This study uses content analysis and a controlled experiment as data generation methods to investigate the precise nature of the largely unexplored relationship between the content of real estate news and activities in the real estate market. The theoretical base of the research is Kahneman’s two system view (2003) of cognitive processing, which is applied to an individual’s decision-making about the residential real estate market. The affect heuristic provides the theoretical basis for studying the relationship between the emotional content of local media information and decision making in the residential real estate market. The research question seeks to measure the “framing effect” of news on real estate market activity. It is posited that the way local real estate news is framed will influence transaction prices and the number of pending sales. A behavioral approach is utilized to understand the underlying relationship between a residential real estate market and a news article to audiences; an effect called frame setting. It is conjectured that when media coverage about the real estate market is negative there is more downward pressure on the market compared to when media coverage is more objective and includes descriptive statistics on the current real estate market.

Lack of motivation is a substantial productivity cost for organisations and business in generally work under the assumption that pay predicts performance. Satisfaction of the basic psychological needs has in research demonstrated a positive relationship with a better performance (i.e. Baard et al., 2004). If this is the case in the complex nature of sales work, with its primary focus on goals set (sales target) is yet to be decided. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the basic psychological needs, health and sales performance. The results emanating from this study on 252 sales people goes against previous research on performance as no significant relationships were found between the basic psychological needs and sales performance. However the study provides a strong empirical confirmation of the proposition that the basic psychological needs play an important role for health. Overall the results suggest that goal-setting (i.e. sales target) has significant consequences in shaping salespeople's cognitive aspect of motivation, putting the basic psychological needs behind and may result in impaired health.

The dissertation consists of a Piano Concerto, written for first performance in Fall 2008 by Blair McMillen, piano, and the Raleigh Civic Symphony conducted by Randolph Foy. The three movement work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 3 trumpets in C, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, 3 percussionists, strings, and piano solo. The work is approximately twenty minutes in duration. The first movement, "Fantod," employs a neo-Romantic idiom, featuring the soloist as both aggressive virtuoso and as a subtle residual resonance which emerges from the orchestral texture. The second movement, "Lament," serves as a simple, pensive, and sorrowful aftermath to the frenzied first movement. In the third movement, "Rondoburlesque," the mood of the work becomes considerably more lighthearted, and moments of the first two movements are caricatured. The Concerto's harmonic and melodic organization derives from a set theoretical design. The first movement uses the harmonic minor scale and its inversion, the second movement uses the melodic minor scale, and the last movement uses the natural minor scale (the major scale). Important and unique subsets of these scales are used to provide both contrast and interrelatedness between movements. In particular, the main melodic theme of the first movement returns at the end of the last movement. / Dissertation

Financial Crisis has seriously shut down global economy and Taiwan also couldn¡¦t escape from the strike of current Financial Tsunami. Under this condition, consumers become stricter on budgeting. Especially as rising price causes real income decrease, consumers would pinch pennies on necessity spending. We all know Watsons is the famous chain store of cosmeceuticals, which sells not only medicine but also cosmetics and commodities. Thus, this research takes Watsons as the example to explore the relationship among sales promotion, perceptive value, purchasing intention, and customer¡¦s loyalty. The main purposes as follows. 1. To understand customer¡¦s view towards sale promotion campaigns of Watsons. 2. To explore whether different sales promotion campaigns influence perceptive value, purchasing intention or customer¡¦s loyalty. 3. To discuss the relationship among sales promotion, perceptive value, purchasing intention, and customer¡¦s loyalty. 4. To analyze whether impulse purchasing characteristics modifies the effect of sales promotion on perceptive value, purchasing intention, and customer¡¦s loyalty. According to SPSS statistic analysis software, I have some findings as follows¡G 1. Customers prefer ¡§pay one more dollar, get one more item¡¨ than ¡§Redeem¡¨ 2. Different sales promotion cause different influences on perceptive value, purchasing intention, and customer¡¦s loyalty. 3. The effect of sales promotion on purchasing intention and customer¡¦s loyalty is significant. 4. Impulse purchasing characteristic doesn¡¦t have modified effect.

High level of inventory has been a problem for the underwear industry in Taiwan for a long period of time. This is mainly because the product life cycle of female underwear is relatively short, which makes it difficult for the underwear firms to gauge the demand for the new released product accurately. Pre-order strategy has become increasingly popular as the seller can obtain advance demand information and use the information to improve the inventory planning. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of implementing pre-order strategy for female branded underwear in Taiwan and to explore the necessary conditions. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted online. The questionnaire was built upon four major constructs: product, brand, customer service and sales promotion, with thirty-one variable included. The results revealed almost 60% women would consider pre-order if the pre-order sales is implemented with attractive sales promotions. Others would not consider because they cannot try on and the time must be spent for returning dissatisfied product. Fourteen variables were found to be significantly important in influencing female consumers¡¦ pre-order intention with means over 4. Female consumers were most concerned with after-sales services: a full money back guarantee, and an easy return procedure. Other than after-sales services, product quality, the knowledge and attitude of salespersons, delivery services, and brand credibility were also found to be important. In addition, lower price in pre-order period and free underpants were found to be most attracting. The only variable that appeared to be less influential was the celebrity endorsement, which was the only factor rated below neutral mean (<2.5). The findings of this research provide useful information to underwear firms for promoting pre-order sales. Underwear firms must be aware of those necessary conditions in implementing pre-order strategy.

Prior research has established that stocks with high dispersion of earnings forecasts or short interest are associated with low subsequent returns. Assuming dispersion of forecasts is a proxy for divergence of opinions and short interest is a proxy for short selling constraints, these results have been traditionally attributed to correction for overpricing created by binding short selling constraints. This argument is provided by Miller (1977), and states that prices reflect an optimistic view when investors with pessimistic views can not trade due to short selling constraints, and that the more opinions diverge, the more stocks become overpriced. I test whether dispersion of forecasts exacerbates overpricing, but find evidence contrary to Miller’s theory. When dispersion of forecasts increases, prices decrease. I offer an explanation based on analysts’ reluctance to quickly revise their forecasts downward. I show that some analysts’ sluggish response to bad news results in dispersion of forecasts. The inertia in downward forecast revisions also leads to market underreaction to bad news. Therefore, the negative relationship between dispersion and subsequent returns may be attributable to analysts’ sluggish response to bad news. I also examine the return predictability of firms with high short interest and low institutional ownership. Short interest seems to predict not only future stock returns but also future earnings news, especially for firms with lower institutional ownership. Therefore, the return predictability of short interest seems to be associated with value relevant information short sellers seem to have gathered.

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The market scale of Taiwan department store expands unceasingly these years, and the competition is more intense than before. As a result, the research and discussion in the department store are more and more. The management style of department store in Taiwan becomes large scale, chain operation system, and internationalization. In addition to, might be joint venture or technological cooperation with overseas company. The major objective of this study is to examine the relationship among selling skill, service attitude, and job performance, moreover, using the psychology contract to an intermediate variable. To discuss, the intermediate effect to the selling skill, service attitude, and job performance. From this research, according to the analysis from six department stores with 349 sales staffs in Kaohisung. Analysis of the results will be present in below: First, the relationship between selling skill and job performance has positive correlation and effect significantly, then the satisfy level between selling skill and psychology contract has noticeable positive correlation and effect. The relationship between service attitude and job performance has positive correlation and effect obvious. Besides that, the satisfy level between service attitude and psychology contract also has positive correlation. In addition to, the satisfy level among psychology contract to the selling skill and job performance has intermediate effect partially, and the satisfy level among psychology contract to the service attitude and job performance also has a part of intermediate effect. Finally, the advice has been offered to the department stores, suppliers, sale staffs, and others researchers.

Abstract Most of the enterprises evaluate the effects of advertisement by analyzing the sales volume. However, there are plenty of elements which contributes to the sales volume, and advertisement is only one of them. Wherefore, how to precisely measure the effects of advertisement becomes the key issue. Besides, we have to mention that the manufacturer and the retailer have different strategic point of view on doing advertisement. Compared to manufacturer, retailer focuses more on regional market segmentation and emphasizes more on immediately. The attributions and advertisement cooperative strategies exist different interpretations between manufacturer and retailer. Concerning about business model of the convenient store, making too much order of bento could cause the wastage due to the short shelf life. On the other hand, making less order of bento could lead to unsatisfaction of consumer demands, losing sales. There are many factors that affect making orders such as climate, regional business activity, advertisement, promotion and so on. This research aims to investigate how the series of bento advertisement affect consumers by checking advertisement contact percentage, memory recall and hurried consuming behavior in order to make the retail realize the consumers¡¦ wants and fulfill the demands. The methodology in this study has been divided into two sections. The first section is mainly about the advertisement strategies of seven-eleven Taiwan. Three examples will be taken as case studies: ¡§citizen bento¡¨ represents the rational appealing, ¡§ railway obento¡¨ represents the perceptual appealing, and ¡§rice harvest¡¨ represents mixture of both rational and perceptual. In investigating the three former case studies, three elements are attempted to identify advertisement related-factors which are advertisement contact percentage, advertisement memory recall and how advertisement promote the consuming. The second section is to evaluate how importance advertisement influence the ordering. It is intended that the research will enhance the understanding of different perceptions in creating new products and suggestion the advertisement strategies.

In China Steel Corporation(CSC) of Taiwan, cash and local L/C were the only two methods for shipping payment for the past 30 years. This didn¡¦t change until year 2001 when a financial crisis in Taiwan resulted in inadquatecy of credit line within Taiwanese domestic steel companies. Many companies were faced with the credit problems for procuring materials. Thus, CSC decided to develop an e-factoring system with the state-of-art e-commerce technologies to help its customers overcoming the problems. In this research, a study was conducted to investiage this e-factoring system. The results indicated that CSC¡¦s e-factoring system not only created a new operating model but also became a successful strategic information system. IT was an innovation that was fully integrated with CSC¡¦s ERP system and work flows. It provided an convenient payment method to secure customers transaction in the business activity growing period and played the role of IT as to provide a secure and convenient trading platform. Finally, the e-factoring system was expanding under the protection of government laws. Thus, we conclude that CSC¡¦s e-factoring system was a success because its development began with a specific focus of resolving specific customers¡¦ problem but later transits into a successful strategic information system through its convenience and effeciency in supporting and retaining target customers.