published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

<p>Nowadays global market is quite attractive for high competition environment.  First is to reduce risks and uncertainties of the business in their home countries. Second is to exploit the growing global market for goods and services which can lead to economies of scale and the increasing of market share. In order to be visible in global market, brands can be used to play an important role. From marketing point of view, brands are the means that consumers use to distinguish products and services based on essential and non-essential attributes and they are a source of business’s differential advantage. Furthermore, brands communicate tangible and intangible advantages and are attractive to a range of feeling. In order to make decisions for brand strategy, branding plays an important role. Critical advantage of branding is for product identification, and it is also the key element for marketers to differentiate a product from its rivals. However, branding provides many benefits apart from identification and differentiation of products</p>

This dissertation explores the complex structures and diverse experiences of globalization through the specific analytical lens of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). CBNRM is an undertaking which is fundamentally local but also integrally connected to transnational conservation ideology and national structures of authority. While recent critiques of community-based conservation projects have challenged the universal efficacy of the approach, CBNRM continues to be a ubiquitous conservation paradigm and to provide lingering hope for local empowerment through resource management. Focusing on two community-based conservation groups formed in Tanzania and Zanzibar, this dissertation looks at the experience of local groups attempting to engage with broader national or international conservation networks by focusing on three tropes of globalization theory: intersections between traditional ecological knowledge and western science, the relationship between civil society and the state, and the specific mechanisms for local engagement with national and global entities. The community groups in this study use dynamic and adaptive strategies to channel resources into their communities. However, they also face significant structural constraints, many of which reveal the neocolonial effects of transnational conservation ideology. This work explores both the factors limiting or manipulating local participation in resource management and the strategies used by these two community-based conservation groups to ensure their participation in spite of those limitations.

More than 2.7 billion people have less than US$2 a day on which to live. The world's 358 richest people have more money than the combined annual incomes of countries with 45% of the world's population. Traditionally social and political philosophy has focused on intra-national issues and institutions. But the fact that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected raises an important philosophical question: To what, if anything, are the global poor entitled? This book does two things. First, it argues that to be legitimate, the global institutional system must do what it can to enable people to meet some of their basic needs. Second, it considers which ways of altering the global institutional system might make it more legitimate.

Sammanfattning I dagens samhälle har förändringstakten och ökad individualism inneburit att individen måste ompröva tankar och värderingar utifrån de för tillfället rådande förutsättningarna. En vägledning för att ändå skapa en stabil bild av identiteten är genom personliga varumärken. Det innebär att en individ framhäver sina unika egenskaper på arbetsmarknaden. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka vilka faktorer som bidragit till fenomenet personliga varumärkens framväxt, vilka likheter som finns mellan en individs personliga varumärke och identitet, samt hur framtiden för personliga varumärken kan tänkas se ut. Teorierna som används är Giddens teorier om modernitetens följder, samt Stiers teorier om identitet. Studien har en kvalitativ ansats och datainsamling har skett genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Informanterna har bestått av tre personer som arbetar inom Human Resources, och som dagligen kommer i kontakt med personliga varumärken. Resultatet visar på att framväxten av personliga varumärken kan bero på utvecklingen av individualismen och globaliseringen. Sociala medier har en betydande roll för personliga varumärken. Individens identitet, självuppfattning samt medvetenhet om hur omgivningen ser på individen har betydelse för framtiden.

This dissertation examines the ways in which socio-cultural, economic and religious ideologies shape discourses on women’s rights, higher education and empowerment in Ghana. The study starts from the premise that female identity in Ghana is constructed through discourses of reproduction that produce and reproduce unequal gender relations that negatively impact women’s higher socio-economic and educational attainments. Consequently, discourses of women’s rights and empowerment are inextricably linked to normative reproductive labour expectations. Using a postcolonial feminist theoretical framework, I argue that women’s rights and empowerment issues must be located within particular historical, local and global socio-cultural and political discourses in postcolonial societies. Subsequently, this study situates women’s rights concerns within the larger framework of global systemic inequalities that reinforce the local socio-cultural, political and economic disadvantages of women in Ghana. I interviewed women’s rights activists, conducted focus group discussions with male and mostly female participants during an intensive six-month field study. In line with postcolonial feminist epistemologies, I consider participants as knowledgeable subjects in the production of knowledge about their lived realities, by centering their voices and experiences in my analyses. The experiences of research participants (heterogeneous as they are) provide excellent insights into transnational feminisms, gendered postcolonial landscapes, and global cultural patriarchal hegemonies. These experiences also illustrate how global discourses of rights provide leverage to simultaneously challenge and politicize colonial discourses of race and gender in the global south. / Thesis (Ph.D, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-02-08 16:23:06.155

Recently, many authors from various theoretical backgrounds have written books or articles trying to clarify what the role of the sovereign state is within the wider political context of “global politics.” This thesis seeks to critically engage with the way in which this debate has been framed by the vast majority of these authors. Indeed, while most authors frame this debate as an essentially empirical disagreement concerning the objective composition of global politics, we will be arguing that it is really a debate that concerns the problem of political foundation and the possibly changing nature of the dominant ways of answering this problem in contemporary “global politics.” From this perspective, the vast majority of those involved in this debate simply pass over - as somehow analytically uninteresting - most of the questions that would really need to be explained and understood. This thesis seeks to address this crucial oversight

This thesis demonstrates how two literary works ? Arnold Stadler's <em>Ein hinreissender Schrotth??ndler</em> (1999) and Andreas Maier's <em>Klausen</em> (2002) ? can be read as part of the globalization discourse. As a theoretical basis for the textual analysis the thesis first develops an understanding of the concept of globalization which forms a background against which the two literary works can be read. By embedding literature into the sociological theories of globalization it is possible to examine to what extent the two novels reflect and/or generate particular aspects of globalization. <br /><br /> Both texts are set largely in provincial towns, and the regions themselves play commanding roles in the stories being told. This focus on the provincial takes on an ironic appearance in the era of globalization where one would assume that localities have lost meaning. It is therefore useful to look at theories that broach the issue of the tense relation between globality and locality. Since no universally accepted definition of globalization exists, it is necessary to establish the crucial aspects of the phenomenon to be applied in the analysis of the novels by examining the work of various theorists on the topic. <br /><br /> The prominent model of 'glocalization,' originated by the sociologist Roland Robertson to refer to 'global localization,' offers useful categories for the analysis of the provincial in the era of globalization. In this model the simultaneity of global and local processes is assumed and with it the alleged antagonism of the 'global' and the 'local' is overcome. Claiming those dynamics Robertson's model can serve as a confirmation of the arguments put forward in this thesis which looks at literature about the 'local' through the prism of globalization. Other theories relating to explicit local dynamics are presented to round out the model of 'glocalization. ' In addition, the thesis takes into account normative ideas regarding the province in the global era. <br /><br /> The textual analysis that follows the delineation of the model of 'glocalization' demonstrates how the novels illustrate the global and local processes postulated by the model. The investigation also explains how the literary texts themselves evaluate the provinces portrayed. The results of the examination show that selected aspects of the globalization discourse have found their way into two contemporary German-language novels and therefore into German literary discourse. Even though the two novels deal with different ideas from the discourse, and even reject to a certain extent some of these concepts, they each reveal a particular literary manner of echoing the processes of globalization. Finally, the thesis demonstrates that the globalization discourse is of use for the interpretation of literary texts.

On September 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York City, Washington, DC and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, initiated a new global awareness and fear among citizens of the United States as well as others around the world. In this context of a flattening and fearful world described by Thomas Friedman in his two post 9/11 books, organizational communication has been responding to and participating within a widening scope of change and fear. In recognizing this tumultuous time, there's a desire to find a constructive way forward and to consider possible theorists from other historical moments who might guide our way. This dissertation examines the life and work of Mary Parker Follett who offers meaningful insight for ethical practice in such a time as this within organizational communication.&lt;br&gt; Follett's life can be understood through both her experiences and her writing along with the frameworks and trajectory that created context for her writing. In chapter two, a biographical sketch makes connections between the significance of Follett's work and the timeline and people of her life. The chapter looks at four sections. The first section features her early years and life in Quincy, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. The second section looks at Follett's engagement at Cambridge with the Harvard Annex. The third section explores her work with neighborhood center movements, rooted in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, but eventually taking Follett into a larger national scene. The last section looks at Follett's engagement with marketplace realities on both sides of the Atlantic that takes the narrative up to her abrupt death in 1933.&lt;br&gt; Chapter three explores the historical moment through six primary philosophical movements. Following in the tradition of Mary Parker Follett who moved across academic discipline boundaries, the chapter pulls from a variety of academic perspectives including philosophy, sociology, economics, politics and religion. Beginning with postmodernity, the chapter also looks at feminism and postcolonialism as broader critiques within the field of organizational communication. Lastly, post-industrialism, post-Christendom and post-Americanism, which are situated in particular fields and contexts, are explored as manifestations of the other movements. Underlying all of these areas is Thomas Friedman's assertion from his books that the world has become increasingly interconnected and accessible.&lt;br&gt; Chapter 4 explores Follett's writing along with the fusion of horizon with organizational communication. Mary Parker Follett was a Gestalt theory advocate believing that there was an invitation to understand things as a whole without diminishing the parts. The dissertation explores both the parts and whole of Follett's work.&lt;br&gt; The books and posthumously published lectures offer a glimpse of her life and engagement. Follett's first book The Speaker of the House of Representatives was published when she was a student in 1898. The second book The New State was published in 1918 in the midst of the Great War. The third book Creative Experience arrived six years later. Two posthumous books were published in the 40s: Dynamic Administration and Freedom and Coordination. These mostly featured her late-in-life lectures from after Creative Experience among business leaders.&lt;br&gt; The last chapter explores the fusion of horizons or intersectionality of the work of Mary Parker Follett for today's historical moment. In what ways can her “saintly” way be understood? The chapter investigates particularly where Follett intersects with popular scholarship updates in organizational communication. The dissertation then moves toward cultivating a "conscientization" of Follett for organizational communication. Lastly, the research looks for ways that Follett might be able to illuminate a little ethical way forward. The conclusions explore some of the reasons for Follett's relative hiddenness in organizational communication, then turns toward finding some of those reasons to serve as significant insights and impetus as to why Follett might be engaged. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Communication and Rhetorical Studies / PhD; / Dissertation;