A proposed Model for Country Branding : an experimental Application on Nigeria

In the era of globalization, countries compete with each other for attention, respect and trust of potential consumers, investors, tourists, media and governments of other nations. Branding is the most powerful tool that a nation can utilize for effective differentiation strategies and for creating competitive advantage over other nations. Unfortunately, not every nations or destination marketers have a broad understanding of the concept of branding and how a country can be successfully branded. Hence, this study has proposed a model that could be used as a valuable guide for country branding. Also the model is recommended for countries struggling with image crisis; on the mission to improve the image internationally. Nigeria is a good example of countries with image crisis; it is one of the most populated countries in the world with a population of about 160 million inhabitants and growth rate of 2.553percent annually. Despite the abundant resources (e.g. coal, petroleum, natural gas etc.) that the nation is endowed with, it is quite disappointing that the population below poverty line is still at the alarming rate of 70percent of the total population. The mismanagement and poor leadership of the nation characterised by corruption, fraud, embezzlement of public fund etc. has culminated into serious image crisis that is slowing down the potential for investment and economic growth. However, there has been series of image rebranding campaigns but no tangible achievement has been recorded. It is quite questionable though, if image rebranding will provide the kind of future that Nigeria envisaged, considering the socio-political situation and the economic imbalance; compounded by the obvious fact that the nation has no known brand. Therefore, this paper argues that there is need to redirect the effort invested on image rebranding to the creation of a unique and competitive brand for the country. It was established from the study that a nation’s brand is capable of improving the reputation of the nation as well as stimulate the expectation of the target audience. However, it was also established from the study that a wrong approach to branding could mislead the target audience and attract negative publicity. Hence, as a contribution of the study to the field of branding, a model was proposed as a functional guide for country branding. Also, considering the abysmal performance of Nigeria’s image in the international community and to strengthen the argument that brand creation is required for the country; an experimental application of the proposed model was conducted using Nigeria as the case country. The first phase of the model suggested a major improvement in the society; this is required to further enhance the strengths of the country and to motivate the much needed community participation and confidence in the brand creation. It is the conclusion of the study that a strong nation brand can offset the image problem if it is built on something concrete, genuine, and uniquely identifiable with the country, capable of connecting to the cognitive psychology of the target audience.

A restricted curriculum for second language learners : a self-fulfilling teacher strategy?

The focus of this article is on relations between classroom interaction, curricular knowledge and student engagement in diverse classrooms. It is based on a study with ethnographic perspective in which two primary school classes in Sweden were followed for three years. The analysis draws on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The results indicate that language use in the classrooms is on a basic everyday level and that high teacher control results in low-demanding tasks and low engagement among students. Interaction in the classrooms mainly consists of short talk-turns with fragmented language, frequent repairs and interruptions, while writing and reading consists of single words and short sentences. Although the classroom atmosphere is friendly and inclusive, second language students are denied necessary opportunities to develop curricular knowledge and Swedish at the advanced level, which they will need higher up in the school system. The restricted curriculum that these students are offered in school thus restricts their opportunities to school success. Thus, I argue for a more reflective and critical approach regarding language use in classrooms.

Preparers’ and non-preparers’ lobbying on the proposed prohibition of goodwill amortisation in ED3 ‘business combinations’

In this paper preparers’ and non-preparers’ positions regarding accounting for goodwill are examined through studying submitted comment letters on ED3 ‘Business Combinations’. Preparers have, because of economic consequences, incentives to lobby for the non-amortisation approach and non-preparers for the amortisation approach. As hypothesised, non-preparers are found to support amortisation of goodwill to a greater extent than do preparers. Moreover, the two groups’ supportive arguments, i.e. how they argue for or against the non-amortisation or amortisation approach, are studied. Again, as hypothesised, the results show that the two groups use the same type of ‘sophisticated’ framework based arguments instead of economic consequences arguments. Taken together the examination of the comment letters thus indicates that both preparers and non-preparers point at conceptual strengths and weaknesses, instead of pointing at the real cause of the lobbying activities, i.e. perceived economic consequences, when they try to affect the final outcome of the standard. These findings confirm earlier research which has suggested that self-interested lobbyists use accounting theories and concepts as useful justifications.