While global economy suffers depression, international luxury industry, which always aims at high-income customers, is hardly affected. The figure of sales of the luxury industry displayed an increase of profits and more young customers started purchasing luxury goods even when the Asian market was undergoing SARS's attack. In the 100 top global brands investigated by BusinessWeek in 2003, 8 luxury brands are included, showing astonishing brand value. Luxury good as a ¡§Universal Product¡¨ (Ohmae, 1989) earns its value from its brand image. How does a brand preserves its classic taste while follows the latest fashion trend? How do global strategies manage to organize the design and innovation of luxury goods, so that every detail is unified in a mechanical manner to please global taste and global customers? Since luxury good has unique characteristics and additional value besides the product itself, the management of luxury goods and the brand construction strategy may be very different from general consuming products. This study combines Aaker & Keller's ideas about constructing brand equity. Apart from analyzing secondary data, the study does thorough interviews with four internationally-famous luxury goods'brand managers to discuss international luxury goods'brand construction strategies in Taiwan. This study has reached several conclusions as follows: 1.International luxury goods' original country's image, their establishing time and heritage, and their brand history are helpful in constructing brand equity in Taiwan. International luxury goods' brand designer is the key source to the display and creation of unique brand position, brand personality and brand equity. 2.International luxury industry's entry model in Taiwan generally follows the route from Agency to Joint Venture and then to Wholly Owned Investment. 3.For the international luxury industry, retaining high-quality products around global market, creating classical product designs to extend the PLC, multiplying product lines under one brand name, and limiting the quantity of each design are product strategies to keep luxury goods' uniqueness and scarcity. 4.In price strategy, luxury industry maintains the high price and avoids discounts to build customer's perception of the brands' high value and high quality. 5.On the channeling strategies, in order to keep the independent brand image and identical selling quality, the international luxury industry controls the distributing lines with its direct owned or specially authorized stores. Following the global fashion trend, luxury industry opens or enlarges the flagship stores and concept stores in Taiwan. Adapting to the special consuming characteristics of Taiwan, luxury industry opens the stores in stores in department stores' luxury section. 6.AD Marketing and Event Marketing are the main promotion strategies for international luxury industry to increase brand awareness and to create unique brand association of brand and consumers. 7.International luxury industry's brand construction strategy is based on globally standardized positioning strategies, but it does few localized modifications.

Abstract With the liberalization and globalization, the scope for banks is much more sophisticated in decade. Accompanied with Asian Financial Crisis, the Non-Performing Loan (NPL) ratio of domestic financial institutions has increased significantly. Consequently, this research adopts 2SLS to estimate simultaneous equations and examines the impact of risk-based capital regulation on NPL ratio and operating performance. The empirical results are summarily as following: 1. There exists a negative relationship between capital adequacy ratio and NPL ratio, which means that the higher the capital adequacy ratio is, the lower the NPL loan will be. Therefore, adopting the capital regulation will be helpful to improve the balance-sheet structure. 2. With the change of capital adequacy ratio, ROE moves in the same direction; that is, there is a positive relationship between capital adequacy ratio and ROE. Usually, the high-profit companies have more cash flow to support the capital requirement. 3. Examining the effectiveness of ¡§First-Stage Financial Reform Policy¡¨, we find that only 12% and 26% of the banks are not qualified for capital adequacy ratio and NPL ratio, respectively.. Thus, the ¡§First-Stage Financial Reform Policy¡¨ has achieved the preliminary goal. 4. We adopt t-test to distinguish whether the difference between actual and standard figures is significantly large for those disqualified banks. It shows that the main factor might be because of the essential problem of bad asset-debt structure, and not the lack of time to adapt themselves to the new regulation.

In our daily life, we can receive the information about sales promotion usually, and it is confused that research in the past posited sales promotion may erode brand equity. In another aspect, when researching sales promotion, researcher used simple sentence instead of original colorful information, and asked participants imagine the advertisement. We may believe that will be harmful to the credibility. According to the reasons before, this research follow Vidal and Ballester(2005), posited that sales promotion can contribute to build brand equity. This research uses fictitious brand and designs the fictitious advertisement to avoid the effect of stereo type in consumers mind. The outcome of this research suggests that sales promotion actually can contribute to build consumer-based brand equity. If corporation wants to make the brand different from competitors to let consumer identify the brand, it needs to design unique sales promotion.

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Abstract The valuation of equity swap under the condition of risk neutral is similar to the forward interest rate swap with the same period. Therefore, its valuation formula is consistent to interest rate swap model in the traditional methods. But it is not the same as in pricing the cross-currency equity swap. The dymanic prices of foreign stock index and exchange rate, and the correlation coefficients between exchange rates and foreign assets also affect the swap rate. In this paper, we extend Chance and Rich(1998)¡¦s valuation formula of equity swaps, and apply Amin (1991)¡BAmin and Bodurtha(1995)¡BLin(1997)¡¦s dymanic prices of assets in discrete time period. To derive the risk neutral valuation formula of equity swap, it uses the method of transfer probability measure. This study finds the expected return of foreign stock index in the no arbitrage condition, in addition equal to foreign forward interest rate with the same period , must be add a correction term to reflect the exchange rate risk and the transfer of forward martingale measure. This paper also derives the pricing formula of equity swaptions¡Bcaps¡Bfloors¡Bvariable notional principal and blended equity swap. Finally, we find the volatility of foreign forward interest rate is the most important factor of pricing the swap rate from numerical simulation. And if the correlation of the volatility of exchange rate and foreign stock index¡Bthe correlation of the volatility of exchange rate and foreign forward interest rate are negative, the swap rate will be higher.

Abstract The accounting method about employee stock bonus has become popular issue recently. The most disputable problem is: whether employee stock bonus debts expense? Does the employee stock bonus expense measure by face value or market value? If employee stock bonus debts expense, technologic firms have negative affect on net income, even makes them unprofitable. Technologic firms worry about their stock price decreased by recording employee stock bonus expense, so they disagree with this accounting method. To understand investors¡¦ reaction about recording employee stock bonus expense, I link the valuation on cooperate equity with accounting method of employee stock bonus by using Ohlson (1995) valuation model. The period of data is during 2001. I investigate the market¡¦s perception of the economic effect of employee stock bonus on firm value for a sample of 61 profitable technologic companies by using ¡§Retained Earning Method¡¨, ¡§Face Value Method¡¨ and ¡§Market Value Method¡¨ and observe investors how to value ¡§Employee Stock Bonus Expense¡¨. My results suggest that if technologic firms debt employee stock bonus expense by using ¡§Market Value Method¡¨, market has the highest valuation on firms¡¦ value. In addition, the market appears to value these firms¡¦ ¡§Employee Stock Bonus Expense¡¨ not as an expense but as an intangible asset. Key Words: Employee Stock Bonus, equity valuation, Ohlson Model

This study is to discuss how the Taiwan corporations (Uni-Prisident, Giant, Les Enphants, NB) build the successful brand equity in China Market. The theory base is according to the Brand Equity that proposed by David A. Aaker. There are five dimensions: brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand association, perceivable quality, and other brand assets. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: 1. The Activity of Brand Equity As to the brand equity, this study considers that the brand awareness and association come from the channel development and the media application. The corporations do their best to create the consumption experience beyond the expectation and establish the trust relationship between each other. In this way, the brand loyalty and perceivable quality could be accumulated. 2. The Control Force of the Terminal Channel In the brand equity development procedure, the control force of the terminal channel plays a critical role. There are two reasons. One is there is still no a developed channel partner in China market. One is the partners or co-workers whose business ethics, management skills are more suspected in China. So, to control the development of terminal channel will execute the truly brand sprits and values certainly. 3. The Brand Equity Activity is duplicable or not The brand loyalty, awareness and perceivable quality are more duplicable than brand association and other brand assets. 4. The Process of the Brand Establishment In the process, this study concludes that the main brand activities in the business stages (preparation, establishment, expansion and experienced) of the four cases are consistent and there is a logical procedure in the execution of the brand equity dimensions.

Abstract In prior research has addressed relationship between advertising and financial performance, it is not consistent enough to draw a clear conclusion how advertising influences financial performance of the firm. This research develops a conceptual framework and tests whether brand equity mediates the relationship between advertising and financial performance (i.e., sales and market value). If advertising can play a key role in developing and maintaining brand equity and financial performance, it should be considered an investment rather than an expense. Advertising can contribute directly to brand equity and indirectly to financial performance and how much value advertising can deliver to brands and firms. The results show support for this framework. The findings of the research showed that advertising can not only work to improve market performance measures but also to develop and maintain brands. Firms that are viewed more favorably for their advertising enjoy higher financial performance, and a firm¡¦s brand equity level mediates this influence of advertising on financial performance. Notably, this research finds the results of the mediator (brand equity) offering important implications for marketing theory and practice.

<p>Då TV-reklam idag är ett frekvent inslag i de kommersiella TV-kanalerna ville vi ta reda på vilken typ av reklamfilm som uppfattades som mest lämpad vid varumärkesbyggande. För att ta reda på detta valde vi att genomföra kvalitativa djupintervjuer med sex personer, tre kvinnor och tre män, i åldrarna 18 - 65 år. Vi valde att avgränsa oss till de tre genrerna humorreklam, känsloreklam och kändisreklam, och valde ut två reklamfilmer inom varje genre som vi ansåg representativa för respektive genre. Vi valde att använda oss av semiotik och brand equity som teoretisk ansats då vi ansåg att de passade väl in i vår studie.</p><p>Under intervjuerna visade vi reklamfilmerna för intervjupersonerna och ställde därefter frågor utifrån två förutbestämda frågeområden; varumärke och reklamfilmsgenre. Majoriteten av intervjupersonerna ansåg att humor var den genre som var mest lämpad vid varumärkesbyggande, men när det gällde personligt tyckande visade det sig att humor och känsloreklam var lika mycket uppskattade. Flertalet av intervjupersonerna var överens om att val av reklamfilmsgenre var sammanlänkat med den typ av produkt som marknadsfördes. Vi kunde även urskilja att ett antal intervjupersoner ansåg att reklamfilmer till en viss grad bidrar till att intervjupersonerna skulle välja den marknadsförda produkten framför en likartad. En tendens vi fann inom kändisreklam var att om intervjupersonerna själva har en negativ uppfattning om kändisen i reklamfilmen från början så är inte det en faktor som påverkar varumärket och företaget på ett negativt sätt. En övergripande tendens vi kunde urskilja var att varumärket måste utstråla positiva associationer för att skapa värde hos TV-tittaren.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.