Week 1 - Introduction

  • A developed country, industrialized country, or "more economically developed country" (MEDC), is a sovereign state that has a highly developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for evaluating the degree of economic development are gross domestic product (GDP), the per capita income, level of industrialization, amount of widespread infrastructure and general standard of living. ( Wikipedia )
  • An emerging market is a country that has some characteristics of a developed market but is not yet a developed market. This includes countries that may be developed markets in the future or were in the past. ( Wikipedia )
  • A developing country, also called a less-developed country, is a nation with a lower living standard, underdeveloped industrial base, and low Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. ( Wikipedia )


Groupings:

Further reading on newly industrialized countries


Week 2 - Reputation, image and brand

Reputation may be considered as a component of identity as defined by others.
Reputation is known to be a ubiquitous, spontaneous, and highly efficient mechanism of social control in natural societies. ( Wikipedia )
    • Reputation management is the understanding or influencing of an individual's or business's reputation. It was originally coined as a public relations term, but advancement in computing, the internet and social media made it primarily an issue of search results. Some parts of reputation management are often associated with ethical grey areas, such as w:astroturfing review sites, censoring negative complaints or using SEO tactics to game the system and influence results. ( Wikipedia )
  • A corporate identity is the overall image of a corporation or firm or business in the minds of diverse publics, such as customers and investors and employees. It is a primary task of the corporate communications department to maintain and build this identity to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives. It is usually visibly manifested by way of branding and the use of trademarks. ( Wikipedia )
  • Brand identity is the outward expression of a brand – including its name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance ( Wikipedia )
  • Brand is the "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's product distinct from those of other sellers." ( Wikipedia )
  • Brand management is a communication function in marketing that includes analysis and planning on how that brand is positioned in the market, which target public the brand is targeted at, and maintaining a desired reputation of the brand. ( Wikipedia )
  • Sustainability brands are products and services that are branded to signify a special added value in terms of environmental and social benefits to the customer and thus enable the differentiation from competitors. ( Wikipedia )
He is most known for his work on the RepTrak Model and RepTrak Alignment Monitor.
Van Riel co-founded The Reputation Institute in 1997.
  • The country-of-origin effect (COE), also known as the made-in image and the nationality bias, is a psychological effect describing how consumers' attitudes, perceptions and purchasing decisions are influenced by products' country of origin labeling. ( Wikipedia )

Week 3

  • The Gini coefficient (also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio) is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income distribution of a nation's residents. This is the most commonly used measure of inequality. The coefficient varies between 0, which reflects complete equality and 100 (or 1), which indicates complete inequality (one person has all the income or consumption, all others have none). ( Wikipedia )

Week 4

  • Marketing Research is "the process or set of processes that links the consumers, customers, and end users to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve understanding of marketing as a process. ( Wikipedia )
  • Marketing intelligence is the everyday information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics. Marketing intelligence is necessary when entering a foreign market. ( Wikipedia )
  • Competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors, and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers making strategic decisions for an organization. ( Wikipedia )

Week 5 - Getting to Know EU for Business

  • Enterprise Europe Network is the largest information and consultancy network in Europe. The aim of the network is to help small business to make the most of the European marketplace. Enterprise Europe Network is a focal point network consisting of 600 organizations - chambers of commerce, regional development agencies, university technology centers, where about 4000 professionals are working in over 40 countries worldwide. Enterprise Europe Network Staff assist small business in sourcing new business & technology partners in Europe and advise them on accessing EU Funding. ( Wikipedia )
  • M-Pesa (M for mobile, pesa is Swahili for money) is a mobile-phone based money transfer and microfinancing service, launched in 2007 by Vodafone for Safaricom and Vodacom, the largest mobile network operators in Kenya and Tanzania. It has since expanded to Afghanistan, South Africa, India and in 2014 to Eastern Europe. M-Pesa allows users with a national ID card or passport to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money easily with a mobile device. ( Wikipedia )

EU legislations

    • Regulation is a rule or law designed to control or govern conduct. In statist mechanisms it can also be extended to monitoring and enforcement of rules as established by primary and/or delegated legislation. ( Wikipedia )
    • directives are legal acts of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result. ( Wikipedia )
    • decisions - In European Union law, a decision is a legal instrument which is binding upon those individuals to which it is addressed. ( Wikipedia )
    • recommendations
    • options ( Teacher )

Week 5 - Trade & Intellectual Property

Week 6

Week 7

  • Trends come in different sizes. A mega-trend extends over many generations, and in cases of climate, mega-trends can cover periods prior to human existence. ( Wikipedia on Future studies )
  • A ghost town is an abandoned village, town or city, usually one which contains substantial visible remains. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters. ( Wikipedia )