Rapid economic growth in emerging economies since the end of the Cold War has driven debate on American 'relative decline'; the relative diminution of US material capabilities with respect to other states. Such relative decline poses potential constraints on US power and has thus manifested itself in arguments over the economic merits of the United States' expansive military commitments. Contributing to this literature, my thesis answers the following question: does American military strategy generate economic benefits? I argue that that there is significant evidence to suggest that US military strategy has influenced international economic relationships in ways beneficial to US national interests. Principally, my analysis shows American military strategy acts as a 'underwriter' for the extant international economic system. I explore two logics associated with this. Firstly, a general 'status quo' logic which sees military power as both a guarantor and promoter of specific structural configurations of the international political economy. And secondly, a more specific 'utility' logic operating on other states either bilaterally or multilaterally. This pathway assumes that US military strategy, particularly its security guarantees, may alter the utility of other states decisions in America's favour. This thesis also shows that specific results often prove far more tentative and circumstantial than commonly articulated by scholars in the literature. Nearly all specific and 'utility' pathways through which the United States is hypothesized to derive economic benefit suffer from foundational generalisability issues, irrespective of methodology. This suggests that specific avenues and instances of US military strategy influencing international economic relationships are not likely to be a reliable or prudent source of future policy making. Rather, the principal political-economic influence to consider is the role US military power plays in underwriting the contemporary American centred international order, which is the prerequisite for other specific pathways to emerge.

The aim of this thesis is to clarify what is the outsourcing of logistics services and what kind of logistics providers are on the logistic market. Second goal is to introduce the company C.S.CARGO from its beginnings till now and to present their range of complex services. The last objective is to prepare recommendations for creation of the business and marketing strategy of the logistics division C.S.CARGO a.s. The method I chose is the analysis of supply and demand of logistics services, preparation of the SWOT analysis and recommendations based on SWOT analysis. Finally, recommendations are defined for creating business and marketing strategy for the portfolio of customers, territorial aspects, industry, social responsibility, certifications and more ...

The thesis analyses the strategy of the natural bio cosmetics brand Sanoflore that is adapted on Czech market. It is devided into three parts. The first two serve as the theoretical basis for the practical part. The first part defines the brand, its components, hierarhcy and kinds. The second one describes brand management, positioning and brand strategy. The third, practical part analyses the strategy of Sanoflore and the change in order to improve its performance are recommended.

Reading Chinese is one of the most challenging tasks for learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL learners). Studies showed that effective use of strategies (e.g. inferring meaning from context) helps to enhance reading comprehension. However, so far, most studies about reading Chinese as a foreign language have focused on lower-level processing (e.g. word learning strategies, the effects of orthography on word acquisition, etc.). Studies about reading process and strategies of adult CFL learners engaging in independent Chinese text reading are extremely limited, and few studies compare reading strategies and perceptions of successful and less successful CFL readers. This study filled these gaps by investigating adult CFL learners’ reading strategies and comparing strategy use and perceptions of successful CFL readers and less successful ones. Using the Compensatory Model of Second Language Reading (Bernhardt, 2005; 2011) as the theoretical framework, this study answered three research questions with sub questions: 1. What are the reading strategies used by adult CFL learners? (a) What are overall reading strategies used by adult CFL readers? (b) What are effective strategy combinations used by adult CFL readers? 2. How do successful adult CFL readers apply and perceive reading strategies when reading in Chinese? 3. How do less successful adult CFL readers apply and perceive reading strategies when reading in Chinese? Qualitative research methods were used to collect and analyze the data. Twelve college level third-year Chinese learners were asked to read a Chinese text, finish a think-aloud task (verbally express their thought process), recall the content of the text, answer several text-related questions, and engage in semi-structured interviews. This study identified 14 bottom-up strategies and 12 top-down strategies. The effective reading strategy combinations used by CFL readers included 1) inferring word meaning by accessing context cues, character meaning, and mental lexical networks; 2) monitoring comprehension by using context information, rereading, summarizing, noticing text structure, paraphrasing, or translating difficult parts; 3) segmenting Chinese words by checking the dictionary, conducting grammar analysis, and referring to mental lexicons. Through comparing the cases of successful and less successful CFL readers, this study revealed that successful readers were good at using context information, monitoring comprehension, and distinguishing important text segments from less important ones. They showed confidence in applying reading strategies and consciously acquired and practiced using strategies while reading. Less successful readers, on the other hand, had more difficulties in decoding characters and words as well as understanding complicated sentence structures. They did not trust their ability to infer about words and phrases, and relied more on the dictionary and translation. In addition, compared with less successful readers, successful readers used more top-down strategies, and they had better metacognitive competences in applying a wide range of strategies effectively. The findings of this study provide useful pedagogical implications to improve Chinese reading instruction and a better understanding about reading Chinese as well as L2 reading.

The words ??Globalisation?? and ??Internationalisation?? have received a great deal of interest from global nations, enterprises, citizens and academics especially since the late 20th century. Although the process of globalization began as a social trend for tracking the expansion of human population and the growth of civilization since as early as the 16th century, globalization became a business phenomenon in the 19th century from rapid growth in international trade and investment between the European imperial powers, its colonies and, later, the United States. Scholars of the 20th century vigorously attempted to theorise internationalisation of multinational enterprises (MNEs) based on MNEs?? internationalisation processes. As the vast majority of such theories were developed for the manufacturing industry, the validity of theories for the service industry became ambiguous. Despite the fact that one of the fastest growing sectors of global trade since the late 20th century is the trade in cultural goods and services, scholars haven??t attempted to validate such a phenomenon by reference to existing theories of internationalisation processes. This thesis attempts to dismantle the internationalisation processes of cultural firms and to explore the validity of existing internationalisation theories. Due to the inherent difficulties in analysing all sectors of cultural industries, this thesis has adopted a single in-depth case study method with qualitative data to support the findings of the thesis. Although the internationalisation processes of a firm consist of an abundant series of intermittent and continuous ventures by the firm, the particular focus of this thesis is on the longitudinal processes of a firm??s overall internationalisation processes. As one of the foremost runners of ??Hallyu ?? Korean Wave?? phenomenon, MBC has been selected as a case study object for this thesis. With a history of internationalisation processes over 40 years, involving various internal and external environmental factors/forces interactively, the case of MBC offers an insight into the empirical study of the internationalisation processes of cultural firms. Although this thesis shows strong support for the dynamic capabilities theory??a theory that explains dynamic activities and behaviours of MBC??s internationalisation processes in accordance with, and as a result of, ever-changing both internal and external factors/forces of environments??dynamic capability theory itself is deficient in explaining the underlying sources and drivers of those factors/forces. In order to overcome such a shortfall, this thesis suggests an integrative approach of integrating multidisciplinary theories as a theoretical framework for future studies of internalisation processes theories especially for empirical and industry-specific studies. This thesis provides comprehensive framework for three components??motives, way-stations and performance??of internationalisation processes of cultural firms, thereby contributing to the under-researched field in the discipline of international business.

Aim: The aim of this research has been to answer the question of how and based on what combination of grand strategies, Oracle as a high-tech company, developed and improved its business and affected its competitors and other industries. Method: Analytical study of published literature and Oracle internal annual reports combined with personal experience of working with Oracle products and observing its strategies for more than a decade have been the essential part of this study. The main method of data collection was gathering information from those websites which include information and news around Oracle strategic movements. This research has applied that information to deliver an analysis of not only the Oracle current strategy, but its strategy for the future and tendency to expand its market and direct the information industry, moving forward. Result & Conclusion: Being around for three decades, Oracle has had a great history of successful strategies with introducing innovation, leading software industry, and directing the future of information technology. It has been survived from many uncertainties as the nature of its business. Knowing its competitors, spending billions of dollars on research and development, filling the gaps of having the best products through acquisition, and creating valuable products and services for many industries, has brought Oracle on the top in its area. Its vision of sharing information and giving the world wide access to a comprehensive knowledge of using its products and services has increased loyalty in its customers and business partners. Oracle is a crucial company in this information age, and its products and solutions have been critically useful for a wide range of businesses. These are the facts which have been concluded in this study. Contribution of the study: Understanding of Oracle strategy is important for millions of managers, developers, and users of database systems and enterprise applications throughout the world. Being successful in their career and professional positions, they have to know where the information technology is moving and they have no choice of using those software products which a major part of it, is created or at least directed by Oracle. It can guarantee the future of information management in a company.

Customer service is one of the most important ingredients of the marketing mix for products and services. High quality customer service helps to create customer loyalty. A company would quickly lose business to competitors if under estimating the power of services. Therefore, the service management becomes more focus in foundry business. TSMC is the largest pure foundry service company with 50% of market share in foundry business. Customer partnership service is one of the core competences of TSMC. Long- term partnership is what TSMC treats customers and it¡¦s achieved by the win-win service strategy. There is a fewer paper to study the customer service in semiconductor foundry filed. This thesis is to study customer service strategy of TSMC. Why do chip design companies select TSMC as their major foundry source.

Problem: Researchers argue that strategic management and its implementation has be-come the main focus in SMEs because of its role in generating economic wealth. Although, there are many advantages to use strategic management, there are still many SME organizations that resist using it, since some of them may think this process is only useful for larger organizations and they did not recognize that it‟s also very helpful for SMEs as a whole. Therefore, the organization face challenges such as how to use this strategic management, and how to recognize the importance of strategic management and so on.     Purpose: Our purpose is to find out how strategic management determines / affects / in-fluence SMEs performance in South East Asia and specifically in China and In-donesia. Moreover, its purpose is to identify the crucial factors that determine survival and growth in the two countries. Theory: The theoretical framework is divided into several major parts. We start with looking at definition of strategy and different types of strategy in organization. The chapter continues with looking at SMEs strategic Management Model (Analoui & Karami, 2003), strategic choice, strategic fit and theory of firm per-formance i.e. dynamic capabilities (core capabilities). The last part of the chap-ter combine the previous theory, i.e. strategy and firm performance. More spe-cific, we use our theoretical framework of the process, regarding the effect of strategic management on SMEs performance.   Method: We chose qualitative method as our research method. We use case study to do this research and conduct interview to collect data. Qualitative is the appropriate method for this thesis since we aim to understand the phenomenon of SMEs strategic management on different levels. In order to gain more information, we conducted interview with middle management and top management of the com-pany. This method help us to explore into deeper stages of analyzing our subject and support our research.   Conclusion: We found there is no general answer on how strategic management determine / affects / influence SMEs performance in East Asia SMEs specifically in China and Indonesia. Further, the studied companies have more common characteris-tics than different characteristics. All of them are aware of the importance of us-ing strategic management. Moreover, our research indicate that understanding the role of internal & external factors, and constantly combining the two factors into daily operation are the crucial factors for these companies survival and growth in the two countries

The purpose of this study was to understand key challenges in turning strategy to performance, and with that as a fundament suggest a model for the strategy implementation process. The work is based on a theoretical framework that brings together and merges different areas of science to create new synergies and leveraged results. In this case, the area of Strategic Implementation receives added value from mainly Innovation- and Knowledge Management, as aspects of the intersection between Industrial Dynamic and Organizational Behavior. Moreover, due to the strategic focus, additional theory regarding Technology Marketing is also included. Departing from the theoretical framework, an empirical study was conducted by qualitative interviews of two managerial levels at an international conglomerate. The outcome of both theoretical and empirical findings is discussed and analyzed, and results in two main recommendations, addressing the question of how the challenges could be solved with innovation and knowledge management as a fundament for implementation. One of the main recommendations is cyclic implementation routines, advancing in a loop consistent of; Strategic selection; Enabling of effective knowledge acquisition; Implementation; and Learning. The other main recommendation is an Innovative and learning organization, involving Shared vision, leadership and the will to innovate; Appropriate structure; Effective Team Working; Continuing and stretching individual development; Extensive communication; High involvement in innovation; External focus; and a Creative climate. Coherent with these recommendations, a model is presented where the cultural components could be regarded as the fundament of the organization, which is complemented with the learning cycle and regard to the organization’s holistic level of maturity. This model strives to inspire to “manage the flow of organizational culture to make the wheels of implementation routines spin”.

This research aims to interconnect entrepreneurship theories with brand theories. The study analyzes how this can be accomplished in the context of smaller agricultural firms, considering how intellectual property rights can be used strategically in entrepreneurial activities, ultimately creating regional growth. A firm has several options to protect its brands. Producers of similar products within a limited geographical area can protect the shared designated origin. Use of a collective brand, such as Champagne and Roquefort in France or Parmeggiano Reggiano in Italy, has been studied as a strategy to protect products from a given region. In the case analyzed here, a particular Austrian collective brand – Gailtaler Almkäse – was safeguarded within a protected designation of origin (PDO), providing producers a safe haven from which to enhance their collective brand in competitive markets. The PDO registration of the brand represents a central entrepreneurial strategy for manufacturers. To the region where the brands originate, the PDO has become a specific aspect of entrepreneurship that leads regional development.