Search results

Marketers have long tracked changing consumer and competitive characteristics and behaviors to anticipate the potential impacts on their sales and image equities. But what about the potential impact of other external changes—of public relations, distribution, technical, political, or governmental developments? Early on, before such developments become well established, marketers want to identify which ones require their serious attention and which can be safely ignored. Below are examples of pressing questions raised by recent occurrences in the constantly fluctuating business environment.

A crucial phase in planning a new product or a major revision in an entry comes just prior to its introduction into regular business operations. At this time, the management focus is on consolidating the total program for introducing the offering to the marketplace. Marketers must engage in a sequence of important finalizing activities designed to achieve the most promising presentation.

Discusses the role that predictive fiction serves as a resource in long‐range consumer marketing planning. Evaluates a case illustration comparing the scenarios depicted in two major works of predictive fiction in the categories of consumer behaviour, consumer goods, environment, law, family, leisure, sex roles, technology and psychological factors. Offers guidelines for selecting and analysing the content of relevant literary works, and how to incorporate the results into consumer marketing planning process.

ONCE upon a time, in the true spirit of fairy stories, it was our job to get fewer people to produce more of whatever they were making. It certainly did not make us popular. There were times when the appearance of a work study engineer in any factory was enough to start off a strike. Even the best regulated workers were known to slow down deliberately if only to give them and their mates some leeway when the “rate for the job” (whether the pay rate or production rate) was under consideration.

While most age groups in the United States show zero or near zero growth, older adults continue to increase in population. Futurists and demographers suggest that we are in a transitional period prior to an even more intense shift to an older society. They project that current increases in the education, income, activity, and advocacy of older adults will continue. Those rises, in turn, will enable elders to enhance public awareness of their development, role, and plight, leading to political and social action more favorable to them.

Food composition tables are an essential tool for anyone wishing to calculate the nutrient content of a diet, whether for use in therapeutic dietetics or in nutritional surveys both at the national and research level. They also provide much of the information on which the teaching of the nutritional values of foods is based.

WITHOUT any doubt whatsoever, the 1980s have heralded a decade of change. The ten years that preceded it were fraught with heavy losses in employment and in bankruptcies. To be sure, it is not very evident that that era is yet over; yet that the clouds are receding is cur firm hope and belief.

A multinational firm in its normal, day to day conduct of business becomes vulnerable to potential gains and losses due to changes in the values of its assets and liabilities that are denominated in foreign currencies. Exporting, importing, and investing abroad expose the firm to foreign exchange risks. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, Central Bank interventions in foreign currency markets were frequent, with relatively minor changes in exchange rates. Managers then could afford to ignore foreign exchange exposure. However, with the demise of the Agreement in 1973, exchange rates for major currencies have fluctuated freely, sometimes wildly. These currency fluctuations constantly change the values of foreign currency assets and liabilities, thereby creating foreign exchange risks. Managing these foreign exchange risks now constitutes one of the most difficult and persistent problems for financial managers of multinational firms.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.