Background: The Internet has created new efficient channels of doing business. For this nontraditional market, a business strategy that is both effective and efficient needs to be employed. The Long Tail business strategy was developed by Chris Anderson in 2006. It is possible that the Long Tail strategy not only can increase revenue by offering more “niche” products, but also can enhance customers’ loyalty toward the company. However, in order to achieve the latter, companies need to communicate with customers in more effective and more efficient ways. Therefore, communication is inevitably the fundamental element for companies’ efforts to build customer relationships. The Long-Tail, suggested by Anderson and Sugaya, to be an effective strategy for enhancing customer loyalty. But can it fit in the case of Swedish Apple Premium Resellers?   Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to test if the Long-Tail strategy can enhance e-loyalty by adding value to online marketing communications in the case of Apple Premium Resellers’ customers in Sweden. Method: The data collection was mainly through questionnaires -- a quantitative approach. The target group was Apple Premium Resellers’ customers in Sweden. The questionnaire was distributed in Stockholm and Jönköping. Various statistical techniques as well as theories and models were used for data analysis. Conclusion:It can be concluded that the Long Tail strategy can add value to the online marketing communications, and improved online marketing communications can enhance customer loyalty in e-commerce. Therefore, the Long-Tail strategy can enhance e-loyalty by adding value to online marketing communications in the case of Swedish Apple Premium Resellers.

Since its debut in 2002 in Taiwan, private placement has become more and more popular for the corporate to collect capital in the market. However, because of its divergent characteristics and loose regulations, it has also aroused a great number of controversies so far. This study concentrates on the companies collecting capital by private placement from 2002 to 2007 and examines if obvious discount or premium on placement price existed in these cases. In addition, the study also examines the correlation between the degree of placement discount (premium) and firm characteristics. Finally, it will also be discussed if placement discount (premium) causes positive or negative effect on cumulative abnormal return of the firms. The empirical results show that on average a premium exists in placement price in Taiwan. As for firms¡¦ characteristics, financial crisis, free cash flow, and times of placement have a positive correlation with the discount (premium) degree. Two out of three intangible variables also show a positive correlation with the discount (premium). degree. Finally, the degree of discount (premium) is not significantly correlated with long-term cumulative abnormal return of private placed firms.

This paper investigates whether the bidding induces the occurrence of herding, and analyses the effects of behavioral factors, information, and fundamental characteristics of real estate on the performance of bank auction. Our sample is from July 2001 to January 2003, the real estate that intermediaries sold was held by bank in Taiwan, including 363 the real estate and the price of bidding under bank auction. We obtain some interesting implication. First of all, we find that herding of bidding not only could explain premium but also discount. After controlling informational factors and fundamental characteristics of real estate, it could not weaken the significance of herding of bidding. For the strategy of the reserve price by the vendor, the higher discount is to encourage bidding actively, which is consistent with the view of Welch (1992). Secondly, we find bidders could easily reduce search cost by observing the bidding of competitors under bank auction, and herding of bidding on the auction process could enhance efficiency of information aggregation. Furthermore, herding of bidding makes the performance of auction different between court and bank. Finally, we overcome the selective bias and find the real estate held by bank had poor performance under court auction; however, the real estate held by court had better performance under bank auction. This implies the mechanism of court auction should be transformed into the open-outcry bidding in order to achieve effective recovery of debt and the policy of reducing losses. Robustness analysis of this study, first of all, for the herd measure that not isolated from informational factors, we find the insignificant effect of behavioral factors on the performance of English mechanism, and auction premium and discount are dominated by the informational factors. Secondly, the choice of the methods about true value of real estate may affect the conditional probability of the herd measure, and make inconsistent conclusions that the effect of behavioral factors on the performance of English mechanism. Whether we choose cluster analysis or regression method to obtain the true value of real estate, the conclusion that the effect of behavioral factors on the performance of English mechanism could be supported, and those can not switch the results of the minimum sum method. Thus, the conclusion that behavioral factors influence the performance of the auction is full of evidences.

Women, on average, are found in systematically different careers than men. The reason for this phenomenon is not fully understood, in part because expectations play a vital role in the process of career choice. Different religious groups have different beliefs on the importance of child bearing, so fertility expectations should differ by religious group. I include a woman's religious denomination in regressions on mea- sures of occupational flexibility. Jehovah's Witnesses choose the most flexible careers followed by Pentecostal, Catholic, Baptist, and Mainline Protestant women. Jewish women generally choose the least flexible careers. This is consistent with the human capital notion that women are choosing different careers than men rather than being forced into different job paths. If women are choosing jobs that allow them to take responsibility for home pro- duction, how does this affect their husbands? Male wage regressions that include marital status dummy variables find a marriage wage premium of 10 to 40%. This premium may occur because wives are taking responsibility for home production and husbands are free to focus their attention on productivity at work. It may also be that factors unobserved to the researcher may make a man more productive and more likely to marry. I use religious denomination as a proxy for specialization within the home. Men in more traditional religious denominations enjoy a higher marriage wage premium, which is evidence that household specialization of labor is an important cause of the wage premium. The choice of a career, whether to marry, and most other important life decisions are dependent on one's risk tolerance. The role of risk preferences in such choices is not fully understood, largely because relative risk aversion (y) is hard to empirically quantify. Chetty (2006) derives a formula for ° based on the link between utility and labor supply decisions. I estimate y at the micro level using the 1996 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I compare y to an estimate based on hypothetical gambles and find the measures substantially different. This supports Chetty's claim that ex- pected utility theory cannot suffciently explain choices under uncertainty in different domains.

none

Nowadays premium promotion has caused a stir in many industries. Sales promotion comprises a multitude of marketing tools designed to stimulate the purchase of goods and services by providing an incentive. Among those promotion tools, premium occupies a very important place. It belongs to non-monetary promotion which is different from the monetary one that we generally know. Many experts address that in long term, monetary promotion might have imposed negative impact on their own brand. However, premium promotion is one of non-monetary promotion, and it brings up consumers the ¡§gains¡¨, not the ¡§reduced losses.¡¨ The academic research on the subject in Taiwan or even in other countries is scarcely seen, although premium-based sales promotions are commonly used on marketing practice. It is a kind of multifunctional promotion tool. For example, attractiveness, the linkage with main product, immediacy, mention of value, and free/self-liquidating product etc. are needed to highly care about. Premium promotion may avoid some negative influences from price promotion. However, if marketers cannot operate premium well, it might still cause some problems. This study does not only discuss Consumers¡¦ Overall Appreciation, but also try to find out Perceived Manipulation Intent beyond consumers. This thesis is 2¡]high/low attractiveness¡^x 2¡]high/low perceived fit between the premium and the product¡^x 2¡]direct/delayed¡^x 2¡]mention/not mention of the premium¡¦s value¡^mixed experiment design ANOVA. Mentioning the value of the premium and immediacy are between-subject factors and attractiveness and perceived fit between the premium and the product are within-subjects factors. The purpose of this study is the effect of four premium independent variables on Overall Appreciation and Perceived Manipulation Intent of Consumer Reaction. The study shows: 1. High attractiveness, high product-premium fit, and direct premium all have significantly positive effects on consumer¡¦s overall appreciation. 2. Attractiveness and product-premium fit has an interaction effect on overall appreciation, and fit is like a moderator. 3. Product-premium fit and mention of value has an interaction effect on overall appreciation. 4. Attractiveness, product-premium fit, and immediacy has an interaction effect on overall appreciation. 5. Attractiveness, product-premium fit, and immediacy has statistically significant on perceived manipulation intent.

none

This thesis is to explore the associations between two major factors and the pricing policy of the Depositary Receipt (DR) from the past experiences of Taiwanese listed companies. We first apply regression models to investigate the relationship between the first factor, the percentage change of the stock prices in that year of Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) and the premium/discount in pricing DR. Then, we examine the connection between the second factor, the percentage change of the issuing companies¡¦ stock prices within the past 180 calendar days in TWSE prior to the offering of DR and it¡¦ final pricing. We also interviewed several financial experts to collect the industry norms on the pricing strategies of DR in order to help the future issuers meet their expectations. We have concluded the following: 1. With the significance level of 95%, there is no linear relationship between the final pricing of DR and the percentage change of the stock prices of TWSE. 2. With the significance level of 95%, there is also no linear relationship between the final pricing of DR and the percentage change of the issuer¡¦s stock prices for the past 180 days. 3. With the significance level of 95%, there exists very significant negative linear relationship between the final pricing of DR and the percentage change of the issuer¡¦s stock prices for the past 180 days, if we exclude all the cases of enjoying premium in DR pricing and all the stock prices that have a percentage increase over 170% prior to the offering of DR. 4. The best pricing policy for a company to issue a DR is to sign a contract with the bookrunner in which the limited discount percentage of DR¡¦s offering is guaranteed.

<p>In the financial world, stocks should provide a greater return than safe investments such as Treasury bonds. This is due to a higher risk involved when obtaining stocks in comparison to treasury bonds. Thus, the higher risk involved, the higher return is expected by the investors. The return expected over the risk-free rate is a compensation for the risk. This compensation is referred to as the market risk premium (MRP).</p><p>According to financial researchers, it is not only the magnitude of the MRP discussed controversially among economists, but also the appropriate methodology to calculate meaning-ful estimates. The various estimation methods can be generalized as the historical approach (ex post) and the forward-looking approach (ex ante).</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the application of the estimation methods for-practical investment decitions and to observe which estimate (ex-post or/and ex-ante) the financial actors find to be optimal as an input for decision making.</p><p>Data will be gathered from a small group of respondents in order to receive an in-depth comprehension of the subject matter. Hence, the nature of the data in this research dictates the application of qualitative methods.</p><p>It can be concluded that both the ex-ante method and the ex-post method are used by the three financial actors when forecasting the MRP. Furthermore, it could be concluded that investors can apply different values of MRP as an input for models and investment deci-sions due to the fact that the choice of the fair MRP involves some subjective judgments from the individual analyst or investor.</p>

Eidgen. Techn. Hochschule, Diss.--Zürich, 2006. / Zsfassung in dt. Sprache.