The purpose of the research study was to build a deeper understanding of negative brand experiences for consumers at the Bottom of the pyramid segment. The research took an approach of looking at a negative brand experience from end to end, by focusing on elements such as brand contacts, triggers and customer response across different experience dimensions. The literature asserts that for companies to succeed at the Bottom of the Pyramid they need to forego existing assumptions, companies must realise that low income consumers are brand conscious in order to build successful brands. Building successful brands at this market involves offering more than just a functional offering but creating an emotional bond through positive experiences. Such experiences are created each time one is in contact with one of the brand touch-points. The qualitative study showed that consumers value being treated with respect in addition to the provision of a product or service. It also shows that negative brand experiences can happen at various points for both products and services irrespective of whether a product is regarded as hedonic or utilitarian. The nature of negative word of mouth within this segment needs to be explored further as the study showed that there are other factors that influence one to spread negative word of mouth. The research study also shows that consumers are sensitive to brands that demonstrate not to care or those that break trust as such experiences lead to strong negative emotions. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Den här studien har som syfte att belysa och skapa förståelse för förskollärarnas uppfattning om konflikthantering, hur de förebygger och hanterar de konflikter som sker i barngruppen. Konflikter i barngruppen är något som förskollärarna i verksamheten möter dagligen, och hur dessa hanteras har en stor inverkan på barnens utveckling. Tidigare forskning belyser konflikter som en normal del av livet samt förmågan att kunna hantera konflikter har en stor betydelse. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten har sin grund i en konflikthanterings pyramid som visar på hur ett helhetsarbete med konflikter kan genomföras. Studien har genomförts utifrån en kvalitativ ansats där det genomförts tio semistrukturerade intervjuer med utbildade förskollärare. Resultatet visar på att det finns en medvetenhet kring konflikthantering, där det framkommer att det finns olika strategier som alla jobbar mot samma mål, att hantera och förebygga en konflikt. Resultatet visar också att det finns en osäkerhet hos pedagoger i hur de ska förhålla sig till en konflikt och när de bör agera för att ingripa i rätt läge. / <p>Betyg i Ladok 210606.</p>

The growth of mobile penetration in Africa has seen a rise in marketers seeking new ways of using mobile marketing to improve their business and develop sustainable marketing strategies. An empirical study on BOP consumers living in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, comprising a survey of a sample of 385 respondents, was conducted. The measurement items were assessed through six hypotheses using Structural Equation Modelling with Smart PLS 3 software. The results confirm that there is a significant relationship between social influence and trust, price sensitivity and purchase intention, service quality and trust and lastly, between service quality and satisfaction. The relationship between trust and purchase intention and the relationship between satisfaction and purchase intention are not significant. The relationship between service quality and satisfaction showed the strongest significance amongst the hypotheses, whereas the weakest relationship showing the least significance effect amongst the hypotheses is between satisfaction and purchase intention. Implications of the study suggest that managers should consider the BOP consumer differently when marketing to them as they have different consumer behaviours to other market segments. For future research, more research should be done on the BOP with regard to their adaptions to mobile marketing as this will help marketers to find better marketing strategies for their businesses to better serve this market segment. Recommendations and limitations on mobile marketing adoption within BOP are discussed.

No description available.

Spaceborne sensors, which collect imagery of the Earth in various spectral bands, are limited by the data transmission rates. As a result the multispectral bands are transmitted at a lower resolution and only the panchromatic band is transmitted at its full resolution. The information contained in the multispectral bands is an invaluable tool for land use mapping, urban feature extraction, etc. However, the limited spatial resolution reduces the appeal and value of this information. Pan sharpening techniques enhance the spatial resolution of the multispectral imagery by extracting the high spatial resolution of the panchromatic band and adding it to the multispectral images. There are many different pan sharpening methods available like the ones based on the Intensity-Hue-Saturation and the Principal Components Analysis transformation. But these methods cause heavy spectral distortion of the multispectral images. This is a drawback if the pan sharpened images are to be used for classification based applications. In recent years, multiresolution based techniques have received a lot of attention since they preserve the spectral fidelity in the pan sharpened images. Many variations of the multiresolution based techniques exist. They differ based on the transform used to extract the high spatial resolution information from the images and the rules used to synthesize the pan sharpened image. The superiority of many of the techniques has been demonstrated by comparing them with fairly simple techniques like the Intensity-Hue-Saturation or the Principal Components Analysis. Therefore there is much uncertainty in the pan sharpening community as to which technique is the best at preserving the spectral fidelity. This research investigates these variations in order to find an answer to this question. An important parameter of the multiresolution based methods is the number of decomposition levels to be applied. It is found that the number of decomposition levels affects both the spatial and spectral quality of the pan sharpened images. The minimum number of decomposition levels required to fuse the multispectral and panchromatic images was determined in this study for image pairs with different resolution ratios and recommendations are made accordingly.

No description available.

Yes / Corporate social responsibility has been seen by corporations as a practice to adopt as an act of philanthropy. There have been attempts to expand the role of social responsibility to business problems however there has never been an attempt to consider the strategic alignment of social outcomes to strategy. This article analyses the role of strategy by providing a review of strategy using Whittington’s generic strategies model and expanding the same model to incorporate a social strategy model that supports the anecdotal idea that social responsibility can be potentially strategic. The paper centres its argument within the Indian context.

Développer de nouveaux produits pour les consommateurs à très faibles revenus d’Afrique Subsaharienne est un enjeu majeur pour les entreprises mondialisées. Un enjeu qui relève de la relation interculturelle comme l'affirme le courant du "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BoP). Une relation interculturelle que le courant essentialiste explique par la réduction de la distance entre des variables d'innovation. La thèse adopte une perspective constructiviste de la relation interculturelle dans le processus d'innovation: la différence naît de la rencontre. En effet, l'écosystème BoP est très dynamique et hautement ambivalent. Nous cherchons à savoir si dans cet écosystème aimer, comme modèle culturel de la dynamique de la relation, est un modèle plus robuste de la relation interculturelle que le modèle de la distance. L'étude de cas a pour objet le développement d'une solution de paiement mobile dans une banque mondialisée pour des marchés d'Afrique Subsaharienne. L'analyse des données est faite grâce à une grille qui se fonde sur la "Practice Based View" et les théories de l'action. Malgré de bonnes idées, des ressources à foisons et des leaders forts, les données font apparaître le défaut de résolution efficace de fortes ambivalences. Nous écartons la réduction de la distance comme variable explicative majeure, car plus les obstacles s'accumulent, plus le dialogue, qui résout la distance selon le courant essentialiste, est évité. Par un raisonnement abductif, qui s'appuie sur une étude de la dynamique de la relation dans ses dimensions cognitives et affectives culturalisées, nous montrons qu'aimer est cette relation hautement intégrative qui fait défaut dans cet environnement spécifique. / New product development for the markets of the very low-income customer of Sub-Saharan Africa is a major stake for globalized companies. This stake pertains to intercultural relationship as claimed by the scholars belonging to the "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) stream. The essentialist current explains intercultural relationship by the reduction of distance between the variable of innovation (resources commitment, capabilities of actors, senior management involvement). This thesis adopts a constructivist perspective of the intercultural relationship in the innovation process: the difference emerges out of the encounter. Indeed, the BoP ecosystem is very dynamic and highly ambivalent. We want to know if in this ecosystem, love as a cultural model of the dynamics of the relationship, is a more robust model of intercultural relationship than the model of distance.The case study has for object the development of a solution of mobile payment in a global bank for Sub-Saharan African markets. Data analysis is done through a grid based on the "Practice Based View" and action theory. Despite good ideas, extensive resources and strong leaders, the data reveal strong ambivalences solved inefficiently. We close the option of distance reduction as main explanation for the more obstacles arise in the project, the more the dialogue, that is supposed to solve distance, is avoided. By abductive reasoning, based on a study of the dynamics of the relationship in its culturalized cognitive and affective dimensions, we show that loving is this highly integrative relationship that is lacking in this specific ecosystem.

Oron över de miljömässiga effekterna av företags handlingar har ökat, och således även miljö­arbetet för en hållbar framtid. Företag kan arbeta med miljöfrågor på flera olika sätt och miljö­arbete blir vanligare inom små och medelstora företag. Fastighetsbranschen har stor energiförbrukning, många farliga kemiska produkter och hög generering av fast avfall, vilket resulterar i miljöpåverkningar. Fastighetsbranschens miljöpåverkan resulterar i att miljöfrågor borde vara viktiga för företag i branschen.   Syftet med studien är att identifiera och beskriva vilka av de proaktiva motivationskällorna: personliga värderingar, intressenternas påtryckningar, legitimitetsskapande och konkurrensfördelar, som är anledningen till att miljöarbete initierades, pågår och redovisas i fyra kommunala små och medelstora fastighetsföretag i Skaraborg. För att uppfylla studiens syfte samlades empiriskt material in från fyra kommunala fastighetsföretag: Tidaholms Bostads AB, AB Karlsborgsbostäder, AB Bostäder Lidköping och AB Skövdebostäder. Det empiriska materialet samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med informanter med olika befattningar, samt granskning av årsredovisningar från 2014. Studiens resultat och slutsats är att motivationen till varför miljöarbete initierades och pågår till viss del har förändrats. Motivationskällan till att det initierades hos alla företagen är personliga värderingar hos personal. Motivationskällorna till det pågående miljöarbetet är hos alla företag personliga värderingar hos personal och intressenternas påtryckningar från personal. I ett av företagen är dessutom motivationskällan konkurrensfördelar motivation till det pågående arbetet. Motivationskällan intressenternas påtryckningar från ägare är också till grund för det pågående miljöarbetet i ett av företagen. Vår slutsats är också att motivationskällan till att kommunala fastighetsföretag redovisar miljöarbete är legitimitetsskapande, vilket innebär att motivationskällan till redovisning och miljöarbete är olika. / The concerns over how activities of enterprises have affected the environment have increased, and therefore enterprises environmental activities have increased to reach a sustainable future. Enterprises can work with environmental issues in several ways, and environmental work is becoming more common in SMEs. The business of real estate has large energy consumption, several hazardous chemicals and a high generation of solid waste, resulting in affecting the environment. Environmental issues should be important for enterprises in the business of real estate, because of the environmental impact the business have.  The purpose of this study is to identify and describe which of the proactive motivations: personal values, stakeholder pressure, legitimation and competitive advantages, that is the reason to why environmental activities were initiated, occurs and reports in four municipal   real estate SMEs in Skaraborg. Empirical material was collected from four municipal real estate companies: Tidaholms Bostads AB, AB Karlsborgsbostäder, AB Bostäder Lidköping and AB Skövdebostäder to fulfil the purpose. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews with informants with different positions, and examination of annual reports from 2014. The result and conclusion of the study is that the motivations of why environmental activities were initiated and occurs have, to some extent, changed. The proactive motivation for the initiation of the activities in all companies is staffs’ personal values. The motivations of why environmental activities occur in all companies is staffs’ personal values and stakeholder pressure from the staff. The motivation, competitive advantages, is in one of the companies a motivation to the occurring environmental activities. Stakeholder pressure from owners is in one of the companies a motivation to the occurring environmental activities. Our conclusion is also that the motivation to the reporting of environmental activities in municipal real estate businesses is legitimation, resulting in the motivations to report and environmental activities differ.

The purpose of the present work is to evaluate the role of the god Thoth in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, a corpus of funerary literature found most prominently in the underground chambers of the pyramids of the kings and queens of the 5th and 6th dynasty. Following the division made by H. M. Hays, the topic is treated in two parts: the first is concerned with Thoth in the personal texts, where he is presented as a lunar deity and a transition figure, the second with the sacerdotal texts, studying his position in the myth of Osiris and Horus. The function of the god in both is shown to stem from his role as a mediator betwen the various elements of the divine world, mainly through a number of particular findings with regard to the individual motifs in which Thoth is found in the Pyramid Texts. The work concludes with a summary of these findings and an outline of Thoth's nature in the corpus.