performance‐Specific products) are first demanded in small quantities in Country XYZ. In a few months, as demand increases, the PS products will be offered as PG (Performance‐ General) products of mass manufacture in Countries LMN, PQR, etc. The PSPG Ratio calibrates CC. To achieve CC, Malaysia has to decide whether, emulating the experience of developed countries, the share of manufacturing in GDP should be 30%, instead of the 38.4% projected for the year 2005. Similarly, Malaysia has to decide whether the Services Sector should be 48.4% of GDP as it is projected to be in the year 2005. Even Don Tapscott who swears by the inexorable convergence of what we have called 3C (computer, communication, content) industries, says that Services are not the source of income: “The planet, and even the Western World, still relies on agricultural and industrial production for the creation of wealth and the meeting of basic human needs. You can't eat or live on information.” If nearly half of Malaysian GDP is going to be not the means of production, but the means of consumption, it behooves us to find a viable means of production. We examine Information Technology (IT) as a candidate means of production. IT Industry is half Products and half Services. What should be the nature and magnitude of Malaysian IT products? If we keep the manufacturing share of GDP at the norm of 30% experienced by developed countries, that would release 8.4 percentage points of GDP from the current projection for the year 2005. Similarly, if we reduce the GDP share of Malaysian Services Sector to 40%, that would release another 8.4 percentage points. If we assign the former to IT Products, and the latter to IT Services, each should have a value of RM 36.2076 million in current prices in the year 2005. The RM 36.207 million in IT Products should generate RM 128.4 billion in IT exports in the year 2005, or each RM worth of IT products should generate RM 3.55 in exports. If domestic consumption is to be a third as much as the exports, each RM of IT products should generate RM 1.18 for domestic consumption. Each RM of IT should thus produce (3.55 + 1.18=) RM 4.73 for exports and domestic consumption. IT is also expected to be the engine of development. Based on the growth of GDP between 1995 and 2005 in the IMP2, the IT Sector should generate 50 sens in the rest of the economy for each RM of IT. Thus, each RM in IT Products should generate (4.73 + 0.50=( RM 5.23 (rounded to RM 5.00) in the year 2005. We are talking of new machine‐producing (cloning) IT machines worth 60% of 1995 Malaysian exports of semi‐conductors, computers/peripherals, and consumer electronics as the necessary stock of IT capital in the year 2005, each unit of which is to produce five times its value in output in the year, for a start.

In this article our objective is to do a very deep analysis into biobusinesses and bioethics in order to identify holistic views concerning business enterprises in biopharmaceutical and biotechnological industries. We are arguing that biobusinesses and biotechnologies are not error free because in reality bio‐technoscientific discoveries and breakthroughs are not viewed as holistic real “natural logic”. They are “techno‐scientific logic”. Through a biosophical deliberation, if we believe that there is a difference between “natural logic” and “scientific logic”, then we may conclude that there are erroneous thoughts which exist and if existence is based on thinking, then false thoughts are as “real” as any misunderstanding among bio‐techno‐scientists and practitioners may thus end up with global catastrophes. Through a biosophical logic, we may choose both paths of “natural logic” and “scientific logic” in order to arrive in a real consensus conclusion. In addition, in this article we have examined the Promethean biosophical and biophilia perceptions and practices of global biopharmaceutical industries and biotechological businesses concerning bioethics.

Caution: Don't denigrate the derivative. So‐called plagiarism, and other activities‐that go under various rubrics— such as cloning, reverse engineering, emulating, creatively enhancing, and upgrading—are a fundamental fact of business and economic life.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the miraculous rise of the mobile phone industry in China in particular and China’s impressive industrial growth in recent decades in general.

This paper uses qualitative or story-telling approach for empirical analysis. Specifically, it uses case studies to illustrate the authors’ arguments.

Utilizing the theory of imitative strategies of latecomer firms and I.M. Kirzner’s concept of entrepreneurial alertness, this paper argues that adaptive entrepreneurs in China’s phone industry survive by being alert to profit opportunities, flexible and adaptable to the changing environments. With limited resources and low technological capabilities at the beginning, Chinese phone makers conduct replication via reverse engineering. Through entrepreneurial learning and imitation, they are able to make indigenous or incremental innovation. The modified models with functions compatible to different groups of consumers and sold at low prices are able to penetrate the low-end markets in the Third World nations.

The authors’ explanation on the success of China’s mobile phone industry sheds light on broader China’s industrial growth as a result of economic reform.

Most studies on China’s mobile phone industry focus on technological analysis, without acknowledging the role of entrepreneurship. This study fills the gap.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility of creating hedge funds “clones” using liquid exchange traded instruments.

Authors analyze the performance of fixed weight and extended Kalman filter generated clone portfolios (EKF) for 14 hedge fund strategies from February 2004 to September 2009. EKF approach does not indeed impose any normality constraints on the error terms which allow the filter to find the optimal recursive process by itself. Such models could adjust even faster to sudden shifts in market conditions vs a standard Kalman filter.

For five strategies out of 14, this work finds that EKF clones outperform their corresponding indices. Thus, for certain strategies, the possibility of cloning hedge fund returns is indeed real. Results should be however considered with caution.

This paper suggests that the most important benefits of clones are to serve as benchmarks and to help investors to better understand the various risk factors that impact hedge fund returns.

Rather than using fixed‐weight and rolling windows approaches (as Hasanhodzic and Lo), this work considers an extended version of the Kalman filter, a computational algorithm that better captures the time changing dynamics of hedge fund returns. Also, in order to be practical, this research considers investable factors and that the models themselves could not be constant over time.

A general framework for mobile Web services ‐ which are Web services with the ability to migrate from one host to another ‐ is proposed. In this framework, a mobile Web service is composed of a combination of a BPEL process description, service components to be carried, and migration behavior descriptions using simple but expressive rules. The semantics of the descriptions are defined using Mobile Ambients, namely, a formal model of concurrent mobile processes. With this framework, it is thus possible to add or change migration behaviors without having to modify the BPEL process.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the strategies schools use to build capacity in English secondary schools where they operate under strong pressures to improve continuously and failure to do so carries severe penalties.

The approach involved in-depth case studies of six schools that utilized multiple sources of evidence. These include policy documents, interviews with multiple actors and observations of key management meetings.

Findings suggest travelling strategies used by schools, but these are implemented with varying intensity, hybridity and creativity. The common travelling strategies re-contextualized in organizational fields are data workmanship, multi-level monitoring, and performance development. For participating schools, successfully replicating these three pillars through identity cloning, an attempt to establish institutional identities identical to that of the “performing schools”, helps lift schools in different contexts.

There has been ample discussion on organizational capacity building, but the evidence on the actual strategies schools use is thin. This paper contributes to knowledge generation and understanding by providing as complete a picture as possible of the strategies schools use while remaining skeptical regarding the long-term consequences of short term “gains”.

Is medically assisted fertilization (with the use of in vitro technology) about “reproductive rights” or about white women's privileges? What is “choice” for white and rich women seems to become a further commodification of the body for women of color and economically disadvantaged women.

Several feminists define reproductive rights by demanding social justice and a type of support for the mothers that does not include expensive technologies, which have a problematic outcome, that of generating a divide between women in the north and women in the south of the world. Some authors also talk about a “division of labor” in reproduction.

The first part of my chapter offers an outline of the historical feminist debate over gender and technology, looking at different positions regarding biotechnologies, and reproductive technologies in a specific way. The second part presents an investigation around the (often racialized) international market of eggs and surrogate mothers in the United States, India and Eastern Europe.

The third part consists of an analysis of few recent studies about the health of women who undergo ovarian hyper-stimulation in order to give eggs as “donation” (under payment); women who offer themselves as surrogate mothers and the children who have been conceived with in vitro fertilization, specifically with heterologue forms (egg donation or surrogate motherhood).