THE ROLE OF CULTURAL AWARENESS IN BUILDING CHINESE HEALTH FOOD BRANDS Using Netnography in Searching Cultural Arguments to Be Used for Marketing Health Foods in China

Despite the complexity of the Chinese culture consumer product businesses should apply them in building brands for Chinese markets. There are reasons to believe that cultural values and attitudes affect the buying behavior of Chinese consumers. Companies that wish to create brands in China should therefore be aware of the prevailing cultural values and consumer attitudes. This thesis will examine which values and attitudes mostly affect Chinese consumers of health food products. The study will be done by conducting a netnography. Because netnography is actually a collection methods rather than a single method, other auxiliary methods will also be applied. These methods are emotion, language and sentiment analysis (ELS analysis). Emotion analysis will be conducted because cultural values are mostly built on emotional basis. Sentiment analysis will assist in recognizing the key factors that help to locate values and attitudes. Because the netnography will be conducted in Chinese web forums by a non-native researcher, linguistic aspects should also be analyzed in parallel with emotions and sentiment analysis. The study shows that the Chinese consumers of health food products put much importance on functional, analytical and collectivistic attitudes as well as social and psychological values. Of all the twelve cultural values defined, the role of family rose above all. Also perseverance, frugality, guanxi and harmony were highly presented. The attitudes were found by recognizing certain attitude factors. Of all the factors, health foods’ functional benefits and aesthetic content together with consumers’ value consciousness surpassed other factors. Besides these results that can be applied by foreign health food companies willing to enter Chinese consumer markets, also academia can benefit this new approach for conducting ethnographies online.

Impact of increased environmental awareness on product marketing

This Bachelor thesis studies how companies use a variety of different sustainable marketing approaches to sell their green products. Empirical part is done by researching and interviewing two B2B furniture companies.

Microbiological quality of hamburgers sold in the streets of Cuiabá - MT, Brazil and vendor hygiene-awareness

This study evaluated the microbiological quality of hamburgers and the microbe community on the hands of vendors in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil, in relation to vendors´ awareness as to what constitute acceptable food-handling practices as part of a broad-spectrum research programme on street foods in Brazil . Sale of the hamburger known as the 'baguncinha' is common and widespread in urban Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Food inspectors encounter various difficulties in carrying out inspections. One hundred and five hamburgers samples were evaluated using conventional methods including tests for facultative aerobic and/or anaerobic mesophytic bacteria, coliform counts at 45 °C, the coagulase test for Staphylococcus, Gram-staining for the presence of Bacillus cereus, Clostridium sulphite reductase and Salmonella spp. The hamburgers were categorized as unsuitable for human consumption in 31.4% of samples, with those testing positive for coliforms and Staphylococcus at unacceptably high levels by Brazilian standards. High levels of microbiological contamination were detected on the hands of the food handlers and mesophytic bacterial counts reached 1.8 × 10(4) CFU/hand. Interviews were carried out by means of questionnaires to evaluate levels of awareness as to acceptable food handling practices and it was found that 80,1% of vendors had never participated in any kind of training.

Profile of establishments in the supermarket sector with respect to good practices in the city of Santa Maria (RS), Brazil

The objective of this study was to verify the compliance of the supermarket sector with respect to the Good Practice Program standards of the city of Santa Maria (RS), Brazil. Sixty nine establishments were verified using a checklist of good practices for the supermarket sector in Santa Maria, RS (Brazil), from April to July 2011. The data were collected by a food safety and quality professional using this checklist. The results showed that the overall adequacy of the establishments surveyed was 29.07%. The highest percentage of compliance was found for storage at ambient temperature (64.13%). The lowest compliance percentage was also found in different sections and areas in the supermarkets such as bakery and confectionery (14.93%), water supply (18.30%), food handling (21.01%), sausage and cold meat (or deli meat) (36.38%), and documentation-related items (4.97%). None of the supermarkets evaluated had the necessary documentation for the implementation of good practices. The results of this study show the importance of effectively implementing a good practice program and quality systems by raising awareness among technicians and professionals of the importance of quality programs used in food companies and the need for more thorough inspection delivered by competent authorities to ensure food safety for consumers.

Situational awareness for critical infrastructure protection

Postgraduate seminar series with a title Situational Awareness for Critical Infrastructure Protection held at the Department of Military Technology of the National Defence University in 2015. This book is a collection of some of talks that were presented in the seminar. The papers address designing inter-organizational situation awareness system, principles of designing for situation awareness, situation awareness in distributed teams, vulnerability analysis in a critical system context, tactical Command, Control, Communications, Computers, & Intelligence (C4I) systems, and improving situational awareness in the circle of trust. This set of papers tries to give some insight to current issues of the situation awareness for critical infrastructure protection. The seminar has always made a publication of the papers but this has been an internal publication of the Finnish Defence Forces and has not hindered publication of the papers in international conferences. Publication of these papers in peer reviewed conferences has indeed been always the goal of the seminar, since it teaches writing conference level papers. We still hope that an internal publication in the department series is useful to the Finnish Defence Forces by offering an easy access to these papers.

The Impact of Event Marketing on Brand Awareness in eSport Industry

The purpose of this qualitative research is to study what is the impact of event marketing on brand awareness in the context of electronic sport industry. Based on the research questions, the theoretical framework will be developed. This research will analyze earlier theories, and also searching more fresh literature to explain the current phenomenon in the eSport industry. In the empirical part, there were total of five case companies interviewed. The context of this research is eSport, which has its own chapter. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on event marketing and brand awareness. In this research, event marketing is analyzed from the event organizers perspective. In some occasions, event exhibitors’ perspective is also analyzed. In brand awareness, the focus is how to create a brand recognizable, recalled and from there top of mind in consumers’ minds. The results of this research revealed that many companies’ struggles on getting their brand recognizable. Some of the case companies lacks a strategy and don’t exactly know the core values of their customers. However some of the case companies were opposite. One reason behind this is that some of them has experience on the field and the companies have resources that covers them. Also the current strong brand has clearly a positive affect on their business.

For whom the cruiser rolls: a retrospective analysis of factors relating to recidivism in a sample of graduates from a court-ordered alcohol education and awareness program

This study investigated, retrospectively, whether recidivism in a sample of court-ordered'graduates of an alcohol education and awareness program could be predicted. This alcohol education program was based on adult education principles and was philosophically akin to the thoughts of Drs. Jack Mezirow, Stephen Brookfield, and Patricia Cranton. Data on the sample of 214 Halton IDEA (Impaired Driver Education and Awareness) graduates were entered into a spread sheet. Descriptive statistics were generated. Each of the 214 program graduates had taken several tests during the course of the IDEA program. These tests measured knowledge, attitude about impaired driving, and degree of alcohol involvement. Test scores were analyzed to determine whether those IDEA graduates who recidivated differed in any measurable way from those who had no further criminal convictions after a period of at least three years. Their criminal records were obtained from the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). Those program graduates who reoffended were compared to the vast majority who did not reoffend. Results of the study indicated that there was no way to determine who would recidivate from the data that were collected. Further studies could use a qualitative model. Follow-up interviews could be used to determine what impact, if any, attendance at the IDEA program had on the life of the graduates.

The effects of a language intervention program on the phonological and word awareness skills of language-delayed kindergarten children

Over the past decade, research has suggested that phonological and word awareness skills (i.e., the ability to reflect on and manipulate the components of language) are important for early reading acquisition. This study examined the phonological and word awareness skills of language-delayed kindergarten children at the beginning and end of a language intervention program using five tasks. The results were compared to the performances of average kindergarten children who did not participate in the language intervention program. There were significant performance differences for all tasks, favouring the average children, at the beginning of the intervention program. However, at the end of the training interval, the languagedelayed children performed as well as the average children.

The impact of a training program in phonological awareness on children's early writing

This study examined the effects that a training program in phonological awareness had on the early writing skills of children in a Grade One class in the Lincoln County Separate school system. The intent of the training program was to provide consistent and systematic practice in the manipulation of the phonological structure of language. The games and activities of the training program were related to a framework of developmental phonological skills and practised in a group setting during an unstructured period of the regular classroom schedule. The training program operated three days in a six-day cycle for approximately twenty minutes a day, from November until mid-March. All children were tested at the outset and conclusion of the study to determine level of functioning in letter identification, word recognition, verbal intelligence, phonological awareness and spelling. Results of the pre-tests and post-tests were compared to determine differences between the experimental and control groups over time. In addition, a systematic analysis of the children's writing looked at the development of the spelling of regular and irregular words. The results of this study provided strong support for the hypothesis that the treatment group would progress through the stages of early writing development more quickly than children without such training. On the basis of differences between the groups over time, it was evident that training in phonological awareness had a direct positive effect on the spelling of regular words for children during the early stages of writing. The training program did not have a significant effect on the spelling of irregular words. Test results evaluating phonological awareness indicated a significant difference within each group over time but no significance between the groups during the experimental period. It would appear that the results of these tests reflect maturational changes in the child rather than causal effects of the training program. Nor did the effects of the training program transfer significantly to other aspects of language. Although some of the hypotheses considered were not supported by the study, the results do indicate that children during the early stages of writing development can benefit from a training program in phonological awareness. The theoretical direction for effective programming as a result of this study is discussed. The educational implications of training phonological awareness concurrent to beginning efforts in writing are considered.

An analysis of students' travel motivations and images of China as a tourist destination

Despite China's rapid growth in inbound tourism, the nature of its Canadian tourist market has been insufficiently studied. In response to this need, the objectives of this study are to identify China's destination image in Canadian students' minds, their possible internal motivations for visiting China as well as examining demographic influences on people's destination image formation. The study reviews image formation process and travel motivation categorisation, discusses their relationship, and implements Baloglu and McCleary's (1999) perceptual and affective image formation model and "push and pull factors" theory as its framework. A self-administered survey was applied to 424 undergraduate students in a Canadian university in early 2004. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted to identify perceived images and travel motivation. Summated means were calculated to illustrate the affective attitudes. A series of f-test and ANOVA tests were employed to examine the influence of demographics. An open-ended question format was adopted to analyse other images, motivations and visitation barriers that students may have. Findings demonstrate that cultural and natural attractions are the predominant image which the Canadian students have of China'; some stereotypes and negative images still influence the students' perception; travel service quality is largely unknown; increasing knowledge and seeking excitement and fun are the significant motivators in the likelihood of the Canadian students choosing to visit China; and personal interests may be a factor that significantly influences an individual's destination image and travel motivation. Raising awareness and increasing familiarity through promotion are suggested as methods to create a positive destination image of China.

Worldview awareness and adult education /

This research derived data from two sets of interviews with 18 participants who were involved in adult education in either a community college or a university. The purpose was to explore their worldview awareness. Through the interviews, the participants shared their understanding of worldview as a term and concept and as something that might be seen to apply in their practice of teaching. The responses indicated that there are three kinds of awareness (noetic, experiential, and integrative) which appeared to develop upon a landscape of constraints and opportunities. Constraints were seen to fall into the 5 broad categories of institutional, circumstantial, self-imposed, other-imposed, and discipline-related constraints. Opportunities for developing awareness were linked to individual experiences and could occur to different extents in many directions, on different occasions, and in different phases of life. Through this research, and in spite of the prevalence of worldview in the human experience, it was foimd that the term and concept have remained on the margins of educational discourse. Consequently, theory, research, and practice have been deprived of a useful and usable concept.

Benefits, challenges, and limitations of fair trade as a social justice movement

This thesis answers some important questions about how Fair Trade is experienced and perceived by some Northern sellers, consumers, activists, advocates, practitioners, and an importer. As it relates to sellers, I focus only on small scale independent businesses (i.e. I do not include large corporate businesses in my interview sample). Fair Trade works to establish a dignified livelihood for many producers in the South. Some of the most important actors in the Fair Trade movement are the people who buy, sell, and/or advocate for Fair Trade in the North. Fair Trade is largely a consumer movement which relies on the purchase of Fair Trade products. Without consumers purchasing Fair Trade products, retailers providing the products for sale, and activists raising awareness of Fair Trade, the movement, as it is presently constituted, would be non-existent. This qualitative research is based on 19 in-depth i.nterviews with nine interviewees involved with Fair Trade in Canada. I focus on benefits, challenges, and limitations of Fair Trade in the context of their involvement with it. I describe and analyze how people become involved with Fair Trade, what motivates them to do so, what they hope to achieve, and the benefits of being involved. I also describe and analyze how people understand and deal with any challenges and limitations associated with their involvement with Fair Trade. I also explore whether involvement with Fair Trade influences how people think about other products that they purchase and, if so, in what ways. I focus mainly on the commodity of coffee, but my discussion is not limited to this single commodity. Interviewees' experiences with and participation in Fair Trade vary in terms of their level of involvement and interest in the broader Fair Trade movement (as opposed to just participating in the market component). This research reveals that while Fair Trade is a small movement, sellers, consumers, and activists have had much success in the advancement of Fair Trade. While challenges have not deterred interviewees from continuing to participate in Fair Trade, analysis and explanation of such challenges provides the opportunity for Fair Trade practitioners to develop effective solutions in an effort to meet the needs of various Fair Trade actors.

Acknowledging mother's lived experience of raising a child with Autism : a phenomenological inquiry

Autism is one of those human ambiguities that forces vigilant open-mindednesssometimes this open-mindedness comes without choice, for example when you become the mother of a child with autism. Recent reports indicate that Pervasive Developmental Disorders affect 1 in 150 children (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007). This also means that there are many families caring for children with autism. The purpose of this research was to explore the day to day lived experiences of mothers caring for a child with autism. With a drastic increase in children diagnosed with autism, and very little research on mothers themselves, assisting in articulating lived experiences from mothers themselves seemed like an acceptable first step. Mothers were asked to journal for a period of one month, once a week, as well as participate in a focus group. Findings from both of these techniques were analyzed using underpinnings from Amelio Giorgi and Max van Manen. General findings indicate that mothers present poignant narratives about living with their child. It becomes clear that mothers are stressed, and live a complicated and often contradictory existence. Many days are fraught with struggle, anticipation, watchful eyes, judgment and guilt. There is a constant battle waging; the one within themselves, and the one with an uninformed and uncooperative public. Given that this research contributes to an extremely small body of qualitative research on mothers, future research should continue to gain insight from mothers, without classifying or categorizing their words. Their words speak volumes. Professionals may know autism, but mothers know their children.