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ESPE, the market leader, is a medium-sized German manufacturer of precision dental impression materials competing in a shrinking market. To grow the business, ESPE invests substantial resources in innovative impression materials and associated distribution mechanisms. Squeezed by the shrinking market, the competition is increasingly using the proprietary channels (dispensing mechanisms) and brand equity (trademark) of ESPE to maintain their market share. There is a potential infringement. Explores how ESPE is organized to execute on the options imbedded in its IP rights.

To provide students with an understanding of how to use brands and trademarks in conjunction with trade secrets, patents, and other forms of IP in mature markets to build and maintain innovation-based competitive advantage.

This study aims to evaluate casino-hotel visitors’ tourism experiences which consist of multiple dimensions, and test their joint effects on visitors’ positive emotions and satisfaction. The findings are expected to reveal how multi-dimensional tourism experiences could shape visitors’ positive emotions, and empirically support positive emotions as the mediator between tourism experiences and satisfaction in the context of casino hotels.

A quantitative survey was conducted for this study. In all, 500 valid questionnaires were collected at four major casino hotels in Macao. Respondents were Chinese tourists who visited casino hotels in June. A structural model was developed and tested to understand the relationships between multi-dimensional tourism experiences, positive emotions and satisfaction.

Positive emotions were identified as “light pleasure” and “intense fun” emotions based on the context-specific measurement of casino hotels. The “light pleasure” emotions were found to be more effective in influencing respondents’ satisfaction than “intense fun” emotions. Different dimensions of tourism experiences were found to have different levels of impact on respondents’ positive emotions. The findings revealed how multi-dimensional tourism experiences influenced respondents’ positive emotions which in turn determined their satisfaction.

The findings advanced the understanding of the relationships between tourism experiences, positive emotions and satisfaction in the context of casino hotels. The two types of positive emotions identified in the study add values to the literature of casino-hotel visitors and emotional experiences. This study suggests a further investigation into the scope and measurement of each dimension of tourism experiences in different tourism settings in future research. The findings provided some practical suggestions for the management of positive emotions and tourism experiences in casino hotels.

This study uses a survey instrument to ask Americans living abroad about the impact of tax rules explicitly designed for these individuals. We analyze how individuals are affected by foreign tax reporting laws and how they perceive and evaluate the rules’ consequences. A common belief is that many of the foreign reporting provisions were enacted in order to eliminate or reduce tax evasion. The current political climate has increased lawmakers’ focus on tax issues related to foreign income and accounts, which lead to several new rules and regulations, such as the provisions in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), as well as an increased emphasis on the enforcement of existing laws.

Our results indicate that Americans living abroad experience FATCA negatively impacting their lives. Additionally, the respondents’ perceptions are consistent with the sentiment that their government is not concerned about the impact of the FATCA on its citizens living abroad.

This chapter discusses the social mobility and the political consequences of three education events in Hong Kong: the extension of free and compulsory schooling in 1978, the construction of universities after the Tiananmen repression amid popular unrest, and the creation of two-year degree programs after Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region. The chapter shows the repercussions of these events for civil society organizations and political parties. The chapter first reviews the historical context for state-society relations created by the current Special Administrative Region and the former British Crown Colony. It presents two alternative perspectives on the impact of higher education for civic development and social mobilization, perspectives rooted in neo-functionalist and in neo-Weberian sociologies of education. Next, the chapter discusses the actors and agents of political change in Hong Kong. Inferences are drawn about the social integration of new immigrants from Mainland China, as well as the opportunities for women and for lower-income students, based on analysis of 35 years of Hong Kong Census data (1971–2006). The chapter concludes by raising questions about the future ability of governments and parties to define the postsecondary policy agenda, an agenda that now threatens to escape from government control and become a flash-point of popular mobilization.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the dimensions of service quality and examining the interrelationships among behavioral intentions, customer satisfaction, perceived value, corporate image and service quality in the gaming industry. A multi-level and hierarchical model is used as a framework to synthesize the effects of customer satisfaction, perceived value, corporate image and service quality on behavioral intentions of customers in the gaming industry.

The data used in this study were based on a sample of 470 at a newly built casino in Macau. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and regression analysis.

The findings support using a multi-level model consisting of three primary dimensions and ten sub-dimensions to conceptualize and measure perceived service quality. Perceived service quality significantly influences perceived value and corporate image, respectively. In addition, perceived value and corporate image are main determinants of customer satisfaction. Also, customer satisfaction and corporate image significantly affect behavioral intentions.

This is the first study synthesizing behavioral intentions, customer satisfaction, perceived value, corporate image and perceived service quality in a Macau casino setting.

The literature has demonstrated that lump-sum (LS) outperforms dollar-cost averaging (DCA) in uptrend markets while DCA outperforms LS only when the asset price is mean-reverted or downtrend. To bridge the gap in the literature, this study aims to use both Sharpe ratio (SR) and economic performance measure (EPM) to compare the performance of DCA and LS under both accumulative and disaccumulative approaches when the asset price is simulated to be uptrend.

This study uses both disaccumulative and accumulative approaches to compare DCA with LS and uses both SR and EPM to evaluate their performance when the asset price is simulated to be uptrend. Instead of using the annualized returns that are commonly used by other DCA studies, we compute the holding-period returns in the comparison in this paper.

The simulation shows that no matter which approach is used, DCA outperforms LS in nearly all the cases in the less uptrend markets while DCA still performs better than LS in many cases of the uptrend markets, especially when the market is more volatile and investment horizon is long, regardless which approach the authors used. The authors also find more evidence supporting DCA over LS by using EPM, which is more suitable in the analysis because the returns generated by DCA are positive skewed and flat-tailed that are ignored when SR is used.

The authors conclude that DCA is a better trading strategy than LS for investment even in the uptrend market, especially on high risky assets.

Investors could consider choosing DCA instead of LS as their trading strategy, especially when they prefer long term investment and investing in high-risk assets.

Fund managers could consider recommending DCA to their customers, especially when they prefer long term investment and investing in high-risk assets.

This is the own study and, as far as the authors know, this is the first study in the literature uses both SR and EPM to compare the performance of DCA and LS under both accumulative and disaccumulative approaches when the asset price is simulated to be uptrend.

Studies of the city traditionally posit a division between a city’s economy and its culture, with culture subordinate in explanatory power to “work.” However, post-industrial and globalizing trends are dramatically elevating the importance of culture. Cultural activities are increasingly crucial to urban economic vitality. Models to explain the growth of cities from the era of industrial manufacturing are outmoded. Loss of heavy industry impacts the dynamics of urban growth, increasing the relative importance of the city both as a space of consumption and as a site for “production” which is distinctly symbolic/expressive. Some have seen globalization, the wired city, and electronic communication as destroying cities as proximity should decline in importance. This may be correct for some production concerns, but this in turn raises questions about consumption versus production decisions affecting urban growth and dynamics. Even in a former industrial power like Chicago, the number one industry has become entertainment, which city officials define to include tourism, conventions, restaurants, hotels, and related economic activities. Citizens in the postindustrial city increasingly make “quality of life” demands, treating their own urban location as if tourists, emphasizing aesthetic concerns. These practices impact considerations about the proper nature of amenities that post-industrial cities can sustain. The city increasingly becomes an Entertainment Machine, leveraging culture to enhance its economic well being. The entertainment components of cities are actively and strategically produced through political and economic processes. Entertainment becomes the work of many urban participants. We elaborate this theme in general and illustrate its force with case study materials from Chicago and a national study of U.S. mayors in cities over 25,000 in population.

Given the significant contributions of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across several economies, calls for investigations into their branding strategies are burgeoning. However, the literature is unclear, scattered and relatively scanty. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the existing literature on branding with a focus on SMEs.

The study uses a systematic review by identifying and evaluating peer-reviewed journal publications focusing on branding within the context of SMEs. The systematic design is based on papers published within the period of 2004-2014.

The review shows that significant progress is being made in the area under discussion. With several gaps in issues and empirical evidence, as well as in theoretical and methodological approaches, the paper signals promising lines of inquiry for both empirical and theoretical research.

By highlighting the research issues, as well as providing some pertinent research questions across various themes, the paper aims at directing future research efforts to critical areas which require immediate attention. The implications of the review are discussed in the paper.

The study identifies and describes the state of research issues and evidence in branding literature within the context of SMEs over a 10-year period, prompting insightful avenues to the academic and practitioner communities.