The first location theories are based on assumptions of perfect competition (J. H. von Thünen, A. Weber). These theories build fundaments for other classic and modern theories of location decision-making process. Modification of perfect competition based on location theories was realized by implementation of assumptions of imperfect competition (H. Hotelling, A. Lösch). The key point of the location service sector theory is the central places theory (W. Christaller). The influence of French background is important in the pole development theory (F. Perroux, G. Myrdal) which is giving the base for interpretation of spatial dimension of modern cluster theory (M. Porter, J. R. Baldwin). The behavioral theory's authors deconstructed the assumptions of rational behaviour of consumers and firms (J. K. Galbraith, J. R. Commons). The following theories explain location decision making processes of international corporations (A. Markusen, R. Vernon, P. Krugman). Tested location factors are based on this theoretical background. The methods used for testing are empirical research, econometric modeling, regional analysis and case studies. Tested location factors are divided into three groups: (1) important for majority of firms irrespective of sector or size characterization; none of mentioned factors, (2) factors important for some sector of size category; tangible costs, nearness of market, complementary services, regional economic growth, personal interests (3) factors insignificant over the sector and size character; nearness of competitors, nearness of suppliers, possibility to gain especial market position, possibility of cooperation with competitors, following of successful competitors, personal managerial interests. Research results are applied to current situation of post-industrial economy of the Czech Republic.

Notions "attractiveness" and "friendliness" in the context of a tourism destination are currently not too researched and developed. Due to increasing competition in the tourism market, tourism destination try to determine the level of their general attractiveness and try to identify specific factors, that determine whether the target visitors consider just this destination as attractive and friendly. Although they are an important indicators, for destination management as well as for public management and regional development, the approaches to their measurement are not generally accepted and identified, because they are subjective focused and specific characterized. This diploma thesis provides fundamental and comprehensive overview of attractiveness and friendliness tourist destination measured approaches.

Two experimental phases examined the characteristics impacting the physical attractiveness stereotype and a potential stereotype shift. From reading a description of a hypothetical target, Phase 1 of this study revealed that participants considered an overweight attractive woman significantly more likely to help a friend in need and significantly more likely to become a friend than an underweight attractive woman. These findings provide understanding of how particular stereotypes may provide social benefits. In Phase 2, knowledge of the woman's plans for liposuction, which was disclosed in a second description of the target, dramatically lowered the participants' evaluations of her physical attractiveness, willingness to help a friend in need, and likelihood as a potential friend. The women's ratings of the target's willingness to help a friend dropped significantly more than the men's ratings. These results indicate that evaluations of physically attractive women may decline if they choose to unnaturally alter their appearance.

Abstract The use of celebrity endorsement strategy is nowadays more frequently used by marketers in order to increase their sales and thereby extend their market shares. Many celebrities are used in various marketing campaigns and in most cases; the use of celebrities as endorsers is seen from mainly positive aspects. This made the authors curious whether the negative aspects, that also exists when using celebrities as endorsers, affects consumers in their purchasing decisions when a celebrity gets associated with negative publicity. Another cause of interest is which factors of a certain celebrity are most important and crucial in consumers’ perceptions, in the case of negative publicity. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study which factors consumers find important for a company to consider when a celebrity gets negative publicity, to maintain successful brand recognition. Literature review: The use of previous studies within the field of celebrity endorsement clarifies many important aspects when it comes to celebrity endorsement and this chapter is elaborated from 4 different perspectives; Company, Celebrity, Brand and Consumer. Based on previous studies, the authors identified 6 crucial attributes when using celebrities as endorsers and this can also be seen as a pre-study that the research process has been based upon. Furthermore, the 6 attributes are chosen from the three first mentioned perspectives in order to be able to fulfil the purpose. Hence, this thesis is conducted from a consumer’s point of view. Method: A quantitative method is used in this thesis since the authors want to base the results on collected data that is expressed in numbers and also to generate a general apprehension in this phenomenon. Moreover, the combinations containing the 6 attributes are used in the conjoint experiment. Conclusions: It was proven in this study that consumers do get affected by celebrities as endorser, when the attributes from the literature review are in a combination. But, the consumers’ perception of the attributes differs in different cases. However, the main finding was that there are two crucial attributes, trustworthiness and expertise that companies should take into account when using celebrities in their advertising campaign.

Most of previous studies done on publicity were mainly focused on the positive and negative publicity. However, for the job applicants, while it is important to consider positive and negative publicity when making career choices, it is also important to note that there are other variables of publicity that should be considered when making these decisions. According to previous studies, publicity might play an important role in helping the job seekers to choose which company to work for. Based on these studies, a study was conducted to determine whether or not publicity has an impact on the attractiveness of an organization to the job seekers. Moreover, in this study, I also tried to explore the effects of publicity¡¦s impressiveness (which can be categorized into timeliness and coverage) and publicity¡¦s relatedness (which can be categorized into the level of concern and familiarity) on the organization¡¦s attractiveness to the potential job seekers. In this study, a scenario-based experiment was conducted mainly on 240 Business graduate students; those who were enrolled in part-time master program were excluded from this study. The results of the experiment indicated that publicity has significant impact on the attractiveness of the organization to the job seekers. The results of the study also supported that the publicity¡¦s impressiveness (both the timeliness and coverage) can influence, to a certain extent, the attractiveness of the organization. Moreover, with regards to publicity¡¦s relatedness (categorized into the level of concern and familiarity), the results have revealed that the level of concern does have a significant influence on the attractiveness of the organization to the job seekers whereas familiarity doesn¡¦t.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the relationship among company characteristics, brand traits and organizational attractiveness. Most of previous studies about organizational attractiveness are mainly focus on job information, industry and organization performance. Therefore, this study is seeking to understand the influence of company characteristics and brand traits to organizational attractiveness during the job seeking period. This study selects 30 Taiwanese local companies with stock release from the research of Cheers Magazine ¡u2011 The most attractive company for the new generation- Top 100 ¡vand 460 MBA students as questionnaires. By adapting the hierarchical linear model to analyze the data and obtain the result. The study found out that company characteristics and brand traits both have positive influence on organizational attractiveness. Besides, there are also influence between the company characteristics and brand traits.

In the age of knowledge-based economy, company need to hire talented people who possess leading knowledge and skill to keep its competitive advantages. Taiwan located in crucial position of Asian market, but lost competitive advantages in attracting talented people when comparing the policies and environmental conditions with neighboring countries like South Korea, Singapore and the raising China This study chooses case company which is successful in attracting global talent in Taiwanese electronic technology industry. To investigate the factors that make firm attractive to talented people. The finding show that company should build up international recruitment network and good reputation, thus job applicant will have positive perception to company. Providing long-term development opportunity to talented people to satisfy their need. Besides, company should provide social support actively, to help talented people get used to unfamiliar environment, thus talented people will contribute to company more effectively.

Attractive people are more likely to be considered as having better abilities, personalities, and interpersonal relationships. Does the physical attractiveness of a teacher affect the first impression of students of the teacher, and further affect learning concentration and achievement? Second, humor is a type of philosophy and wisdom. People with a good sense of humor are more approachable and have more advantages in interpersonal relationships. Is a humorous teacher capable of creating a happy learning environment to enhance the learning concentration and achievement of students? Junior teachers spend less time teaching and they are typically viewed less favorably compared to senior teachers regarding knowledge structure, teaching strategy, and their understanding of students¡¦ learning difficulties. Are senior teachers with many years of experience capable of improving the learning concentration and achievements of students because they have more teaching experience and progress? In this study, we attempt to understand the influence of teacher characteristics on the learning concentration and achievements of students. Therefore, we used a user within the quasi-experimental method. Teachers with various levels of physical attractiveness, senses of humor, and years of teaching experience were selected to teach students. The learning concentration and achievement of the students were analyzed and compared. The results were as shown below: First, the results of learning concentration showed that the physical attractiveness of a teacher is negatively correlated with learning concentration. The sense of humor of a teacher is positively correlated with learning concentration. Years of teaching experience is positively correlated with learning concentration. Teachers¡¦ physical attractiveness, sense of humor, and years of teaching experience have an interactive effect on learning concentration. Second, results on learning achievement showed that the physical attractiveness of a teacher is not significantly correlated with learning performance. The years of teaching experience of a teacher is not significantly correlated with learning performance. The sense of humor of a teacher is positively correlated with learning achievement. The interactions among factors such as teachers¡¦ physical attractiveness, sense of humor, and years of teaching experience did not show significant correlation with learning achievement According to the results of this study, we suggest that the myth about physical attractiveness should be dispelled, and that educational training regarding teachers¡¦ senses of humor should be strengthened. We recommend that future research include in-depth investigations on the differences between Asians and Caucasians regarding physical attractiveness and teacher charisma.

To help online trip planners, some online travel agencies and travel service providers have adopted travel recommender systems. Although these systems are expected to support travelers in complex decision-making processes, they are not used efficiently by travelers due to a lack of confidence in the recommendations they provide. It is important to examine factors that can influence the likelihood of recommendations to be accepted and integrated into decision-making processes. The persuasion literature suggests that people are more likely to accept recommendations from credible and likable sources. It has also been found that technologies can be more credible and likable when they give a variety of social cues that elicit social responses from their human users. Thus, it is argued that enhancing the social aspects of travel recommender systems is important to create more persuasive systems. One approach to enhancing the social presence of recommender systems is to use a virtual agent. Current travel recommender systems use various types of virtual agents. However, it is still not clear how those virtual agents are perceived by travel recommender system users and influence users' system evaluations and interactions with these systems. Consequently, this dissertation aimed to investigate the influence of virtual agents presented in travel recommender systems on system users' perceptions. Specifically, the virtual agents' anthropomorphism as well as similarity and authority cues on system users' perceptions of system credibility and liking were examined. For this purpose, two experiments were conducted. For Study 1, the impacts of anthropomorphism of the virtual agents on users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems in terms of credibility and attractiveness/liking were examined. Anthropomorphism was manipulated with visual human appearance and voice output. Study 2 tested the influence of virtual agents? similarity and authority on travel recommender system users' perceptions of virtual agents and system credibility and attractiveness/liking. Similarity and authority of the virtual agent were tested by manipulating nonverbal cues (age and outfit) of the agent. The results showed that the characteristics of virtual agents have some influences on system users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems. Specifically, a human-like appearance of the virtual agent is found to positively influence users' perceived attractiveness of the virtual agent while voice outputs were found to enhance users' liking of the system (Study 1). Findings also indicate that RS users' perceptions of virtual agent expertise are increased when virtual agents wear a uniform rather than a casual outfit (Study 2). In addition, system users' perceptions of the virtual agent's credibility are found to have a significant influence on users' perceived credibility and liking of the overall system, which implies an important role of virtual agents in recommender system evaluations. Further, perceived credibility and liking of recommender systems lead to favorable evaluations of the recommendations, which, in turn, increase users' intentions to travel to the recommended destination. Past travel recommender system studies have largely neglected the social role of recommender systems as advice givers. Also, it is not clear whether the specific characteristics of virtual agents presented as a part of the system interface influence system users' perceptions. This dissertation sought to close this knowledge gap. By applying classic interpersonal communication theories to human and system relationships, this dissertation expands the scope of traditional theories used in the context of studying recommender systems. Further, the results of the research presented in this dissertation provide insights for tourism marketing as well as practical implications for travel recommender system design.

Under the wave of globalization and liberalization, all enterprises face vigorous competition. The enterprises must adjust their resources and strategy to survive. Human resource is the most valuable and prominent property to a company.The recruit is the foundation of all the Human ResourceManagement. Quality Human Resource can increase the total benefits of the enterprise. And corporate reputation is recognized as a critical factor of competitive advantage for firms in the labor market.The recruiting effective in the process is very important. The purpose of this study was to examine the possible impact of the corporate reputation¡Brecruiting channel¡Brecruiting effective and view on organizational attractiveness. Therefore, this research bases on the survey of the High Tech Company in Taiwan.By statistic analysis method get some findings as follows: 1.Corporate reputation, Recruit channel are significant affect to Recruit effectiveness. 2.Corporate reputation, Recruit channel are significant affect to Organizational attractiveness. 3.Corporate reputation, Recruit channel, Recruit effectiveness, Organizational attractiveness are significant affect to different character of Corporate.