Unemployment and inflation

The rise in energy prices reduces the productivity of capital per worker. This causes sf(k) to shift down from sfl(k) to sf2(k). The result is a decline in steady-state k. Steady-state consumption per worker falls for two reasons: (1) Each unit of capital has a lower productivity, and (2) steady-state k is reduced. population growth rate permanently increased due to increased immigration Immigration raises n from nl to n2. The rise in n lowers steady-state k, leading toa lower steady-state consumption per worker. c.A temporary rise in s has no effect on the steady-state equilibrium. . The increase in the labor force participation rate does not affect the growth rate of the labor force, so there is no impact on the steady-state capital-labor ratio or on consumption per worker. However, because a larger fraction of the population is working, consumption per person increases. Question 4 How would each of the following affect the national saving, investment the current account balance an d the real interest rate in the large economy (a) The home countrys saving curve shifts to the right, from Sl to S2.The real world interest rate falls, so that the current account surplus in the home country equals the current ccount deficit in the foreign country. National S rises, I rises, CA rises, rw falls. (b) The foreign countrys saving curve shifts to the right, from Sl For to S2For. The real world interest rate must fall, so the current account surplus in the foreign country equals the current account deficit in the home country. National S falls, I rises, CA falls, rw falls.C The foreign countrys saving curve shifts to the left, from Sl For to S2For. The real world interest rate must rise, so the current account deficit in the foreign country equals the current account surplus in the home country. National S rises, I falls, CA ises, rw rises. (c) If Ricardian equivalence holds, there is no effect. If Ricardian equivalence does not hold, then the result is the same as in par t (b), as the toreign count saving curve shifts to the right.That is because all else equal, higher taxes increase government saving more than they reduce private saving. Question 3. Explain how each of the following transaction would enter the Bahamas Question 3 a Income receipt from abroad: credit entry in current account. b Import of assets: debit entry in capital and financial account. (c Import of services: debit entry in current account. (d Increase in foreign ownership of U. S. assets: credit entry in capital and financial account. Question2.Assume (a) Desired consumption declines as the real interest rate rises because the higher return to saving encourages higher saving; desired investment declines as the real interest rate rises becauses the user cost of capital is higher, reducing the desired capital stock, and thus investment. (b) Recall that Sd = Y -Cd – G, so Sd = 9000 -Cd – ld 2 6100 1 500 3 1400 1 ooo 4 5900 1300 1100 9200 5 1200 6 5700 equilibrium. Giv en Y 9000, the equili brium condition holds only at r = 5%. Atr = 5% it is also true that Sd = = 1200. Question 1Keynesians and classicals differ sharply in their beliefs about how long it takes the economy to reach a long-run equilibrium. Classical economists believe that prices adjust rapidly (within a few months) to restore equilibrium in the face of a shock, while Keynesians believe that prices adjust slowly, taking perhaps several years. Because of the time it takes for the economy's equilibrium to be restored, Keynesians see an important role for the government in fighting recessions. But because classicals believe that equilibrium is restored quickly, there's no need for government policy to fght recessions.Since classicals think equilibrium is restored quickly in the face of shocks, aggregate demand shocks can't cause recessions, since they can't affect output for very long. So classical economists think recessions are caused by aggregate supply shocks. Keynesians, however, think that both aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks are capable of causing recessions. Question 8 Growth that is â€Å"too rapid† most likely refers to a situation in which the aggregate demand curve has shifted to the right and, in the short run, intersects the SRAS curve at a level of output that's greater than the full-employment level of output.This situation is associated with inflation because, in the long run, prices will rise, shifting the SRAS curve up to intersect with the LRAS and AD curves. The shock that is implicitly assumed to be hitting the economy is an aggregate demand shock, since that's the only shock that increases output in the short run and inflation in the long run. Question 10 The temporary increase in government purchases causes an income effect that increases workers' labor supply. This results in an increase in the full-employment level of output from FEI to FE2 in Figure 10. 10.The increase in government urchases also shifts the IS curve up and to the right from ISI to IS2, as it reduces national saving. Assuming that the shift up of the IS curve is so large that it intersects the LM curve to the right of the FE line, the price level must rise to get back to equilibrium at full employment, by shifting the LM curve up and to the left from LMI to LM2. The result is an increase in output and the real interest rate. figure 10. 11 shows the impact on the labor market. Labor supply shifts from NSI to NS2, leading to a decline in the real wage and a rise in employment.Average labor productivity declines, since employment rises while capita ixed. Investmentdeclines, since the real interest rate rises. To summarize, in response to a temporary increase in government purchases, output, the real interest rate, the price level, and employment rise, while average labor productivity and investment decline. (a) The business cycle fact is that employment is procyclical. The model is consistent with this fact, since employment rises when government purchases rise, causing output to rise. (b) The business cycle fact is that the real wage is mildly procyclical.The model is inconsistent with this fact, since it shows a decline in the real wage when government purchases rise and c) The business cycle fact is that average labor productivity is output rises. procyclical. The model is inconsistent with this fact, since it shows a decline in average labor productivity when government purchases rise and output rises. (d) The business cycle fact is that investment is procyclical. The model is not consistent with this fact, as investment falls when government purchases rise and output rises. (e) The business cycle fact is that the price level is procyclical.The model is consistent with this fact, as the price level rises when government purchases increase and output increases. Question 6 and 7 (a) An increase in government purchases reduces national saving, causing the real interest rate to rise for a fixed level of incom e. If the real interest rate is higher, then real money demand will be lower. The price level must rise. The result is that output is unchanged, the real interest rate increases, and the price level increases. 6 (b) 7aWhen expected inflation falls, real money demand increases.There is no effect on employment, saving or investment, so output and the real interest rate remain unchanged. With higher real money demand and an unchanged nominal money supply, the equilibrium price level must decline. b) When labor supply rises, full- employment output increases. Higher output means higher income, so saving will increase. More saving means the real interest rate will decline. Both higher output and a lower real interest rate increase real money demand. Higher money demand with a constant money supply means the price level must decline. 17 c When the interest rate paid on money increases, real money demand rises. That is because the cost of holding money falls. With no effect on employment o r saving and investment, output and the real interest rate remain unchanged. With higher real money demand and an unchanged nominal money supply, the quilibrium price level must decline. Question 11 and 12 In Figures 11 . 17-11. 20, point A is the starting point, point B shows the short-run equilibrium after the change, and point C shows the long-run equilibrium after the change. (a) In Figure 11. 7, when banks pay a higher interest rate on checking accounts, the demand for money rises, shifting the LM curve up and to the left from LMI to LM2 in Figure 11 . 17(a). As a result, the AD curve shifts down and to the 2 in Figure ) The new snort-run equilibrium occurs at point B, where output is lower, the real interest rate is higher, employment is lower, and the price level is unchanged. In the long run, the price level decreases to shift the LM curve from LM2 to LM3, which is the same as LMI, to restore equilibrium at point C. As a result, the short-run aggregate supply curve shifts do wn from SRASI to SRAS2.At the new equilibrium, compared to the starting point, output is the same, the real interest rate is the same, employment is the same, and the price level is lower. Figure 11. 17 (b) In Figure 11. 18, the introduction of credit cards reduces the demand for money†shifting the LM curve down and to the right from LMI to LM2 in Figure 11 . 18(a). As a result, the AD curve shifts from ADI to AD2 in Figure 11. 8(b). The new short-run equilibrium occurs at point B, where output is higher, the real interest rate is lower, employment is higher, and the price level is unchanged.In the long run, the price level increases to shift the LM curve from LM2 to LM3, which is the same as LMI, to restore equilibrium at point C. As a result, the short-run aggregate supply curve shifts up from SRASI to SRAS2. At the new equilibrium, compared to the starting point, output is the same, the real interest rate is the same, employment is the same, and the price level is higher. F igure 11. 18 (c) In Figure 11. 9, the reduction in agricultural output shifts the FE curve to the left from FEI to FE2, and shifts the LRAS line from LRASI to LRAS2.The rise in agricultural prices increases the price level, so the short-run aggregate supply curve shifts up from SRASI to SRAS2. Also, the rise in the price level shifts the LM curve up and to the left from LMI to LM2. The short-run equilibrium is at point B, assuming that the LM curve shifts so much that it intersects the IS curve to the left of the FE line. At point B, compared to the starting point, output is lower, the real interest rate is higher, employment is lower, and the price level is higher. Figure 11. 19 If the water shortage persists, a new long-run equilibrium occurs at point C.To get to this equilibrium, the price level must decline, shifting the LM curve from LM2 to LM3, and the short-run aggregate supply curve from SRAS2 to SRAS3. Relative to point B, the new equilibrium has a higher output level, a lo wer real interest rate, higher employment, and a lower price level. (Relative to the initial equilibrium at point A, output and employment are lower, and the real interest rate and the price level are higher.

Kate Chopin “The story of an hour”

Kate Chopin, in her short-story `the story of an hour`, presents to the reader the frustration of a woman who is suppressed by her husband’s will. In `six feet of the country`, Nadine Gordimer shows how time changes a relationship between a husband and wife. Although both these stories do not have negative or villain characters, they have elements which show mundane difficulties of everyday life. Both the stories intricately depict the complexities in married life, arising out of restrictions in freedom and feeling of discontent in each other’s company. This may cause one to ponder that the evil does not necessarily lie in the minds of married people, but in the institution of marriage itself.When the main character Louise in `the story of an hour’ is informed of the death of her husband, the reader’s mind is conditioned to expect tremendous grief and sorrow. She rushes into her room with tears and locks herself up. However, after the initial shock, she fe els extremely free. She is relieved that she does not have to feel suppressed anymore. She gazes out of the window and looks forward to the simple joys of life. The start of spring season is meant to indicate the end of her stifling marriage and the dawn of a new beginning in her life. The line â€Å"And yet she loved him – sometimes† (Chopin 8) shows that her husband was not necessarily a bad person. She just wants to live for herself, without the kneeling down to the whim of her husband.Until that day, she feared how she was going to live a painfully long life of repression. But, now she hopes to live a long life to savor life and cherish her long-lost freedom. The phrase â€Å"A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime† (Chopin 8) goes to show that the bond of marriage causes one another to pose undue restrictions on each other’s personal freedoms. Louise is overjoyed with her new-found appreciation for life, but fate strik es back when her supposedly dead husband returns back without a scratch in his body. This eventually turns out to be one shock too many for Louise, as she suffers from a fatal heart attack. But, the doctor consoles everyone by saying that Louise’s heart was shocked by the happiness of seeing her husband alive. Feature Article – Short Story  The Plane of the Sleeping BeautyIn `six feet of the country’, Nadine Gordimer tells the tale of a married white man in apartheid-stricken South Africa. The story revolves around a multitude of themes including a dysfunctional marriage, urban vs. town life, bureaucracy and racial oppression. The central character and his wife own a farm. He is really not good at farming and hence the wife takes care of the farm. The wife expects more of out of her husband and immediately expresses her disapproval when he fails to do so.The husband, on the other hand, feels inadequate and is not entirely satisfied with his career. But, he just continues to live his life filled with frequent disputes with his wife. He quite is critical of his wife being messy and says â€Å"I had come home and been infuriated to find her in a pair of filthy old sacks and her hair uncombed† (Gordimer 122), while the same did not seem too unattractive a few years back. This shows that marriages over time can get monotonous and boring.   Although this might seem quite a cynical view of life, it is an honest portrayal of the true nature of human beings.One night, a black immigrant boy dies of pneumonia. But, during the funeral, it is uncovered that a different body was handed-over to them, indicating bureaucratic lapses in the government. His wife compels him to be more helpful and communicative, which essentially goes against his true nature and will. Although he is reluctant to stand up against his own â€Å"race†, he represses his own will to please his wife and tries to help his black employees by petitioning against the administration but eventually gives up. The husband character feels helpless and disgusted not only at the bureaucratic system, but also at the system of marriage that keeps him tied down.Chopin uses symbolism as an effective tool to convey the protagonist’s deepest emotions. The phrase ‘comfortable, roomy armchair’ signifies that Louise has accepted the death of her husband and prepared to live a free life. The author also ends the story by sprinkling a dash of irony. When Louise comes out of the room after mourning the death of her husband, she walks out as a new person full of hope. But, the fact that her husband is still alive kills her dream of being free from the treachery of married of life. On the other hand, Gordimer uses metaphor effectively in `six feet of the country’. The main character says â€Å"she and Petrus both kept their eyes on me as I spoke, and, oddly for those moments they looked exactly alike.†(Gordimer 124) The eyes look alike to the husband because he feels regret and guilt for letting down his wife and his black employee.Both the stories emphasize the saying ‘Marriage is the only war where you sleep with the enemy`. However, Chopin’s `the story of an hour’ gives a much deeper insight into a married person’s p syche and thus stands as stronger evidence for the aforementioned quote compared to `six feet of the country’ by Gordimer. Although the latter also has several elements describing marital problems, it tends to mainly focus on issues racial discrimination and other societal problems. Nonetheless, both the stories effectively show how a common man or woman is stifled by institutions such as marriage and societal pressures.Works CitedChopin, Kate. (1894). â€Å"The story of an Hour†. The International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction.Gordimer, Nadine. (1986). â€Å"Six feet of the country.† Anthology of Short Stories.

Why Not Have Physician Assisted Suicide

During the course of the past 20 years, many people are starting to here more and more situations about people participating in physician-assisted suicide. The fact of the matter is that people are starting to believe that they have the right to control their own life and death decisions. After you begin to think about physician-assisted suicide, and bring in all the facts, it becomes clear that it should be allowed in our society if it is used properly. Many people question the pure definition of physician-assisted suicide. According to the University of Washington School of Medicine, â€Å"physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician providing the means for death, most often with a prescription, in which the patient administers the medication† (Ethics in Medicine). As of 1997 the State of Oregon was the only state that utilize legalized physician-assisted suicide. Some people argue whether this practice is ethical to use today in our society. One strong reason why this should be done is because it is a good choice for people who are suffering unbearably. At times many physicians believe that it is their duty to relieve these people of their problems. One of the most famous arguments in favor of physician -assisted suicide is the story by Timothy Quill, and his patient â€Å"Diane†. Diane was a woman who was diagnosed with leukemia; from the beginning she refused the aggressive treatment. â€Å"She then requested a prescription of barbiturates that could be used to end her life if she determined that her suffering had become unbearable† (Annals of Internal Medicine). Diane was enrolled in a hospice program, many months passed but she began to feel a lot of pain, and fatigue. She used the barbiturates that her doctor gave her and ended her life. This was a very good case in favor of the practice because this woman was in serious pain, and the best solution was to end her life. Another example of a physician-assisted suicide incident that attracted some attention on the issue occurred with a 37-year-old woman named â€Å"BB†. This woman had a â€Å"serious stroke and soon after she became quadriplegic and unable to speak† (Annals of Internal Medicine). She spent many days learning to communicate with others around her by using a special computer. â€Å"Finding her life quality of life intolerable, she repeatedly communicated a wish to die† (Annals of Internal Medicine). She underwent some psychiatric counseling, and they agreed that she had the ability to do her own decision-making. So the staff â€Å"took away all of her artificial nutrition and hydration, and only provided comfort and care until she passed away soon after† (Annals of Internal Medicine). BB, like Diane, was also a prime example of a patient that was in need of physician-assisted suicide; she could no longer go through life the way she was and all she wanted was to die. Many of these patients bring up some important arguments for their reasons in which they have the right to use physician-assisted suicide. The University of Washington School of Medicine states that there are many arguments in favor of physician -assisted suicide or (PAS). The first of the four arguments in favor of PAS is the respect for autonomy of the patient. This means that the decisions about the circumstances for death are very personal. â€Å"They also state that a competent person should have the right to choose death†(Ethics in Medicine). The next argument for PAS is regarding to â€Å"justice. † â€Å"Justice requires that we treat like cases alike. Competent, terminally ill patients are allowed to hasten death by treatment refusal. For some patients, treatment refusal will not suffice to hasten death, and the only option is suicide. Justice requires that we should allow assisted death for these patients† (Ethics in Medicine). The third argument is the issue of compassion, according to the University of Washington School of Medicine. They explain that it is not always possible to relieve suffering, and PAS may be a compassionate response to that suffering of the Patients. The Individual liberty vs. state interest is one of the strongest arguments for PAS. A complete elimination of assisted death limits personal liberty of the individual. This is one of the main concerns about PAS, people believe that it is their body, and they should have the right to do what ever they feel is necessary. These are common arguments that have been used by patients and physicians all over the country. People against the issue of PAS debate many of these arguments and have come up with their own scenarios on the issue. Some common arguments against the PAS are â€Å"when you take a human life, it is morally wrong because of a certain religion† (Ethics In Medicine). Another argument is that some medical doctors like to maintain their professional integrity and are opposed to taking human life. Herbert Hendin states in his article â€Å"Selling Death and Dignity†, that † We should not buy into the view that those who are engulfed by fear of death or by suicidal despair that death is a preferred solution to the problems of illness, age, and depression†(Hendin 78). These arguments that are stated against physician-assisted suicide don’t seem to be strong enough to turn my feelings away from the idea that it is justified. In response to Hendin’s statement, he has no idea of all the pain and suffering that is happening to people, and what they go through. Religion is also an argument that doesn’t make much sense to me. The right thing to do if a patient is suffering from a serious illness or basically living on a â€Å"plug†, is to give them the opportunity to die the way they want and not worry about whether it is morally right, according to a religion. Also the argument made on behalf of some doctors, â€Å"that it harms their professional integrity† is also false. These ill patients think of their doctors as relieving them from pain and suffering. â€Å"Death is not caused by the withdraw of treatment from the physician, but by the underlying disease†(Annals of Medicine). Therefore, these ill patients are going to die either way, so the doctors shouldn’t feel that it is unprofessional to end a patient’s life if it is requested. One reason why people don’t want to let the PAS practice legalized is because they cannot find a certain policy to use it under. Physician-assisted suicide is debated upon regularly today and does not seem to be allowed in most states. One reason for this is because If it is legalized and it doesn’t have restrictions, there will be cases in which people will be going to the doctor to end their life for poor reasons. This form of PAS is unacceptable and that is why there should be a strict policy on the issue. If a patient goes to a doctor and asked for this procedure to be done, the physicians most look into the law on physician-assisted suicide. This policy should state that the practice can only be done if the patient has a serious illness, that is life threatening and undergoing massive amounts of pain, or lost some form of physical and mental abilities, from an illness such as a stroke. Another thing that would be included in this policy is that the patient requesting the practice must undergo some sort of psychiatric counseling to see whether he or she is in the right mind set for the procedure. This is important part of the policy, because PAS shouldn’t be performed if the patient is suffering only from some sort of depression. This policy will sort out the people who need the PAS and those who really don’t need it. This type of policy on physician-assisted suicide should be acted on in our government. Far too many people suffer, lying in hospital beds, wishing for an answer to their problems. They have lived a long enough, suffered physically, and emotionally, as â€Å"Diane† did in Timothy E. Quill’s article â€Å"Death and Dignity: A Case of Individualized Decision Making. † â€Å"We have measures to help control pain and lesson suffering, to think that people do not suffer in the process of dying is an allusion†(Quill 70), so we should not let this suffering continue on for people, and give them the choice to end their lives if they feel that is what they want.

The uss cole bombing Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The uss cole bombing - Research Paper Example As such, this paper will analyze the reasons that brought about the occurrence of these attacks in addition to the outcome in terms of what happened to the bombers after the attack. This terrorism incident took place on October 12 2000, which was on a Thursday. The vessel that had been docked was being refueled at one of the ports in Aden in Yemen. This was a routine fuel stop for the vessel, which was under the command of the Commander Kork Lippold. The attack on Cole, which is a US Navy Destroyer, was accomplished by two suicide bombers. They are said to have been travelling in a tiny motorboat that had been filled with explosives. They are estimated to have been around 200-300 kg (Whitaker, 2003). The small boat that the two were travelling in was said to have approached the destroyer from its port side. Subsequent to this, the explosion was executed at 11: 18 in the morning Bahrain time. According to witness reports, the boat sidled towards the side of the port side. It came so close that it even made it possible for the sailors who were on board to exchange greetings with the two suicide bombers who were planning to execute the crime. This was just before the explosion when they stood at attention and detonated the explosives minutes later. At the moment of the explosion, the crew members had already started lining up to take their lunch in the gallery. As a result of the explosion, a hole that was 40 feet wide was blown into the ship on one of its sides. The members of crew fought as they were making attempts to get space within the engineering spaces. The CIA officials believe that this blast was caused by a sharp charge which refers to the explosives that are designed to fit into the hull of the boat. They managed to bring the damage under control after three days. After the inspection of the vessel following the attack, divers ascertained that the keel within t he hull had not experienced any

Life on Other Worlds Annotated Bibliography Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Life on Other Worlds - Annotated Bibliography Example What implications would it have on the search for extra-terrestrial life if many of these planets were found to exist? What kind of Life? – Although people often talk about â€Å"life† on other worlds, in most cases they are not specific about the kind of life they mean. Usually, however, scholars mean microbial life and the regular public means intelligent life. Conflicting theories: Universe Size – If the universe is infinite, then life must exist elsewhere because an infinite space holds all possibilities. Conflicting theories: Religious perspective – The religious perspective in Western cultures is that the Universe was created for Man alone. Obviously, this has impacted some thinkers and scientists in their belief on intelligent extra-terrestrial life. Conflicting theories: Rare Earth Hypothesis – The Rare Earth hypothesis looks at the conditions not for microbial life, but for a race of intelligent beings with similar technology and cultural levels of achievement to our own. Conflicting theories: Drake Equation – The Drake equation is a mathematical formula used to calculate both the likelihood of extraterrestrials' existence and the likelihood of our being able to contact them. Conclusion – The concluding paragraph will summarize the points raised in previous paragraphs in a way that uses the information presented to support an argument about the search for extra-terrestrial life and the probability that it exists.

Mortgage Backed Securities and their role in the economic crisis Essay

Mortgage Backed Securities and their role in the economic crisis - Essay Example This will normally lead to a fall in the countries’ GDP, a rising and falling of prices because of inflation and deflation and a drying up of liquidity. It normally can take a form of recession or a depression. The economic crisis began with bursting of the united states housing bubble and high default rates on subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM),and variable rate mortgages beginning around 2005 to 2006(Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2007). Prior to the crisis, the government policies and competitive pressures encouraged high risk lending practices for several years. The role of Mortgage Backed Securities in the economic crisis The financial crisis was highly felt in the market in 2008. The civil fraud charges was filed against several major credit rating agencies for their role in developing mortgage bond that helped bring about the financial crisis in 2008. The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S.  Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is currently looking at t he role these companies played in the crisis and exploring the possibility of holding them accountable. The crisis began to affect the financial sector in February 2007, when HSBC, the world's largest (2008) bank, wrote down its holdings of subprime-related MBS by $10.5 billion, the first major subprime related loss to be reported. During 2007, at least 100 mortgage companies either shut down, suspended operations or were sold. Top management has not escaped unscathed, as the CEOs of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup resigned within a week of each other. As the crisis deepened, more and more financial firms either merged, or announced that they were negotiating seeking merger partners. (Wall Street Journal. Online, May 2008). Credit risk arises because the borrower has the option of defaulting...This paper outlines the role of the mortgage backed securities (MBS) in the surfacing of financial crisis Mortgage backed securities are loans that are normally purchased from mortgage companies, banks and originators and then assembled into groups by a private entity, a governmental or a quasi governmental. The securities are then offered by the entity. These securities are offered through the securitization, that represents the claims on the principal and interest payments made by borrowers on their loans in the group. Most of the mortgages are offered by a U.S. Government agency known as the National Mortgage Association or government-sponsored agencies which comprises of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation and the Federal National Mortgage Association Mortgage bonds or mortgage-backed securities were secured by a mortgage on one or more assets. They are generally backed by real property or real estate holdings. The mortgage bondholder has a claim to the underlying property and can sell it off to compensate for the default if the homeowner paying their mortgage defaults. Economic crisis refer to a situation where the economy of a nation or a country undergoes a sudden downturn which is brought about by financial crisis. The financial crisis was highly felt in the market in 2008 The civil fraud charges was filed against several major credit rating agencies Credit risk arises because borrower has the option of defaulting on the loan one owes. In the real sense, lender is the one who bore the credit risk on the mortgages issued. It was made possible for lenders to sell the right to receive the payments on mortgages they issue through securitization. This led to several risks in the financial sector

Impacts of natural disasters on tourism Research Paper

Impacts of natural disasters on tourism - Research Paper Example This proposal is a combined study that incorporates the aims and objectives that would be the basis for the research studies, discussion of relevant literature review of the concerned topic coupled to the overview of the themes, issues, theories, and/or concepts. The research methodology that comprises of the introduction with rationale for the research design and data collection methods is also an integral part of the proposal that ends with the research philosophy and approaches with ethical considerations as a conclusion. Background The natural disasters are the profound environmental impacts that not only bring huge losses to human lives but also subject to arouse immense financial losses such as property damage. In addition, the aftereffects of the natural disasters emerge the fact that underdeveloped nations are the worst hits of the natural adversities as they have the least resources to cope and recreate their lives back to originality (Mechler, 2004). The natural disasters h ave been one of the most unfavorable and devastating episodes have come under the experiences by the human kind of the globe in numerous instances in time. The statistical data and evidences have proved the fact that the natural disasters have made a strong influence and tragic impact on the civilizations around the world. In addition, plentiful states, territories, nations coupled to populace of the particular areas cause to undergo recurring and overwhelming natural disasters as the world in entering into the level of advancements and innovations. The natural disasters have not only affected the human lives but also made the coral reefs, tropical ecosystem, aquatic... The research describes natural disasters that are the profound environmental impacts that not only bring huge losses to human lives but also subject to arouse immense financial losses such as property damage. In addition, the aftereffects of the natural disasters emerge the fact that underdeveloped nations are the worst hits of the natural adversities as they have the least resources to cope and recreate their lives back to originality. The natural disasters have been one of the most unfavorable and devastating episodes have come under the experiences by the human kind of the globe in numerous instances in time. The statistical data and evidences have proved the fact that the natural disasters have made a strong influence and tragic impact on the civilizations around the world. In addition, plentiful states, territories, nations coupled to populace of the particular areas cause to undergo recurring and overwhelming natural disasters as the world in entering into the level of advancem ents and innovations. The natural disasters have not only affected the human lives but also made the coral reefs, tropical ecosystem, aquatic temperate climate and terrestrial or global ecosystem fragile and weak. Tourism industry is one of the departments of the country that comes under mammoth impact from the natural disasters. Indeed, there is a very close connection between tourism and natural disasters. This is because the occurrence of any natural hazard would lead to disruption and destruction of the tourism industry, which would then require re-development and modifications.

Children, War and Education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Children, War and Education - Essay Example This leads them into an intense mental trauma. 3. Children used as terrorists/soldiers:The scene grows even more gruesome when children are made a part of these wars. Their small hands are trained to hold and control the agents of deaths deadly weapons and their vulnerable minds are inculcated with norms of the terror culture where ruthless massacres are a way of life. Be it the Hamas in Gaza, the Taliban in Afghanisthan or the LTTE in Sri Lanka they extensively use children as terrorists."assessments by the Sri Lankan Directorate of Military Intelligence have estimated that as much as 60 per cent of the LTTE's fighters were below 18."(SOUTH ASIA TERRORISM PORTAL) and "LTTE terrorists used a 13 year old child suicide bomber against the advancing 55 Division troops in Chalai "( Thilakaratne 2009)The conditions are no different in Jammu and Kashmir where children are used as "terror tools". They are even trained in throwing grenades and planting IEDs.( GUPTA 2005).This affects a child's(terrorist) psychology in a very dangerous ma nner sometimes making it impossible to help them lead a normal life even after they have been freed/rescued. Their experience with terror creates a kind of crisis in their life - it's a crisis of life purpose and direction. Children Participation in armed conflicts, even voluntarily, is an offence as per the Geneva Convention (1948), its two amendments (1997), and as per Article 38 of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. But one can definitely not expect the terrorist groups to abide by these laws. Even in cases where terrorist outfits were warned against the use of children or even when the terrorist groups promise not to use children (as in case of LTTE), there are hardly any productive or positive results. 4. Loss of children's education: In conditions like these it's not difficult to imagine what must be happening to the education of children. A country's civilian population is under a condition of constant stress when there is a war going on at the borders of the country and the education of children is often disturbed due to falling attendance as a result of fear, shutting down of schools due to govt. orders concerning safety or other such reasons. And the conditions worsen in countries where there are no defined battle fields and the civilian areas are frequently attacked. Terrorist attack on schools causes a great damage; and this damage is multidimensional. Not only is the property damaged but also many lives are lost and the entire education system completely disrupted and sometimes even uprooted. Attacking schools severs several purposes for the terrorist organisations: A. Schools are soft targets and can be attacked comparatively easily.(Ervin 2006) B. Attack on

Research on Project Quality Management in China Paper

On Project Quality Management in China - Research Paper Example The recent decades have seen most countries implement new techniques that are geared towards producing the best results out of an initiated project however small it may be. Most industrialized and urbanized nations, China inclusive, have recently concentrated on quality improvement plans, ensuring appropriate standards in the quality of their products and services in order to fit in the global economics. Generally, quality management is the process by which an implementer of a particular project ensures that the value of the project at hand is able to satisfy his clientele in the best way possible. Quality is the characteristic of an item meeting the required standards by the customers or a producer or the government, as well as giving the producer a value of business sustainability and increased performance (Cleland and Gareis, 2006). Techniques of project quality management that are desirable are those that make sure that the deliverables of a particular project are able to meet th e expectations of customers or even go beyond these expectations. Therefore, monitoring a project in the best way possible is considered ample, since errors and chances of project misinterpretations are duly eradicated. Additionally, standards of quality are deemed vital in the implementation of any project, and the meeting of such standards is made possible through the application of suitable plans to manage a project. Planning of a project is important because it helps ensure the effectiveness of the factors that influence project management as well as the activities that are conducted by the project stakeholders. Quality is at the same time acquired through a certain series of processes that are continually handled until the best result is acquired. Thus, no project incepts at its best level, but all start at a poor level tending towards the best. More over, it is crucial that project implementation team communicate appropriately with the project stakeholders in order to lay the best foundation for quality improvement that is continuous. Thus, when planning the budget for every project, it is crucial that quality be put into consideration. It is always good to emphasize on quality and not quantity for a stakeholder willing to give the best and not only to gain (Cleland and Gareis, 2006). This paper is aimed at investigating into the project quality management in China, being one of the most industrialized countries. Additionally, it will seek to establish the policies, quality control, as well as the techniques that are duly applied in the country. It is also important to come up with a definite reason as to why Chinese products, despite being of low quality are prevalent in the world. More over, it will seek to investigate into project management in china, in regard to the aspect of globalization. Furthermore, it is geared towards providing an insight on quality standards in regard to the management of quality by Chinese

Supply chain management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Supply chain management - Essay Example Organisations now aim for customer loyalty while keeping cost of production low. This is shooting two birds in one shot but difficult to achieve; difficult because meeting the customer’s needs and wants at the same time minimising cost of production do not ensure quality product or service. Authors argue that customer satisfaction must be an important strategic part of marketing. Products and services must be geared towards customer focus, and customer satisfaction is a goal in a value added supply chain. Firms realise that supply chain management (SCM) can do wonders for the company and for the customer. SCM enables the company to cut costs and look for ways to satisfy customers. Supply chain management excellence is crucial to customer satisfaction; consequently, customer satisfaction is critical to customer loyalty, and loyalty critical to profitability (Reichheld 1996 cited in Flint et al., 2008, p. 258). In order to address the problem of customer loyalty, firms apply pro duct and service innovations. Supply chain learning should be a part of the firms’ strategies to address customer satisfaction and loyalty. This is also the main objective of market orientation – customer satisfaction through superior performance of products and services (Singh, 2004, p. 3). ... 258). Organisations keep constant contact with customers, looking for ways to satisfy their needs and wants. Good customer relation is an important aspect of business (McColl-Kennedy & Schneider, 2000, p. S884). To get closer to the customers, businesses have to work as cohesive organisations, using tools and technology (Gulati and Oldroyd, 2005, p. 92), and focus on knowledge-based economy, slowly moving away from the industrial economy. Identifying and working out to strengthen customer satisfaction, supply chains can help in having good relationship with customers, but supply chains have two attributes which are cost and service. Service is itself responsiveness to the customer’s demand, but demand can also increase cost. Putting on a lot of innovations on the product/s means adding cost on production. â€Å"Supply chain efficiency is measured as a cost of producing and delivering goods and service to the customer.† (Hines, 2004, p. 61) This means that if we increase responsiveness to supply chain, we add cost to the delivery of service. Businesses also have to care for their employees who are considered the most valuable asset of an organisation (Storey, 2007, p. 60). According to JoAnna Brandi (cited in Fisher, 2004), a consultant based in Boca Raton, Florida, employee happiness is somehow related to customer happiness. Customer relationship marketing (CRM) creates value for the customer (Chan, 2005, p. 32). Kotler et al. (cited in Blythe, 2006, p. 5) includes the idea of value in the definition of marketing, which is â€Å"the relationship between what is paid and what is received, and can be increased or reduced by marketing activities†

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment Essay Example for Free

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment Essay The geriatric assessment is a multidimensional, multidisciplinary diagnostic instrument designed to collect data on the medical, psychosocial and functional capabilities and limitations of elderly patients. Various geriatric practitioners use the information generated to develop treatment and long-term follow-up plans, arrange for primary care and rehabilitative services, organize and facilitate the intricate process of case management, determine long-term care requirements and optimal placement, and make the best use of health care resources. The geriatric assessment differs from a standard medical evaluation in three general ways: (1) it focuses on elderly individuals with complex problems, (2) it emphasizes functional status and quality of life, and (3) it frequently takes advantage of an interdisciplinary team of providers. Whereas the standard medical evaluation works reasonably well in most other populations, it tends to miss some of the most prevalent problems faced by the elder patient. These challenges, often referred to as the Five Is of Geriatrics, include intellectual impairment, immobility, instability, incontinence and iatrogenic disorders. The geriatric assessment effectively addresses these and many other areas of geriatric care that are crucial to the successful treatment and prevention of disease and disability in older people. Performing a comprehensive assessment is an ambitious undertaking. Below is a list of the areas geriatric providers may choose to assess: †¢ Current symptoms and illnesses and their functional impact. †¢ Current medications, their indications and effects. †¢ Relevant past illnesses. †¢ Recent and impending life changes. †¢ Objective measure of overall personal and social functionality. †¢ Current and future living environment and its appropriateness to function and prognosis. †¢ Family situation and availability. †¢ Current caregiver network including its deficiencies and potential. †¢ Objective measure of cognitive status. †¢ Objective assessment of mobility and balance. †¢ Rehabilitative status and prognosis if ill or disabled. †¢ Current emotional health and substance abuse. †¢ Nutritional status and needs. †¢ Disease risk factors, screening status, and health promotion activities. †¢ Services required and received. The primary care physician or community health worker usually initiates an assessment when he or she detects a potential problem. Like any effective medical evaluation, the geriatric assessment needs to be sufficiently flexible in scope and adaptable in content to serve a wide range of patients. A complete geriatric assessment, performed by multiple personnel over many encounters, is best suited for elders with multiple medical problems and significant functional limitations. Ideally, under these circumstances, an interdisciplinary team representing medicine, psychiatry, social work, nutrition, physical and occupational therapy and others performs a detailed assessment, analyzes the information, devises an intervention strategy, initiates treatment, and follows-up on the patients progress. Due to the intricate nature of comprehensive assessments, many teams designate a case-manager or caseworker to coordinate the entire effort. Most assessments take place in medical offices and inpatient units over multiple visits. If at all possible, however, at least one member of the team (rarely the physician) will attempt to visit the patient at home. Despite the problem of low or no reimbursement, the typically high-yield of information from even a single home visit makes it an extremely efficient use of resources. Most geriatric assessments, performed under the constraints of time and money, tend to be less comprehensive and more directed. Although such modifications are best suited to relatively high-functioning elders living in the community, many practitioners find some version of a directed geriatric assessment to be a more realistic tool in a busy practice. Patient-driven assessment instruments are also popular among geriatricians. Asking patients to complete questionnaires and perform specific tasks not  only saves time, but also it provides useful insight into their motivation and cognitive ability. To the extent that patients are unable to complete the assessment themselves, practitioners resort to traditional patient interview techniques that frequently involve input from a family member or other caregiver. During your upcoming site visits, you will perform a directed geriatric assessment (DGA), ideally with the same patient, over two sessions. In the interest of education, most of your DGA instruments are student-driven, rather than patient-driven, and require relatively little information from caregivers who may or may not be available at the time of your visit. We have divided the DGA in two parts, each with three subsections. In Part I, you will perform an expanded medical interview covering the clinical history, nutritional assessment and a social evaluation. In Part II, you will perform neuropsychiatric, physical and functional examinations. What follows is a reproduction of the History and Physical (HP) format that you will use in your Physical Diagnosis II course next semester. Although all geriatric practitioners do not use a standard assessment format (comprehensive or otherwise), most agree on basic content. The comprehensive geriatric assessment (history examination) following the Physical Diagnosis outline covers the most significant content areas of a prototypical geriatric assessment. As you can see, it moves well beyond the standard HP, which is precisely the point. We have designed it to correlate as closely as possible with the history and physical you will be learning later this year. It is to your considerable advantage to review this information before meeting your patients face-to-face on the site visits. The DGA instrument you will use during your encounter immediately follows this section.

Nineteen Eighty Four Essay Example for Free

Nineteen Eighty Four Essay Nineteen Eighty Four is George Orwells nightmare vision of the future. Written in 1948, at the end of World War II, Orwell simply switched numbers for his future view. The opening chapter is very effective in the way that it straight away lets the reader know the style of the novel. The opening is a description of post-war London, and the introduction of the main character. Orwell saw the evil in the war just passed, and wrote about it. The imagery used can all be linked to the war or London. The novel is not personal, with more reference to the party and regimes, Orwell was a political writer, an extreme socialist. He is criticizing any political regime, socialist or fascist. Right from the outset the author intends to draw attention to the setting. The chapter is typical of the book as a whole; describing Orwells dystopia. The main character we are first introduced to is Winston Smith. This is a common, English name, showing that Winston is in no way separate from the majority. The name Winston can be linked to Winston Churchill, who had just lead England through the war. Along with the name, Winston is not presented as a hero, as one would expect of a main character. Winston is thirty nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle and is incredibly unfit, resting several times on his way up the stairs. We are not, however, given a personality for our hero; we have to wait until part II of the novel to get personal detail. The opening passage introduces us to life for Winston. The settings described are not pleasant. Outside, there is a vile wind and a swirl if gritty dust. Inside Victory Mansions, where Winston resides, for it cannot be said that he lives, it is not much better. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. This gives the impression of rotting and deterioration. Everything is rationed; this is a reference to the war. The present electric current was cut off during daylight hours. Winston uses blunt razor blades and coarse soap. There is no colour described in the opening, the picture of the settings in the readers mind are black and white, therefore giving a sense of a grey, unhappy world. The people of London are not free. There is an imposing poster everywhere one turned, bearing the caption, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. The man in the poster, the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features could very well be Hitler or Stalin, another reference to the war. There is a sense of being watched, the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. The notion of Big Brother is introduced to us in the first ten lines of the novel, this clearly shows us where Orwells intentions lie. We are introduced to the concept of Hate Week, although no further detail is given. Orwell writes of it as though it is an every day event and nothing obscure should be thought of it. Big Brother is the antithesis of Winston, strong and powerful vs. frail and weak. The reader gets the impression Winston could never overthrow the party, although we are not yet introduced to his rebellious side as he does not yet have a character. We are introduced to the party slogans. The set out of them is a triangle, representing hierarchy, authority. The words are oxymorons, War and Peace, Freedom and Slavery, Ignorance and Strength. The words are ironic when used next to each other. They are each the antithesis of the other. If you take away peoples knowledge, you can tamper with their minds, as shown in the last slogan. Once inside Winstons flat, we are introduced to the telescreens, furthering the notion that no one is free. There are helicopters that look into the houses and the telescreens that watch you. There is a description of a dulled mirror but mirrors cannot be dull, or the view would be distorted, this is another message from Orwell showing us nothing was clear. We get more description of Winston, still nothing personal, and still anti-heroic, a smallish, frail figure, the meagerness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. We get the impression he is not well. Everything he can see from his window is unpleasant, the world looked cold, it was torn and harsh. References to the war are frequent. The Ninth Three-Year Plan is ironic, because it would not be possible, and the Three-Year Plan relates to the plan Germany had after the war. The houses are describes as rotting, and their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron. This is war-torn London. The place Winston lives, Oceania is at war. Orwell suggests the war is just a tool used by the party to keep the people oppressed. We are introduced to the Ministries. Their descriptions are the antithesis of the houses described. They are described as startlingly different and they are a wonder to look at. The Ministries are of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty. The irony lies in the fact that the Ministry of love was the frightening one. Things were done with military precision, even the time is in twenty-four hour clock. The Ministries were guarded by uniformed, armed guards, gorilla-faced guards. Orwell uses alliteration to emphasize how imposing and horrible they looked. Another war image. The opening chapter is very effective in making the reader wan to read on, as it makes you feel you are reading history. This is because we are reading with hindsight. The reader feels they want to get to know Winston better because of what they have so far read. Orwell is effective is his opening because the settings are so well described that you instantly get a mental picture and are intrigued by the contrast between the war-torn London so well known and the surreal idea of helicopters looking in windows. It makes the reader wonder what might have happened had the war turned out differently, and Orwells Big Brother, Hitler or Stalin, had been successful.

Impact of Advertising Campaigns on Consumer Behaviour

Impact of Advertising Campaigns on Consumer Behaviour Chapter.1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction and Background The hypermarket plays an important role in Asian countries, such as South Korea, China, Thailand, and Taiwan, the numbers of hypermarkets are rising because of the dense population. Nowadays, Taiwan has experienced rapid economic expansion and a notable increase in consuming capacity. With an increasing demand for better products and services, the concept of using modern retail channels such as convenience stores and hypermarkets for daily purchases of household necessities has been adapted widely by consumers. In a survey of the role of hypermarkets in Taiwanese peoples daily lives quoted by Taiwan Today (2009) from Chinese-language China Times founded that over than eighty-four percent of 1,870 participants said they had shopped at a hypermarket. Obviously, the hypermarket became the main store format for Taiwanese people when they purchased household necessities and foods. According to Nielsen Company (2009) market research conducted in 2006, Taiwan had the second highest density of hypermarkets in Asia region. In this survey, they pointed out the population in Taiwan around 23 million and each hypermarket serves around 210,000 people. They also founded that Taiwan is significantly more developed than other Asias countries, with 90 percent of grocery sales going through the modern trade. Therefore, retailing industry became competitively so retailers must put effort into increasing various products, better service or developing various sales promotions in order to tempt customers, and the results of the poll reveal that which strategies are effective. As Dibb et al. pointed out the role of promotion in a company is to communicate with customers, with the aim of directly or indirectly facilitating exchange by informing and persuading one or more audiences to accept the companys products (Dibb et al., 2006: p.511). In addition, the resource in a company is not infinite therefore company should maximum the efficiency of resource and focus on useful marketing strategies. For that reason, we understand the promotion became a crucial issue for company which want to utilize the tools to increase communicate with customers then incentive customers purchase companys product. Meanwhile, by providing good services and products surpass customer expectation then get higher custom er satisfaction. Finally, the company can keep higher customer retention and earn more profit. This research takes Carrefour for example and discusses the effectiveness of sales promotion operations for Carrefour. Besides, this research tries to understand how promotion campaigns to impact customer relationships and behaviours and how to use sales promotion to help company get more revenue and keep high customer retention. 1.2 Aims and Objectives Aims In the past, the manufacturers and retailers focus on how product more products and how to use the marketing strategies to sell the products, they also stand on supply-based side to sell products. However, in the twenty first century, the domestic and global competition is increasingly intense; the marketplace provides more options to the customers, and the whole value chain of retailing had already became the customer orientated situation and retailers seek for best ways to increase the profit. Objectives The purpose of this research is aimed at examine the effects of sales promotion and marketing strategy on consumers behaviours. Let the stores to understand the customers needs by distinguishing the effectiveness of individual sales promotion, then provides the new marketing strategy for fit in with the market. Therefore, there are four objectives in this study: 1) Identify the effects of individual sales promotion tools on perceived values. 2) Find out the impact of different sales promotion tools on consumer purchase intention. 3) Find out whether there is a positive correlation between sales promotion and purchasing intention. 4) Identify the demographic of consumers and behaviour response. 1.3 Research Structure This research includes five chapters, and the outline of each chapter is as follows: Chapter one introduces the research background, research aims and objectives, and research structure. Chapter two reviews the existing literature relevant to this research. It consists of definition of hypermarket, sales promotion, consumer behaviour. Chapter three illustrates the experiment design, data collection, sample selection, measurement, and pre-test. Chapter four tests the hypotheses and shows the statistical results of the research. The data analysis methods contain Reliability Analysis, Factor Analysis, ANOVA, Independent-Sample T Test, and Simple Regression. Thus some findings could be explained through this information. Chapter five discusses the results and implications of the study, describes limitations, and provides suggestions for future research. The research flow is as follows: Chapter 2. Review of the Literature Introduction There exist numerous theories about how an individual consumer perceives the values of products based on several elements. In this chapter, an extensive review of literature is to be presented. Basically, three sections are included in this chapter. The first section discusses the definition of Hypermarket. In the second section, the definition and classification of sales promotion are to be provided. Then, the third section reviews the theories of consumer buying behavior. 2.1. Hypermarket 2.1.1 Definition of hypermarket According to URPI (1988), the hypermarket is an extension of the supermarket. Normally, the average supermarket covers up to 2500 m, a superstore is between 2500 and 5000 m and the hypermarket is anything over 5000 m in business size. It offers variety of choices and depth of range but usually centers mainly around groceries. Kitchen and Proctor (2001) found that, hypermarket usually over 50000 square feet, typically on one level and selling a wide range of food and non-foods products. Moreover, hypermarkets are usually built on the edge of town or near retail parks. A number of definitions have been coined for a hypermarket. The most widely used definition of a hypermarket is a large commercial establishment which comprises of departmental stores and supermarket which offer a wide range of grocery and a chain of merchandise goods at discounted prices. 2.1.2 Hypermarket in Taiwan 2.1.2.1 History In Taiwan, the hypermarket has developed for 20 years. The first hypermarket called Makro, which were introduced to Taiwan in 1989. At same time, the French company Carrefour established a joint-venture with President Group in Taiwan. Furthermore, local brands such as Geant and RT-MART and international brands like Costco quickly join hypermarket industry. They provide with a variety of commodity and low price. At that time, Makro quickly became the biggest retail sales system in market, and set a new customer shopping trend in Taiwan. Those are self-service, low price, and get all you need in one store. Meanwhile, during 90s Taiwans government comprehensively pushed commercial and service industry development, and eagerly anticipated the industry to become prosperity, globalization, internationalization and alliance. In last twenty years, hypermarkets dramatically grew under the government policy guidance. 2.1.2.2 Current situation Recently, hypermarkets in Taiwan became already the main places that the consumers purchase household necessities for daily lives. In spite of during the global recession, the leading-brand hypermarkets still to expand their new stores every year. In Taiwan, There are 106 hypermarkets at the end of the year 2008. Table 1 shows that the largest chain of hypermarkets is Carrefour (58 stores), followed by RT-MART (24 stores) and Geant (14 stores). It is clearly that the variations and competitions between the hypermarkets in Taiwan are very fiercely. Therefore, hypermarket should find other marketing strategies to keep their market share and profit. Table.1 Source: Collected by different hypermarkets official website in Taiwan 2. 2 Sales Promotion 2.2.1 Definition of Sales Promotion The word promotion originates from a Latin word meaning to move forward. Later, the meaning has been narrowed with reference communication undertaken to convince others to accept ideas, concepts or things. Many previous studies and researches have defined of sales promotion. Each definition has its own elaboration according to the promotional methods applied. Hence, the techniques of sales promotion are diverse and widely used. Strang (1976) had given a more simplistic definition on sales promotion where they are short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product or service. Twenty years later, Kotler and Armstrong (1996: pp.200-250) reemphasized that sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product or service. Sales promotions include a wide variety of promotion tools such as coupons, contests, cents off deals, and others are designed to stimulate earlier or stronger market response and this includes consumer promotion, trade promotion and sales force promotion. They also defined sales promotions as invite and reward quick response from consumers whereas advertising and personal selling offer reasons to buy a product or service. Later, McDonald and Christopher (2003: pp.120-140) noted that sales promotion is not a face-to-face activity concerned with the promotion of sales. Sales promotion can be an activity for saving problem designed to stimulat e customers to behave more in line with the economic interests of the company, and bring forward their decisions to buy. The design of promotion is to increase sales of product or service by encouraging consumers to try and even purchase the product. This activity provides incentives to consumer within specific time in order to help them make decision on a variety of commodities available in the market. Brassington and Pettitt (2006:pp727) also concluded that sales promotion covered a wide variety of objectives, all of which fall into three broad categories as show in Figure 1. : communication, incentive and invitation. Figure 1 Sales Promotion objectives Despite sales promotion have different forms or definitions offered by several credible institutes and scholars, but all sales promotion instruments would be have the common typical objectives: 1) Encourage intermediaries do more sales efforts 2) Increase shelf space for products 3) Help intermediaries stock levels increasing 4) Get more support for in-store displays or other promotions 5) Gain access to new outlets 6) Counteract pressure from sales downturns or competitor actions 7) Improve communication with, or education of, intermediaries For every marketers or producers, it is essentially important for them to understand, which promotion techniques can attract and induce consumers to purchase their products respectively. In order to create better analysis of the effects of promotions, some researchers classify the sales promotion into different framing forms. Campbell and Diamond (1990) classified the sales promotion into two main types, monetary promotion and non-monetary promotion. Monetary promotions are inducement activities made through the price mechanism and comparable with product selling price such as discount and coupons. On the other hand, non-monetary promotions are inducement activities that exclude pricing element and not comparable with product selling price, i.e., free gift or premiums. Their study concluded that non-monetary promotions are theorized to be considered as gains while monetary promotions are viewed as reduced losses in terms of value perception. Experimental results showed that monetary promotions have smaller but noticeable differences than nonmonetary promotions in value. However, non-monetary promotions had broader latitudes of acceptance than monetary promotions. Because of their relatively small noticeable difference, monetary promotions may be particularly effective for transactions with limited amount of money involved. Meanwhile non-monetary promotions, which have broader latitude of acceptance, would be better for transactions that are more expensive. No matter how the sales promotion is classified, there are several ways of hypothesizing whether a particular promotion will be considered as a gain or a reduced loss in value perception. One of Thalers (1985) assumptions was that the physical or temporal separation of a rebate (monetary promotion) check from the price quotation leads to the consideration of the rebate as a gain, but he did not test that hypothesis. Price-off promotions, a monetary promotion tool, are most likely to be viewed as reduced losses in value perception and non-monetary promotions, are most likely to be framed as gains in value perception (Sawyer and Dickson, 1984). Most analytical and econometric models of sales promotions simply assume that monetary savings are the only benefit motivating consumers to respond to sales promotions (Blattberg and Neslin,1990: pp.30-100). Therefore, the determination of value perception of gains or reduced losses is depending upon which form of sales promotion would produce t he most happiness for the subject (McDonald and Christopher, 2003). 2.2.2 Sales Promotion Activities Money-off Money-off are the most recognized use of sales promotions. Money-off offers are usually designed as short-term expedient but some brands appear to run one price reduction after another, creating clear impression and expectation in peoples mind. Bonus packs Bonus packs include an extra quantity of product in the pack for no extra price increase. Banded packs These are multi-packs of the same product, or more than one product, banded together for inclusive price. Couponing Coupons are extensively used in a variety if forms and are associated with other elements of sales promotions such as money-off offers and contests. Premiums Premiums are merchandise items or services. They include free goods and services such as a free extra item of the product being purchased, a free item of some other product or free service such as entry into a leisure park. Sampling Standard or trial-sized samples of the brand are provided free or at a reduced price to encourage trial. Contests Competitions of a variety of forms are a popular sales promotional tool. Contests encourage individual customer rivals others for prizes according to their analytical or creative skills. Sweepstake Sweepstake is a method of stimulating sales in which consumer submit their names for inclusion in a draw for prizes. Sweepstakes are usually used to stimulate sales contests, and sometimes sweepstakes will combine with other sales promotion tools. Tie-in sales promotions Tie-in sales are where multiple products are involved in sales promotions. The products may be from the same company or different companies. Merchandising/ point- of sale displays/ demonstrations Those promotions are anything that entices customers to buy or take action through display and atmospherics. It includes window displays, shelf and aisle displays, the use of video, and other appeals to any of the five senses. Frequent user incentives Frequent user incentives to reward customers who take part in repeat purchases. Basically, frequent user incentives include loyalty card and trading stamps. The loyalty provides discounts or free merchandise to regular customers. Information leaflets/ packs and catalogues The primary purpose of those trade items is to be informative in explaining the range products available, and give pricing and ordering procedures. 2.3 Customer behaviour 2.3.1 Theory of Consumer Buying Behavior It is very difficult to identify the causes of consumer behaviors. People make their buying decision based on many reasons. The analysis of consumer behaviors as those acts of individual directly involved in obtaining, using, and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision processes that precede and determine the acts. People make buying decision based on different factors. Knowledge of consumer behavior is a vital input to sales promotion activities (Blackwell et al., 2001). Between 1950 and 1960, the field of economics was the main contributor in explaining consumer behavior and economists were the first to propose a formal theory of consumer behavior (Karin, 2003). However, marketers only borrowed rather indiscriminately from social psychology, sociology or any other fields of inquiry that might relate to consumer behavior in some way. One of the outstanding models underlies the consumer behavior, Stimulus response model (Bagozzi, 1986), has been widely applied by marketing managers. According to Teunter (2002), most marketing managers find the economic model particularly lacking in its ability to suggest specific actions for influencing consumption or for anticipating specific demands of consumers (unless resulting from price actions). Most marketers or producers need guidelines that will indicate how their actions, especially the marketing mix, might actually influence consumers perception and in turn purchasing behaviors. In the stimulus-response model (Fig. 2) suggests that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumers black box and produce certain responses (Bagozzi, 1986). Hence, the challenge for marketers is to find out how the responses are generated in the black box. Notice that the marketing mix variables are not the only stimuli producing responses on the consumers but also external environmental fact ors. The stimulus-response approach is quite appealing because marketers can discover the reactions of consumers to sales promotion stimuli. Under this approach, people are represented as being buffeted by stimuli rather than freely discovering their needs and choosing among alternatives. Stimulus Buyer Black Box Consumer Response Marketing Mix Psychological Variables Reactions Product Purchase Price Activities Place Consumption Promotion Patterns External Environmental Economic, Technological, Political, Cultural Fig. 2. Stimulus-Response Model Source: Bagozzi, 1986. The central idea of the stimuli-response model is to employ marketing stimuli to influence perceived value as they affect buyer decision and intention to purchase. Sales promotion is one of the elements of marketing stimuli, this model could be very useful in explaining how and why sales promotions affect consumer behaviors through the perceived value. Usually consumers make purchase decision toward which they have a positive attitude, and avoid those, which they have, negative perception. Therefore, to make better prediction about consumers behaviors will need a better understanding about the formation of consumers perceived values (Teunter, 2002). Consumer value is very important to marketers (Fredericks and Salter,1995; Vantrappen, 1992), especially under the fierce competition in newmillennium. The concept of perceived value has recently gained its importance in the business environment as it could affect consumer behaviors, and therefore it helps provide the basis for building strategies for the marketers/producers to gain a better competitive position in a market. However, despite its strategic importance for marketing, perceived value did not receive enough investigation in the literature in agribusiness. Although the conceptualization of perceived value launched in the late 1970s, researchers just begin to give reasonable attention to its operationalization (Sweeney et al., 1997). Given the previous studies, perceived benefits, perceived price, monetary price, psychological price, and behavioral price are all associated with conceptualization of perceived value. Hence, the concept of perceived value is a multi-dimensional (Kotler and Armstrong, 1996). Studying the perceived value has become quite popular recently. There are several conceptual models on perceived value, and basically they can be grouped into two categories according to the different conceptual values. First category consists of transaction utility theory and concept theory of Grewal et al. (1998a), where they define the perceived value as two dimensions-transaction value and acquisition value. Meanwhile the second category only reviews the perceived value as a whole unit without clearly segregating the value into transaction value and acquisition value. Transaction utility theory was developed by Thaler (1985) it focuses on how people build mental code combinations of events that are assumed to make themselves as happy as possible. This principle is used to explain consumers purchase behaviors related to their preferences and the evaluation of transactions involves the acquisition utility and the transaction utility. Conceptually, the acquisition utility is a measu re of the value of the goods relative to its price, which is similar to the economic concept of consumer surplus. Transaction utility is defined as the difference between the amount paid and the internal reference price for the goods that the consumer expects to pay for. This theory leads to the evaluation of consumers tangible gains to their losses when they are offered with promotion, then the perceptions of value and purchase intention would be formed. During the purchase evaluation stage, consumer will makes the purchase decision based on the maximum perceived value or utility received from individual promotions. Thaler (1985), argues powerfully that promotions may frame as gains or losses in the value assessment. The transaction utility theory already becomes a fundamental base for many researches on the psychology of persuasion (Lichtenstein and Bearder, 1989). Grewal et al. (1998a) focused on the perceived product value and customers choice behaviors in the pre-purchase phase. They have successfully identified the value into two aspects, perceived acquisition value and perceived transaction value. Perceived acquisition value is the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of a product will be positively influenced by the benefits they are getting from acquiring and using the product. However, it will be negatively influenced by the amount of money given up to acquire the product, i.e., the sales price. On the other hand, the perceived transaction value is the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. In addition, they discovered that the influence of perceived transaction value on behavioral intentions is mediated by perceived acquisition value. The perceived transaction value could enha nce consumers perceived acquisition value if the internal reference prices (the mental price scale by which a buyer judges the fairness of an actual price) are greater than the selling price. The likelihood that the buyer intends to purchase the product is positively related to overall perceptions of value. Their findings also reaffirmed the common belief that perceived quality is an important part of the value equation. Zeithaml (1988) developed a means-end model, which specified quality and value not differentiated from one another. Quality can be defined as a consumers judgment about a product or service. Zeithaml (1988) found that perceived value is defined as the consumers overall assessment of the utility of a product according to perceptions of what is received and what is given. The study stated that perceived customer value can be captured in one overall definition: value is low price, value is whatever one wants in a product, value is the quality that the consumer receives for the price paid, and value is what the consumer gets (quality) for what they give (price) respectively. The moderating variables of perceived value in this model include perceived sacrificed, the effort required to purchase, extrinsic and intrinsic attributes, and high-level abstractions. The perceived sacrificed include elements of perceived monetary price and perceived non-monetary price. Perceived monetary price is the price of a product as encoded by the consumer. Meanwhile the perceived non-monetary price is defined as the price of obtaining a product that includes the time and effort used to search for it. Both intrinsic attributes (how the product/service makes you feel) and extrinsic attributes (the reputation of the product/service) are positively related to perceived quality, while perceived monetary price is affected by objective price (actual price paid) and negatively related to the perceived quality. The result showed consumers perceptions of quality, price and value are interrelated and it will influence the willingness to purchase. In 1990, Monroe developed a framework and suggested a ratio specification, which implied that the perceived value is judged to be quality at unit price in a consumers mind. This is the outcome of the trade off between perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice. The ratio specification is defined as: Perceived value = Perceived benefit / Perceived price sacrificed The equation above, identify that perceived value, perceived benefits are positively related, and perceived price sacrificed is negatively related to perceived value. The relationship between actual price and perceived quality are positively related and negatively linked with perceived price sacrificed. The concept developed by Monroe, stated that buyers perceptions of value represents a tradeoff between the quality and benefits, they perceive in the product relative to the sacrifice they perceive by paying the price. One can reduce a products perceived monetary sacrifice by offering a price reduction on the product. Therefore, by keeping the benefits received by consumers constant, different ways of communicating promotion will lead to a purchase decision. According to Grewal et al. (1998b), integrative framework identify price, product brand and store name could influence buyers perceptions of quality, and extend to their perceived value. They identified that price discounts are likely to have a negative influence on perceptions of quality. If a consumer purchases a discounted product, they often attribute the fact that it was on discount because of poor quality, which is similar to the finding of other scholars (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990:pp.30-100). They suggested that internal reference price is influenced by price discounts, brands perceived quality and brand name. In addition, their finding supports the conclusion of other scholars that the essential components of the formation of the value perception included price, promotion and quality perception. Indeed, they also suggested the perceived quality be positively related with value perceptions. As a result, purchase intention is positively associated with perceived value as the p urchase intentions is an antecedent of the consequent purchase. Alford and Engelland (2000) applied the social judgment theory to develop the concept of value perception. Their main finding suggested that the variables influencing the formation of consumers internal reference prices be consumer perceived value and search intention. Consumer internal reference price formation is influenced by the advertised sales price (Alford and Ellgelland, 2000). They illustrated that the comparison between the advertised sales price and internal reference price is to attract consumer attention and enhance consumers value perception as well. Consumers define internal reference price as a fair price, the expected average market price, the average of recent purchase price, or the lowest acceptable price. In this sense, it would be more reasonable to view it as a range of prices. In their framework, the price range is appropriately associated with the social judgment theory developed by Sherif et al. (1973), which suggested that individuals develop latitudes of ac ceptance, rejection and non-commitment as a guideline for value evaluation. Moreover, they also realized that consumers would perceive a smaller degree of benefits of search when exposed to a plausible advertised reference price as opposed to an implausible advertised reference price. This implies that the level of purchase intention would be higher for the appropriate promotion employed. Among the studies mentioned above, only Thalers transaction utility theory (1985) and framework of Grewal et al. (1998a) have segregated the perception into two dimensions acquisition value and transaction value and defined both dimensions are inter-related. Nonetheless, most of the scholars (Zeithaml, 1988; Monroe, 1990; Grewal et al., 1998b) concept does not identify the value as two dimensions acquisition value and transaction value. The findings from previous studies suggested that perceived value is a function of perceived quality and perceived price. That is, value increases monotonically (and positively) Impact of Advertising Campaigns on Consumer Behaviour Impact of Advertising Campaigns on Consumer Behaviour Chapter.1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction and Background The hypermarket plays an important role in Asian countries, such as South Korea, China, Thailand, and Taiwan, the numbers of hypermarkets are rising because of the dense population. Nowadays, Taiwan has experienced rapid economic expansion and a notable increase in consuming capacity. With an increasing demand for better products and services, the concept of using modern retail channels such as convenience stores and hypermarkets for daily purchases of household necessities has been adapted widely by consumers. In a survey of the role of hypermarkets in Taiwanese peoples daily lives quoted by Taiwan Today (2009) from Chinese-language China Times founded that over than eighty-four percent of 1,870 participants said they had shopped at a hypermarket. Obviously, the hypermarket became the main store format for Taiwanese people when they purchased household necessities and foods. According to Nielsen Company (2009) market research conducted in 2006, Taiwan had the second highest density of hypermarkets in Asia region. In this survey, they pointed out the population in Taiwan around 23 million and each hypermarket serves around 210,000 people. They also founded that Taiwan is significantly more developed than other Asias countries, with 90 percent of grocery sales going through the modern trade. Therefore, retailing industry became competitively so retailers must put effort into increasing various products, better service or developing various sales promotions in order to tempt customers, and the results of the poll reveal that which strategies are effective. As Dibb et al. pointed out the role of promotion in a company is to communicate with customers, with the aim of directly or indirectly facilitating exchange by informing and persuading one or more audiences to accept the companys products (Dibb et al., 2006: p.511). In addition, the resource in a company is not infinite therefore company should maximum the efficiency of resource and focus on useful marketing strategies. For that reason, we understand the promotion became a crucial issue for company which want to utilize the tools to increase communicate with customers then incentive customers purchase companys product. Meanwhile, by providing good services and products surpass customer expectation then get higher custom er satisfaction. Finally, the company can keep higher customer retention and earn more profit. This research takes Carrefour for example and discusses the effectiveness of sales promotion operations for Carrefour. Besides, this research tries to understand how promotion campaigns to impact customer relationships and behaviours and how to use sales promotion to help company get more revenue and keep high customer retention. 1.2 Aims and Objectives Aims In the past, the manufacturers and retailers focus on how product more products and how to use the marketing strategies to sell the products, they also stand on supply-based side to sell products. However, in the twenty first century, the domestic and global competition is increasingly intense; the marketplace provides more options to the customers, and the whole value chain of retailing had already became the customer orientated situation and retailers seek for best ways to increase the profit. Objectives The purpose of this research is aimed at examine the effects of sales promotion and marketing strategy on consumers behaviours. Let the stores to understand the customers needs by distinguishing the effectiveness of individual sales promotion, then provides the new marketing strategy for fit in with the market. Therefore, there are four objectives in this study: 1) Identify the effects of individual sales promotion tools on perceived values. 2) Find out the impact of different sales promotion tools on consumer purchase intention. 3) Find out whether there is a positive correlation between sales promotion and purchasing intention. 4) Identify the demographic of consumers and behaviour response. 1.3 Research Structure This research includes five chapters, and the outline of each chapter is as follows: Chapter one introduces the research background, research aims and objectives, and research structure. Chapter two reviews the existing literature relevant to this research. It consists of definition of hypermarket, sales promotion, consumer behaviour. Chapter three illustrates the experiment design, data collection, sample selection, measurement, and pre-test. Chapter four tests the hypotheses and shows the statistical results of the research. The data analysis methods contain Reliability Analysis, Factor Analysis, ANOVA, Independent-Sample T Test, and Simple Regression. Thus some findings could be explained through this information. Chapter five discusses the results and implications of the study, describes limitations, and provides suggestions for future research. The research flow is as follows: Chapter 2. Review of the Literature Introduction There exist numerous theories about how an individual consumer perceives the values of products based on several elements. In this chapter, an extensive review of literature is to be presented. Basically, three sections are included in this chapter. The first section discusses the definition of Hypermarket. In the second section, the definition and classification of sales promotion are to be provided. Then, the third section reviews the theories of consumer buying behavior. 2.1. Hypermarket 2.1.1 Definition of hypermarket According to URPI (1988), the hypermarket is an extension of the supermarket. Normally, the average supermarket covers up to 2500 m, a superstore is between 2500 and 5000 m and the hypermarket is anything over 5000 m in business size. It offers variety of choices and depth of range but usually centers mainly around groceries. Kitchen and Proctor (2001) found that, hypermarket usually over 50000 square feet, typically on one level and selling a wide range of food and non-foods products. Moreover, hypermarkets are usually built on the edge of town or near retail parks. A number of definitions have been coined for a hypermarket. The most widely used definition of a hypermarket is a large commercial establishment which comprises of departmental stores and supermarket which offer a wide range of grocery and a chain of merchandise goods at discounted prices. 2.1.2 Hypermarket in Taiwan 2.1.2.1 History In Taiwan, the hypermarket has developed for 20 years. The first hypermarket called Makro, which were introduced to Taiwan in 1989. At same time, the French company Carrefour established a joint-venture with President Group in Taiwan. Furthermore, local brands such as Geant and RT-MART and international brands like Costco quickly join hypermarket industry. They provide with a variety of commodity and low price. At that time, Makro quickly became the biggest retail sales system in market, and set a new customer shopping trend in Taiwan. Those are self-service, low price, and get all you need in one store. Meanwhile, during 90s Taiwans government comprehensively pushed commercial and service industry development, and eagerly anticipated the industry to become prosperity, globalization, internationalization and alliance. In last twenty years, hypermarkets dramatically grew under the government policy guidance. 2.1.2.2 Current situation Recently, hypermarkets in Taiwan became already the main places that the consumers purchase household necessities for daily lives. In spite of during the global recession, the leading-brand hypermarkets still to expand their new stores every year. In Taiwan, There are 106 hypermarkets at the end of the year 2008. Table 1 shows that the largest chain of hypermarkets is Carrefour (58 stores), followed by RT-MART (24 stores) and Geant (14 stores). It is clearly that the variations and competitions between the hypermarkets in Taiwan are very fiercely. Therefore, hypermarket should find other marketing strategies to keep their market share and profit. Table.1 Source: Collected by different hypermarkets official website in Taiwan 2. 2 Sales Promotion 2.2.1 Definition of Sales Promotion The word promotion originates from a Latin word meaning to move forward. Later, the meaning has been narrowed with reference communication undertaken to convince others to accept ideas, concepts or things. Many previous studies and researches have defined of sales promotion. Each definition has its own elaboration according to the promotional methods applied. Hence, the techniques of sales promotion are diverse and widely used. Strang (1976) had given a more simplistic definition on sales promotion where they are short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product or service. Twenty years later, Kotler and Armstrong (1996: pp.200-250) reemphasized that sales promotion consists of short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales of a product or service. Sales promotions include a wide variety of promotion tools such as coupons, contests, cents off deals, and others are designed to stimulate earlier or stronger market response and this includes consumer promotion, trade promotion and sales force promotion. They also defined sales promotions as invite and reward quick response from consumers whereas advertising and personal selling offer reasons to buy a product or service. Later, McDonald and Christopher (2003: pp.120-140) noted that sales promotion is not a face-to-face activity concerned with the promotion of sales. Sales promotion can be an activity for saving problem designed to stimulat e customers to behave more in line with the economic interests of the company, and bring forward their decisions to buy. The design of promotion is to increase sales of product or service by encouraging consumers to try and even purchase the product. This activity provides incentives to consumer within specific time in order to help them make decision on a variety of commodities available in the market. Brassington and Pettitt (2006:pp727) also concluded that sales promotion covered a wide variety of objectives, all of which fall into three broad categories as show in Figure 1. : communication, incentive and invitation. Figure 1 Sales Promotion objectives Despite sales promotion have different forms or definitions offered by several credible institutes and scholars, but all sales promotion instruments would be have the common typical objectives: 1) Encourage intermediaries do more sales efforts 2) Increase shelf space for products 3) Help intermediaries stock levels increasing 4) Get more support for in-store displays or other promotions 5) Gain access to new outlets 6) Counteract pressure from sales downturns or competitor actions 7) Improve communication with, or education of, intermediaries For every marketers or producers, it is essentially important for them to understand, which promotion techniques can attract and induce consumers to purchase their products respectively. In order to create better analysis of the effects of promotions, some researchers classify the sales promotion into different framing forms. Campbell and Diamond (1990) classified the sales promotion into two main types, monetary promotion and non-monetary promotion. Monetary promotions are inducement activities made through the price mechanism and comparable with product selling price such as discount and coupons. On the other hand, non-monetary promotions are inducement activities that exclude pricing element and not comparable with product selling price, i.e., free gift or premiums. Their study concluded that non-monetary promotions are theorized to be considered as gains while monetary promotions are viewed as reduced losses in terms of value perception. Experimental results showed that monetary promotions have smaller but noticeable differences than nonmonetary promotions in value. However, non-monetary promotions had broader latitudes of acceptance than monetary promotions. Because of their relatively small noticeable difference, monetary promotions may be particularly effective for transactions with limited amount of money involved. Meanwhile non-monetary promotions, which have broader latitude of acceptance, would be better for transactions that are more expensive. No matter how the sales promotion is classified, there are several ways of hypothesizing whether a particular promotion will be considered as a gain or a reduced loss in value perception. One of Thalers (1985) assumptions was that the physical or temporal separation of a rebate (monetary promotion) check from the price quotation leads to the consideration of the rebate as a gain, but he did not test that hypothesis. Price-off promotions, a monetary promotion tool, are most likely to be viewed as reduced losses in value perception and non-monetary promotions, are most likely to be framed as gains in value perception (Sawyer and Dickson, 1984). Most analytical and econometric models of sales promotions simply assume that monetary savings are the only benefit motivating consumers to respond to sales promotions (Blattberg and Neslin,1990: pp.30-100). Therefore, the determination of value perception of gains or reduced losses is depending upon which form of sales promotion would produce t he most happiness for the subject (McDonald and Christopher, 2003). 2.2.2 Sales Promotion Activities Money-off Money-off are the most recognized use of sales promotions. Money-off offers are usually designed as short-term expedient but some brands appear to run one price reduction after another, creating clear impression and expectation in peoples mind. Bonus packs Bonus packs include an extra quantity of product in the pack for no extra price increase. Banded packs These are multi-packs of the same product, or more than one product, banded together for inclusive price. Couponing Coupons are extensively used in a variety if forms and are associated with other elements of sales promotions such as money-off offers and contests. Premiums Premiums are merchandise items or services. They include free goods and services such as a free extra item of the product being purchased, a free item of some other product or free service such as entry into a leisure park. Sampling Standard or trial-sized samples of the brand are provided free or at a reduced price to encourage trial. Contests Competitions of a variety of forms are a popular sales promotional tool. Contests encourage individual customer rivals others for prizes according to their analytical or creative skills. Sweepstake Sweepstake is a method of stimulating sales in which consumer submit their names for inclusion in a draw for prizes. Sweepstakes are usually used to stimulate sales contests, and sometimes sweepstakes will combine with other sales promotion tools. Tie-in sales promotions Tie-in sales are where multiple products are involved in sales promotions. The products may be from the same company or different companies. Merchandising/ point- of sale displays/ demonstrations Those promotions are anything that entices customers to buy or take action through display and atmospherics. It includes window displays, shelf and aisle displays, the use of video, and other appeals to any of the five senses. Frequent user incentives Frequent user incentives to reward customers who take part in repeat purchases. Basically, frequent user incentives include loyalty card and trading stamps. The loyalty provides discounts or free merchandise to regular customers. Information leaflets/ packs and catalogues The primary purpose of those trade items is to be informative in explaining the range products available, and give pricing and ordering procedures. 2.3 Customer behaviour 2.3.1 Theory of Consumer Buying Behavior It is very difficult to identify the causes of consumer behaviors. People make their buying decision based on many reasons. The analysis of consumer behaviors as those acts of individual directly involved in obtaining, using, and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision processes that precede and determine the acts. People make buying decision based on different factors. Knowledge of consumer behavior is a vital input to sales promotion activities (Blackwell et al., 2001). Between 1950 and 1960, the field of economics was the main contributor in explaining consumer behavior and economists were the first to propose a formal theory of consumer behavior (Karin, 2003). However, marketers only borrowed rather indiscriminately from social psychology, sociology or any other fields of inquiry that might relate to consumer behavior in some way. One of the outstanding models underlies the consumer behavior, Stimulus response model (Bagozzi, 1986), has been widely applied by marketing managers. According to Teunter (2002), most marketing managers find the economic model particularly lacking in its ability to suggest specific actions for influencing consumption or for anticipating specific demands of consumers (unless resulting from price actions). Most marketers or producers need guidelines that will indicate how their actions, especially the marketing mix, might actually influence consumers perception and in turn purchasing behaviors. In the stimulus-response model (Fig. 2) suggests that marketing and other stimuli enter the consumers black box and produce certain responses (Bagozzi, 1986). Hence, the challenge for marketers is to find out how the responses are generated in the black box. Notice that the marketing mix variables are not the only stimuli producing responses on the consumers but also external environmental fact ors. The stimulus-response approach is quite appealing because marketers can discover the reactions of consumers to sales promotion stimuli. Under this approach, people are represented as being buffeted by stimuli rather than freely discovering their needs and choosing among alternatives. Stimulus Buyer Black Box Consumer Response Marketing Mix Psychological Variables Reactions Product Purchase Price Activities Place Consumption Promotion Patterns External Environmental Economic, Technological, Political, Cultural Fig. 2. Stimulus-Response Model Source: Bagozzi, 1986. The central idea of the stimuli-response model is to employ marketing stimuli to influence perceived value as they affect buyer decision and intention to purchase. Sales promotion is one of the elements of marketing stimuli, this model could be very useful in explaining how and why sales promotions affect consumer behaviors through the perceived value. Usually consumers make purchase decision toward which they have a positive attitude, and avoid those, which they have, negative perception. Therefore, to make better prediction about consumers behaviors will need a better understanding about the formation of consumers perceived values (Teunter, 2002). Consumer value is very important to marketers (Fredericks and Salter,1995; Vantrappen, 1992), especially under the fierce competition in newmillennium. The concept of perceived value has recently gained its importance in the business environment as it could affect consumer behaviors, and therefore it helps provide the basis for building strategies for the marketers/producers to gain a better competitive position in a market. However, despite its strategic importance for marketing, perceived value did not receive enough investigation in the literature in agribusiness. Although the conceptualization of perceived value launched in the late 1970s, researchers just begin to give reasonable attention to its operationalization (Sweeney et al., 1997). Given the previous studies, perceived benefits, perceived price, monetary price, psychological price, and behavioral price are all associated with conceptualization of perceived value. Hence, the concept of perceived value is a multi-dimensional (Kotler and Armstrong, 1996). Studying the perceived value has become quite popular recently. There are several conceptual models on perceived value, and basically they can be grouped into two categories according to the different conceptual values. First category consists of transaction utility theory and concept theory of Grewal et al. (1998a), where they define the perceived value as two dimensions-transaction value and acquisition value. Meanwhile the second category only reviews the perceived value as a whole unit without clearly segregating the value into transaction value and acquisition value. Transaction utility theory was developed by Thaler (1985) it focuses on how people build mental code combinations of events that are assumed to make themselves as happy as possible. This principle is used to explain consumers purchase behaviors related to their preferences and the evaluation of transactions involves the acquisition utility and the transaction utility. Conceptually, the acquisition utility is a measu re of the value of the goods relative to its price, which is similar to the economic concept of consumer surplus. Transaction utility is defined as the difference between the amount paid and the internal reference price for the goods that the consumer expects to pay for. This theory leads to the evaluation of consumers tangible gains to their losses when they are offered with promotion, then the perceptions of value and purchase intention would be formed. During the purchase evaluation stage, consumer will makes the purchase decision based on the maximum perceived value or utility received from individual promotions. Thaler (1985), argues powerfully that promotions may frame as gains or losses in the value assessment. The transaction utility theory already becomes a fundamental base for many researches on the psychology of persuasion (Lichtenstein and Bearder, 1989). Grewal et al. (1998a) focused on the perceived product value and customers choice behaviors in the pre-purchase phase. They have successfully identified the value into two aspects, perceived acquisition value and perceived transaction value. Perceived acquisition value is the perceived net gains associated with the products or services acquired. That is, the perceived acquisition value of a product will be positively influenced by the benefits they are getting from acquiring and using the product. However, it will be negatively influenced by the amount of money given up to acquire the product, i.e., the sales price. On the other hand, the perceived transaction value is the perception of psychological satisfaction or pleasure obtained from taking advantage of the financial terms of the price deal. In addition, they discovered that the influence of perceived transaction value on behavioral intentions is mediated by perceived acquisition value. The perceived transaction value could enha nce consumers perceived acquisition value if the internal reference prices (the mental price scale by which a buyer judges the fairness of an actual price) are greater than the selling price. The likelihood that the buyer intends to purchase the product is positively related to overall perceptions of value. Their findings also reaffirmed the common belief that perceived quality is an important part of the value equation. Zeithaml (1988) developed a means-end model, which specified quality and value not differentiated from one another. Quality can be defined as a consumers judgment about a product or service. Zeithaml (1988) found that perceived value is defined as the consumers overall assessment of the utility of a product according to perceptions of what is received and what is given. The study stated that perceived customer value can be captured in one overall definition: value is low price, value is whatever one wants in a product, value is the quality that the consumer receives for the price paid, and value is what the consumer gets (quality) for what they give (price) respectively. The moderating variables of perceived value in this model include perceived sacrificed, the effort required to purchase, extrinsic and intrinsic attributes, and high-level abstractions. The perceived sacrificed include elements of perceived monetary price and perceived non-monetary price. Perceived monetary price is the price of a product as encoded by the consumer. Meanwhile the perceived non-monetary price is defined as the price of obtaining a product that includes the time and effort used to search for it. Both intrinsic attributes (how the product/service makes you feel) and extrinsic attributes (the reputation of the product/service) are positively related to perceived quality, while perceived monetary price is affected by objective price (actual price paid) and negatively related to the perceived quality. The result showed consumers perceptions of quality, price and value are interrelated and it will influence the willingness to purchase. In 1990, Monroe developed a framework and suggested a ratio specification, which implied that the perceived value is judged to be quality at unit price in a consumers mind. This is the outcome of the trade off between perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice. The ratio specification is defined as: Perceived value = Perceived benefit / Perceived price sacrificed The equation above, identify that perceived value, perceived benefits are positively related, and perceived price sacrificed is negatively related to perceived value. The relationship between actual price and perceived quality are positively related and negatively linked with perceived price sacrificed. The concept developed by Monroe, stated that buyers perceptions of value represents a tradeoff between the quality and benefits, they perceive in the product relative to the sacrifice they perceive by paying the price. One can reduce a products perceived monetary sacrifice by offering a price reduction on the product. Therefore, by keeping the benefits received by consumers constant, different ways of communicating promotion will lead to a purchase decision. According to Grewal et al. (1998b), integrative framework identify price, product brand and store name could influence buyers perceptions of quality, and extend to their perceived value. They identified that price discounts are likely to have a negative influence on perceptions of quality. If a consumer purchases a discounted product, they often attribute the fact that it was on discount because of poor quality, which is similar to the finding of other scholars (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990:pp.30-100). They suggested that internal reference price is influenced by price discounts, brands perceived quality and brand name. In addition, their finding supports the conclusion of other scholars that the essential components of the formation of the value perception included price, promotion and quality perception. Indeed, they also suggested the perceived quality be positively related with value perceptions. As a result, purchase intention is positively associated with perceived value as the p urchase intentions is an antecedent of the consequent purchase. Alford and Engelland (2000) applied the social judgment theory to develop the concept of value perception. Their main finding suggested that the variables influencing the formation of consumers internal reference prices be consumer perceived value and search intention. Consumer internal reference price formation is influenced by the advertised sales price (Alford and Ellgelland, 2000). They illustrated that the comparison between the advertised sales price and internal reference price is to attract consumer attention and enhance consumers value perception as well. Consumers define internal reference price as a fair price, the expected average market price, the average of recent purchase price, or the lowest acceptable price. In this sense, it would be more reasonable to view it as a range of prices. In their framework, the price range is appropriately associated with the social judgment theory developed by Sherif et al. (1973), which suggested that individuals develop latitudes of ac ceptance, rejection and non-commitment as a guideline for value evaluation. Moreover, they also realized that consumers would perceive a smaller degree of benefits of search when exposed to a plausible advertised reference price as opposed to an implausible advertised reference price. This implies that the level of purchase intention would be higher for the appropriate promotion employed. Among the studies mentioned above, only Thalers transaction utility theory (1985) and framework of Grewal et al. (1998a) have segregated the perception into two dimensions acquisition value and transaction value and defined both dimensions are inter-related. Nonetheless, most of the scholars (Zeithaml, 1988; Monroe, 1990; Grewal et al., 1998b) concept does not identify the value as two dimensions acquisition value and transaction value. The findings from previous studies suggested that perceived value is a function of perceived quality and perceived price. That is, value increases monotonically (and positively)