Abstract Haier is considered one of the miracles in electronic appliances in the twentieth century. A company was with deficit of 1.47 million RMB in 1984 and became an international and global company with 72 billion RMB in 2002 and had the average growth rate of 80% in the last twenty years. Haier has such unique and distinctive resources which have made her outstanding among the competition and she presently becomes the biggest electronic appliance manufacturer in China. Also, Haier, already a multi-national enterprise, had rapidly moved up to the top 5 ranking of the major US appliances makers in 2003. Haier¡¦s management way is well accepted internationally and her achievement is adopted as a successful business model as well as a case study in Harvard University, IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland), Kobe University (Japan) as well as many other universities in the world. With the Chinese philosophy as a base plus the total quality management concepts continuously, Haier attracts the interest of University to study and also benchmark by the other corporations. This paper uses Haier as a typical example to describe her three phase developments: building brand name, diversifying products and going multinational approach. It also analyses how the philosophical thinking of Haier¡¦s president, Zhang Ruimin, affects on the enterprise culture establishment. Besides, this study identifies Haier¡¦s distinctive resources, which constitute and create her own competitive advantage to sustain the competitiveness in the market. In addition, the research adopts Rindova and Fombrun¡¦s competitive advantage model as a guide to generate a common systemic competitive advantage model with the consideration of human interactions. The overall objective of this paper is to construct a general competitive model that can provide the same or different enterprise as reference.

In Bolivia, potato production and marketing is important for farmers' livelihoods and anecdotal information shows that cell phones and women are extremely important in the potato marketing chain. Efforts to improve incomes of poor highland potato producers should recognize roles of different actors within the chain and access to market information. This study explores the effects of access to information and gender relations within the potato chain; on farmers' market channel choice in the Tiraque Watershed (Bolivia). The analysis of qualitative information was useful to deepen the understanding of the subject and complement quantitative analysis outcomes. The main source of data comes from a survey of 400 households from the watershed. Additionally, Rapid Market Appraisal and Case Studies were used to collect qualitative data. These data was used to estimate two econometric models (Logit and MNL) to evaluate the importance of farmers and marketing characteristics on market choices. This analysis demonstrates that the determinants that affect market channel choice include marketing (time to reach the markets and the nearest paved road), production (number of plots owned by farmers) and household related variables (access to loan, cell phone ownership, location and age of the head of the household). On the other hand, some results were different than expected, that is the case of motorized transport ownership, and literacy. Another unexpected result is that even though the qualitative analysis shows that gender plays an important role in marketing activities; the econometric analysis shows that gender has no effect on farmer's market choices. / Master of Science / LTRA-3 (Watershed-based NRM for Small-scale Agriculture)

The majority of households in the hill regions of Nepal are net consumers of their agricultural produce. The harsh geographical topography, low landholdings and uncertain weather make households in the hills more susceptible to food insecurity. This research examines the role of small millets in achieving food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC in Nepal. As a project based on qualitative research, data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and focus group discussions. In addition, market and value chain analysis for small millets was conducted. The findings show that small millets have a significant role in ensuring food security, particularly for the marginalized households. The findings also show that, through their exchange properties, small millets contributed towards generating household livelihoods. Further, findings revealed the existing formal and informal markets for small millets and showed a direct correlation between small millets-based market, and food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC.

The majority of households in the hill regions of Nepal are net consumers of their agricultural produce. The harsh geographical topography, low landholdings and uncertain weather make households in the hills more susceptible to food insecurity. This research examines the role of small millets in achieving food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC in Nepal. As a project based on qualitative research, data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observations and focus group discussions. In addition, market and value chain analysis for small millets was conducted. The findings show that small millets have a significant role in ensuring food security, particularly for the marginalized households. The findings also show that, through their exchange properties, small millets contributed towards generating household livelihoods. Further, findings revealed the existing formal and informal markets for small millets and showed a direct correlation between small millets-based market, and food and livelihood security for the people of Dhikur Pokhari VDC.