Magister Legum - LLM / This study is encouraged by the fact that the field of labour law has drastically changed after enactment of amendments in various labour legislation such as Employment Equity Act, Basic Conditions of Employment Act and Labour Relations Act during 2013 and 2014. These changes have compelled employers to review their policies in line with the amendments of these Acts. This study will however focus on the impact of the newly introduced section 198 to the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995. The study will specifically focus on the continued use of fixed-term contracts of employment within the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Sector of South Africa.

With a background in ceramics and graphic designI have developed my thoughts about craft as a combination of verbal and nonverbal communication, but in textiles. With the written word as one of my main materials this project looks into class and material hierarchies filtered through autofictivestories from my life. This paper explores themes that impact my decisions in the making process, choosing materials, motifs, texts and words, politics and poetry. It deals with all the information I push into patchworking, shirring, tufting and sculpting textiles, with the goal to paint a picture of an often unwanted section of society. To discuss this I have chosen references dealing with sloppy craft, text based art, graffiti and craft traditions, in a mix with news articles and economy. Through all parts of the project I am on balancing line between chaos and perfection, truth and fiction.

Hypothetical bias continues to be a challenge for practitioners of the contingent valuation method (CVM). This study compared the effect of three hypothetical bias mitigation techniques in a CVM survey focused on estimating maximum willingness to pay for a beach conditions monitoring service among U.S. Gulf Coast beachgoers. Beach conditions information is known to affect beach patronage but no valuation study has yet estimated its value. The two techniques tested are: budget and substitutes cheap talk treatments and certainty follow-up. We presented a theoretically consistent model of budget-constrained utility maximization which accounts for the respondents’ subjective probability of a good beach trip with and without the beach conditions information. Interval regression was used to estimate respondents WTP for beach conditions monitoring service. Both mitigation treatments were unable to mitigate HB. The mean WTP was $3.39 and the net benefit for the program was between $188,531,063 and $391,474,452.

<p>This study examines several emerging topics in strategic communication and information design. The first chapter studies the role of verification in persuasion and its interaction with commitment in a Bayesian persuasion framework in which the sender is not fully bound by the committed plan. Both theoretically and experimentally, we demonstrate that making verification easier can significantly improve information transmission when commitment is low, but its effect is limited when commitment is high. However, empirically receivers do not respond as strongly as predicted by theory, which is consistent with base-rate neglect and conservatism. On the other hand, senders generally anticipate receivers' actions and best respond to the empirical behavior of receivers. We provide empirical implications for cases where verification is instrumental in improving information transmission and where it is not. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The second and third chapters are based on joint work with Dr. Collin Raymond. In the second chapter, we investigate how increasing the complexity of the message space in the presence of limited memory can reduce misrepresentation in strategic communication. We enrich a standard cheap talk game so that senders must communicate not just a payoff-relevant state, but also payoff-irrelevant attributes correlated with the state.  We show that increasing the set of attributes that may need to be reported (i.e., the complexity of the game) improves the amount of information transmitted in equilibrium. Our findings demonstrate that the reporting of redundant information may induce equilibria that feature improved outcomes compared to simpler, more direct reporting systems, and point out the importance of complexity when trying to induce truthful information revelation.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In the third chapter, we analyze some extensions on the effect of complexity. We present experimental evidence which shows that  too much of an increase in complexity leads to a reversal of those gains. Limited memory on the part of players, as well as the relative complexity faced by senders and receivers, drives these changes, and individuals experience cognitive costs when dealing with complex environments that they are willing to pay to avoid. </p> <p><br></p>

First published in 1849, Charles Averill’s The Cholera-Fiend follows three villains as they attempt to artificially propagate cholera for their own villainous purposes in New York City. Gumbo, a Black servant to one of the villains, is meant to be the humorous relief in the text, but Gumbo experiences a calculated dehumanization from human to disabled, which causes him to be more at-risk for a health crisis—such as a tapeworm or cholera—than his white counterparts. Through analyzing the genre of cheap fiction, the views of medical professionals towards Black bodies, and other ways Black bodies were used as entertainment, I will argue that Gumbo’s character is representative of the disadvantages directed towards Blacks in times of health crisis—a social crisis within the wider health crisis.

Cultural differences lead companies to either standardize or localize their marketing when internationalizing into other countries. The purpose of the study is to gain a deeper and broader understanding of how western brands market themselves in China. This is done by examining how two brands in different price brackets choose to standardize or localize their marketing in China. The two brands are: Louis Vuitton and H&amp;M. After determining to which degree these two brands adapt to China there will be a comparison. Two theories from Hofstede (1983) are presented and used to illustrate cultural differences. The study also uses cultural factors such as: language, colors, clothes, and model’s ethnicity to determine to which degree the two brands adapt to China. The country of origin effect is also presented and used to see if it is visible in the marketing directed to China. To answer the research question a qualitative study of the two fashion brands website, Weibo and Twitter was conducted. The results and conclusion show that marketing of western brands in both high and low-price brackets in China uses a combination of standardization and localization but to different degrees. The lower priced brand localizes more than the brand with higher prices. The adaptation that occurs is dependent on the national culture and the price bracket the brand exists in. How western brands relate to national cultures for advertising purposes continue to be of interest for future studies.

Serial Editions: Another Book of Books for the Chapman is a collection of chapbooks whose titles include First Cold Morning, River Music, Vow, Intimate Interactions of a Corollary ( w/ braille translations), My Soul From Yesterday & Another Abecedarian for the World. You may or might not get a postcard in the mail announcing its distribution, then, one chapbook at a time, as in serial comics, slowly collecting, only later to receive them all, collected in a single book object..

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: Cheap Monday – A qualitative study of the consumers’ opinions of the brand (Cheap Monday – En kvalitativ studie av konsumenternas åsikter om märket)</p><p>Number of pages: 38 (40 including enclosures)</p><p>Author: Oskar Norlander</p><p>Tutor: Göran Svensson</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies C</p><p>Period: Autumn 2007</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine from the customers’ perspective how the Swedish jeans-brand Cheap Monday in just three years time could become such a prominent brand on the Swedish market. An additional purpose is to examine whether there is some kind of brand community connected to the brand or not.</p><p>Material/Method: The main method used in this essay has been qualitative interviews with ten consumers of the brand. The answers from these interviews has then been analysed using two different theories, Keller’s Customer Based Brand Equity and Muniz and O’Guinnn’s Brand Community.</p><p>Main results: The main results of this essay is that Cheap Monday is a brand that has become successful due to people’s perception of who the users of the brand are. The consumers has already from the start gotten a good impression of the brand, since they’ve seen people who they liked, and people who they thought were cool and well dressed wearing Cheap Monday clothing. This is linked to the fact that Cheap Monday costs so much less than their competitors, since the “cool people” that use Cheap Monday clothing makes the low price acceptable and a good thing from the customers perspective, instead of it being a indicator that the brand is unfashionable and no good. It has also been proved that there is somewhat of a brand community connected to the brand, even though the respondents in this essay did not feel connected to this community. On the other hand, almost all of the respondents did think that other people who wear Cheap Monday in some way felt some kind of connection to each other, and most of them a reed on that the brand on its own more or less has originated a new style.</p><p>Keywords: Cheap Monday, CM, Brand Equity, Brand Community, consumer, associations, Keller, Muniz, O’Guinn</p>

Abstract Title: Cheap Monday – A qualitative study of the consumers’ opinions of the brand (Cheap Monday – En kvalitativ studie av konsumenternas åsikter om märket) Number of pages: 38 (40 including enclosures) Author: Oskar Norlander Tutor: Göran Svensson Course: Media and Communication Studies C Period: Autumn 2007 University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine from the customers’ perspective how the Swedish jeans-brand Cheap Monday in just three years time could become such a prominent brand on the Swedish market. An additional purpose is to examine whether there is some kind of brand community connected to the brand or not. Material/Method: The main method used in this essay has been qualitative interviews with ten consumers of the brand. The answers from these interviews has then been analysed using two different theories, Keller’s Customer Based Brand Equity and Muniz and O’Guinnn’s Brand Community. Main results: The main results of this essay is that Cheap Monday is a brand that has become successful due to people’s perception of who the users of the brand are. The consumers has already from the start gotten a good impression of the brand, since they’ve seen people who they liked, and people who they thought were cool and well dressed wearing Cheap Monday clothing. This is linked to the fact that Cheap Monday costs so much less than their competitors, since the “cool people” that use Cheap Monday clothing makes the low price acceptable and a good thing from the customers perspective, instead of it being a indicator that the brand is unfashionable and no good. It has also been proved that there is somewhat of a brand community connected to the brand, even though the respondents in this essay did not feel connected to this community. On the other hand, almost all of the respondents did think that other people who wear Cheap Monday in some way felt some kind of connection to each other, and most of them a reed on that the brand on its own more or less has originated a new style. Keywords: Cheap Monday, CM, Brand Equity, Brand Community, consumer, associations, Keller, Muniz, O’Guinn

Cette thèse de doctorat traite de différentes questions concernant la communication et la transmission d’informations dans le cadre de la théorie des jeux. J’analyse différents dilemmes auxquels peut être confronté un joueur qui envoie des informations. Ces dilemmes correspondent aux questions suivantes: "Devrais-je investir dans un message vérifiable?", "Quand dois-je transmettre mon information?" et "Est-il préférable de ne pas envoyer mon information et uniquement de recueillir l’information des autres?". Cette thèse comprend une introduction et trois chapitres. L’introduction contient une motivation générale pour les trois problèmes que je présente dans cette thèse. Je donne une vue d’ensemble détaillée de tous les chapitres, j’examine la littérature relative au sujet et je la compare à mes résultats. / This Ph.D dissertation addresses different issues concerning communication and information transmission in a game theoretical framework. I analyze different dilemmas that a player who sends information has to deal with. These dilemmas correspond to the following questions: "Should I invest into a verifiable message?", "When should I pass my information?" and "Is it better if I do not send my information, but collect information from others?". This thesis includes an introduction and three chapters. The introduction contains a general motivation for the three different problems that I model in this thesis. I give a detailed overview of all the chapters, survey the related literature and compare it to my results.