Search results

The recent growth of interests in applying the Chinese art of warfare to complement the Western style of management process suggested that an integrated business model that combined the Western scientific management and ancient Chinese wisdom could be an effective tool for gaining strategic advantages, especially for companies that want to share the newly opened markets in mainland China. Among all, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has been widely adopted and applied in various business areas. However, there are few presentations with strategic models. Moreover, works on his successor, Sun Pin, are limited particularly to the area of applying his art of warfare in gaining strategic advantages and transforming business crisis into opportunities. While various business and quality management models at national level have been established by various countries to emphasise their differences in economic development and culture, models of similar type that make use of the ancient Chinese wisdom are not available either in Hong Kong or in China. As China has become a member of the WTO, a national model that framed both the Chinese management philosophy and Western management wisdom would certainly help in driving local and international enterprises for business competitiveness. This paper is therefore a first attempt to investigate the applicability of Sun Pin’s The Art of Warfare for business management strategies by amalgamating the Western wisdom and the Chinese art of warfare.

The chapter deals, though the analysis of several studies on that theme, with asymmetric warfare and its nature as well as the military issues that it creates. The new techniques devised in recent years by the military intelligentsia – RMA, NCW, NEC, EBO – in fact, certainly constitute useful refinements of the military machine and perfections of its functioning that enable it to achieve the highest performance, and as such they should be appreciated. However, they appear cut out for a war reality that is only partially that of asymmetric warfare. Today, the weak side's offensive tool is man, and man is no longer a person who carries and operates a weapon but is himself a weapon who sacrifices himself to strike the adversary, and he does this because his mind has been convinced to do it. Thus, the only winning weapon in this type of contest is to intervene on the mechanisms of conditioning the minds of millions of human beings, a task that is only in small part military but is instead on a vast political scale. The military can intervene in this direction especially by making politicians understand that, in today's asymmetric warfare, victory – and the survival of Western values – can be achieved only through co-ordinated, joint political action, where the military function can consist principally in a containment action suitable for giving time to the political initiative to bear its fruits.

Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles are shaping our daily lives, society, and will continue to transform how we will fight future wars. Advances in AI technologies have fueled an explosion of interest in the military and political domain. As AI technologies evolve, there will be increased reliance on these systems to maintain global security. For the individual and society, AI presents challenges related to surveillance, personal freedom, and privacy. For the military, we will need to exploit advances in AI technologies to support the warfighter and ensure global security. The integration of AI technologies in the battlespace presents advantages, costs, and risks in the future battlespace. This chapter will examine the issues related to advances in AI technologies, as we examine the benefits, costs, and risks associated with integrating AI and autonomous systems in society and in the future battlespace.

State building in pre-colonial sub-Saharan Africa is a much-neglected subject in historical sociology. This paper, which begins to close that gap accounts for state building and transformation in pre-colonial Yorubaland and highlights slavery, slave-taking, and other distinctive features of the Yoruba states. The paper argues that slavery and slave-taking affected warfare in the Yoruba states with remarkable consequences for the Yoruba state system. Furthermore, the paper applied some aspects of existing analytical approaches in historical sociology and comparative politics to elucidate our understanding of the role and limitations of warfare, slave-taking, and slavery in state development in pre-colonial Yorubaland.

Technology has always been one of the decisive factors, by which the outcome of conflict or war ought to be influenced without any doubt. But with Information-Communication Technology (ICT) appearance it seems the revolutionary changes began concerning conflict perception, the organisation of actors waging a war and (spatial) spheres where conflicts are taking place. The case of last Iraqi war should confirm this thesis. The main purpose of my research paper is therefore to prove that ICT has really multidimensional impacts regarding recent conflicts and wars and these impacts should be analysed with interdisciplinary approach in any case.

So my research paper based especially on strategic (defence) studies as well as on communication and sociological theory guidelines, what actually ensures a real interdisciplinary approach. Within these three basic theoretical approaches the concepts such as propaganda, perception management and information operations/warfare as well as asymmetric warfare, have also been used.

Regarding research limitations and future work to do, my proposal is focusing towards information theory and informatics science, which should also be incorporated in modern conflict analysis. Without very good knowledge of how Internet is working and what are its technical possibilities there is no change, virtual part of recent conflicts is being treated properly.

Practical implications of the paper are visible especially in the proposal (model) how recent conflicts should be treated and understood and this is not important just for strategists and intelligence personal but also for journalists, academics etc. And practical implications as well as methodology approach based on the interdisciplinary has also added the main value and originality of the paper. It must be clear that the way how reality is constructed through the ICT (what is actually the point of constructivism theory) has tremendous importance also within conflict and strategic studies.

Advertising has become a strategic weapon rather than a tactical one. Advertisers no longer run ads to sell products, they run ads to establish a position. Advertising is too expensive to justify on the basis of today's results. A one‐minute commercial on the 1987 Super Bowl costs you more than a million dollars. Yesterday, readership was the key measure of an ad's effectiveness. Today, most advertisers pay little attention to readership reports and coupon contents. They want to know what position they occupy in the minds of the prospects.

Instead of being characterized as manufacturers competing among themselves for business, the marketplace today can be best depicted as powerful consumers competing among themselves. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of strategies employed by empowered consumers and explore how businesses can relate to each.

The article examines the changes that have occurred in the business environment and in consumers. The power distribution in channels of distribution has shifted from manufacturers to consumers. Furthermore, consumers find themselves in a culture characterized by materialism. In a materialistic culture, the importance attributed to products arises not from the physical needs they fulfill, but from their ability to establish one's identity. Consumers' possessions become the tools for engaging and competing with other individuals.

Faced with the empowered consumer, businesses find that they must employ a different set of strategies when reaching consumers. Strategies available to consumers are identified and explored. Approaches available to businesses to successfully target consumers employing each of the strategies are examined.

Catering products and marketing messages to the competitive needs of consumers involves positioning products as tools which consumers can use as they employ consumer warfare strategies. Consequently, by picturing their products as tools to use when employing consumer warfare strategies, businesses can better satisfy the needs of their consumers.

This paper aims to encourage thinking beyond the limits of obsolete and superficial “warfare marketing” by exploring potentially useful lessons from modern military intelligence and strategy for marketing intelligence and planning.

Key contemporary trends and approaches to strategy are identified in the literature, and used as the basis for discussion of the possibility of productive knowledge transfer between the two fields.

Comparisons of the conventional (linear, rationalistic, analytical) planning approach with unconventional modern approaches (flexible, technological, voluntary and context‐based) suggest some advanced implications for the planning of marketing strategy.

The rethinking of some underlying strategic assumptions is suggested, and the implications discussed within each of the four areas of a proposed framework: marketing doctrine and structures, intelligence and effectiveness, soft resources, and the process of strategic planning.

Presents a more balanced and up to date view of the parallels between strategy and planning in the modern military context and in contemporary marketing practice, with particular respect to the complementary roles of intelligence/technology and human/societal aspects.

The growing dependence on the Internet and related technologies has led to the creation of a new type of warfare, “information warfare” (infowar) which is based on attacking and infiltrating opposing information infrastructures. The chances of information infrastructures being subjected to attacks have increased correlatively with the growth of networked, multinational organizations and e‐commerce. Although challenging, it is becoming extremely important to protect and safeguard information infrastructures from any attack. Info‐war is definitely a concern for most nations due to increased susceptibility of information systems to perpetrators. Many nations have confirmed that their information systems have already been successfully penetrated, introducing a unique and potentially devastating twenty‐first century threat. Discusses the types of info war attacks, proposes a framework for identifying various zones where the info war attack could create damage to information infrastructures, and suggests some mechanisms to safeguard against the info war attacks.

Explores Sun Tze’s Art of Warfare, a set of 2,300‐year‐old Chinese military strategies which have been found to be analogous to some contemporary business strategies on competition. Uses a systematic approach to develop a model through Sun Tze’s Art of Warfare for businesses to achieve success against competition. Develops a “winning model” which provides a structured framework for the successful deployment of Sun Tze’s ideas in businesses. Uses some mini‐cases to illustrate the applications of the model and a hypothetical case “Entering into a new market” to demonstrate how to formulate winning strategies step‐by‐step by using the model.