Sustainability is a growing trend and companies are increasingly engaging sustainability in their core business strategy. One example of how this is manifested is through the development of products that are  labelled as energy-efficient. There is a lack of insights into how consumers perceive and gain benefits from such sustainable products, particularly so regarding the nonfunctional and non-economical benefits and into how culture influences those benefits. The purpose of this study is to investigate consumer perceived non-functional and non-economical benefits that are associated  with energy-efficient products,  in order to gain a deeper understanding on how the Swedish compared to the Thai culture influence consumers perception of energy efficient products within the home appliance industry. The literature review regarding the  symbolic meaning of products concludes that the most relevant perceived benefits of products includes emotional-, self-expressiveness-, and social benefits. A cross-cultural quantitative study performed in Sweden and Thailand determines that culture influences consumers understanding of products and thereby influence their perceived benefit from energyefficient home appliances. How culture influences consumer perceived benefits depends on the characteristics of the different cultural dimensions established by Hofstede (2010), involving: power distance, masculinity, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation.

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to study the effects of when an industry develops from production to become an experience for visitors, this interest comes from previous theoretical studies of the concept experiencescapes. This has been done by a qualitative method which involves both interviews and a content analysis. What is the significance attraction for tourism in one place? How can product the creation of an industry contributes to a strong brand at one place? and How makes the transition from industrial to experience the symbolic value of a place?To get these questions answered we’ve used qualitative methods in the shape of interviews and content analysis. The interviews were in the form of deep interviews, shorter semi-structured interviews, one phone interview and one mail interview. The content analysis is based on websites, social media and papers in relation to Sala and Sala Silvergruva. The theoretical aspect regards these essays three themes: tourism, brand and symbolic value.Previous studies that have been made is within the area Bergslagen where most industrial communities meet the transition to the hospitality industry.Based on theory and empirical work we have come up with interesting analyzes and conclusions regarding the problems, but also opportunities for industrial sites to develop as strong experiences. It is clear that tourism is important in site development and that this is governed by brands and a strong symbolic value. To achieve stable development a place needs to work coherently with these three areas.Keywords: Tourism, Brand, Symbol, Culture, Mine, Industry, experience.

<p>The combination of the socio-political changes following 1989 and the current status ofEnglish as the language of international communication promoted dynamic transformations ofthe attitude and usages of English in Bulgaria. The purpose of this study is to investigate theforms, functions and symbolic value of English in the Bulgarian advertising and journalisticdiscourse. The emphasis is on non-established words as opposed to established borrowings.Two hypotheses encapsulating the possible relation between English usages in advertising andjournalistic discourses are in the centre of investigation:</p><p>Hypothesis 1 The use of the English language remains on the symbolic and visual level in theBulgarian advertising and journalistic discourses.</p><p>Hypothesis 2 The symbolic value of English usage in advertising discourse is the same as thatof journalistic discourse.</p><p>Prior to the analyses, the study introduces an overview of the Bulgarian linguistic situationand a summary of studies in the area of contact phenomena between English and Bulgarian.Special attention is paid to publications discussing advertising and journalistic discourse.On the base of two principles – genre and readership – six magazines have been selectedto provide the data for the study: Маниджър(Manager); Story, НашДом(Our Home),ЖенатаДнес(The Woman Today), ЖурналзаЖената(Women’s Journal), and Top GearБългария(Top Gear Bulgaria). Using a set of criteria the process of collecting data hasextracted the occurrences of English from all advertisements, section and column headings,article titles, and the featured article of each issue. English occurrences have been classifiedfirst according to their generic function and position in the textual unity, and then, accordingto symbolic value ascribed by English.The statistical data confirms that the use of English in advertising discourse is common;on average 66% of the advertisements contain English words. Cross-reference with the type offunction reveals, however, that only 17% of the English used in advertisements adds semanticvalue to the Bulgarian-English mixing. Therefore, in advertising discourse English remainsmainly a tool for adding symbolic value. As far as the journalistic discourse is concernedEnglish usages are not as frequent; nevertheless, great variations are exemplified. Suchvariation is observed in the heading data where one of the magazines contains no English inthe headings while another uses English in all but four of its headings. The findings of thestudy reject both of the hypotheses although variations are observed and have been describedin this study. The analyses demonstrate that advertising discourse uses English in order toexploit the value of English as the lingua franca of the world, while the journalistic discoursedraws on the symbolic associations of English as the language of popular culture.The results of this study provide a comparison between advertising and journalisticdiscourses. Furthermore, it offers a picture of the situation in Bulgaria twenty years after thepolitical changes and a good intermediate point in the process of spread of English, whichcontinues to modify the linguistic situation of the country.</p>

<p>In fashion, as in the rest of the economy, the globalisation of taste, power and production now plays a major role. The industry is dominated by fashion capitals like Paris, London or New York, populated by star designers like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld or Jean-Paul Gaultier and controlled through MNC giants like Prada, Gucci, DKNY and Dior, who together influence consumer preferences on a global scale. However, there are numerous smaller actors that compete successfully in the fashion industry. Sweden is one such example, where fashion is a growing. </p><p>In this thesis, there is a focus on group of small and medium sized Swedish fashion firms with a brand focused business strategy. Their products are design intensive, but their main competitive advantage rests on the brand and brand management. This group of firms are proficient at ‘putting fashion into clothes’ (Weller 2004). In other words, their main competitive advantage rests neither on price, nor on the most experimental design. More exactly, they produce clothes for a fashion conscious but not too adventurous consumer group. In the thesis it is argued that they are better described as trend forerunners than as trend setters. The subject of this thesis is this group of firms within the Swedish fashion industry and the aim is to improve understanding of their innovation processes, competitiveness, and the systemic character of the business they are a part of. </p><p>As with most other fashion firms in high cost countries, Swedish companies has outsourced the garment production. They secure their competitive edge through high value added activities like design, marketing and retail. This points to the fact that fashion has both material and immaterial dimensions: it relates to clothing, design, textile and quality, but also to consumers’ subjective feelings and attitudes towards the clothes and their brands. This is a study of the interface between these dimensions, with a focal point on the production of immaterial and symbolic value. The systemic nature of fashion can hardly be overestimated. This goes for both the practical part of clothes production, but also for the production of a belief system created not only by fashion producers but by a whole set of institutional actors. This thesis has an analysis of fashion firms’ relations to business partners, competitors, media, and consumers. It is argued that the nature of these relations is critical for competition and success.</p><p>The thesis is a collection of papers, which illuminates different parts of innovation, competition and business strategies in the fashion industry. The papers cover the central activity areas for fashion firms: how branding is affecting industrial structure and innovation, how symbolic is value created, and how ‘cool’ is used as a strategic resource. </p>

In fashion, as in the rest of the economy, the globalisation of taste, power and production now plays a major role. The industry is dominated by fashion capitals like Paris, London or New York, populated by star designers like Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld or Jean-Paul Gaultier and controlled through MNC giants like Prada, Gucci, DKNY and Dior, who together influence consumer preferences on a global scale. However, there are numerous smaller actors that compete successfully in the fashion industry. Sweden is one such example, where fashion is a growing. In this thesis, there is a focus on group of small and medium sized Swedish fashion firms with a brand focused business strategy. Their products are design intensive, but their main competitive advantage rests on the brand and brand management. This group of firms are proficient at ‘putting fashion into clothes’ (Weller 2004). In other words, their main competitive advantage rests neither on price, nor on the most experimental design. More exactly, they produce clothes for a fashion conscious but not too adventurous consumer group. In the thesis it is argued that they are better described as trend forerunners than as trend setters. The subject of this thesis is this group of firms within the Swedish fashion industry and the aim is to improve understanding of their innovation processes, competitiveness, and the systemic character of the business they are a part of. As with most other fashion firms in high cost countries, Swedish companies has outsourced the garment production. They secure their competitive edge through high value added activities like design, marketing and retail. This points to the fact that fashion has both material and immaterial dimensions: it relates to clothing, design, textile and quality, but also to consumers’ subjective feelings and attitudes towards the clothes and their brands. This is a study of the interface between these dimensions, with a focal point on the production of immaterial and symbolic value. The systemic nature of fashion can hardly be overestimated. This goes for both the practical part of clothes production, but also for the production of a belief system created not only by fashion producers but by a whole set of institutional actors. This thesis has an analysis of fashion firms’ relations to business partners, competitors, media, and consumers. It is argued that the nature of these relations is critical for competition and success. The thesis is a collection of papers, which illuminates different parts of innovation, competition and business strategies in the fashion industry. The papers cover the central activity areas for fashion firms: how branding is affecting industrial structure and innovation, how symbolic is value created, and how ‘cool’ is used as a strategic resource.

Research establishes, that clothes constantly communicate something about its wearer. You send out different messages depending on what sort of clothes you are wearing. For example, a suit can project social status and power, while, a pair of jeans usually conveys a more casual impression. Either way, research state that clothes are symbolic expressions. This essay focuses on the theme clothes and pupils within the school world. Do pupils today experience clothes as symbolic values? By using qualitative interviews, I have examined how four senior high school pupils talk about clothes and its potential symbolic value in school. Together with, in what ways the participants experience clothes functions as status markers in school. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu´s theory of the judgment of taste, is the theoretical starting point of this paper. Bourdieu claims that trivial things, such as clothes, reveal the social belonging of the individual. Because, clothes can project differences in taste, and taste is connected with social class, according to the Bourdieu. The conclusion of the essay is that all participants, more or less, experience that clothes project symbolic values within school; however, what it projects varies in different social spaces. That is, clothes do not have the same symbolic meaning in all schools. For the second research assignment, I have come to the conclusion that quite often clothes actually do functions as status markers in school. But, what sort of clothing that is synonymous with status also varies within different social spaces. That is, a piece of clothing that is symbolic with high social status in one school does not necessarily project the same status value at another school.

The Post-Fordist structure has aroused as a response to the stable/rigid configuration of Fordism that caused a bottleneck within capitalist organization since the mid 1970s. This period is also labeled as flexible accumulation that is based on the least circulation period of capital and as a result turnover time of the consumption objects. Here, consumption becomes a cultural activity besides its role of meeting material necessities and calls for a form of culture, in which the symbolic value of any object is of significance more than its use-value. Within this frame, the study selected a new form of contemporary housing provision as an exemplification area / the gated enclaves that represent a form of investment for the legitimization of values projected by the consumer culture. They are especially located at the new urban development areas, shared by high income level owners / surrounded by exclusionary devices like / walls, fences and private security mechanisms, and provide additional privatized services. This study aims at studying the modes of marketing strategies of these newly emerging housing provisions in Ankara that all are constructed around the theme of &ldquo / a distinct life style&rdquo / through their representational media. Therefore the study will investigate how the idea of distinctness is made public and by means of spatial analyses, how and to what extent the assertion of distinctness is achieved or constituted a genuine position within the academic or professional architectural culture will be investigated while such concepts as &ldquo / homogenization&rdquo / and &ldquo / distinctness&rdquo / will be also in agenda.

Over the last decade, buying in-game content with real money has become a more common practice among players in order to unlock exclusive content in video games. Prior research has mainly focused on those functional digital items that provide an advantage to the buyer. This thesis aims to determine the underlying factors that influence video game players to purchase purely aesthetic virtual items.Prior studies on the field of video games, gaming business models and purchasing behaviour were reviewed and a theoretical framework focused on behavioural sciences, psychology and customer culture related theories was designed to interpret the results of a quantitative study. The popular FPS (First Person Shooter), Counter Strike Global Offensive was the selected game to carry out the study. A web-based questionnaire was distributed in various specialized online forums, providing a total of 1006 respondents. A linear regression was the selected method to test the formulated model. Results showed a strong influence of emotional and symbolic perceived values in the purchase intention of aesthetic virtual items, while gaming experience and enjoyment had a minor impact.

The combination of the socio-political changes following 1989 and the current status ofEnglish as the language of international communication promoted dynamic transformations ofthe attitude and usages of English in Bulgaria. The purpose of this study is to investigate theforms, functions and symbolic value of English in the Bulgarian advertising and journalisticdiscourse. The emphasis is on non-established words as opposed to established borrowings.Two hypotheses encapsulating the possible relation between English usages in advertising andjournalistic discourses are in the centre of investigation: Hypothesis 1 The use of the English language remains on the symbolic and visual level in theBulgarian advertising and journalistic discourses. Hypothesis 2 The symbolic value of English usage in advertising discourse is the same as thatof journalistic discourse. Prior to the analyses, the study introduces an overview of the Bulgarian linguistic situationand a summary of studies in the area of contact phenomena between English and Bulgarian.Special attention is paid to publications discussing advertising and journalistic discourse.On the base of two principles – genre and readership – six magazines have been selectedto provide the data for the study: Маниджър(Manager); Story, НашДом(Our Home),ЖенатаДнес(The Woman Today), ЖурналзаЖената(Women’s Journal), and Top GearБългария(Top Gear Bulgaria). Using a set of criteria the process of collecting data hasextracted the occurrences of English from all advertisements, section and column headings,article titles, and the featured article of each issue. English occurrences have been classifiedfirst according to their generic function and position in the textual unity, and then, accordingto symbolic value ascribed by English.The statistical data confirms that the use of English in advertising discourse is common;on average 66% of the advertisements contain English words. Cross-reference with the type offunction reveals, however, that only 17% of the English used in advertisements adds semanticvalue to the Bulgarian-English mixing. Therefore, in advertising discourse English remainsmainly a tool for adding symbolic value. As far as the journalistic discourse is concernedEnglish usages are not as frequent; nevertheless, great variations are exemplified. Suchvariation is observed in the heading data where one of the magazines contains no English inthe headings while another uses English in all but four of its headings. The findings of thestudy reject both of the hypotheses although variations are observed and have been describedin this study. The analyses demonstrate that advertising discourse uses English in order toexploit the value of English as the lingua franca of the world, while the journalistic discoursedraws on the symbolic associations of English as the language of popular culture.The results of this study provide a comparison between advertising and journalisticdiscourses. Furthermore, it offers a picture of the situation in Bulgaria twenty years after thepolitical changes and a good intermediate point in the process of spread of English, whichcontinues to modify the linguistic situation of the country.

<p>In recent years, the successful expansions of Swedish fashion companies have mainly relied on their ability to turn fashion into brands. However, when companies grow it seems to be difficult to maintain the original brand identity as well as to establish a unique brand image in the minds of the consumers. With regard to this matter the purpose of our thesis was to investigate the brand image of Acne Jeans. Our ambition was to examine to what extent the brand image coincided with the brand identity and if brand associations differed between different consumer segments. In order to fulfil our purpose, we have conducted a questionnaire study of a sample of 130 students at Stockholm University. The findings of our study show that the brand image of Acne Jeans did not coincide with the brand identity regarding the aspects of individuality and innovativeness. We further concluded that there were several differences between the associations of those in possession of Acne apparel and those who did not own any Acne items. Finally, the associations of early adopters were investigated. The result indicated that the brand associations in this group did not deviate from the general opinion of the total sample.</p>