Current Intellectual Property Regimes in the U.S. Fail to Protect Fashion Designs

The United States does not offer adequate intellectual property protections for designs within the fashion industry. The quick pace and constantly evolving nature of the fashion industry creates obstacles for designers’ ability to obtain lasting protection in their fashion articles. The intellectual property regimes for trademark, trade dress, patent and copyright will be analyzed in the fashion industry context. These intellectual property regimes in the United States do not adequately protect designers in the fashion industry. Small fashion brands and independent designers are often left unprotected by the copying of their designs. Designers “remain vulnerable to knockoff artists who can steal ideas straight off the runway and produce copies before the originals even hit the stores.” Due to the lack of intellectual property protection for fashion designers in the United States, fashion companies and retailers are able to “steal American designs, make low-quality copies in foreign factories with cheap labor and import them into the U.S. to compete with original designs”. This presents a huge concern for young and emerging designers who can be “put out of business before they even had a chance.” Emerging designers are left vulnerable to the threat of copying [1].

Ever-Expanding Frontiers of Ecological Destruction

This chapter explores the multiple forces that predispose capitalism to ever-increasing amounts of environmental damage. Sociologists discuss the treadmill of production, the degradation of the biosphere coming from increasing population growth and GDP requiring consuming ever-greater amounts of natural resources. A more refined argument is expanding frontiers of production. Modern economies require the incorporation of ever-greater amounts of physical space into capitalist production. Whenever an area is converted to commercial use, its natural function gets destroyed. The chapter then considers how capitalism is dependent on the four cheaps: cheap food, cheap energy, cheap natural resources, and cheap labor. All four are subject to expanding frontiers of production. However, the physical destruction of environments is not the only problem with expanding frontiers of production. The incorporation of new space into capitalist production means the dislocation of the population originally living in that space. Ultimately, landlessness leads to political volatility and warfare.

Socioeconomic Status Changes of the Host Communities after the Rohingya Refugee Influx in the Southern Coastal Area of Bangladesh

The refugee influx from Myanmar, known as Rohingya refugees, is a serious concern for global refugee issues. Bangladesh currently hosts one million Rohingya refugees in the coastal district of Cox’s Bazar. Considering the number of the refugees, in addition to the humanitarian concerns, they are also creating pressure on the local host communities. This study explored the socioeconomic changes of the host communities after the refugee influx. In order to fulfill this study’s objectives, 35 villages near the Rohingya refugee camps from the coastal district of Bangladesh were surveyed. In the villages, 10% of households were surveyed in 2016 and also in 2020, covering 1924 and 2265 households, respectively. A temporal comparison of the host community’s socioeconomic status between 2016 and 2020 was conducted in order to determine the changes after the recent refugee influx. This study found that the local community’s socioeconomic status degraded. The annual income decreased by 24%, which is unusual for a country with over 6% gross domestic product (GDP) growth in recent times. The income decreased from all livelihood options except farming, which could be related to the availability of cheap labor and the high demand for commodities. The villages were clustered using k-means, and 20 villages were found to be affected after the refugee influx with degraded socioeconomic status. The host community’s general perception was initially positive, but later turned negative toward the refugees. This study will be important for the government and donor agencies to develop strategies to properly manage the refugee camps and adjacent host communities.

International Business and Country’s Culture Impact

International business is very important, nowadays. Businesses, now, compete and operate in an international market. Globalization has created new challenges for managers. Different countries have different cultures, and this make culture a challenge for businesses and managers who operate in international business. They have to pay more attention to the differences of countries cultures they operate with. Sometimes, differences may be seen as insignificant, but they can cause troubles if you don’t respect them. Culture’s differences may create misunderstandings, conflict, anger even stress in the workplace. People in different culture have different attitudes and behaviors. Organizations have to pay importance to differences in a) communication, b) attitudes c) workplace etiquette d) language. Albania, after 90’, has been an attractive destination for foreign investors. Many investors came in Albania due to her strategic geography position, cheap labor price, informal market, etc. In this paper we will analyze culture’s dimensions according to Hofstede model. Then, we will compare Albanian culture to Italian culture, because Italy is the country which has the majority of foreign companies in Albania.

Diasporic Transnationalism, Gender, and Education

Transnationalism, gender, and education are bound together through a global need for cheap, replaceable labor. Women work for less (cheap labor) and often travel globally for work. Education has not been exempt from this phenomenon and teachers’ roles in transnational and global knowledge production and teaching have not always been documented. Despite this, women have been resisting the exploitation of their labor through diasporic transnational networks; one such example is Afro-Caribbean women teachers who demonstrate how a politics of refusal, diasporic transnationalism, and liberation are bound together in interlocking ways. Diasporic transnationalism allows marginalized people to resist a world created on inequities that tells them they are not capable of agency and their own definitions of liberation.

Nnoboa and Rotated Susu as Agents of Savings Mobilization: Developing a Theoretical Model Using Grounded Theory

In this study, I investigate nnoboa and rotated susu systems and how they operate as indigenous co-operatives that mobilize savings from its members. The nnoboa system, according to oral tradition, evolved out of the communal way of living in Africa, particularly Ghana. Nnoboa is a form of cooperative society whereby members of the society help to weed one another’s farm on rotational basis. Rotated susu is a group of two or more people who come together to save money and the lump sum (bulk money) is given to each of the group members on rotational basis. Both systems operate like the formal banking savings and loans systems. I employ a qualitative approach, comprising seven focus group meetings in seven communities in the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana. The findings show that the rotated susu concept emanates from the nnoboa concept and the two systems are underpinned by the following values: trust, synergy, flexibility and empathy, commitment, tolerance and punctuality and promptness. Another finding of the study is that the nnoboa and rotated susu systems offer participants a lot of mileage: helping them to generate income, raise capital, increase their savings, providing them with a source of cheap labor (all nnoboa group members provide free labor for each other in turns so that it becomes affordable for each member to weed his/her farm or clear a parcel of land during the farming season since it is expensive to hire farm laborers), increasing their production, offering them opportunities for networking and bulk purchasing, the groups serving as collateral securities or guarantors as well as the display of love and affection. Based on these findings, I develop a theoretical model for nnoboa and rotated susu systems using grounded theory. The theoretical model of nnoboa and rotated susu systems has implications for researchers, practitioners and the unemployed in terms of how the poor can form groups and access cheap labor or raise capital for any venture. Therefore, the significance of this study is that extant literature on nnoboa and rotated susu with emphasis on their values and benefits and a theoretical model that supports such a system seem to be non-existent.

The economic potential of the brics countries as a challenge to modern world realities

Today, the governments of various countries, regardless of the level of economic growth of the state, strive to initiate macroeconomic policies aimed at achieving better economic indicators in order to increase the level of business activity and, finally, to ensure a better quality of life for people. In this regard, the policy of the BRICS countries is very indicative. The author analyzes the importance of the BRICS group as representatives of developing countries in the world economy. The article points out that the financial crisis did not have a strong impact on the BRICS group, and its economic performance was much better than that of developed countries. The main factors that led to the economic expansion of the group were the increased influence in a number of markets, as well as the huge scale of resources, including labor. For example, Brazil and Russia rely mainly on huge mineral reserves and speculation in international markets. China has the advantage of cheap labor and resources at low prices. India also relies on cheap labor. Last but not least, all the BRICS countries, except Brazil, demonstrate very high rates of investment. The purpose of the work is to consider the economic potential of the BRICS countries as a challenge to modern economic realities.