The thesis Brand audit of Mercedes-Benz in the category of premium passenger cars is concerned with the evaluation of the position of the brand Mercedes-Benz on the Czech market in comparison with its biggest competitors - BMW and Audi. This is also the main goal of the thesis. The first part of the thesis is focused on defining brand and terms that are connected with brand. Furthermore there is an explanation of brand management, more precisely positioning, marketing programs and secondary associations that are the basic tools of brand building and also introduction and explanation of brand audit. In the second part profiles of brands are assembled and brand audit of Mercedes-Benz based on results of qualitative and qualitative research is made. The conclusion consists of current brand positioning and brand management of Mercedes-Benz. This is also a secondary goal of the thesis.

The work deals with the analysis of a marketing campaign to place the new Mercedes A class on the market. The aim of the thesis is to evaluate marketing communication and propose its improvement. This aim is based on the analysis results of marketing communications and marketing research's results. The theoretical part is focused on the theory of marketing communication, and situational analysis. In the introduction of the practical part of my thesis I deal with automotive market and the closer description of cars Mercedes Benz Class A. There is also elaborated situational analysis and analysis of marketing communication. Through survey I try to verify the achievement of the marketing communication and determine what changes causes communication in awareness, knowledge, attitudes and purchase intentions of the target group. Based on the obtained results are formulated conclusion and recommendations.

Thesis (M.B.A. (Rhodes Investec Business School)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA)

The aim of this thesis is to explore the role of the diagrams as generative design tools in architectural design process. Identifying the utilization of the diagrams as infrastructural and organizational elements in the design process, it aims to be concentrate on their potency for generating novel design concepts. The search has been for the possibilities of design processes developed and manipulated not through analytical use of diagrams that represents the already established relationships but through their generative use that is responsible for the proliferation of ideas for novel design concepts. The alteration in the definition of diagrams, their active role in the generation of design ideas, and their progression during the design process, as well as the ways in which they contribute to the delay of formal concerns through the practice are scrutinized. In order to explore the generative and mediating roles of diagrams in architectural design practice, this thesis examines the utilization of diagrams by exemplifying the strategies of UN Studio. Through exploration of their pioneering projects, the M&ouml / bius House, the Arnhem Central Station and the Mercedes Benz Museum, it aims to unfold their design methods regarding diagrams. Diagrams are examined in terms of the way they are utilized and operated from conceptualization to building. While standing at a critical distance, it argues for an architectural design process where design ideas are formed and evolved by utilization of diagrams as generative tools from the initial phases of the design to the actualization of the building.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:48:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Magalhaes Rodrigues.pdf: 1135925 bytes, checksum: 453b21c09c753046d5b47bf1bb5d1878 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-23 / The present dissertation is focused on the experience of the international trade union organization of workers since MBB in SBC. I highlight "since" because the very nature of the process led to the global connection with employees located at industrial units in foreigner countries of the same transnational company. Among several political players as well as in the academic world, there is the controversial issue about the importance of the union movement not only in Brazil, but also internationally. In other words, the main issue is about the effectiveness of international trade unionism in the presence of the capital hegemonic globalization. On one hand concerns if it is possible that this practice means an alternative to the hegemonic model, even being, nowadays, in an incipient stage. On the other hand if the international trade union perspective can contribute to the maintenance or new achievements of the workers. Such issues are strongly important, mainly in a world of intense and growing globalization of all sectors of society. There was an indication of positive responses to both questions above, suggesting that, despite the current worldwide crisis, involving the international trade union movement as well, is an feasible strategy and even essential to the worker. The methodology, besides the theoretical references, dealt with field research collecting primary data and interviews with the main protagonists of the international trajectory, which completes 30 years in 2014 / A presente dissertação analisa a experiência de organização sindical internacional a partir dos trabalhadores na Mercedes-Benz do Brasil na cidade de São Bernardo do Campo. Digo a partir , pois a própria natureza do processo levou à conexão global com os trabalhadores localizados em unidades de outros países da mesma transnacional. Há, entre os atores políticos mais diversos, bem como no mundo acadêmico, a controversa questão sobre a importância do movimento sindical não só no Brasil, mas também em nível internacional. Isto é, contesta-se a respeito da efetividade do sindicalismo internacional diante a globalização hegemônica do capital. Uma questão diz respeito se as práticas adotadas, mesmo que ainda incipientes, significam uma futura alternativa ao modelo hegemônico. Outra trata se a perspectiva internacional sindical em curso pode contribuir para a manutenção ou novas conquistas para os trabalhadores. Tais questões são vitais, especialmente em um mundo de intensa e ainda crescente globalização em todos os setores sociais. Evidenciou-se a indicação de respostas positivas às dúvidas acima, sugerindo que, não obstante a crise atual, também, do movimento sindical internacional, trata-se de uma estratégia exequível e mesmo indispensável ao trabalhador. A metodologia seguida, além das referências teóricas, lançou mão, basicamente, da pesquisa de campo por meio do estudo de fontes primárias e entrevistas junto aos principais protagonistas da trajetória internacional que em 2014 completa 30 anos

This study aims to evaluate the preferences of drivers in Sweden, in regard to incar digital media players. As interfaces in cars, to some extent, are taking over thefunctionality of physical buttons and knobs, it is increasingly important for carmanufacturers to better understand what their users prefer.Through an analysis of current trends and measurements of user preferences, wehave identified areas for improvement and further development of these mediaplayer interfaces. These suggested improvements are as follows: • Using the screen real estate for important items • Emphasizing important elements by more efficient use of spacing andsizing • Removing or hiding menu items that are used sparingly • Using the concept of familiarity to create more user-friendly interfaces

Thesis (MA (Political Science))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010.

Hochsch. für Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialwiss., Diss.--St. Gallen, 2007.

I started writing this thesis not only to obtain a doctoral degree, but also to compile in a particular way all the work that I have done during this time. The articles published during these years can only give a short overview of my research task. I decided to give my own perspective of the things I have learned and the results I have obtained. Some sections are directly the published articles, but some other are not and contain a significant amount of unpublished data. Even in some cases the published plots have been modified / altered to provide more insight or to maintain consistency. Historical perspectives often provide a deep understanding of the problems and have been briefly discussed in some chapters. This thesis contains theoretical and computer simulation studies to under-stand effects of spatial correlation on dynamics in several complex systems. Based on the different phenomena studied, the thesis has been divided into three major parts: I. Pair hydrophobicity, composition-dependent anomalies and structural trans-formations in aqueous binary mixtures II. Microscopic analysis of hydrophobic force law in a two dimensional (2D) water-like model system III. Diffusion of a tagged particle on a rugged energy landscape with spatial correlations The three parts have been further divided into ten chapters. In the following we provide part-wise and chapter-wise outline of the thesis. Part I consists of six chapters, where we focus on several important aqueous binary mixtures of amphiphilic molecules. To start with, Chapter 1 provides an introduction to non-ideality often encountered in aqueous binary mixtures. Here we briefly discuss the existing ideas of structural transformations associated with solvation of a foreign molecule in water, with particular emphasis on the classic “iceberg” model. Over the last decade, several investigations, especially neutron scattering and diffraction experiments, have questioned the validity of existing theories and have given rise to an alternate molecular picture involving micro aggregation of amphiphilic co-solvents in their aqueous binary mixtures. Such microheterogeneity was also supported by other experiments and simulations. In Chapter 2, we present our calculation of the separation dependence of potential of mean force (PMF) between two methane molecules in water-dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) mixture, using constrained molecular dynamics simulation. It helps us to understand the composition-dependence of pair hydrophobicity in this binary solvent. We find that pair hydrophobicity in the medium is surprisingly enhanced at DMSO mole fraction xDMSO ≈ 0.15, which explains several anomalous properties of this binary mixture – including the age-old mystery of DMSO being a protein stabilizer at lower concentration and protein destabilizer at higher concentration. Chapter 3 starts with discussion of non-monotonic composition dependence of several other properties in water-DMSO binary mixture, like diffusion coefficient, local composition fluctuation and fluctuations in total dipole moment of the system. All these properties exhibit weak to strong anomalies at low solute concentration. We attempt to provide a physical interpretation of such anomalies. Previous analyses often suggested occurrence of a “structural transformation” (or, microheterogeneity) in aqueous binary mixtures of amphiphilic molecules. We show that this structural transformation can be characterized and better understood under the purview of percolation theory. We define the self-aggregates of DMSO as clusters. Analysis of fractal dimension and cluster size distribution with reference to corresponding “universal” scaling exponents, combined with calculation of weight-averaged fraction of largest cluster and cluster size weight average, reveal a percolation transition of the clusters of DMSO in the anomalous concentration range. The percolation threshold appears at xDMSO ≈ 0.15. The molecular picture suggests that DMSO molecules form segregated islands or micro-aggregates at concentrations below the percolation threshold. Close to the critical concentration, DMSO molecules start forming a spanning cluster which gives rise to a bi-continuous phase (of water-rich region and DMSO-rich region) beyond the threshold of xDMSO ≈ 0.15. This percolation transition might be responsible for composition-dependent anomalies of the binary mixture in this low concentration regime. Similar phenomenon is observed for another amphiphilic molecule – ethanol, as discussed in Chapter 4. We again find composition dependent anomalies in several thermophysical properties, such as local composition fluctuation, radial distribution function of ethyl groups and self-diffusion co-efficient of ethanol. Earlier experiments often suggested distinct structural regimes in water-ethanol mixture at different concentrations. Using the statistical mechanical techniques introduced in the previous chapter, we show that ethanol clusters undergo a percolation transition in the anomalous concentration range. Despite the lack of a precise determination of the percolation threshold, estimate lies in the ethanol mole fraction range xEtOH ≈ 0.075 - 0.10. This difficulty is probably due to transient nature of the clusters (as will be discussed in Chapter 6) and finite size of the system. The scaling of ethanol cluster size distribution and the fractal behavior of ethanol clusters, however, conclusively demonstrate their “spanning” nature. To develop a unified understanding, we further study the composition-dependent anomalies and structural transformations in another amphiphilic molecule, tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) in Chapter 5. Similar to the above-mentioned aqueous binary mixtures of DMSO and ethanol, we demonstrate here that the anomalies occur due to local structural changes involving self-aggregation of TBA molecules and percolation transition of TBA clusters at xTBA ≈ 0.05. At this percolation threshold, we observe a lambda-type divergence in the fluctuation of the size of the largest TBA cluster, reminiscent of a critical point. Interestingly, water molecules themselves exhibit a reverse percolation transition at higher TBA concentration ≈ 0.45, where large spanning water clusters now break-up into small clusters. This is accompanied by significant divergence of the fluctuations in the size of the largest water cluster. This second transition gives rise to another set of anomalies around. We conclude this part of the thesis with Chapter 6, where we introduce a novel method for understanding the stability of fluctuating clusters of DMSO, ethanol and TBA in their respective aqueous binary mixtures. We find that TBA clusters are the most stable, whereas ethanol clusters are the most transient among the three representative amphiphilic co-solvents. This correlates well with the amplitude of anomalies observed in these three binary mixtures. Part II deals with the topic of hydrophobic force law in water. In the introductory Chapter 7 of this part, we briefly discuss the concept of hydrophobicity which is believed to be of importance in understanding / explaining the initial processes involved in protein folding. We also discuss the experimental observations of Israelachvili (on the force between hydrophobic plates) and the empirical hydrophobic force law. We briefly touch upon the theoretical back-ground, including Lum-Chandler-Weeks theory. We conclude this chapter with a brief account of relevant and important in silico studies so far. In Chapter 8, we present our studies on Mercedes-Benz (MB) model – a two dimensional model system where circular disks interact with an anisotropic potential. This model was introduced by Ben-Naim and was later parametrized by Dill and co-workers to reproduce many of the anomalous properties of water. Using molecular dynamics simulation, we show that hydrophobic force law is indeed observed in MB model, with a correlation length of ξ=3.79. The simplicity of the model enables us to unravel the underlying physics that leads to this long range force between hydrophobic plates. In accordance with Lum-Chandler-Weeks theory, density fluctuation of MB particles (leading to cavitation) between the hydrophobic rods is clearly distinguishable – but it is not sufficiently long ranged, with density correlation extending only up to ζ=2.45. We find that relative orientation of MB molecules plays an important role in the origin of the hydrophobic force in long range. We define appropriate order parameters to capture the role of orientation, and briefly discuss a plausible approach of an orientation-dependent theory to explain this phenomenon. Part III consists of two chapters and focuses on the diffusion of a Brownian particle on a Gaussian random energy landscape. We articulate the rich history of the problem in the introductory Chapter 9. Despite broad applicability and historical importance of the problem, we have little knowledge about the effect of ruggedness on diffusion at a quantitative level. Every study seems to use the expression of Zwanzig [Proc. Natl. Acad. U.S.A, 85, 2029 (1988)] who derived the effective diffusion coefficient, Deff =D0 exp (-β2ε2 )for a Gaussian random surface with variance ε, but validity of the same has never been tested rigorously. In Chapter 10, we introduce two models of Gaussian random energy surface – a discrete lattice and a continuous field. Using computer simulation and theoretical analyses, we explore many different aspects of the diffusion process. We show that the elegant expression of Zwanzig can be reproduced ex-actly by Rosenfeld diffusion-entropy scaling relationship. Our simulations show that Zwanzig’s expression overestimates diffusion in the uncorrelated Gaussian random lattice – differing even by more than an order of magnitude at moderately high ruggedness (ε>3.0). The disparity originates from the presence of “three-site traps” (TST) on the landscape – which are formed by deep minima flanked by high barriers on either side. Using mean first passage time (MFPT) formalism, we derive an expression for the effective diffusion coefficient, Deff =D0 exp ( -β2ε2)[1 +erf (βε/2)]−1 in the presence of TSTs. This modified expression reproduces the simulation results accurately. Further, in presence of spatial correlation we derive a general expression, which reduces to Zwanzig’s form in the limit of infinite spatial correlation and to the above-mentioned equation in absence of correlation. The Gaussian random field has an inherent spatial correlation. Diffusion coefficient obtained from the Gaussian field – both by simulations and analytical methods – establish the effect of spatial correlation on random walk. We make special note of the fact that presence of TSTs at large ruggedness gives rise to an apparent breakdown of ergodicity of the type often encountered in glassy liquids. We characterize the same using non-Gaussian order parameter, and show that this “breakdown” scales with ruggedness following an asymptotic power law. We have discussed the scope of future work at the end of each chapter when-ever appropriate.

Primarily, this research study was concerned with the evaluation of the brand campus concept implemented at then DaimlerChrysler South Africa in 2002, as a case study. Pretoria-based Mercedes-Benz South Africa (Pty) Ltd. (MBSA) is a subsidiary of global vehicle manufacturer Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG (DBAG). They are responsible for assembling, distributing and retailing, certain Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi vehicle brands, and spare parts. The landmark 1998 DaimlerChrysler global ‘merger of equals’ was preceded by the 1995 joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi Motor Corporation. Consequently, three brands (Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler and Mitsubishi) were retailed and marketed under DaimlerChrysler South Africa (Pty) Ltd. (DCSA), positioned next to each other in the same showroom. This report identifies key challenges stemming from this approach, namely: brand strength dilution, more than 80 multi-franchised dealers and multi-branded showrooms, service capacity problems, old working environment and infrastructure, and perceived intra-brand competition. The research evidence suggests that these problems prompted then DCSA to launch the 2000 Dealer Network Strategy (DNS). In the grand scheme of things, the DNS intervention entailed partitioning the dealer network into five brand centres in five metro regions, and eighteen market centres in the rural areas. The brand campus concept was borne out of DNS and proved to be a masterstroke since, the primary focus was on streamlining the retail facilities for DCSA vehicle sales, service and spare parts for both the passenger and commercial vehicles. This study highlights key pillars of the brand campus concept, namely: profitability, brand focus, customer orientation and diversity. The challenge was to address seven major drivers of the brand campus concept, namely: after-sales vehicle support, vehicle service capacity, lead-times, spare parts availability, sales information propagation, behavior of sales personnel and the overall vehicle dealership appearance. Semi-structured interviews constituted part of the evaluation based on the perspectives of five customers, three dealer principals and two MBSA marketing executives. The research evidence, which also came from MBSA documentation and direct observation, shows that this innovative concept has been remarkably successful.