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Considerable research has been conducted on the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactured exports before 2000, but too little attention has been focused on the twenty‐first century. With this rapid growth of China's export volume since 2001, what is the change in comparative advantage? Have qualitative changes taken place? The purpose of this paper is to conduct a thorough analysis of the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactures from 2002 to 2009, not only within the world market but also in the US market.

The research is based on 144 manufactures' comparative advantage in the US and world market, displaying the distribution and variation range for the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactures at different technological levels in the 2002‐2009 period with the RCA Index. This paper classifies 144 kinds of manufactures (on Standard International Trade Classification, Rev. 3 data) by technology level into five general groups and nine small groups, which cover the majority of Chinese manufactured exports.

First, the authors found that types of Chinese manufactured products with comparative advantage in both world and US markets are increasing. Most of the products with comparative advantage are low technology (LT) products. Second, in the world market, the comparative advantage of Chinese medium technology (MT) products has largely improved, but their RCA indexes are low and their kinds of products with very high comparative advantage are small. Third, as a whole, Chinese manufactured exports are of greater comparative advantage in the world market than in the US market. Specifically, LT products have the same position in world and US markets, while MT products and high technology (HT) products obviously have a greater comparative advantage in the world market.

First, little research has been conducted on the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactured exports since 2001. This paper undertakes a thorough analysis of the comparative advantage of Chinese manufactures from 2002 to 2009, not only within the world market but also in the US market. Second, it is very important for China to stabilize the overseas market demand and secure exports, this paper shows how China could cope with a crisis.

In this paper we examine the relationship over time of the No. 11 (World) and the No. 14 (US) sugar futures contracts, traded on the New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange. Using daily price data for a 14 year period, we examine statistical linkages between domestic and world futures contracts. Our results suggest that the US and world markets exhibit strong linkages during periods when US imports are under tariff (1977–1982), but the US market is effectively insulated from world price changes by the operation of the quota program (1982–1990). The pattern of causality runs from the world to the US market during the tariff period. The US market does not appear to influence world market prices during either the tariff or the quota period.

Drawing from recent work on online social networking and communities of consumption, the purpose of this paper is to explore, identify, and postulate key factors facilitating the growth and success of marketing in virtual worlds.

An empirical study was conducted employing netnographic evidence from three different virtual worlds and related user‐generated blog discussions.

The findings suggest mechanisms which enable virtual worlds to gain and maintain the interest of their users and therefore underlie successful marketer practices.

This is an exploratory study based on qualitative and ethnographic online research methods, and therefore the results are of a descriptive nature. The study was conducted to initiate the academic discourse about marketing in virtual worlds. As such, the paper believes that it can act as a reasonable starting‐point for future discussion.

The study suggests that traditional advertising has not proven to be a very effective way to exploit the special characteristics of virtual worlds. There is substantial potential in virtual worlds for new and innovative marketing methods that are highly engaging and take advantage of users' active role in virtual worlds. From the marketing point of view, virtual worlds can be especially used for connecting with customers, contributing to customer learning, and getting customer input.

The paper illustrates that virtual worlds have come to offer marketers new opportunities for engaging their customers into interactive and co‐productive marketplace exchanges. They uncover untapped potential, resources and creative means for building customer relationships.

In recent decades, New World winemakers have increased their wine export to European markets and became considerable market players in the EU. Therefore, this paper aims to explore whether the major New World wine producers are able to exploit its market power at European destination markets.

The paper applies the pricing-to-market (PTM) model of trade in respect of asymmetric effect of exchange rate changes by using monthly bilateral wine data between January 2000 and December 2016.

First, there is evidence of PTM in three New World wine exporters, namely, Chile, South Africa and the USA. Chile was able to apply price discrimination across Danish, German, Dutch and the British wine markets. Second, South Africa set their prices in Belgian, Dutch and Swedish markets, while the USA discriminated their wine prices in Denmark and Sweden. In contrast, this advantage was not observable in the case of Argentina and Australia. Third, the local-currency price stability was explored in Chilean wine import prices (exported to Belgium, the Czech Republic), South African wine prices (exported to France, Denmark, Germany), in US wine prices (sold in Germany and the UK). Furthermore, the analysis of the asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes suggests that depreciation of the exporter’s currency relative to the Euro had not a significant impact on EU wine import prices. On the whole, the estimated pricing to market model indicates that a non-competitive pricing behaviour of New World exporters was limited and was rather due to the market-specific characteristics.

The research provides multiple advice for New World wine producers. First, in general, European consumers do not pay an extra price for the New World bottled wines. Second, only Chilean, South African and North American wine exporters can expect higher prices for its wines from European buyers only. Moreover, European wine markets are fairly competitive where New World wine exporters do not have significant market dominance. Therefore, New World wine exporters should strengthen its wine marketing and branding strategy to gain higher market share in Europe and to attract attention to its wines. Finally, exchange rates relative to Euro should be continuously monitored by the New World wine exporters because it might deviate the wine export prices significantly.

The study applies the pricing-to-market model to major New World wine exporters on the European Union’s destination market. The paper also makes valuable contributions to the wine literature by testing the asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes on wine import prices. It analyses the nature of price discrimination, whether it is market-specific or exchange rate influenced, or both.

The ideas expressed in this work are based on those put into practice at the Okuma Corporation of Japan, one of the world′s leading machine tool manufacturers. In common with many other large organizations, Okuma Corporation has to meet the new challenges posed by globalization, keener domestic and international competition, shorter business cycles and an increasingly volatile environment. Intelligent corporate strategy (ICS), as practised at Okuma, is a unified theory of strategic corporate management based on five levels of win‐win relationships for profit/market share, namely: ,1. Loyalty from customers (value for money) – right focus., 2. Commitment from workers (meeting hierarchy of needs) – right attitude., 3. Co‐operation from suppliers (expanding and reliable business) – right connections., 4. Co‐operation from distributors (expanding and reliable business) – right channels., 5. Respect from competitors (setting standards for business excellence) – right strategies. The aim is to create values for all stakeholders. This holistic people‐oriented approach recognizes that, although the world is increasingly driven by high technology, it continues to be influenced and managed by people (customers, workers, suppliers, distributors, competitors). The philosophical core of ICS is action learning and teamwork based on principle‐centred relationships of sincerity, trust and integrity. In the real world, these are the roots of success in relationships and in the bottom‐line results of business. ICS is, in essence, relationship management for synergy. It is based on the premiss that domestic and international commerce is a positive sum game: in the long run everyone wins. Finally, ICS is a paradigm for manufacturing companies coping with change and uncertainty in their search for profit/market share. Time‐honoured values give definition to corporate character; circumstances change, values remain. Poor business operations generally result from human frailty. ICS is predicated on the belief that the quality of human relationships determines the bottom‐line results. ICS attempts to make manifest and explicit the intangible psychological factors for value‐added partnerships. ICS is a dynamic, living, and heuristic‐learning model. There is intelligence in the corporate strategy because it applies commonsense, wisdom, creative systems thinking and synergy to ensure longevity in its corporate life for sustainable competitive advantage.

The equation of unified knowledge says that S = f (A,P) which means that the practical solution to a given problem is a function of the existing, empirical, actual realities and the future, potential, best possible conditions of general stable equilibrium which both pure and practical reason, exhaustive in the Kantian sense, show as being within the realm of potential realities beyond any doubt. The first classical revolution in economic thinking, included in factor “P” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of a model of ideal conditions of stable equilibrium but neglected the full consideration of the existing, actual conditions. That is the main reason why, in the end, it failed. The second modern revolution, included in factor “A” of the equation, conceived the economic and financial problems in terms of the existing, actual conditions, usually in disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium (in case of stagnation) and neglected the sense of right direction expressed in factor “P” or the realization of general, stable equilibrium. That is the main reason why the modern revolution failed in the past and is failing in front of our eyes in the present. The equation of unified knowledge, perceived as a sui generis synthesis between classical and modern thinking has been applied rigorously and systematically in writing the enclosed American‐British economic, monetary, financial and social stabilization plans. In the final analysis, a new economic philosophy, based on a synthesis between classical and modern thinking, called here the new economics of unified knowledge, is applied to solve the malaise of the twentieth century which resulted from a confusion between thinking in terms of stable equilibrium on the one hand and disequilibrium or unstable equilibrium on the other.

Much of the management research on socially responsible investment (SRI) consists in demonstrating how SRI is good for business and good for society. But the belief that business and market-based strategies will bring positive social and ecological change is far from natural and results in disputes. This study shows how SRI proponents have to develop and combine arguments in order to construct and defend a valid and plausible discourse on SRI that could resist the critiques and appease the disputes resulting from its institutionalization.

We collect articles in the media to identify the SRI controversies. For these disputes, we look at the attempts of SRI to give a robust justification of the particular arrangement it promotes, vis-à-vis a public audience, and we discuss possible resolutions.

SRI focuses on appealing to conventional finance with a market logic, resulting in very few challenges of the legitimacy of the existing institutional order. In a few cases, SRI seeks a resolution based on a competing principles resulting in hybrid constructions of compromises, which could be consolidated by SRI models and tools.

The results contribute to a better understanding of SRI as it is perceived today, and of how the disputes around its mainstreaming may unfold in the future. This helps us clarify our expectations towards SRI and shows that if we want to address shortcomings in finance, we should probably not rely on SRI as it is defined and practiced in the 21st century.

This paper seeks to answer the basic question of the fate of Sub‐Sahara Africa's development in the context of the emerging marketing system that is anchored on the globalisation orthodoxy.

The paper draws from literature to argue that the emerging globalised marketing system is an advanced stage of colonisation, neo‐colonisation, and re‐colonisation of Sub‐Sahara Africa by the developed economies.

Based on this premise, the paper submits that the new system possesses the potentials to impoverish SSA unless innovative marketing and development paradigms that are Afro‐centric are developed, to tactically respond to the challenges posed by the emerging marketing system that favours the rich countries of the world.

The paper proposes some strategic choices open to Sub‐Sahara Africa for adapting to the new order. Only through this means can the region actively and positively participate in this “juggernaut called globalisation”.

In providing a view of the impacts of globalisation on Sub‐Sahara Africa from within the region, this paper offers an alternative to the largely “developed world” academic discourse.