Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Chapter 2

Chapter 2 The angel wants me to convey more of Joshua's grace. Grace? I'm trying to write about a six-year-old, for Christ's sakes, how much grace could he have? It's not like Joshua walked around professing that he was the Son of God every day of the week. He was a pretty normal kid, for the most part. There was the trick he did with the lizards, and once we found a dead meadowlark and he brought it back to life, and there was the time, when we were eight, when he healed his brother Judah's fractured skull after a game of â€Å"stone the adulteress† got out of hand. (Judah could never get the knack of being an adulteress. He'd stand there stiff as Lot's wife. You can't do that. An adulteress has to be wily and nimble-footed.) The miracles Joshua performed were small and quiet, as miracles tend to be, once you get used to them. But trouble came from the miracles that happened around him, without his volition, as it were. Bread and serpents come to mind. It was a few days before the Passover feast, and many of the families of Nazareth were not making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem that year. There had been little rain through our winter season, so it was going to be a hard year. Many farmers could not afford the time away from their fields to travel to and from the holy city. My father and Joshua's were both working in Sepphoris, and the Romans wouldn't give them time off work beyond the actual feast days. My mother had been making the unleavened bread when I came in from playing in the square. She held a dozen sheets of the flatbread before her and she looked as if she was going to dash it to the floor any second. â€Å"Biff, where is your friend Joshua?† My little brothers grinned at me from behind her skirts. â€Å"At home, I suppose. I just left him.† â€Å"What have you boys been doing?† â€Å"Nothing.† I tried to remember if I had done anything that should make her this angry, but nothing came to mind. It was a rare day and I'd made no trouble. Both my little brothers were unscathed as far as I knew. â€Å"What have you done to cause this?† She held out a sheet of the flatbread, and there, in crispy brown relief on the golden crust, was the image of my friend Joshua's face. She snatched up another sheet of bread, and there, again, was my friend Josh. Graven images – big sin. Josh was smiling. Mother frowned on smiling. â€Å"Well? Do I need to go to Joshua's house and ask his poor, insane mother?† â€Å"I did this. I put Joshua's face on the bread.† I just hoped that she didn't ask me how I had done it. â€Å"Your father will punish you when he comes home this evening. Now go, get out of here.† I could hear my little brother's giggling as I slunk out the door, but once outside, things worsened. Women were coming away from their baking stones, and each held a sheet of unleavened bread, and each was muttering some variation of â€Å"Hey, there's a kid on my bread.† I ran to Joshua's house and stormed in without knocking. Joshua and his brothers were at the table eating. Mary was nursing Joshua's newest little sister, Miriam. â€Å"You are in big trouble,† I whispered in Josh's ear with enough force to blow out an eardrum. Joshua held up the flatbread he was eating and grinned, just like the face on his bread. â€Å"It's a miracle.† â€Å"Tastes good too,† said James, crunching a corner off of his brother's head. â€Å"It's all over town, Joshua. Not just your house. Everyone's bread has your face on it.† â€Å"He is truly the Son of God,† Mary said with a beatific smile. â€Å"Oh, jeez, Mother,† James said. â€Å"Yeah, jeez Mom,† said Judah. â€Å"His mug is all over the Passover feast. We have to do something.† They didn't seem to get the gravity of the situation. I was already in trouble, and my mother didn't even suspect anything supernatural. â€Å"We have to cut your hair.† â€Å"What?† â€Å"We cannot cut his hair,† Mary said. She had always let Joshua wear his hair long, like an Essene, saying that he was a Nazarite like Samson. It was just another reason why many of the townspeople thought her mad. The rest of us wore our hair cut short, like the Greeks who had ruled our country since the time of Alexander, and the Romans after them. â€Å"If we cut his hair he looks like the rest of us. We can say it's someone else on the bread.† â€Å"Moses,† Mary said. â€Å"Young Moses.† â€Å"Yes!† â€Å"I'll get a knife.† â€Å"James, Judah, come with me,† I said. â€Å"We have to tell the town that the face of Moses has come to visit us for the Passover feast.† Mary pulled Miriam from her breast, bent, and kissed me on the forehead. â€Å"You are a good friend, Biff.† I almost melted in my sandals, but I caught Joshua frowning at me. â€Å"It's not the truth,† he said. â€Å"It will keep the Pharisees from judging you.† â€Å"I'm not afraid of them,† said the nine-year-old. â€Å"I didn't do this to the bread.† â€Å"Then why take the blame and the punishment for it?† â€Å"I don't know, seems like I should, doesn't it?† â€Å"Sit still so your mother can cut your hair.† I dashed out the door, Judah and James on my heels, the three of us bleating like spring lambs. â€Å"Behold! Moses has put his face on the bread for Passover! Behold!† Miracles. She kissed me. Holy Moses on a matzo! She kissed me. The miracle of the serpent? It was an omen, in a way, although I can only say that because of what happened between Joshua and the Pharisees later on. At the time, Joshua thought it was the fulfillment of a prophecy, or that's how we tried to sell it to his mother and father. It was late summer and we were playing in a wheat field outside of town when Joshua found the nest of vipers. â€Å"A nest of vipers,† Joshua shouted. The wheat was so tall I couldn't see where he was calling from. â€Å"A pox on your family,† I replied. â€Å"No, there's a nest of vipers over here. Really.† â€Å"Oh, I thought you were taunting me. Sorry, a pox off of your family.† â€Å"Come, see.† I crashed through the wheat to find Joshua standing by a pile of stones a farmer had used to mark the boundary of his field. I screamed and backpedaled so quickly that I lost my balance and fell. A knot of snakes writhed at Joshua's feet, skating over his sandals and wrapping themselves around his ankles. â€Å"Joshua, get away from there.† â€Å"They won't hurt me. It says so in Isaiah.† â€Å"Just in case they haven't read the Prophets†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Joshua stepped aside, sending the snakes scattering, and there, behind him, was the biggest cobra I had ever seen. It reared up until it was taller than my friend, spreading a hood like a cloak. â€Å"Run, Joshua.† He smiled. â€Å"I'm going to call her Sarah, after Abraham's wife. These are her children.† â€Å"No kidding? Say good-bye now, Josh.† â€Å"I want to show Mother. She loves prophecy.† With that, he was off toward the village, the giant serpent following him like a shadow. The baby snakes stayed in the nest and I backed slowly away before running after my friend. I once brought a frog home, hoping to keep him as a pet. Not a large frog, a one-handed frog, quiet and well mannered. My mother made me release him, then cleanse myself in the immersion pool (the mikveh) at the synagogue. Still she wouldn't let me in the house until after sunset because I was unclean. Joshua led a fourteen-foot-long cobra into his house and his mother squealed with joy. My mother never squealed. Mary slung the baby to her hip, kneeled in front of her son, and quoted Isaiah: â€Å"‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den.'† James, Judah, and Elizabeth cowered in the corner, too frightened to cry. I stood outside the doorway watching. The snake swayed behind Joshua as if preparing to strike. â€Å"Her name is Sarah.† â€Å"They were cobras, not asps,† I said. â€Å"A whole pile of cobras.† â€Å"Can we keep her?† Joshua asked. â€Å"I'll catch rats for her, and make a bed for her next to Elizabeth's.† â€Å"Definitely not asps. I'd know an asp if I saw one. Probably not a cockatrice either. I'd say a cobra.† (Actually, I didn't know an asp from a hole in the ground.) â€Å"Shush, Biff,† Mary said. My heart broke with the harshness in my love's voice. Just then Joseph rounded the corner and went through the door before I could catch him. No worry, he was back outside in an instant. â€Å"Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!† I checked to see if Joseph's heart had failed, having quickly decided that once Mary and I were married the snake would have to go, or at least sleep outside, but the burly carpenter seemed only shaken, and a little dusty from his backward dive through the door. â€Å"Not an asp, right?† I asked. â€Å"Asps are made small to fit the breasts of Egyptian queens, right?† Joseph ignored me. â€Å"Back away slowly, son. I'll get a knife from my workshop.† â€Å"She won't hurt us,† Joshua said. â€Å"Her name is Sarah. She's from Isaiah.† â€Å"It is in the prophecy, Joseph,† Mary said. I could see Joseph searching his memory for the passage. Although only a layman, he knew his scripture as well as anyone. â€Å"I don't remember the part about Sarah.† â€Å"I don't think it's prophecy,† I offered. â€Å"It says asps, and that is definitely not an asp. I'd say she's going to bite Joshua's ass off if you don't grab her, Joseph.† (A guy has to try.) â€Å"Can I keep her?† Joshua asked. Joseph had regained his composure by now. Evidently, once you accept that your wife slept with God, extraordinary events seem sort of commonplace. â€Å"Take her back where you found her, Joshua, the prophecy has been fulfilled now.† â€Å"But I want to keep her.† â€Å"No, Joshua.† â€Å"You're not the boss of me.† I suspected that Joseph had heard that before. â€Å"Just so,† he said, â€Å"please take Sarah back where you found her.† Joshua stormed out of the house, his snake following close behind. Joseph and I gave them a wide berth. â€Å"Try not to let anyone see you,† Joseph said. â€Å"They won't understand.† He was right, of course. On our way out of the village we ran into a gang of older boys, led by Jakan, the son of Iban the Pharisee. They did not understand. There were perhaps a dozen Pharisees in Nazareth: learned men, working-class teachers, who spent much of their time at the synagogue debating the Law. They were often hired as judges and scribes, and this gave them great influence over the people of the village. So much influence, in fact, that the Romans often used them as mouthpieces to our people. With influence comes power, with power, abuse. Jakan was only the son of a Pharisee. He was only two years older than Joshua and me, but he was well on his way to mastering cruelty. If there is a single joy in having everyone you have ever known two thousand years dead, it is that Jakan is one of them. May his fat crackle in the fires of hell for eternity! Joshua taught us that we should not hate – a lesson that I was never able to master, along with geometry. Blame Jakan for the former, Euclid for the latter. Joshua ran behind the houses and shops of the village, the snake behind him by ten steps, and me behind her ten steps more. As he rounded the corner by the smith's shop, Joshua ran into Jakan, knocking him to the ground. â€Å"You idiot!† Jakan shouted, rising and dusting himself off. His three friends laughed and he spun on them like an angry tiger. â€Å"This one needs to have his face washed in dung. Hold him.† The boys turned their focus on Joshua, two grabbing his arms while the third punched him in the stomach. Jakan turned to look for a pile to rub Joshua's face in. Sarah slithered around the corner and reared up behind Joshua, spreading her glorious hood wide above our heads. â€Å"Hey,† I called as I rounded the corner. â€Å"You guys think this is an asp?† My fear of the snake had changed into a sort of wary affection. She seemed to be smiling. I know I was. Sarah swayed from side to side like a wheat stalk in the wind. The boys dropped Joshua's arms and ran to Jakan, who had turned and slowly backed away. â€Å"Joshua was talking about asps,† I continued, â€Å"but I'd have to say that this here is a cobra.† Joshua was bent over, still trying to catch his breath, but he looked back at me and grinned. â€Å"Of course, I'm not the son of a Pharisee, but – â€Å" â€Å"He's in league with the serpent!† Jakan screamed. â€Å"He consorts with demons!† â€Å"Demons!† the other boys shouted, trying to crowd behind their fat friend. â€Å"I will tell my father of this and you'll be stoned.† A voice from behind Jakan said, â€Å"What is all this shouting?† And a sweet voice it was. She came out of the house by the smith's shop. Her skin shone like copper and she had the light blue eyes of the northern desert people. Wisps of reddish-brown hair showed at the edges of her purple shawl. She couldn't have been more than nine or ten, but there was something very old in her eyes. I stopped breathing when I saw her. Jakan puffed up like a toad. â€Å"Stay back. These two are consorting with a demon. I will tell the elders and they will be judged.† She spit at his feet. I had never seen a girl spit before. It was charming. â€Å"It looks like a cobra to me.† â€Å"See there, I told you.† She walked up to Sarah as if she were approaching a fig tree looking for fruit, not a hint of fear, only interest. â€Å"You think this is a demon?† she said, without looking back at Jakan. â€Å"Won't you be embarrassed when the elders find that you mistook a common snake of the field for a demon?† â€Å"It is a demon.† The girl reached her hand up, and the snake made as if to strike, then lowered its head until its forked tongue was brushing the girl's fingers. â€Å"This is definitely a cobra, little boy. And these two were probably leading it back to the fields where it would help the farmers by eating rats.† â€Å"Yep, that's what we were doing,† I said. â€Å"Absolutely,† Joshua said. The girl turned to Jakan and his friends. â€Å"A demon?† Jakan stomped like an angry donkey. â€Å"You are in league with them.† â€Å"Don't be silly, my family has only just arrived from Magdala, I've never seen these two before, but it's obvious what they were doing. We do it all the time in Magdala. But then, this is a backwater village.† â€Å"We do it here too,† Jakan said. â€Å"I was – well – these two make trouble.† â€Å"Trouble,† his friends said. â€Å"Why don't we let them get on with what they were doing.† Jakan, his eyes bouncing from the girl to the snake to the girl again, began to lead his friends away. â€Å"I will deal with you two another time.† As soon as they were around the corner, the girl jumped back from the snake and ran toward the door of her house. â€Å"Wait,† Joshua called. â€Å"I have to go.† â€Å"What is your name?† â€Å"I'm Mary of Magdala, daughter of Isaac,† she said. â€Å"Call me Maggie.† â€Å"Come with us, Maggie.† â€Å"I can't, I have to go.† â€Å"Why?† â€Å"Because I've peed myself.† She disappeared through the door. Miracles. Once we were back in the wheat field Sarah headed for her den. We watched from a distance as she slid down the hole. â€Å"Josh. How did you do that?† â€Å"I have no idea.† â€Å"Is this kind of thing going to keep happening?† â€Å"Probably.† â€Å"We are going to get into a lot of trouble, aren't we?† â€Å"What am I, a prophet?† â€Å"I asked you first.† Joshua stared into the sky like a man in a trance. â€Å"Did you see her? She's afraid of nothing.† â€Å"She's a giant snake, what's to be afraid of?† Joshua frowned. â€Å"Don't pretend to be simple, Biff. We were saved by a serpent and a girl, I don't know what to think about that.† â€Å"Why think about it at all? It just happened.† â€Å"Nothing happens but by God's will,† Joshua said. â€Å"It doesn't fit with the testament of Moses.† â€Å"Maybe it's a new testament,† I said. â€Å"You aren't pretending, are you?† Joshua said. â€Å"You really are simple.† â€Å"I think she likes you better than she likes me,† I said. â€Å"The snake?† â€Å"Right, I'm the simple one.† I don't know if now, having lived and died the life of a man, I can write about little-boy love, but remembering it now, it seems the cleanest pain I've known. Love without desire, or conditions, or limits – a pure and radiant glow in the heart that could make me giddy and sad and glorious all at once. Where does it go? Why, in all their experiments, did the Magi never try to capture that purity in a bottle? Perhaps they couldn't. Perhaps it is lost to us when we become sexual creatures, and no magic can bring it back. Perhaps I only remember it because I spent so long trying to understand the love that Joshua felt for everyone. In the East they taught us that all suffering comes from desire, and that rough beast would stalk me through my life, but on that afternoon, and for a time after, I touched grace. At night I would lie awake, listening to my brothers' breathing against the silence of the house, and in my mind's eye I could see her eyes like blue fire in the dark. Exquisite torture. I wonder now if Joshua didn't make her whole life like that. Maggie, she was the strongest of us all. After the miracle of the serpent, Joshua and I made up excuses to pass by the smith's shop where we might run into Maggie. Every morning we would rise early and go to Joseph, volunteering to run to the smith for some nails or the repair of a tool. Poor Joseph took this as enthusiasm for carpentry. â€Å"Would you boys like to come to Sepphoris with me tomorrow?† Joseph asked us one day when we were badgering him about fetching nails. â€Å"Biff, would your father let you start learning the work of a carpenter?† I was mortified. At ten a boy was expected to start learning his father's trade, but that was a year away – forever when you're nine. â€Å"I?CI am still thinking about what I will do when I grow up,† I said. My own father had made a similar offer to Joshua the day before. â€Å"So you won't become a stonecutter?† â€Å"I was thinking about becoming the village idiot, if my father will allow it.† â€Å"He has a God-given talent,† Joshua said. â€Å"I've been talking to Bartholomew the idiot,† I said. â€Å"He's going to teach me to fling my own dung and run headlong into walls.† Joseph scowled at me. â€Å"Perhaps you two are yet too young. Next year.† â€Å"Yes,† Joshua said, â€Å"next year. May we go now, Joseph? Biff is meeting Bartholomew for his lesson.† Joseph nodded and we were off before he inflicted more kindness upon us. We actually had befriended Bartholomew, the village idiot. He was foul and drooled a lot, but he was large, and offered some protection against Jakan and his bullies. Bart also spent most of his time begging near the town square, where the women came to fetch water from the well. From time to time we caught a glimpse of Maggie as she passed, a water jar balanced on her head. â€Å"You know, we are going to have to start working soon,† Joshua said. â€Å"I won't see you, once I'm working with my father.† â€Å"Joshua, look around you, do you see any trees?† â€Å"No.† â€Å"And the trees we do have, olive trees – twisted, gnarly, knotty things, right?† â€Å"Right.† â€Å"But you're going to be a carpenter like your father?† â€Å"There's a chance of it.† â€Å"One word, Josh: rocks.† â€Å"Rocks?† â€Å"Look around. Rocks as far as the eye can see. Galilee is nothing but rocks, dirt, and more rocks. Be a stonemason like me and my father. We can build cities for the Romans.† â€Å"Actually, I was thinking about saving mankind.† â€Å"Forget that nonsense, Josh. Rocks, I tell you.†

Q marginalisation

Through these poems and novel it shall e proven that Normalization is not always limited to an individual, instead it can extend to a social group and even a country itself. In this essay the three types of normalization will be addressed, individual normalization through racism, social normalization through groups such as the ‘hippies' and the normalization of a country itself through economic normalization of 3rd world countries.Normalization can occur anywhere at any time to anyone. Individual normalization is where one person Is singled out from a group or community of people for something like being an overweight. One of the most talked about and, unfortunately common, types of individual normalization is racism. Racism is something that society has struggled with for many generations. It has been around from the early settlers and has been a problem ever since.The poem telephone conversation' by Whole Saying demonstrates the racism and its problems very clearly. It is a p oem about an African man looking for accommodation In either England or America around the time of the sass's. The line â€Å"madam† I warned, â€Å"l hate a wasted journey – I am African†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ â€Å"HOW an example of how African people were marginal's again because of the color of their skin. In those times, It was hard

Consulting Project Plan Part Two Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Consulting Project Plan Part Two - Assignment Example In such a meeting, it is possible to determine what the employees strongly believe is not done the right way. Through that, it will be easy to propose a remedy that best solves the issue. On the other hand, status reports are reports that are prepared by the employees showing the status of the jobs. The reports enable close communication and exchange of information about the progress of the job. It will help in rating the contemporary status of Walmatt against the set goals and plans (Mazzei, 2010). For communication to be effective, the frequency must be considered. Discussion should take place more often for easy monitoring of progress and job status. The supervisor should be able to meet their subordinates on the daily basis maybe after close of business. Supervisors should be able to identify the challenges the members had during the day and what should be done. Additionally, there are tools that are necessary in helping meet the commitments that have been put in place. The tools help in ensuring that agreements and duties designated have been achieved. The tools include the following: Holding meetings with the supervisors and employees maybe once a week to identify whether there are challenges in the implementation process. The employees should suggest the suitable solutions and alternatives because it is easier to do what you are part of. I will also make use of a wellness newsletter and calendar which will designate what each employee is required to do, the period and th e reporting structure (Mazzei, 2010). It is recommendable to hold communication after the results and outcome have been evaluated. It involves holding a meeting to outline and give the major problems identified and the proposals suitable to eliminate them. The stakeholders that will attend the meeting will be the management, the supervisors, and the employees at large. I consider having all of them in the meeting because they also have to give

Organizational Behavior Indept Comapny Analysis Coursework

Organizational Behavior Indept Comapny Analysis - Coursework Example These functions are performed by all the managers at all levels of management and irrespective of the nature of the business. Organizations upgrade their management system with an aim of gaining competitive advantage over other organizations in the industry. Success or failure of an organization is directly connected to the effectiveness of the management team. For an organization or business entity to gain a competitive advantage over others, it has to strategically manage its affairs. Strategic management is aimed at improved returns, maintain operations and contain the prevailing competition in the market place. Basically, strategic management is aiming at adequately responding to the uncertainties, changes and adapting to the market demands. Therefore, when an organization strategically manages its affairs, it may gain a competitive advantage over other companies. Competitive advantage is gained only if the strategies developed by a company are expensive for or cannot be adopted by other companies in the market. An organization that strategically manages its affairs may gain and maintain competitive advantage which is essential for the survival of a business despite the market changes (Smith, and Conners, 2009, pp 34-78). Company history For instance, Euro Disney is of American origin but considered one of the largest companies in Europe. The company was initially formed in the United States but after successful operation for several years, it opted to grow to other regions in Europe. This led to the company growing from a domestic to international company. It is an international company hence operates several business entities in the region among them the Disneyland resort Paris. The site comprises of several components such as the discovery land, fantasyland, adventure land, frontier land and main street USA. The company also encompasses of a 27-hole golf course, Disney village, 68 restaurants, seven hotels, two convention centers and 52 boutiques. The company opened for operation in the late march 1992 for the employees. The presses were later formally invited to the company on April 11th 1992 and on April 12th 1992 for the visitors. The company enjoyed enormous profits but later incurred losses. Cultural differen ces Though Euro Disney operates in the European countries, it has encountered cultural differences in some countries. This is because the company was formed in the United States and had an American business setting. Therefore, the company operated with adoption of American business aspects. Since there are cultural differences between America and France, the company had to adjust to the cultural difference so as to suit into the French market. These cultural differen

Evaluation of Long-Term Finance Alternatives Article

Evaluation of Long-Term Finance Alternatives - Article Example A firm can opt in for any kind of long-term financing like issue of securities, term loans, internal accruals, suppliers' credit scheme and equipment financing. There are also some additional options of funding like deferred credit, unsecured loans and deposits and venture capital financing. Types of Capital: Three types of capital can be issued by firms namely equity capital, preference capital and Debenture capital. All three of them vary in terms of risk, return and the pattern of ownership. Equity Capital - Equity share holders are the actual owners of the business. They enjoy all the profits of the company that are residual in nature and this is after paying the preference shareholders and all the other creditors, if any. The liability restriction of equity share holders is limited to the amount of share capital contributed by them. The cost of equity capital is higher than all other forms of capital. It is to be noted that equity dividends are not tax-deductible expenses and also the costs of issue is very high. Long term financing is essential for any operating firm. Long term finance are necessary for investments such as modernization or expansion of existing firms and also for working capital management. The funding process should be a trade-off between the cost of funding, the risk factor involved and the expected returns. This is in order to maintain a reasonable spread is maintained for the firm. References: 1. Financial Management for Managers, published by ICFAI center for Management Research, Ref no: FMM - 04200405. Preference Capital - Though similar to equity capital, preference capital has no obligatory payment to the preference shareholders. Even the preference dividend is not tax deductible. An advantage that the preference shareholders have is that they earn a fixed rate of return for their dividend payment. Debenture Capital - Debenture is nothing but a marketable legal contract whereby the company promises to pay its owner, a specified rate of interest for a defined period of time and to repay the principal at the specific date of maturity. These are usually secured b y a charge on the immovable properties of the company. A firm can also raise capital from the primary market by way of issuing securities. Different ways of issuing securities exist. Public Issue: Companies issue securities to the general public in the primary market and thereby get them listed in the stock exchange. These securities are then traded in the secondary market. Rights Issue: When a firm issues additional equity capital. It has to first offer such securities to the existing shareholders on a pro rata basis. Such a method of issuing securities is called as Rights Issue. Private Placement: This method of financing involves direct selling of securities to a limited number of institutional or high net worth investors. The delay in going public and also the expenses involved can be avoided in this case. The major advantages here are the easy access to any company, fewer formalities and lower issue cost.

Outline and discuss the evolution of CSR, including its history, role Essay - 1

Outline and discuss the evolution of CSR, including its history, role in the financial crisis and prospects for the future. Supp - Essay Example The topic of social responsibility is a highly debated one, as several theorists think that â€Å"business is obligated only to make profits.†2 On the other hand, many believe that all business entities have a social obligation it is bound to fulfill. However, there is no denial of the fact that while operating to make profits, a business organization has to ensure that they keep the interest of the society and environment in mind because basically the revenues they make have to primarily derive from the same society and environment. Definition: Corporate Social Responsibility can be defined as the â€Å"relationship between global corporations, governments of countries and individuals citizens.†3 CSR is also encompasses the relationship between corporations and their stakeholders. The EU Commission further defines CSR as a concept where â€Å"companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations†4 as well as during their interactions with stakeholders on a â€Å"voluntary basis.†5 Thus, in simple terms it is the responsibility corporate organizations have towards the society they work and operate in. Furthermore, this responsibility is not limited to the present generation in a particular society, but also extends to coming generations, that is the â€Å"future members of the society.†6 CSR is greatly related with â€Å"corporate citizenship, business responsibility, business reputation, ethical corporation, sustainable business†7 etc but is different from them. The CSR approach believes that stakeholders such as â€Å"consumers, employees, the community at large, government, and the natural environment†8 are supposed to be given a stronger focus. Social responsibility of the firms basically stems from the fact that they are using the natural resources available in the area where they function. Thus, they are bound to give something back to the society. In the present day, the wellbe ing of society has become increasingly important, and community is given the main priority in all spheres. In such a community centered world system, the question of who is responsible to safeguard the interests of the people cannot simply be answered by government. While government has a key role, the growing private sector companies including corporate entities need to focus not only on making profits, but also consider the impact of their operations within the society. History and Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility: The basic idea of CSR has its roots in the era before the birth of Jesus Christ and is first seen when in â€Å"1700 BC†9 the ancient Mesopotamian ruler brought into practice a code that imposes punishment on â€Å"builders, innkeepers or farmers†10 by death if as a result of â€Å"their negligence†11 any inconvenience is caused to local citizens. The people engaged in any trade related activities have to abide by this code, not merely b ecause they feared â€Å"legal consequences†12 but because of their strong sense of â€Å"moral conviction.†13 On the other hand, ancient Roman senators were upset with the fact that businesses were unable to provide adequate taxes in order to â€Å"fund military campaigns,†14 therefore unsuccessful to â€Å"contribute to the war programme.†

Criminal Behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Criminal Behaviour - Essay Example [The Mental Health Act 1983, 2000] For example, most jurisdictions consider psychopathy to be an aggravating rather than a mitigating factor in determining criminal responsibility. In some states an offender convicted of first-degree murder and diagnosed as a psychopath is likely to receive the death penalty on the grounds that psychopaths are cold-blooded, remorseless, untreatable and almost certain to re-offend. But many of the killers on death row were, and continue to be, mistakenly referred to as psychopaths on the basis of DSM-III, DSM-III-R or DSM-IV criteria for ASPD. ASPD and psychopathy might now be more or less synonymous constructs. [Hare, 1999] Psychopaths generally are more violent than non-psychopaths, and are more likely to engage in a variety of different types of aggressive acts, but tend to engage in predominantly instrumental (calculated) violence, threaten strangers with weapons and to be motivated by vengeance, retribution, or money. [Hart S.D., Forth A.E., Hare R.D.; 1994] The psychopaths' profile includes such individual characteristics as sense of entitlement, disparate understanding of behaviour and socially acceptable behaviour; they are unremorseful, apathetic to others, unconscionable, blameful to others, manipulative and conning, affectively cold, disregardful of social obligations, non-conforming to social norms, irresponsible. Traditionally, affective and interpersonal traits such as egocentricity, shallow effect, deceit, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, selfishness, guilt or remorse are central individual characteristics in the conceptualization and diagnosis of psychopathy. [Cleckley,1976; Hare, 1993; Widiger & Corbitt, 1995] In 1980 psychopathy was renamed antisocial personal disorder and is now defined by persistent violations of social norms, including lying, stealing, truancy, traffic arrests and inconsistent work behaviour. These features appear to be visible through failure to make intimate relationships, impulsiveness, lack of guilt, not learning from adverse experience. [Harris G.T., Rice M.E., Quinsey V.L., 1993] Hare in his 'Without Conscience' (1999) defines that psychopaths charm and exploit others for their own gain, they lack empathy, sense of responsibility, they manipulate, lie and con others with no regard for anyone's feelings. Psychopathy is characterized by such traits as lack of remorse or empathy, shallow emotions, egocentricity, glibness, manipulativeness, parasitic lifestyle, episodic relationships, low frustration tolerance and persistent violation of social norms. [Hare, 1999] Dr.Hervey Cleckley in 'The Mask of Sanity' came up with 16 traits that formed a specific pattern of perspective and behaviour, and to see the 'symptoms' of psychopathy one should connect him with the circuit of a full social life. Psychopaths miss the qualities that people depend on for living in social harmony. [Cleckley, 1976] The psychopathic personality disorder items fall into two clusters: One cluster - Factor 1, reflects core interpersonal and affective characteristics; the other cluster - Factor 2, consists of items that reflect a socially deviant and nomadic

Current Events Journal Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Current Events Journal - Article Example The government claims that it needs this program to fight terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing those who have regular overseas dealings, took its case to District Court last March where it won its argument, but because of the stay requested by the government, surveillance is continued until the appeals process is complete. The government will submit its arguments to the court by October 13. The ACLU has a month to respond with a ruling expected to be rendered by the end of the year. Whichever side loses the appeal will likely appeal further to the Supreme Court. The ACLU contends that for the government to authorize the unwarranted surveillance of its citizens violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution which prohibits the use of general warrants and requires that probable cause be apparent. The National Security Agency (NSA) has had its surveillance program in place for five years in its global fight on terrorism but has not obtained the proper court-ordered warrants required by law in these monitoring activities. Judge Taylor ruled last August that this violates the civil rights of the Americans affected because the government is not presenting its justifications for its surveillance activities in court. Taylor had ruled that the NSA must stop this program but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the stay of that ruling as requested by the government. The Bush administration continues to insist that the ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program’ is a necessary tool which ultimately protects American citizens. This program has been in existence since the September 11 attacks yet the public has only recently learned of it. There are concerns that civil liberties, which are supposed to be protected by the Constitution, are being eroded by a government that is overstepping its powers by wiretapping Americans without benefit of a court-ordered

Cousre review first line manangement ilm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cousre review first line manangement ilm - Essay Example In fact, the initial responses once a change has been announced by a manager are very negative because people are not always willing to change. Most people will fear change because of the fear of the unknown .Most employees imagine that they know nothing about what is about to be introduced and therefore at the back of their minds they imagine that the worst is about to happen. Employees therefore make what they don’t know to being their rationale of reasoning hence resistance comes in (Stark, 2009). While many people acknowledge that change is important, they fear that that new changes will have negative consequences on them and therefore they will create obstacles to prevent change. Another reason why people resist change is that, they have deep rooted fear in their minds and therefore any attempt towards organizational change is met with great resistance. Some people hold on to their past because they feel more secure and it is usually predictable. Other people will resist because they have succeeded in the past and therefore, if change is undertaken, then it is viewed as being unfavorable to them. It is therefore imperative that any manager should understand that any attempts towards an organizational change will be met with resistance and with this understanding a manager may be able to influence their attitudes in a more positive way (Langdon, 2007). A force field analysis refers to a management technique that is used to analyze variables that are involved in making and implementing changes within an organization and eventually it helps in team building and overcoming resistance. It helps to analyze any driving and restraining factors that usually bring about change. Therefore, while implementing a change, one should look at the driving factors such as improving the productivity of the team, competition and the incentives to be given to the team so as to boost their morale. The restraining

The Long and the Short and the Tall Essay Example for Free

The Long and the Short and the Tall Essay In the drama The Long and The Short and The Tall, the playwright Willis Hall convincingly uses the characters and their reactions to their situation to effectively reveal the theme of war. The play centres around seven soldiers in the First World War, who have become separated from their platoon and are stuck in the Malayan Jungle with only weapons, a minimal food supply and each other. The first part of the play concentrates on how the soldiers relate to each other in this isolated and pressurising situation, and we find out what kind of people they are. Later on though, they find a Japanese soldier and have to let him live with them in their hut. However, they must decide how to deal with him in the long run and in the end, after many arguments and changes of heart, an example of the harsh reality of war is demonstrated they kill him, surprising themselves as much as anyone. The play finishes unpredictably, with all of the soldiers but one being killed after leaving the hut. This soldier, Johnston, surrenders to the Japanese, and what is going to happen to him is foreseeable. The first important aspect we see which influences the characters and shows the idea of war is the setting. The setting is described to us before any dialogue takes place: A short burst of heavy gunfire is heard in the distance and then silence. A pause and then we hear the chirruping of crickets in the jungle. This would seem a rather strange setting for a war, and an equally strange place for sounds like gunshots to be heard, as it would seem to contrast to the peaceful setting. However, here Hall is conveying the idea that war affects everything, and that the soldiers are in a very isolated, claustrophobic place. Being confined to a small hut in the jungle makes the soldiers feel tense and causes their emotions to be magnified and brought out on each other, resulting in their arguing and mocking. An example of this occurs quite early in the play, where the soldiers are already starting to feel the effects of isolation and two, Bamforth and Evans, are having an argument. Bamforth is mocking Evans: Get back to Wales, you Cardiff creep. Only good for digging coal and singing hymns, you crummy lot. This helps to reveal the theme of war because individuals do not usually mock people unnecessarily and due to the isolated situation he is in Bamforth may be resorting to this to hide his own fear, or even for want of something better to do. The use of escapism is a second indication that the drama is set while a war is taking place. Earlier on in the play, the soldiers spend a while discussing personal matters like their families and houses: Did you do any gardening, Smudge, before you came into the army? enquires Evans of Smith. Smith answers by describing his garden, ending with: I suppose the kids have racked it up. This seems somewhat strange as a garden appears a bit of an odd thing to be worrying about in the middle of a war. It also feels rather odd to the readers, as we know that it is highly unlikely that Smith will ever see his home and family again. Also, it shows that the war has an effect on peoples feelings, making them think more about their homes and families and appreciate them more. Discussing families serves as distraction to the men, who are just ordinary people needing a way to escape from the horror of their state of affairs. Private Evans has a womens magazine, Ladys Companion and Home. Although at first he is teased about this, the soldiers eventually engage in a debate about one of the topics, again helping to take their minds off things. This leads to a further discussion about families; we learn about the soldiers girlfriends, wives and children. It is noticed, however, that Bamforth mentions nothing at all about his personal life, revealing a nature that does not wish to share individual stories, or is possibly jealous. One further example of escapism comes when Whitaker is seen darning his socks for: kit inspection Saturday morning. This is something that is not expected of the men, revealing a soft side not incorporated in the typical image of a soldier. This again reveals the theme of war by showing it meddles with peoples emotions the men unintentionally show their tender sides whilst doing anything to take their minds of the depressing situation that is war. The soldiers reactions to their radio, which is broken and so consequently useless, helps to take the theme of war further. Bamforth refuses to get excited when Whitaker thinks he hears something during his attempts to contact the rest of the platoon: Bamforth: So whats the use. Whitaker: I got something through, Im telling you. Bamforth: Thats your story, boy. You stick to it. Evans is not convinced either, saying: Perhaps you just imagined it, Sammy boy. This shows that war depresses people, and causes them to have negative attitudes, as they do not want to build their hopes up and be let down. However, when Whitaker tries a second time, both Evans and MacLeish think they have heard something as well, though Bamforth again refuses to let it get his hopes up: Bamforth: Ah, so what. Evans: I heard voices, Bammo! Bamforth: So what does that make you? Joan of Arc? Could have been any of the mobs up the jungle. We can see that he does not wish to get excited about something that may turn out to be unimportant, in order not to disappoint himself. However, when he realises that no one is behind him he resorts to taunts and sarcasm to stop him feeling defeated. This comes back to the theme of war in that it brings out pessimism and negative attitudes in people, and that it causes conflict between the soldiers who are suddenly bundled together in a confined space. Whitaker tries the radio a third time, and finds that although he picks up a small amount of sound, the radio fades due to a dead battery. Johnston gets irritated then, thinking that the dead battery could have prevented something important coming through: Damn duff equipment. Whole damn issues duff. It is the fault of the broken radio, which was issued by the British Army, that the men are in this situation in the first place. This shows that the men are at the mercy of those in control, indicating they have been placed there to do duties in a war that is not theirs, but their governments. Johnston and Mitchem smoke to calm themselves this scene shows the fear and frustration that war causes. Meanwhile, Whitaker is still trying to tune into the radio. After four tries, the radio bursts into life at long last, and a Japanese voice is heard. The soldiers react with sarcastic, forced humour: Bring on the Geisha girls! This again shows the topic of war because it demonstrates the soldiers fear the forced humour is their way of dealing with it. As the Japanese army approach, the soldiers reactions to this reveal further the war theme. At first, Evans acts as though he is not concerned because he feels that they are too far away to pose a threat: Its twenty miles at least! However, he could just be trying to convince himself, and signs of worry and anxiety are certainly showing among the other men: Whitaker: It was as clear as a bell! They could be sitting right on top of us! MacLeish: Ive got my brother posted out there! MacLeish continues this worry over his brother further into the play, and his naà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½vety is displayed; he clearly knows nothing about how British prisoners of war are treated, and after they find the Japanese Soldier he goes to question Mitchem on the matter. At the same time he tries to convince himself that his brother will be treated fairly: MacLeish: You hear so many stories you know, on how the Japs treat P.O.Ws. Mitchem: Pretty rough, they reckon. MacLeish: Im not so sure. You hear all kinds of things, as if theyre almostanimals. But this bloke seems a decent sort of bloke. The approach of the Japanese is making him wonder if his brother has been made a prisoner. This shows the theme of war because it shows war makes people think more about their families. Mitchem, rather than comforting MacLeish, adopts a realistic approach and shows good leadership, as he knows his men must be prepared. One further aspect that reveals the theme of war is the soldiers reaction to the Japanese Soldier they have come across. The soldiers struggle to decide whether or not to kill the soldier in a battle of survival versus rules Mitchem reckons the soldier has to be sacrificed in order for them to survive, while the Geneva Convention stands to prevent them doing this. As we can see from the above, MacLeish sympathises with the soldier, and is not hostile towards him, displaying the idea that war is between governments and not individuals (although he changes his opinion later on.) He is kind to the soldier, trying to convince himself that if he treats this one soldier well, the opposing soldiers will be treating his brother well, should he have been made a prisoner of war. However he finds it hard to hold on to his morals this is shown in his changing attitude towards the soldier. When a British cigarette case is found, he thinks again of his brother but in a different way. This quick change of opinion reveals the theme of war by showing that war produces instinctive reactions. Most of the other soldiers react as we would expect from what we know of their personalities Johnston is an aggressive, power-hungry bully who hates the enemy and is eager to kill the soldier, having no doubts from the start: Stick it in! Dont stand there tossing the odds! Just close your eyes and woof it in! He is not really thinking about what he is doing he just sees the soldier as the opposition, not a person, who has to be killed because that is, in his opinion, the way war works. Again this demonstrates the idea that the war is between governments, who tell their soldiers what they expect from them and this has to be carried out. Evans, whom Johnston is addressing at this point, finds himself unable to kill the soldier, which doesnt surprise us because he is quite a soft, kind-hearted person. This highlights the fact that in situations like war ordinary men are put in impossible situations, again helping to reveal this theme. One reaction to the Japanese soldier that comes as a surprise is that of Bamforth. Although he comes across as rather a violent, sarcastic joker without any detectable sensitive side he defends the opposing soldier and is friendly to him, and even goes as far as to make a joke attempt to teach him English: I said, get your fingers up on your head! Like this! See! Flingers on the blonce! All light? At the very end, where all the other soldiers appear to have unanimously decide to kill the soldier Bamforth sticks by him loyally. He raises the question of morality in war, asking himself and the others if it is right to kill someone just because he is wearing the wrong uniform. He sees the soldier as an individual, like them, realising that he too has a family, which would be left without a husband and a father, should he be killed. It sometimes seems that Bamforth does not want to be there, he refusal to kill the soldier may even convey the fact that he is against the war all together. In the end, it is Whitaker the youngest and most vulnerable soldier in the patrol who clumsily shoots the soldier and leads his troop to discovery and death. This is ironic because he has consistently been the most timid member of the group. The incident clearly shows the negative effect of young and badly trained soldiers being placed in horrendous situations like war. The fact that it is Johnston, the most violent member of the patrol, who should survive at the end of the play is also ironic, as after constantly telling his own patrol to kill the enemy that was the opposing soldier, he himself surrenders to the Japanese. In conclusion, I find that Halls message about war is successfully conveyed through the characters. Each character reacts differently to the circumstances, illustrating that war concerns everybody and has many different effects. Through some of the characters, especially Bamforth and his bonding with the Japanese soldier, Hall illustrates one of his most important messages war is between governments, not individuals.

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)