Marketing and advertising practices of Turkish entrepreneurs in transition economies: Evidence from Georgia

As a transition economy, Georgia has an uncertain, complex, and immature business environment, typical of transition economies in the Eurasian region. In an effort to provide insights into marketing and advertising practices in the Eurasian transition economies, this study empirically examines the marketing and advertising practices in Georgia through two surveys conducted with Turkish entrepreneurs in Georgia and Georgian consumers. On the one hand, the findings of the survey of the Turkish entrepreneurs indicated that an overall adaptation strategy is needed in Georgia; in addition, foreign entrepreneurs willing to enter the Georgian market are advised to offer a variety of products by collaborating with local distributors and agents. Although Georgian consumers do not have high income, low-price strategy does not always work as consumers equate low price with inferior quality. Marketing of prestigious products are to be sold at higher prices and appropriate product positioning strategies must be developed for each target market segment. Merchandising strategies must be congruent with the target market served as well as retail stores/outlets utilized. On the other hand, the Georgian consumers demand better customer service and increased variety of products; advertising is welcomed to a certain extent as long as advertising provides useful product/brand and company information.     

When goliaths win and davids lose: The moderating role of perceived risk in brand biography effects

Brand biographies trace a brand's evolution to position it as an underdog (i.e., passion and determination that lead to success despite limited resources) or a topdog (i.e., success based on abundance of resources) brand. This study examines how consumers’ risk perceptions associated with brand choice influence brand biography effects. It demonstrates that when perceived risk associated with brand choice is low, consumers process brand biographies narratively, experience greater narrative transportation into underdog (vs. topdog) brand biographies, and evaluate the underdog brand more favorably. When perceived risk associated with brand choice is high, consumers respond more positively to topdog (vs. underdog) brand biographies, due to topdog brands’ greater perceived ability to reduce risk. The topdog effect observed at higher levels of perceived risk reverses, however, when consumers have the opportunity to process the brand biography before receiving high risk information, as this allows for narrative transportation into the brand biography. This study contributes to research on moderators of brand biography effects and suggests that perceived risk should play a role in marketers’ decision to emphasize underdog or topdog characteristics in brand biographies.     

Clustering as an organizational response to capital market inefficiency: evidence from microenterprises in Ethiopia

Absence of a well-developed capital market has been listed as a key obstacle to industrialization in developing countries in the development literature. In this paper, we show that industrial clusters, through specialization and division of labor, can ease the financial constraints of microenterprises even in the absence of a well-functioning capital market. By using data from more than 17,000 microenterprises in four sectors and four regions of Ethiopia, we find that clustering lowers capital entry barrier by reducing the initial investment required to start a business. This effect is found to be significantly larger for microenterprises investing in districts with high capital market inefficiency, indicating the importance of clustering as an organizational response to a credit constrained environment. The findings highlight the importance of cluster-based industrial activities as an alternative method of propagating industrialization when local conditions do not allow easy access to credit.     

Child injury prevention in Vietnam: achievements and challenges

As with other South Asian countries, injury is becoming a leading cause of death and morbidity among children in Vietnam. In response to the increasing burden of child injury, government and non-government agencies in Vietnam have combined efforts during the last decade to develop and implement various child injury prevention strategies and programmes. This article provides, through a review of relevant documents and interviews with major stakeholders, an overview of these efforts and highlights major challenges to child injury prevention in the country. The findings point to notable achievements in terms of increasing awareness of injury facing children at all levels in the community and developing a sound injury prevention policy framework in a relatively short period of time. However, much needs to be done to implement necessary environmental and legislative changes, strengthen child injury surveillance and injury prevention research; and to improve access to health services. The insight into the experience of Vietnam could benefit other low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of child injury.     

Environmental Stewardship and Technical Efficiency in Canadian Prairie Canola Production

This study examines beneficial management practice (BMP) adoption and technical efficiency for canola producers in the Canadian Prairie Provinces. A Just‐Pope stochastic frontier production function is estimated using data from a survey of canola producers. Yield is modeled as a function of nutrients and precipitation. A linear inefficiency function includes farm specific variables and a set of binary variables representing BMP adoption. BMP variables for nutrient management planning and precision farming are positively related to technical efficiency while results for the other BMP indicators are mixed. Model estimates appear to be significantly influenced by moisture problems that occurred through the Prairie region during the 2011 cropping year. The study results suggest that for Western Canadian canola producers, there is potential complementarity for some BMPs in terms of improving technical efficiency while simultaneously advancing environmental stewardship.     

The Harris-Todaro hypothesis and the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade model : A synthesis

We report a model of the Harris-Todaro variety in which capital is mobile and the urban wage is endogenous. Our model subsumes several other models presented in the literature. We extend the central theorems of trade to our model and also present formulae for the shadow wage and shadow rental. Our principal findings include (a) nonexistence of equilibrium in an important specialization of the model; (b) a factor-price and unemployment rate equalization theorem: and (c) an identical subsidy to labor but a differential subsidy to capital for obtaining a second-best optimum.     

一种双精度除法运算的方法

本文以ＴＭＳ３２０Ｃ２５信号处理器为例，介绍一种用单字节的运算程序实现双精度除法运算的方法，在保证精度的条件下，使程序编制简单、方便。