Nature and Geography

Author(s):  
Brent Smith

This chapter considers the appropriateness and importance of including the natural environment (i.e., nature and geography) as part of the external business environment featured in marketing textbooks. Based on myriad examples from industry, the natural environment is regarded as an uncontrollable force that constantly affects decisions about markets and marketing activities. Thus, it deserves some (greater) mention next to economic, competitive, regulatory, and other variables typically featured in most marketing textbooks. Based on a review of business news, industry concerns, and marketing textbooks, this chapter considers the current listing of uncontrollable environment forces typically discussed within twenty-five popular marketing textbooks. It is observed that nature and geography, common priorities for business decision makers, are conspicuously absent from mention within most of these textbooks. This chapter shows that the natural environment is mentioned in only five of twenty-five marketing textbooks: two introductory marketing; one marketing management; and two international marketing. Based on scholarly definitions and industry examples, nature and geography are, in fact, uncontrollable influential forces that affect markets and marketing activities. Consequently, there is reasonable cause for including them in more marketing textbooks. Textbook authors and instructors can provide students a more complete picture of how domestic and international markets and marketing activities are affected by the natural environment. In practice, business people acknowledge that the natural environment affects and is affected by markets and marketing activities in virtually all industries. Alas, marketing textbooks seldom little, if ever, acknowledge that nature and geography (e.g., topography, climate, weather, solar flares, natural disasters) affect how companies think about their markets and marketing mix. This chapter offers simple, actionable steps for discussing the natural environment in marketing textbooks and courses.

Author(s):  
Brent Smith

This chapter considers the appropriateness and importance of including the natural environment (i.e., nature and geography) as part of the external business environment featured in marketing textbooks. Based on myriad examples from industry, the natural environment is regarded as an uncontrollable force that constantly affects decisions about markets and marketing activities. Thus, it deserves some (greater) mention next to economic, competitive, regulatory, and other variables typically featured in most marketing textbooks. Based on a review of business news, industry concerns, and marketing textbooks, this chapter considers the current listing of uncontrollable environment forces typically discussed within twenty-five popular marketing textbooks. It is observed that nature and geography, common priorities for business decision makers, are conspicuously absent from mention within most of these textbooks. This chapter shows that the natural environment is mentioned in only five of twenty-five marketing textbooks: two introductory marketing; one marketing management; and two international marketing. Based on scholarly definitions and industry examples, nature and geography are, in fact, uncontrollable influential forces that affect markets and marketing activities. Consequently, there is reasonable cause for including them in more marketing textbooks. Textbook authors and instructors can provide students a more complete picture of how domestic and international markets and marketing activities are affected by the natural environment. In practice, business people acknowledge that the natural environment affects and is affected by markets and marketing activities in virtually all industries. Alas, marketing textbooks seldom little, if ever, acknowledge that nature and geography (e.g., topography, climate, weather, solar flares, natural disasters) affect how companies think about their markets and marketing mix. This chapter offers simple, actionable steps for discussing the natural environment in marketing textbooks and courses.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Gabriel Croitoru ◽  
Mircea Constantin Duica ◽  
Dorin Claudiu Manolache ◽  
Mihaela Ancuta Banu

Abstract Entrepreneurial spirit plays an increasingly important role in the economic sphere, and universities are meant to play a central role in this process, where the main objective is the continuous development and mediation of the knowledge increasingly geared to the applications through innovation and patenting a secure platform for employment and well-being growth. The Universities have to take a position in if/and how they want to grow into a so-called “University of Entrepreneurship” which is characterized by a high degree of openness to the surrounding society and here we are talking, especially, about, the business sector in Romania. This evolution of expectations for the social role of universities has resulted from increased and recent interest in entrepreneurship and innovation of areas as research and theory of the business environment. The experience gained as teachers indicates that education and entrepreneurship education should include different theories and methodology than those applied in the usual way. The theory of traditional management and microeconomic models could even be a barrier to new thinking and change and, therefore, to the implementation of modern entrepreneurial actions. We want this article to be a source of inspiration for educational institutions and to have a positive contribution to research in business education and to be applicable in business decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-32
Author(s):  
Daniel Degravel ◽  
Christina Hui Min Tun

Burma Drinx Group, a large family-owned conglomerate in Myanmar, an Asian country in economic and political transition, is about to reinvent itself to achieve success and adaptation to its evolving context. Based on internal and external information about the firm, the case states the challenges and issues that Burma Drinx Group (thereafter BDG) is experiencing as a family-owned conglomerate operating in a ‘non-friendly’ business environment and in a turbulent political and economic context. It focuses on the group CEO Aung Win’s succession. The reader is invited to understand the specificities of BDG’s internal environment, and to manage the idiosyncrasies of this family business conglomerate regarding CEO Win’s succession. Beyond the succession issue, BDG’s decision-makers face critical challenges for the future and have to make bold and courageous decisions to build on the success of the organization. The case proposes a consulting-case style where analysis and reflection are required to understand the challenges and to provide relevant solutions to the top management of the company. Material from the academic literature about succession is offered as a resource to the reader.


Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1385
Author(s):  
Irais Mora-Ochomogo ◽  
Marco Serrato ◽  
Jaime Mora-Vargas ◽  
Raha Akhavan-Tabatabaei

Natural disasters represent a latent threat for every country in the world. Due to climate change and other factors, statistics show that they continue to be on the rise. This situation presents a challenge for the communities and the humanitarian organizations to be better prepared and react faster to natural disasters. In some countries, in-kind donations represent a high percentage of the supply for the operations, which presents additional challenges. This research proposes a Markov Decision Process (MDP) model to resemble operations in collection centers, where in-kind donations are received, sorted, packed, and sent to the affected areas. The decision addressed is when to send a shipment considering the uncertainty of the donations’ supply and the demand, as well as the logistics costs and the penalty of unsatisfied demand. As a result of the MDP a Monotone Optimal Non-Decreasing Policy (MONDP) is proposed, which provides valuable insights for decision-makers within this field. Moreover, the necessary conditions to prove the existence of such MONDP are presented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 3017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milovan Tomašević ◽  
Lucija Lapuh ◽  
Željko Stević ◽  
Dragiša Stanujkić ◽  
Darjan Karabašević

The use of computers with outstanding performance has become a real necessity in order to achieve greater efficiency and sustainability for the accomplishment of various tasks. Therefore, with the development of information technology and increasing dynamism in the business environment, it is expected that these computers will be more intensively deployed. In this paper, research was conducted in Danube region countries: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The aim of the research was to determine what criteria are most significant for the introduction of high-performance computing and the real situation in each of the countries. In addition, the aim was to establish the infrastructure needed to implement such a system. In order to determine the partial significance of each criterion and thus the possibility of implementing high-performance computing, a multi-criteria model in a fuzzy environment was applied. The weights of criteria and their rankings were performed using the Fuzzy PIvot Pairwise RElative Criteria Importance Assessment—fuzzy PIPRECIA method. The results indicate different values depend on decision-makers (DMs) in the countries. Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated to verify the results obtained.


VALUE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Harry Ramadhan ◽  
Endah Widati ◽  
Ibnu Fiqhan Muslim

Competition in the restaurant and cafe industry at this time is very tight and competitive. This is marked by the growing number of new competitors in the world of Resto and Cafe. The restaurant and cafe industry as one of the food and beverage supply sectors that can support national and regional economic development. In Depok, there are 170 restaurants and cafes operating. The purpose of this study was to find out how the results of the implementation of Marketing Strategy During the Covid19 Pandemic at Like No Other Cafe Depok. The research method used is descriptive qualitative method. Using interviews, questionnaires and observations to related parties as data collection techniques. Thus, the data analysis techniques used were VRIO and PESTLE analysis to analyze the business environment, profitability analysis to evaluate the results of the implementation of the marketing mix program used and descriptive analysis to analyze planning, implementation and marketing strategy activities. The results showed that the strategy implemented by Like No Other Cafe during the Covid19 pandemic was considered effective so that Like No Other Cafe was still able to survive and generate income even though the income was only 50% of normal conditions.


1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Boshoff ◽  
Alwyn P. Du Plessis

The high level of human involvement in marketing ensures that it is, and always will be, a dynamic business function. When the impact of accelerating technological developments is added, the dynamism often turns to volatility. The rapidly changing business environment necessitates regular consideration of the role of marketing in the business environment, both from an internal and external point of view. This study analyses marketing and marketing activities from a consumer perspective. It measures consumer attitudes towards the four P's and converts these scores to an overall 'attitude towards marketing' index. It also compares the results with a similar study conducted in 1990 (the 1990 study). The 1990 study reported a negative marketing index of -16.262. Older consumers in particular voiced their disapproval of marketing practices. Pricing was singled out as the most important bone of contention. The pricing and the pricing practices used by marketers were seen as often unfair and unreasonable. Advertising was also viewed rather sceptically. Retailing was the only marketing mix element to return a positive index. The results of this study show that the SA Marketing Index has declined from -16.262 in 1990 to -34.125 in 1993. The decline in the marketing index is primarily due to the considerable decline in the price index from -8.470 to -24.368, a slight decrease in the product index (from -2.719 to -9.939) and a marginal deterioration in the retailing index. The decline in the price index in particular was so severe that the improvement in the advertising index (from -6.434 to +0.606) had almost no influence on the marketing index. When the impact of demographic variables on attitudes were considered, Afrikaans-speaking consumers and those who are relatively well qualified academically, turned out to be particularly dissatisfied with marketing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 689-699
Author(s):  
Phi Thi Diem Hong ◽  
Phan Le Trang ◽  
Nguyen Thi Hai Binh ◽  
Tran Nguyen Thi Yen

In the context of international integration, managers’ knowledge plays an important role as a valuable organizational resource from a strategic perspective and a foundation for competitive advantage in business environment. The aim of this paper was to build assessment model and attest it in the case of Vietnam’s Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) regarding manager’s knowledge in preparing the information on financial statements. By analyzing current relative standards (including international and national systems) and two basic assessment models (ASK by Bloom et al. (1956) and BKD by Shinseki (1999)), the study developed to identify the assessment criteria of the manager’s knowledge as one main research objective. The research data of 71 SMEs in the sample showed that: (i)The relationship between managers’ background and their understanding about information on their financial statements was a negative linkage; (ii) The number of managers using their financial statements to make a business decision was very low; and (iii) The most important criteria on the financial statement in their views were profits and revenues.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bala Ramasamy ◽  
Matthew Yeung

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify location factors that Chinese managers look for when making internationalization decisions and how the factors stack up in perceived importance. Over the past ten years, Chinese enterprises have become more multi-national in nature. China’s outward foreign direct investment (FDI) has been growing at a phenomenal rate. In 2012, China became the third largest investor, after the USA and Japan; and the largest investor among developing countries. How can host governments attract more of this Chinese capital? What are some short- to medium-term policies that host governments can initiate to make their respective nations attractive to Chinese companies? Design/methodology/approach The authors consider these questions by using a best-worst choice exercise among 114 senior corporate decision makers of Chinese companies who have or are planning to globalize. We rank 16 most common determinants that influence FDI location choice and evaluate their degree of importance. Findings The authors propose five “low hanging fruits” that policy makers should consider that could ensure their countries come within the radar of Chinese multi-nationals. These include promoting a clean and efficient business environment and strengthening/establishing political and economic relationships with China. Originality/value The originality of this study lies in the methodology of the study that forces respondents to make a trade-off in their decisions, which in a way is closer to reality. The respondents are also actual decision makers in their companies with regards to international investment decisions.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Flavia Luciane ◽  
Scherer Clandia ◽  
Maffini Gomes ◽  
Isak Kruglianskas

One of the core issues of strategy revolves around the relation between strategy and performance. Research studies analyze whether different performances are associated with different strategic attitudes. Given the importance of this issue, the objective of this paper is to describe and analyze the relation between the corporate profile, the adopted strategy and the performance in international markets of firms in the leather and footwear industry from the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The analysis of the corporate profile identified mature, medium-sized and big firms that engage in planning to guide their actions and that are concerned about monitoring changes in the environment with which they work. In regard to the relation between the corporate profile, the adopted strategy and international performance, an analysis of the correlation showed that the main variables that characterize the specific group are the strategic profile, planning, and monitoring of the business environment. It was found that firms with a high Gross Operating Income engage in planning activities on a less consistent basis, do not monitor their business environment and adopt a defensive strategic attitude.


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