Five trademark law strategies for managing brands

This installment of BUSINESS LAW & ETHICS CORNER offers business professionals a selection of five trademark law strategies for more effectively protecting and managing brand names. The legal strategies profiled herein introduce readers to a variety of trademark issues that are often overlooked in the management and protection of brand names, even by sophisticated and savvy business people.     

The critical role of timing in managing intellectual property

In today's environment, timing is a critical part of business strategy. Nowhere is this truer than as regards managing intellectual property in an increasingly global marketplace. The creation and protection of intellectual property assets often depends on consistently taking the right legal action at the right time. The consequences of failing to do so can be disastrous but may only be felt at a later time or in other markets. The difficulty for business people lies in the fact that the time-sensitive aspects of intellectual property cannot be managed effectively by relying on intuition or resolving to see a lawyer when the need arises. This article provides a basic primer on the critical role of timing in identifying, creating, and protecting intellectual property assets. It discusses the most common types of intellectual property—patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets—and compares the role of timing in the creation and protection of each asset type. Most importantly, it summarizes the key issues of timing in the creation and protection of intellectual property.     

Does Audit Committee Accounting Expertise Help to Promote Audit Quality? Evidence from Auditor Reporting of Internal Control Weaknesses

In this study, we examine whether audit committee accounting expertise helps to promote audit quality by motivating auditors to conduct diligent internal control audits and make appropriate internal control assessments because audit committee accounting expertise safeguards auditors from dismissal following adverse internal control opinions. Among clients with existing and likely internal control material weaknesses (as proxied by future restatements of audited financial statements), we find a greater likelihood of adverse internal control audit opinions when the audit committee has greater accounting expertise (measured by the proportion of accounting experts on the audit committee). Among all clients, we find a lower likelihood of subsequent auditor dismissal following an adverse internal control audit opinion when the audit committee has greater accounting expertise. In further analyses, we find that this lower likelihood of subsequent auditor dismissal occurs when at least two audit committee members possess accounting expertise. We also find some evidence that CFO influence (but not CEO influence) over the audit committee negates the increased likelihood of adverse internal control opinions when internal control material weaknesses likely exist, as well as the decreased likelihood of auditor dismissal following adverse internal control opinions. These findings have important implications for regulators and corporate nominating committees interested in promoting audit committee effectiveness.     

Do Community Supported Agriculture programmes encourage change to food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes? New evidence from shareholders

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programmes have recently received attention for their potential to influence food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes, though studies have mostly drawn from small samples (n?t-tests assess if paired means are statistically different, and multiple regressions of paired differences on socioeconomic factors, self-reported health, and years of CSA enrolment estimate the effect of respondent characteristics on behaviour change. The results strongly suggest that CSAs have the potential to positively impact shareholders’ food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes, and that those reporting ‘poor health’ prior to CSA enrolment exhibited the most change overall. These results should be taken as an initial, yet promising, analysis of the impact of CSA participation on shareholder food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes.     

Residents’ attitudes toward future tourism development in terms of community well-being and attachment

This study explores residents’ attitudes toward future tourism development based on their community well-being (CWB) and community attachment. Focusing on the case of Gamcheon Culture Village in Busan, South Korea, which was developed during an urban regeneration project in 2009, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted. The main findings of this study are: (1) CWB is supported by five variables including income effects, social participation, safety service, infrastructure service, and environmental effect; (2) not only does CWB influence community attachment but attachment also effects residents’ attitudes; and (3) the most effective variable of CWB is income effect, and safety service for community attachment. These results can help to provide effective strategies to encourage residents to have positive attitudes about further tourism development in a community-based tourism destination.     

Relationship between HEXACO personality factors and emotional labour of service providers in the tourism industry

This study aimed to 1) explore to what extent service providers’ emotional labour is affected by personality as measured using HEXACO personality factors, 2) analyze the affect of emotional labour on the performance of required emotional display rules, and 3) investigate differences in emotional labour depending on service providers’ demographic characteristics. From a questionnaire survey of employees in different service sectors in Korea, four HEXACO personality factors, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness were found to have a positive influence on emotional labour. Deep acting has a positive influence on the requirement to display positive emotions and a negative influence on the requirement to hide negative emotions. Demographic variables generally do not affect emotional labour. This study provides practical information about employees to managers in the service industry. It could help in recruitment, the management of human resources, and enhance a company’s service assessment.     

Understanding Japanese tourists’ shopping preferences using the Decision Tree Analysis method

This study was designed to assess the factors affecting Japanese tourists’ shopping preference and intention to revisit Korea. The analytical method applied in this study was Decision Tree Analysis, which is under-utilized in tourism studies. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected on the basis of on-site survey method and used for data analysis. Among interesting findings, three groups including ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and spent US$50–300 on shopping’, ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$300–1000’ and ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$1000–5000,’ showed a high level of intention to return to Korea for the purpose of shopping. In addition, two groups ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of below high school’ and ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of a college graduate or above’ showed a higher level interest in merchandise than in shopping venue attractiveness.     

A NOTE ON VICTORIAN WHEAT YIELD DISTRIBUTIONS

An analysis of wheat yield series from ten localities in Victoria was undertaken to investigate for independence of observations and to test for normality of the distributions. The conclusion was reached that Victorian wheat yield series are composed of random observations and form frequency distributions which display slight negative skewness. The situation may be different for other crops or for wheat in other areas.