In China, an increasing number of individuals and companies are adopting microblogging, a popular form of social media, in order to connect and interact with other people, and recent online events indicate the power of microblogging in Chinese society. Holding the belief that microblogging brings out the interactive nature of new media as well as the audiences, many companies are exploring microblogging in order to better communicate with their audiences. However, very little is known about how those brands use microblogging to promote themselves and what the audiences’ preferences are on this platform. Employing uses and gratifications and feminism theories, this study examined how fashion brands use Weibo.com, one of the main microblogging platforms in China, to promote themselves and what the Chinese women, the main audience of both Weibo.com and fashion brands, ask for from fashion brands’ tweets. The quantitative content analysis of the tweets of three major fashion brands, namely Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Bvlgari, shows the general pattern of how microblogging are being deployed. A further investigation was conducted through ethnographic content analysis in order to examine the implicit values conveyed by fashion brand’s tweets and the audiences’ preferences towards these values. Results from the analyses revealed that the prevailing topics covered in the fashion brands’ tweets included their products, related celebrities, and the brands’ events or projects, and fashion brands usually combined several topics in one tweet in order to provide more information to the audiences. Taken a deeper look at the latent message of the tweets, fashion appears to play a positive role in emancipating contemporary Chinese women.

Major defence projects have a reputation of cost increases, time delays and in some cases not meeting user requirements. The aim of this study was to discover the factors which create the difficulties in UK defence acquisition projects. The dataset used in this research are seventeen, National Audit Office: Value for Money reports of major defence projects. Qualitative Software NVivo 8 was used to organise passages from the reports into categories of factors representing the defence acquisition process. A content analysis method was applied to the categories in order to highlight their quantitative and qualitative significance. A Transaction Cost Economics approach was taken to formulate the research propositions, which were tested using the qualitative content analysis.The fundamental transformation in defence procurement leads to post-contract asset specificity. There is a lack of substitute suppliers in defence procurement due to the high switching costs. There are three reasons given for this development in defence: (1) a legacy of the privatisation policy in the defence industry; (2) ownership transfers of specialised assets under the prime contracting approach and; (3) the transaction-specific investments by the MoD. The prime is able to take advantage of transaction-specific and relation-specific investments in the transaction for future contract tenders, due to the pre-contract asset specificity which results. This sequence of events is identified as the cause of the bilateral dependency condition in defence acquisition.Uncertainty and asset specificity, to a lesser extent, were identified as the major causes of transaction-costs in defence acquisition. These transaction-costs were given as the causes of failures in meeting the value for money criteria of defence projects. The MoD has responded, in recent time, to project failure through a governance trade-off from a traditional market-based transaction towards a bilateral governance approach. A focus of this bilateral governance approach is the application of Smart Acquisition principles and the IPT mechanism (joint MoD-Industry teams). In order to strengthen and support the IPT mechanism it is argued that a relational contracting approach should be taken. Traditional contracting approaches weaken the joint team working, whereas relational contracting applies partnership principles of better communication, cooperation and collaboration.

A década de 70 foi caracterizada por grande atividade de construtoras brasileiras no exterior, particularmente na África e no Oriente Médio. Nos anos 80, as organizações brasileiras destacaram-se pelo grande fluxo de investimentos realizados no exterior, e na década de 90, em conseqüência da abertura comercial que houve em nosso país, as empresas brasileiras foram buscar atualização tecnológica no exterior, para enfrentar competidores estrangeiros. Esse movimento de internacionalização caracterizou-se principalmente pelo deslocamento de empresas do setor industrial; a internacionalização das empresas de varejo é um fenômeno mais recente. Pesquisas sobre o processo de internacionalização da empresa varejista brasileira ainda não são muito numerosas no país, o que talvez se deva ao fato de que esse fenômeno ainda é relativamente recente no cenário brasileiro. Nesse contexto o estudo objetivou investigar a relação entre as teorias sobre internacionalização de empresas e o processo de expansão de empresas de varejo brasileiras para países estrangeiros e identificar o que leva uma empresa a se deslocar para outros países, para onde se desloca (por que escolhe determinados locais em detrimento de outros), quais são os modos de entrada selecionados e como as empresas se adaptam aos novos locais, sob os conceitos de internacionalização de empresas. O estudo utilizou dados secundários provenientes de teses, dissertações, artigos e Internet, além de dados primários coletados em entrevistas em profundidade com os principais gestores de dez empresas de varejo brasileiras. A metodologia de pesquisa empregada englobou a Análise de Conteúdo e a Análise de Correspondência. Um dos resultados do trabalho foi a proposta de uma Taxonomia de Encadeamento Teórico sobre a internacionalização de empresas. A análise dos dados mostrou que todas as estruturas teóricas registradas nesta tese foram identificadas no processo de internacionalização das empresas de varejo brasileiras pesquisadas. / The decade of 1970 was characterized by the intense activity of Brazilian construction companies abroad, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. In the eighties, Brazilian organizations stood out because of the large flow of investments they made abroad and in the nineties, as a result of the trade opening made in our country, Brazilian companies sought updated technology abroad to face foreign competitors. However, the movement of internationalization is primarily characterized by the displacement of industrial companies. The internationalization of retail businesses is a more recent phenomenon. Studies on the process of internationalization of Brazilian retail companies are not numerous yet in the country. This may be due to the fact that this is a still relatively recent phenomenon in the Brazilian scene. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the internationalization theories and the expansion process of Brazilian retail companies towards other countries. Additionally, by using the concepts of international business, this work sought to identify why companies go global, where they head, which entry modes they employ and how they adapt themselves to new locations. This work has utilized secondary data retrieved from theses, dissertations, articles and internet, besides primary data collected through in-depth interviews with executives from 10 Brazilian retail companies. Content Analysis and Correspondence Analysis techniques were employed. Findings a taxonomy for theoretical comprehension of the phenomenon under investigation. Data analysis showed that all theoretical frameworks employed in this work were present in the internationalization process of Brazilian retail companies.

Issues relating to individual legal certainty and security in Sweden, tensions between governmental actions to secure the collectives needs and violations of the individual’s privacy are explored. Due to the tensions between privacy and securitization, this will be achieved through the securitization framework of the Copenhagen school in international relations. A qualitative content analysis using archived files from the Swedish Data Inspection Board for the period of 2001 to 2014 is presented. Changes in discourses, diversions between the individual’s legal certainty and governmental action are noted. Needs for revision of old legal texts and rhetoric are highlighted.

Human trafficking is a heinous human rights violation, impacting as many as 40.3 million people around the globe (Global Slavery Index, 2018). In the United States of America (USA), the Trafficking Victims Protections Act of 2000 (TVPA), and its subsequent reauthorizations, comprise the bulk of the federal response to human trafficking. As a result, federal policies have received a lot of praise and scrutiny in the literature. However, less is known about statewide legislative efforts to combat human trafficking. To fill this gap, the current study analyzes state human trafficking statutes through content analysis. Overall, state legislation could best be described as a hodge-podge of laws related to three themes: 1) conceptualizing human trafficking, 2) victim centeredness, and 3) perpetrator centeredness. Accordingly, several recommendations are made that would reduce inconsistency and increase implementation of evidence-based policy. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this research study is to analyze mental health related content on the three network affiliated stations in Las Vegas, Nevada. Online web stories from broadcast stations are analyzed in terms of the content and tone. These areas of analysis relate directly to the mass communication theories agenda setting and framing. Historically, mental health news reports have included content and tone that together can potentially create and further stigmatizing sentiments about those with mental illnesses. This study utilizes a chi square test to determine if a relationship exists between the three network affiliated stations, four a priori coded mental health content categories, and a rating of the overall tone using a value dimensions scale. Supplemental analyses include frequency evaluations of what has been called “people-first” versus “non-people first” language. By analyzing mental health related content at these three stations in the Las Vegas market this study aims to add heuristic value to the study of mental health reporting in broadcast news. This study will allow for additional research to further test relationships between stations, content, and tone in the Las Vegas and other news markets. Ultimately, this study provides analysis and discussion of the important role of agenda setting and framing in the news industry as it relates to the coverage of mental health related content.

Ethnic minority research in the U.S. is important to study because of the increase of ethnic minorities over the past several decades. Content analyses help to track the progress of ethnic minority research and guide researchers to future areas of study. Journals of adolescence have been analyzed and coded in the following areas of methodology of the article: article topic, article funding by topic, funding agencies, geographic location of sample, and measures used. A steady increase in ethnic minority research by article topic, funding, and measures was found for some groups.

Previous research has shown a difference on the athletes’ portrayal based on gendered language use on television broadcasting of sporting events. A content analysis on the 2018 Tennis US Open Championship Weekend for both men’s and women’s tennis matches explains the structure of the broadcasting commentating done by the network that has the rights to this tournament. The study looks at different categories of the content of the comments and the descriptors that are used to refer to both female and male athletes. Framing and priming theories were the theoretical frameworks for this study. Findings revealed no significant change was observed with athletic skill and strategy-based comments for either gender. The findings also showed that descriptors related to emotionality were more common in the commentary with women.

Literature describes different stances with respect to conceptual and procedural mathematical knowledge. The concept-driven versus skills-orientated perspectives have led to “math wars” between researchers, while some mathematics education specialists advocate that the five strands of mathematical proficiency should be seen as interconnected. Conceptual knowledge is the knowledge of concepts or principles, and procedural knowledge the knowledge of procedures. Both types of knowledge are critical components of mathematical proficiency. This study used a mixed methods design to analyse the relationship between conceptual and procedural knowledge. The qualitative content analysis investigated relations between procedural and conceptual knowledge within the solutions of 33 calculus items. The analysis included the number of procedural and conceptual steps needed to answer the item, item label and item classification into one of four knowledge classes based on the type and quality of knowledge. The items were included in a data collection instrument used for quantitative analysis. Rasch analysis was performed to measure item difficulty and person proficiency, and describe the underlying cognitive construct between items. The Rasch person–item map confirmed that items were not clustered together per class and that item difficulty was not linked to the number of procedural and/or conceptual steps needed to do the mathematics. Confirmatory factor analysis showed over-correlation between classes and that defined classes cannot be separated, confirming integration of procedural and conceptual cognitive processes. The relationship between procedural and conceptual knowledge within and between items is complex. Findings indicated that item solutions drew on both procedural and conceptual components that cannot be separated. Solutions could follow more than one approach and analyses could differ, since what is conceptual for one student could be procedural for another. Therefore, teaching strategies should navigate between concepts and procedures, methods and representations. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / PhD / Unrestricted

With parallel increases in both climate change effects and heightening tension between state actors within the Arctic Region, a detrimental outcome is possible if not properly understood. Handling such intricate relationship between climate change, its impacts on human society and conflicts, the Environmental Conflict lens offers a useful perspective that identifies structural conditions and behavioural mechanisms created by climate change, as drivers of conflict. However, a lack within the theoretical understanding of knowing if theorised tenants are present within the perception of actors experiencing empirical reality, does present a problem. Therefore, this research wished to answer how state actors within the Arctic Region describe the theorised structural conditions and behavioural mechanism argued to drive conflict from an Environmental Conflict lens. The study conducted a Qualitative Content Analysis to gain this understanding, focusing on the state actors respective Artic Policy/Strategy, which represented their respective perception. The research was able to identify several instances of the theoretical concepts within each case and to gain an understanding of the state actors’ description derived from the data analysis. The insights gained by the study, call for further theoretical development of Environmental Conflict lens and more proactive research engagements with the Arctic Region.