The aim of the study is to present the premises that make it difficult to reach a multilateral agreement on electronic commerce in the World Trade Organization. Electronic commerce at the end of the second decade of the 21st century is an inseparable element of international trade, as a result of the digital revolution leading to lower costs when companies enter the global market. They often take into account the digital revolution of the state when creating new business models, especially in China, which has obtained the world's leading position in the field of digital services export. Increasing competition in the field of digital services, in the absence of regulations on electronic commerce in the WTO, will increase the interest of developed countries, including Australia, the United States, the European Union, Japan, African countries to solve the subject of e-commerce in regional integration agreements. The problems with reaching an agreement on electronic commerce in the WTO result not only from the specificity of trade in electronic form but from the general strategy of trade liberalization in other sectors. Classification-JEL: Keywords: International trade; electronic trade; e-commerce; World Trade Organization; digital economy

This paper focuses on the phenomena of prejudice and discrimination among the interactions of frontline employees and customers in retailing spatial environments. The aim is to identify if there is perception of prejudice and discrimination related to Ageism, Sexism, Lookism (ASL) and Sexual Orientation bias (SO) against customers in Brazil and Italy Seaside Retailing. Through quantitative research and descriptive study, data from Curitiba-Parana-Brazil and Urbino-Marche-Italy are collected, using sampling by convenience. Likert Scales have been used to evaluate ASL+SO. Findings: One statement (4.2 “The frontline male employees are nicer to younger female customers”), out of 15 shows that the interviewees from both countries had presented a highly agreement perception, which is the reinforcement that they had perceived that gender, age and appearance have influence on frontline employees’ behaviour. However, considering the results of the majority of the statements, an overall conclusion can highlight that the respondents do not perceive ageism, sexism, lookism or sexual orientation bias against customers when the seaside retail companies provide face-to-face services. A theoretical contribution of this paper can be drawn for the development of protocols that can be useful to identify and to evaluate ASL+SO phenomena in retailing. Its format and its methodology can be used to research different kinds of organisations, especially in the retail and services industries. The managerial implications are in the importance of developing T&D to reduce ASL+SO practices against customers and to include these issues as subjects in the organisation’s strategic statements. Also it would be suitable designing more efficient procedures of queueing management. These practices could avoid that dissatisfied customers reduce purchasing and consequent falling sales and profits. Classification-JEL: Keywords: prejudice, discrimination, seaside retailing, ageism, sexism, lookism, sexual orientation bias.

The aim of this research is to explore the consumer-brand love relationship. By doing so, 750 entries of consumer statements about their beloved brands were analyzed via discourse analysis. As a result, it was found that brand love is different from interpersonal love. There is brand related factors (functional congruity, satisfaction, brand trust, brand passion, sensory experiences) as well as consumer related factors (self-congruity, and personalized experience) affect the development of love relationship with brands.Classification-JEL: Keywords: Brand love, Love expressions, Consumer characteristics, Brand characteristics, Thematic analysis

This paper attempts to answer the question whether people consider decisions that lead to equal outcomes fair. I find that this is not always the case. In an experiment where subjects are given equal opportunities to choose how to divide money between each other in a two-player game, any strategy is perceived to be fair more than half the time, including the profit-maximizing strategy. The equal divisions that lead to equal outcomes are sometimes considered unfair by both players. Moreover, players frequently punished the others, whose decisions led to equal outcomes. I hypothesize that such punishments occur because people have different conceptions of what a fair outcome and fair punishment are. Classification-JEL: C Keywords: Fairness, Equal outcomes, Reciprocal punishment, Fair division, Social values, Effort.

This paper examines the results of a case study analysis carried out on five small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the furnishing sector of an Italian province. The aim of the study was to analyze which kind of strategies SMEs are adopting in order to face the economic crisis started in 2008. The cases analyzed highlighted the ability of firms in reacting by the development a proactive strategy, which brought them to positive economic results over time. Discussion of results and managerial implications are suggested in order to properly address other enterprises acting in similar market condition. Classification-JEL: L10, L21, M10, M1 Keywords: strategy, economic crisis, SMEs, firm's performance

The globalization of markets forces large retailers to re-think their long-term development, combining corporate growth with demand satisfaction. In particular, global markets and the state of over-supply push mass retailers to adopt hard competitive policies based on market-driven management, which emphasize continuous product innovation in order to satisfy temporary demand opportunities (demand bubble). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the main issues concerning market-driven innovation for global retailers. In fact, this subject, to date, is a relatively neglected element of the retailing literature. The paper is based on a review and synthesis of secondary data and published work and proposes to link together the issues concerning global retailing with market-driven innovation, offering an initial classificatory schema of activity areas where global retailers can innovate to compete in global markets. The paper concludes with an agenda for future research in this area. Classification-JEL: H12 Keywords: Global Retailers; Market-Driven Management; Retail Innovation; Demand Bubble; Over-Supply; Competitive Customer Value.

Managers are more likely to perform better or to stay longer in their position if their personal characteristics meet the requirements of the position. The importance of project manager’s competency to construction derived from the nature of changing business circumstances of the industry. Developing the requisite competency on project manager is to ensure efficient performance that will bring to successful of a project. PEAKS framework was adapted and applied in order to determine the competency of the construction project managers within the Libyan construction industry. Two objectives which are following (i) to identify the construction project manager's perceptions on the level of importance of the competencies against their personality; and (ii) to determine the level of competencies of construction project managers were proposed to be achieved. Quantitative approach was implemented in this study whereby 50 questionnaires were sent out. However, of these, only 41 questionnaires were returned and analyzed. As result, it can be concluded that our project managers today are at the high level of competent. Keywords: Competency, Project manager, Construction industry, Model