Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online via the University of Tennessee ETD website (http://web.utk.edu/~thesis/etd.shtml).

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine whether there was an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age or not. To explain this focus has been put on the roman goods. The contexts in which the roman artifacts are found indicate that they can be tied to what might have been an elite on Gotland during Roman Iron Age. They might also have been used as means of expressing wealth and prestige. Because the roman artifacts found on Gotland most often are drinking utensils they are also associated with drinking rituals. Drinking rituals are thought to have been very important events in which wealth, political influence, and status could have been expressed. Roman artifacts found in graves also indicate that they might have owned by some kind of elite, because they have been placed together with other status objects. The thesis does not exclude other events or phenomena that took place during the Roman Iron Age. The Iron Age society as a whole is also studied; this is meant to give a broader understanding of the people being researched.

The more certain and clear working scope the more serious price competition of industrial tender, since the clients who released the tenders have became wiser with learned experiences and available information of industry year-by-year. Such facts of tender not only cripple the bidding advantage but also shrink the profit expectation of stakeholders for scale companies which structured with huge organization and indirect cost burden, and impact the further business operation. Whatever the cut of won tender price, the project team which in charge of project realization usually chanceless to involve the marketing activities in advance under structure process. However, as the information receiver from the client during realization practically, the project team shall forward any above information and cope with the marketing team to break through current passive tendering procedure and construct better solution to the industrial clients. A ¡§project marketing¡¨ based procedure according to the characters of project team which merged project management with marketing activities has been proposed and suggests project team shall planning appropriate marketing strategies and activities before certain and clear requirements releasing by client to enhance the marketing effectiveness and achieve the opportunities. Such a procedure is initiated by identifying the impacted KPI with causes of project team and gathering the related information from clients, then find out the competitive markets and establish suitable marketing strategies. It is helpful for the project team to break away the traditional marketing predicament with systematic response to the opportunity changes of target markets.

Why do people cooperate? Why does not every individuals in their groups choose to be a free-rider all the time? Based on two series of experiments, the author finds that reciprocity and punishment contribute to cooperation. When a group allows positive reciprocity where people can choose to cooperate, positive reciprocity facilitates cooperation. When reciprocity between group members turns to negative, however, group members make little contribution to the group and start to retaliate against their partners. Once punishment is incorporated into the experiment, people¡¦s behavior of cooperation varies. In the high positive reciprocity environment where punishment is used, people, as expected, continue to give more of their resources to their group. But it is worth noting that negative reciprocity did not get worse if punishment is used in group dynamics.

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.

Nowadays, the competitions in industry transfer from selling campaign tracing operational efficiency and producing oriented to marketing battle chasing after effect, developing strategy, touching end users, and satisfying their real needs. In accordance with corporate strategy, there are several ways for companies to choose. How to make a decision in such choices, especially in developing brand and channels. It depends on the product characteristics. Brand and channels, the traditional bargaining issue, this research tried to find what resources suppliers own, could increase their bargaining power, and what resources distributors own, could increase their bargaining power, finally, identify the spectacular resources in their bargaining process. In the process which roles end users play indeed? This research will find how could both of suppliers and distributors affect the bargaining conclusion through end users¡¦ preference and customs. This research selected consumer goods and hypermarkets to represent the relation between upstream and downstream.

The primary purpose of this study is to uncover the future FMCG industry trend in the Taiwanese market. After literature review, five aspects of industrial forces based on Porter¡¦s Five-Force Model are used as the framework of this study. Qualitative research method is used to generate insight understanding of FMCG industry phenomena and the meanings behind each one of them. Three consumer manufacturing companies are selected and interviewed with each of the firm¡¦s market-leading consumer goods that belong to different categories in the FMCG industry. Trends from each product category are found through the interviews; by comparing and contrasting the trends of each three investigated categories, the overall FMCG industry trend are uncovered. Moreover, suggestions and recommendations are presented at the last chapter of this study with particular focused attention on the managerial implication of the study.

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Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-66). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-191).