The Ministry of Commerce Plans to Establish Middle China Energy and Raw Matrial Unified Market

Situated at the north bank of Yangtze River estuary, Nantong Economic ＆ Technological Development Zone held a grand foundation stone laying ceremony： the largest diesel manufacturing base-Austrian Biolux Biological Resources Protein Feed Co., Ltd. formally begins factory operations here. Austrian Vice Prime Minister Mr. Hurbert Gorback paid a special trip to attend the foundation stone laying ceremony.     

The Ministry of Commerce Plans to Establish Middle China Energy and Raw Material Unified Market

The ministry of commerce will promote the formation of the middle China energy and raw material unified market, change the unreasonable energy and raw material pricing system, and gradually reform the trade situations in middle China. Jiang Zengwei, Vice Minister of Commerce says so during the First Middle China Investment Trade Expo.     

The Eastern German Growth Trap: Structural Limits to Convergence?

Intereconomics - After an initial take-off during the first eight years following unification, the Eastern German economy started to stall and regress to its old growth path of the 1950s and 1960s....     

Geopolitical and Security Concerns of the EU’s Enlargement to the East: The Case of Ukraine,Moldova and Georgia

Intereconomics - Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine has significantly changed the geopolitical circumstances on the European continent and is also importantly...     

Marginal Intra-Industry Trade and Employment Reallocation: The Case Study of Iran’s Manufacturing Industries

The purpose of this paper is to test the smooth adjustment hypothesis by using panel technique for Iran’s manufacturing industries at the 4-digit aggregation level of ISIC classification, during time period 2001–2006. According to the smooth adjustment hypothesis, intra-industry trade expansion entails lower adjustment costs than inter-industry one. In this paper, by distinguishing marginal intra industry trade to its horizontal and vertical types and employing the total reallocation effect as a proxy of the adjustment cost of reallocation between sectors and occupations, we’ve tested smooth adjustment hypothesis for both marginal intra industry trade and its types. So, comparing with other empirical studies, this paper has used marginal vertical and horizontal intra industry trade as well as marginal intra industry trade to test the hypothesis. The obtained results do not support the hypothesis for marginal intra industry trade. On the other hand, by distinguishing marginal intra industry trade to marginal horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade, this hypothesis is expectedly confirmed. This result is justifiable since marginal horizontal intra industry trade is a change of intra industry trade with the similar factor intensity while marginal vertical intra industry trade is mainly based on the differences in factor endowment.     

The Inevitable Course for Shunde Furniture''''s Creating New Advantages is to Upgrade Industries and to Integrate Resources

Recently, over 100 famous enterprises in Shunde furniture industry gathered together to negotiate the plan for creating new advantages in Shunde furniture industry and formed the new council of Shunde Furniture Association. Chen Bao-guang. Vice Chairman of China Furniture Association, awarded certificate to Chen Weiheng, Board Chairman of Shunde Meihua Furniture Co., Ltd., who is reappointed to be Chairman of Shunde Furniture Association for his fourth sessions. Furniture manufacture is the important part of Shunde's traditional advantaged industries (household electrical     

Other‐Centered Behavior and The Dialectics of Self and Other

The social sciences in general and consumer research in particular have been detrimentally hampered by the presumption of self‐interest as an exclusive foundation of human behavior. As a result, conduct that fails to conform to the self‐interest paradigm has often been ignored, or worse, grossly twisted to fit the dominant categorizations. This article attempts to revisit the self‐interest assumption and renegotiate the subsequent interpretations of other‐centered behavior. An open dialogue concerning these pressing issues involves investigating the fundamental conceptions of self, other, and identity. Such a discussion enables a critical review of existing consumer research of other‐centered behavior and invites new lines of consumer research. More important, it compels one to openly consider the place of self/other relationship in contemporary consumer culture(s).     

A Guide to the Open Cities(Counties,Cities and Districts)of Sichuan Province

Administrative divisions: ChengduMunicipality:Qingyang District, Jinjiang District,Wuhou District, Chenghua District, JinniuDistrict, Longquanyi District, QingbaijiangDistrict, Jintang County, Shuangliu County,Wenjiang County, Chongzhou City, XinduCounty, Dujiangyan City, Qionglai City,Pixian County, Pujiang County, XinjingCounty, Dayi County, Pengzhou City     

“Where the East Kisses the West”: Marketing Convergence and Divergence in the New Europe Editorial to the Special Section

This special section contains articles based on selected papers presented during the 7^th EMAC Regional Conference hosted by the School of Economics and Business, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016. Following the double-blind review process, 14 best articles qualified for publication in this special section. Apart from the articles tackling the issues in emerging markets, a broad range of different topics, ranging from consumer journey and international branding to strategic issues are also included in this special issue.     

Breaking the “Bamboo Curtain” and the “Glass Ceiling”: The Experience of Women Entrepreneurs in High-Tech Industries in an Emerging Market

Despite the role women play in job creation, economic growth and society revitalization, especially in economies undergoing fundamental transformations, issues emerging from women in entrepreneurship have not received adequate attention in academic research. As a result, our understanding of women entrepreneurship in emerging markets as well as in nontraditional industries is even more limited. In this study, I attempt to partially fill the gap by comparing entrepreneurial orientations and venture performance between men and women entrepreneurs in electronics industry in Chinese transition economy. I offer insights gained from statistical analyses based on a survey as well as case study. Results reveal that while women are influenced by the same factors that affect decision making among men and exhibit some similarities, they differ from men in their willingness to take more risks and make bolder moves in pursuit of greater returns and future competitive advantage. In addition, women entrepreneurs outperform their male counterparts. I compare these findings with existing literature and offer suggestions for future research. Justin Tan is Professor and the Newmont Chair in Business Strategy in the Schulich School of Business at York University in Canada. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University in China. His research has been appeared in academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, among others. He serves as editor, associate editor, guest editor, and reviewer for most leading management journals. His research has been supported by Ford Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, among others.     

The Impact of Smokers' Group‐Membership and Activist Gender on Tolerance for Smoking,Receptiveness and Perceived Susceptibility to Anti‐Smoking Messages,and Likelihood of Anti‐Smoking Activism

Using two experiments we demonstrate that people have lower tolerance for smoking and higher anti‐smoking activism likelihood when in‐group versus out‐group members smoke. The likelihood of anti‐smoking activism toward in‐group smokers was greater for men than women. Moreover, as social distance declined, men showed greater anti‐smoking message receptiveness, message susceptibility and activism likelihood, whereas, women displayed no significant differences in tolerance for smoking, message receptiveness, message susceptibility, and activism likelihood. Open‐ended responses indicated generally negative cognitive reactions to smokers, yet a broad unwillingness to confront them. While feelings of personal relevance and caring facilitated anti‐smoking activism intentions, beliefs in the freedom of personal choice and polite interpersonal interactions hindered these intentions.     

The Retrospect of Partenariat and the Achievements

Since 1997 to 2000, CCPIT has organized domestic enterprises to participate in 7 Partenariats in Europe for 4 successive years, 146 Chinese enterprises had conducted598 rounds of business negotiations, and had reached53 cooperative agreements     

Organising IMC roles and functions in the business‐to‐business network environment

As products and distribution channels become more homogenised, and competing on the basis of price more difficult, integrated marketing communications (IMC) has been identified as the ‘new frontier’ for effective differentiation. Research identifying roles and functions of IMC has primarily been focused on firms operating in the final consumer market. This research seeks to extend our understanding of the role and functions of IMC in business‐to‐business markets, with specific reference to an industry network. In order to achieve this, this paper explores the roles and functions (i.e. the associated organisation of IMC activities) adopted by the Tasmanian Light Shipbuilding Network (TLSN). In total, this research found evidence of three distinct roles (IMC Champion, Government Lobbyist, and Network Ambassador) that together served to implement the IMC functions of gathering, analysing and disseminating key marketing information throughout the network of firms. This research also presents an IMC framework that represents the manner in which the various network members coordinated the various IMC roles and functions.     

Money in the real and the virtual world: e‐money,c‐money and the demand for cb‐money

Electronic money seems to become a new form of means of payment, not only for the Internet. It therefore will compete with other means of payment as central bank money and credit cards. There is an extensive literature on the technical and security aspects of the several forms of electronic money, but only a few papers on the economic aspects exist. In this paper, a Lancaster approach to the demand for means of payment is employed to scrutinize closer the relationship between electronic money and central bank money and credit cards. It is shown that in a two characteristics world of liquidity (acceptability) and security, there is a place for electronic money. Furthermore, it is shown that at present none of the existing monies has the potential for being a dominant means of payment. However, if the network externality problem of electronic money can be solved, electronic money may supplant the others. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Market Cultures,the Middle Classes and Islam: Consuming the Market?

In discussions of Islam and consumer practices, there is a tendency to focus exclusively on the “clash of cultures”, particularly that between Islam and the “west”. In Islamic societies, consumer culture is often portrayed as a threat, harmful to religion as it privileges hedonism, pleasure, individualism and an expressive lifestyle. To counter the influences of the market and “deislamisation”, Islamic fundamentalists and revivalists have posited Islam as an innoculative pill against decadent western values. Such analyses, however, do not add very much to our knowledge of contemporary modernist Islamic societies undergoing rapid social and economic transformation. In examining the case of Malaysia, the paper seeks to shed some light on how the various interpretations of Islam impacts on modern Malaysian Muslims.

The paper starts with an examination of the central concept of Islam as a discursive tradition and its continuing legacy in the Malaysian social and political formation. The paper next examines the role of the state and how its ability to affect a national vision of high‐modernist development and growing affluence has created a new Malay middle class. Increasing wealth and a growing middle class have seen an intensification of new consumption patterns and practices. At the same time, there is a growing Islamisation, and culturally and politically the urban Malay middle classes are split as they are both sympathetic to the Islamic revivalist tradition and are active consumers of middle‐class lifestyle. These contradictions played themselves out in the public sphere and percolate down into everyday life and practice, affecting power structures and discourses. Classes, identities, entrepreneurship, the nature of capitalism, civil society and dissent are consequently all affected. The paper therefore argues that the differing interpretations in Islam enable different understandings of consumption and identity formation and that such analysis can engender richer and greater analytical insights in the context of Islamisation, modernity and consumption.     

North–South trade liberalization and returns to skill in the south: The case of Mexico

This study examines the effect of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an instance of North–South trade liberalization, on returns to skill in Mexico. Mexico is abundant in low-skill workers relative to the US and Canada, and so, by the Heckscher–Ohlin–Samuelson trade model, NAFTA ought to have raised the relative earnings of low-skill workers, that is, lowered returns to skill in Mexico. Analysis of Mexican labour micro-data yields the finding that while returns to skill in industries producing tradeables have risen, ceteris paribus, since Mexico embarked upon trade liberalization by joining the GATT in 1986, this rise was less pronounced by 1999 in industries liberalized relatively rapidly by NAFTA, launched in 1994, than in industries liberalized relatively slowly by this phased trade treaty. This is considered evidence of NAFTA holding back rise in returns to skill, since it is plausible such a dampening would have been more marked in industries more rapidly exposed to trade with Mexico's skill abundant northern neighbours. Hence, this study suggests trade with developed nations may lower returns to skill in developing nations.