Brand Consciousness and Brand Loyalty

It is often argued that consumers become loyal to a particular brand based on their perception of the brand itself. This study investigates the relationship between brand consciousness and three key variables: perceived quality, emotional value, and brand involvement. It also examines the influence of these three variables on students' brand loyalty to foreign-brand beauty and skin care products. A total of 318 female students from a public university in Malaysia participated in the survey. Using multiple regression analysis, the study found that brand consciousness is positively related to perceived quality and emotional value, but not brand involvement. Perceived quality and emotional value positively influence loyalty toward foreign beauty and skin care products, while brand involvement negatively influences brand loyalty.

Nation and Regional Branding of Central Asia

Central Asia is defined by its history and geography, by its people and cultures, and by geopolitics and geo-economics. Therefore, analyzing a country in the region, past, present, and future should incorporate all these elements. The purpose of this chapter is to present the development of nation branding in three countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The chapter starts with the theory of nation branding. The particularity of the Central Asia as a region and three selected countries follow. Global ranking based on different indices is presented. In the fourth section, the nation branding of each country is addressed. The fifth section highlights lessons learned from the Borat case on nation branding in Kazakhstan but relevant for other countries in the region as well. The chapter ends with the section on branding the region as a whole.

A Temporal and Situational Approach in Tourism Education as a Mechanism for Economic Growth and Development

The argument of this chapter is that tourism education can generate a positive impact on the economic growth of a country by fostering a link between education and work, including economic development. A review of the literature based on the use of bibliometric techniques is performed, but quantification of the work is not conducted; however, Web of Science and Scopus, among other databases, are consulted in relation to economic growth, economic development, human capital and tourism education. All this around the theoretical economic and sociological framework that sustains this work.

The Context of the Tourism Market in Kazakhstan

This chapter is designed to reveal the development of the tourism sector in Kazakhstan as an example of the process of integrating Central Asia countries into the capitalist world economy at various levels in the post-Soviet period. The study aims to understand the effects of some contextual elements that affect the development process of the tourism sector in Kazakhstan. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with the managers of foreign tour operators operating in Kazakhstan. It is expected some context-based elements may be observed by the managers and to obtain some clues about the distinctive path of developing capitalist economy of the country. Following a brief literature review about the role of the state and tourism sector in Kazakhstan, the rest of the chapter includes the authors' findings on the characteristics of the institutional context of the tourism market in Kazakhstan.

Corruption and Anti-Corruption Reform in Central Asia

This chapter surveys information available in English from public sources concerning levels and composition of corruption in the five countries of Central Asia. Similarly, the chapter examines relevant information available in English from public sources concerning anti-corruption reform efforts in Central Asia. Focus is on the relationship between corruption and reform and economic, educational, and touristic development in the five countries. There is consideration of possible links to foreign direct investment and operations by multinational corporations. There is some comparison to neighboring countries. The chapter proceeds in the following phases. The first step is to assemble available information and studies concerning corruption and anti-corruption conditions in the five countries. The second step is to assess the determinants and consequences of both corruption and anti-corruption reform. The third step is to place information and assessment into regional context. The chapter provides a conceptual framework for interpreting detailed country information.

The Impact of USD-TRY Forex Rate Volatility on Imports to Turkey from Central Asia

The purpose of this study is to put out the impact of volatility of the USD-TRY forex rate on imports to Turkey from Central Asia. The volatility of the USD/TRY exchange rate is analysed with a conditional variance model which is Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (GARCH) model and its extensions. The other section of the methodology is an application of Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds test which is an efficient approach to determine the cointegration, long-term and short-term relations between macroeconomic variables. The exponential GARCH volatility of the exchange rate and the monthly trade data between the years 2005 and 2018 are used in the ARDL bounds test.

Building a Diversified and Sustainable Economy in Kazakhstan

Due to globalization, entrepreneurship has become fundamental for the competitiveness of countries, and as shown by the Triple Helix Framework enterprises, universities and governments must create synergies to their mutual advantage. In Kazakhstan, a Post-Soviet transition economy, gross domestic product has doubled over the past decade thanks to the extractive and heavy industries and on an intensive use of electricity produced from coal. The authors present a goal programming model for environmental policy analysis involving criteria such as economic development, electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and the total number of employees to determine the optimal labour allocation across different economic sectors. The purpose is to provide empirical evidence and policy recommendations to decision makers in developing the optimal strategy able to simultaneously satisfy energy demand, decrease GHG emissions, increase economic growth, and foster labour development by 2050. The analysis will allow to compare Kazakhstan with similar economies.

The Causality Relationship Between Natural Gas Consumption and Economic Growth in Caucasus and Central Asian Economies With Natural Gas Exporters

In this study, the causality relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth in the Caucasus and Central Asian economies (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan) exporting natural gas was investigated using the bootstrap panel Granger causality analysis developed by Kónya for the period 1993–2017. As a result of the analysis, a causality from natural gas consumption to real GDP for Azerbaijan and a causality from real GDP to natural gas consumption in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were found. For Kazakhstan, the authors concluded that there was a bi-directional causality between natural gas consumption and real GDP.