In a tourism context, the image potential customers have of a destination is a very important issue. Images play an essential role in destination choice matters and in this regard, as tourism services are intangible, images are said to become even more important than reality. The concepts of destination image and destination marketing and branding are closely interrelated. The ultimate goal of any destination is to influence possible tourists’ travel-related decision making and choice through marketing activities. Although it is not possible to influence all aspects of image formation, tourism marketers try to strategically establish, reinforce and, if necessary, change the image of their destination by communicating a strong destination brand. Hence, image studies are considered to be a vital part of marketing and branding strategies. However, not everyone has the same image of a destination, as image perception changes according to different influences, such as personal, cultural and psychological ones. The purpose of this thesis was primarily to give an overview of destination image theory and its interrelationships to destination marketing and branding. In this respect, the study aimed at finding out in how far a DMO can achieve to develop a marketing strategy that is consistent and somewhat standardised, and yet adapted to the individual market and culture in which it is operated. Furthermore, the study wanted to investigate whether marketing approaches should be changed for people with different images of a country as a destination, or if alternatively a “one-size-fits-all” approach should be employed. In addition to a literature review, a case study made it possible to show how a real organisation handles those questions. The case of the Austrian National Tourist Office ANTO provides a good example of an internationally operating destination marketing organisation that uses market research, and among others also image studies, to adapt its marketing mix and branding approach to the individual markets’ characteristics and the image held of the destination Austria. By means of applying the qualitative method of personal in-depth interviews and thorough analysis, interesting data concerning the topic of destination image and marketing could be collected and compared to the findings from literature. Results indicate that destination image studies are the foundation of successful marketing strategies and that in times of ever-increasing competitiveness, image is one of the few points of differentiation from other tourist destinations. It is necessary to be aware of the fact that customers’ cultural differences have an influence on how different they perceive images. Therefore, DMOs should have a powerful overall strategy which globally leads into one pre-defined direction, but then locally adapt this common strategy to regionally differing cultural specifics. Even though destination brands should be strong and consistent, it is not advisable to communicate the exact same image to all customers.

Office is a necessary workplace for corporate business operation in current commercial market, the maturity of office market development reflects the economy and commercial development status in different markets. The application of transacted office rental and vacancy rate as a primary data is relatively rare in pervious domestic literatures due to the difficultly of primary data collection. Therefore, the study of the correlation between office rental and vacancy rate by using primary data analysis is one of the research focus. Moreover, the lack of land supply for office development in Taipei CBD led to a rapid growth for suburban technology parks in the past decade. Corporate occupiers may relocate from the CBD to suburban technology parks due to competitive rental, improved public transportation network and information technology infrastructure. Therefore, the study of the correlation between suburban technology parks¡¦ office new supply and CBD Grade A office vacancy rate is another research focus in this thesis. The scope of study covers the Taipei CBD office submarkets and Neihu Technology Park and Nankang Software Park within suburban of Taipei City. The research method includes a literature review, market overview of CBD and suburban technology parks and empirical analysis of research data. By using correlation coefficient and ordinary least squares methods to analyze the factors, there are two finding revealed in the empirical results. Firstly, the empirical results revealed that the relationship between Taipei CBD Grade A office rental and vacancy rate is negative. Rental drop while vacancy increasing and oppositely rental increase while vacancy rate decline. The grade A rental may drop NT$27.16 per ping per month when Grade A vacancy rate increase 1%. Secondly, the empirical results revealed that the relationship between suburban technology parks¡¦ office new supply and CBD Grade A office vacancy rate is positive. The Grade A office vacancy rate may increase 1.53% when suburban technology parks increase 10,000 pings office new supply. NT$27.16 per ping per month when grade A vacancy rate increase 1%. It would be helpful for making business decisions on office leasing, real estate development and property investment if corporate occupiers, real estate developer and investor have more knowledge on office market vacancy rate and new supply information.

Recent consumer surveys and demographic analyses indicate a growing demand for pedestrian and transit designed development. This thesis presents an analysis of office rents in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area of Ontario, Canada. The effects of building quality, accessibility, and location are explored with a specific focus on the influences of walkability, public transit and private transit accessibility. The theoretical background of this research is related to the hedonic methodology, which is extensively used for explaining transaction price or rental price variations of real property. Cross sectional data of the Toronto CMA office market from the year 2010 is utilized for the hedonic price estimation. The hedonic price function is specified in the log linear form and is estimated with linear regression in SPSS. The analysis of over 2,000 asking rental rates reveals that buildings with high Walkscores and excellent accessibility to public transit and transportation infrastructure command significantly higher rents as compared to buildings with fewer nearby amenities and accessibility. The walkability findings are the first of their kind for Toronto and Canadian office markets and in line with results documented for the US office market and European office market.

The study aims to explore the service quality and the customer satisfaction of the public sector. Taking Pingtung Land Office as a case study example, applying the gaps model of service quality, the PZB model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry, 1985), and the SERVPERF scale (Cronin and Taylor, 1992, 1994), the research draws from the method of Importance Performance Analysis (IPA, Martilla and James,1977) and develops the strategies for improving service quality and customer satisfaction. The result of the study indicates that the customer whose occupation is ¡§Housewife¡¨ or whose annual income is less than 300 thousand dollars may have lower customer perception of service quality on constructs of ¡§Reliability¡¨ and ¡§Tangibles¡¨. In addition, according to the result of the analysis of variance (ANOVA), the statistically significant regression effect proves that service quality is the antecedent of customer satisfaction (R2=57.1%). Therefore, the improvement of service quality may results, ceteris paribus, in the rise of customer satisfaction. The result of IPA also indicates that the improvement on the construct of ¡§Empathy¡¨ of service quality is the most urgent task. Finally, the study proposes suggestions as follows: the improvement of the construct of ¡§Empathy¡¨ can be achieved by providing ¡§situation simulation training¡¨, ¡§flexible office hours¡¨, and ¡§behavior incentives encouraging land office clerks to act spontaneously¡¨; the improvement of the construct of ¡§Reliability¡¨ can be achieved by encouraging ¡§Housewife¡¨ volunteering for service in the land office; the improvement of the construct of ¡§Tangibles¡¨ can be achieved by land office offering modern business equipment such as providing access to the Internet.

The workplace is considered a strategic location for health promotion. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, office workers represent up to 40% of the workforce in Texas and the general nature of the type of work is sedentary. Additional study is needed on how the built environment near the worksite area impacts walking behaviors and to determine interventions effective in increasing walking as part of daily routines among office workers. The two aims of this dissertation were: 1) investigate the differences that urban and suburban settings may have on walking behavior (walk trips, walk duration, total step count) of office workers in Texas and 2) to examine the impact of a simple intervention in increasing walking within the respective land use settings. This study utilized on-line survey and travel diary, pedometer, and Geographic Information System to capture the study variables, which included personal, social and cultural, organizational, and built environmental factors. Results showed that urban office workers walk, on average, 600 steps more per day than the suburban office workers. Office workers in both land use settings on average have not met the recommended level of walking steps per day of 10,000 steps per day (Urban Mean=4,932 steps per day, Suburban Mean=4,347 steps per day). Post-intervention step count averaged 5,734 steps per day for urban office workers in contrast to 4,257 steps per day for suburban office workers. This translated to a 16% increase and 2% decrease in walking steps for urban and suburban office workers, respectively. The built environment in terms of land use setting, urban versus suburban, and availability of land use destinations showed associations with walking behavior for office workers. Destinations positively associated with the number of walking trips, including access to bookstores and coffee shops. Access to convenience stores and food establishments for suburban office workers were more relevant for walking duration. Significant destinations for the urban office workers' walking duration per week included the number of banks and food establishments within one fourth mile from their office building. The results for the second aim, testing the tailored information intervention, were informative, though not significant. The intervention did not yield a significant change in walking step count, but provided insight on opportunities for future studies.

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The research aims at benchmarking apply to local government, it proof the feasibility for public department practice benchmarking and integrate TQM spirit. In management of internal activities, the institution built benchmarking performance index, at the same time, exhibited local large-scale activities to test performance of organization act the participation and suggestion institution. The research example for Tzudying District Office, and choose Kaohsiung City Government Personnel Department as benchmarking partner. The study is to inquire about benchmarking apply on the local government office's feasibility and performance in valuation, in order to seek the complete of research outcome and practical objective. It takes¡usecond-hand data analysis¡v¡B¡uquestionnaire investigation¡vto carry on the study. In the second-hand data analysis, it consults to quote the data of Kaohsiung City Government Personnel Department. In the questionnaire investigation, by investigating the satisfactory of the masses that jointing the activity, to acquire whether the organization introduce participation and suggestion institution can enhance the activities performance. We find that it is important element about the chief of department to support benchmarking on the research, and after introducing benchmarking to the local government not only help on administration development but also it has the outstanding performance on affairs. The study proposes the following suggestions: 1. Giving more power to the chief of department is the promise of moving benchmarking. 2. Public servant's performance reward institution and benchmarking suitable to carry out for reinforce to fulfill performance management. 3. It is the only way to improve performance and sustainable development for the future government organization that emphasizing on employee's professional skill and educational training.

Architecture-Engineering-Construction industry has recently been altering the ways of managing its resources. Knowledge is considered to be among the most precious of these resources. Knowledge is a critical factor in choosing the right projects, preparing the winning bids and successfully realizing the projects. It is also a critical factor for organizations because of the fact that - due to its nature that it exists as tacit or explicit, or in between - it is hard to record and reuse. This study investigates the knowledge management issue in the practice of architecture. Face-to-face interviews have been carried out with 15 architectural offices in &Ccedil / ankaya district of Ankara. The subject domain is assumed to be experiencing problems such as managing knowledge at a strategic level. This is due to the facts that the amount and importance of tacit knowledge is significant and communication of this knowledge to other parties is the responsibility of the architectural partners. The survey found out that management of architectural knowledge is considered to be beneficial for the overall productivity of architectural offices. However, challenges such as lack of standard procedures and low profit margins in the AEC industry render this activity to be less effective on profit and innovation in design.

It will be hard to do or be easy to do when an organization starts to change. It is so called that think globally and act locally. This research is a system thinking approach of study about how an organization starts to change. It is a case study of the household-registration offices in Taipei and Kaohsiung. This case is selected with its bureaucracy in the past, but now we can see their changes. It is worthy to study more deeply. This research begins with studying the development process of the household-registration offices in Taiwan and then inquires the backgrounds and results, which could help us to understand it. This point of view focuses on the changing processes in 1990¡¦s. Household-registration offices in Taipei and Kaohsiung began their reforms from 1990 early. It is the incentive that mayors in Taipei and Kaohsiung could be elected directly by the residents in the two cities. However, computerization was the main reason that satisfied people substantially. Computerization makes the waiting time shorten. Household-registration offices could focus on many conveniences to the people further. The reform of household-registration offices in Taipei and Kaohsiung began with the simple change and it could be seen the result immediately. The reform of household-registration offices in Taipei and Kaohsiung started with some slight matters. For instance, bureau chiefs build a promotion system and a merit system, and they earned staff¡¦s support to continue making change. Improving the environment of offices could make officers happy and then change their attitudes, so it is easy to earn citizens¡¦ commendations. Merit system could promote competition among offices and make officers endeavor further. Moreover, we can say that morale, merit, and competition can make the actions of reform produce reinforce feedback loops. It should be noticed that bureau chiefs¡¦ requests and participations in reform are the key factors to start changing, and then changing will become everyone¡¦s job. The result is to earn citizens¡¦ satisfaction.

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