Eastern European Market Research Articles

Development of Fashion Faux Fur Using 3-Dimensional Embroidery Technique for Russian, Chinese Premium Markets

Background Despite of the economic downturn in developed countries, the demands of emerging markets are expected to grow continuously with the increase of demands for luxury fashion products in global emerging markets. In particular, it is as foreseen that the purchasing power of wealthy will be strengthened despite the protracted downturn, and the consumption of the wealthy in emerging countries will be the driving force of high-end markets. Accordingly, the development of premium fashion product designs can be said to be the strategic gateway to achieving success in global markets. Thus, this study focuses on the development of design products for the emerging fashion markets and the worlds two largest consumers of fur - Russia and China. Methods In this study, literature reviews were conducted in order to identify the trends of target countries and global fashion fur markets. The primary literature reviews were based on the study of dissertations focused on the topic of fur fashion and fur markets. Secondary studies on global markets and trends were based on the analysis of market reports by KOTRA and other domestic and foreign economic research institutes and researchers. Also, in-depth interviews and surveys for local buyers were carried out along with an analytical review of the worlds top four fashion week collections. Thus, based on the findings of the studies, target markets and the direction of item development were selected for design results. Based on the results above, the target market and target consumer were set, the items to be developed and direction were determined, and design development was then conducted. Results Based on the findings of the primary and secondary literature reviews, it was found that Russia is one of the largest emerging fashion markets known as the bridgehead for advancing into Eastern Europe where Western apparel makers and buyers gather despite the global recession. It was also found that China is the worlds largest fur importer. The purchasing power of these emerging consumers is beyond imagination and is not affected by economic situations. Thus, the ultimate goal of the study was to develop differentiated premium fashion faux fur products which can be easily exported. Aiming to preempt the China and Hong Kong market, the worlds top fur market, and advance into Russia, the bridgehead of the Eastern European market and the worlds second-largest fur market, a total of 10 kinds (eight vests, two mufflers)of luxury fashion faux fur products using 3-dimensional embroidery techniques were developed. Conclusion Fashion faux fur is considered as a Blue Ocean in the fashion industry and therefore, if design development and production lead to export and the quantity is expanded, it is expected not only to create jobs in the related industry but to be the best breakthrough to end the recent stagnation in Koreas fashion industry. Through this study, the revitalization and improvement of future research and design strategies that can cope with the ever-changing global furapparel markets are expected.

Factors Affecting Investment and Perceptions for the Bulgarian Market

This paper presents the research findings of a dual-survey process designed to understand the level of potential investor trust in the Eastern European market of Bulgaria both before and after being given information on the daily working environment for small businesses. The first survey inventories several key aspects of issues facing small businesses in Bulgaria and was distributed to potential investors. They are surveyed twice, both before and after exposure to the results of an inventory of owner issues. The second survey of Bulgarian business people was used to inventory these owner issues. The current climate of transitional economies and European bailouts means uncertainty for all aspects of global business. By furthering understanding of perceptions of investors and actual Bulgarian business practices, this research attempted to ascertain if increased trust was possible and if increased trust would translate to willingness to create business partnerships. Both surveys utilized a Likert scale. The potential investors surveyed were expatriates living in Sofia, Bulgaria and small business owners in the Mid-western United States. A second survey was given to Bulgarian small business owners. This work served to identify currently held practices, issues and ideas encountered in the Bulgarian market. The initial survey of expatriates and small business owners showed a general lack of trust in, and understanding of, Bulgarian businesses, practices and their national context. After exposure to the inventoried results of the Bulgarian business environment, the surveyed individuals responded with increased levels of trust in multiple aspects of the Bulgarian Original Research Article British Journal of Economics, Management & Trade, 4(2): 197-212, 2014 198 business environment and a willingness to partner with, and invest in, these businesses.

Global Shared Service Trends in the Central and Eastern European Markets

The main objective of the research is to disclose what kind of trends are present in the global business service markets and which appear in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) business market. The research determines the most important business service trends that emerged in shared service organizations in the CEE region.

Comovement Dynamics between Central and Eastern European and Developed European Stock Markets during European Integration and Amid Financial Crises – A Wavelet Analysis

Stock market comovements between developed (represented in the article by markets of Austria, France, Germany, and the UK) and developing stock markets (represented here by three Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets of Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary) are of great importance for the financial decisions of international investors. From the point of view of portfolio diversification, short-term investors are more interested in the comovements of stock returns at higher frequencies (short-term movements), while long-term investors focus on lower frequencies comovements. As such, one has to resort to a time-frequency domain analysis to obtain insight about comovements at the particular time-frequency (scale) level. The empirical literature on the CEE and developed stock markets interdependence predominantly apply simple (Pearsons) correlation analysis, Granger causality tests, cointegration analysis, and GARCH modeling. None of the existent empirical studies examine time-scale comovements between CEE and developed stock market returns. By applying a maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform correlation estimator and a running correlation technique, we investigated the dynamics of stock market return comovements between individual Central and Eastern European countries and developed European stock markets in the period from 1997-2010. By analyzing the time-varying dynamics of stock market comovements on a scale-by-scale basis, we also examined how major events (financial crises in the investigated time period and entrance to the European Union) affected the comovement of CEE stock markets with developed European stock markets. The results of the unconditional correlation analysis show that the developed European stock markets of France, the UK, Germany and Austria were more interdependent in the observed period than the CEEs stock markets. The later group of countries exhibited a lower degree of comovement between themselves as well as with the developed European stock markets during all the observed time period. The Slovenian stock market was the least correlated with other stock markets. By using the rolling wavelet correlation technique, we wanted to answer the question as to how the correlation between CEE and developed stock markets changed over the observed period. In particular, we wanted to examine whether major economic (financial) and political events in the world and European economies (the Russian financial crisis, the dot-com financial crisis, the attack on the WTC, the CEE countries joining the European union, and the recent global financial crisis) have influenced the dynamics of CEE stock market comovements with developed European stock markets. The results show that stock market return comovements between CEE and developed European stock markets varied over time scales and time. At all scales and during the entire observed time period the Hungarian and Czech stock markets were more interconnected to developed European stock markets than the Slovenian stock market was. The highest comovement between the investigated CEE and developed European stock market returns was normally observed at the highest scales (scale 5, corresponding to stock market return dynamics over 32-64 days, and scale 6, corresponding to stock market return dynamics over 32-64 and 64-128 days). At all scales the Hungarian and Czech stock markets were more connected to developed European stock markets than the Slovenian stock market. We found that European integration lead to increased comovement between CEE and developed stock markets, while the financial crises in the observed period led only to short-term increases in stock market return comovements.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.23.1.1221

The Entry Strategy of Retail Firms into Transition Economies

International entries into transition economies occur infrequently and involve considerable uncertainty. This raises the question whether managers, who have limited own experience, take their competitors' prior decisions into account when deciding on their own entry timing and size and whether there is value in doing so. To address these questions, the authors estimate a sequential hazard/Poisson regression model on the top 75 European grocery retailers' decisions to enter the Eastern European market. Indeed, firms pay close attention to prevailing practices in their industry. Prior entries first serve as legitimation but eventually become a deterring factor. Moreover, rather than just imitating the most popular or modal decision when determining the own entry timing and size, managers pay closer attention to the actions of their home competitors, react to prior entries of same-format competitors differently from those of different-format competitors, and adjust the observed industry practice for the specificity of their own resources. The authors show that managers are justified in taking the combined industry wisdom into account; deviations from prevailing industry practice, in terms of both timing and size, hurt the efficiency of their operations in subsequent years. Thus, attempts to develop own, distinct entry rules tend to be dysfunctional. Moreover, corrective actions are easier to implement along the size than along the time dimension; the detrimental effects of entering at a different time from the industry norm persist and even become amplified over time, whereas the negative impact of size deviations is temporary.

Capturing the essence of a corporate brand personality: A Western brand in Eastern Europe

This study focuses on the positioning of a Western brand (McDonald's) in an Eastern European market (Slovenia), and shows how corporate communication efforts can influence consumer perceptions of brand essence. In order to ensure the long-time viability of a brand's equity, preserving and reinforcing its essence is of primordial importance. A method is presented for identifying those characteristics of the personality of a corporate brand that make up its essence. Such a tool is suitable for refined corporate positioning, because it not only shows which corporate characteristics form the essence of the corporate brand, but also shows why they are so essential.

A comparison of the purchasing and consumption behaviour of Slovenian and other Eastern European consumers

Formation of a single market within the EU and democratisation and development of a market economy in Eastern Europe undoubtedly enhance standardisation of marketing in the European area. Multinational companies planning to enter the Eastern European market frequently assume that this region is culturally and economically undifferentiated. The purpose of the study is to analyze whether the purchasing and consumption behaviour of Slovene consumers is similar to that of consumers from other Eastern European countries. The attention is focused on the following five dimensions: orientation towards domestic brands versus Western brands, experimentation with unknown brands and new products; brand loyalty; quality orientation and quality indicators; and price sensitivity.

Cogeneration in Central and Eastern Europe: An Upbeat Perspective

The Central and Eastern Euro-pean (CEE) market for cogenerationequipment displays relatively low lev-els of saturation and appears poised toenjoy a healthy upsurge in sales, ac-cording to a new Frost & Sullivanstudy.Initial growth monitored in theCEE cogeneration market seems stimu-lated by the widespread restructuringof the energy sector currently sweepingthe region. Demand for new facilitiesremains increasingly prevalent, drivingpotential users of cogeneration systems to opt for on-site generation asit becomes increasingly viable in economic terms.Eastern bloc countries have been restructuring their economies,and this has meant a decrease in their needs for industrial power. Butthe overall demand for energy by industry is increasing, as well as in allareas. In recent years, over 40 percent of cogeneration equipment salesto Europe have been by the industrial sector.In most countries, cogeneration installations are old, and often in-efficient. In heat and power generation and distribution, losses are esti-mated to be around 25-30 percent.

Integrating Western and Eastern European Markets

Although general trade theories are useful for specifying which groups support or oppose trade, these frameworks see preferences as static and do not explain how they change over time. Instead, this article proposes a dynamic perspective that considers how economic adjustment and liberal trade policies alter trade preferences. The article examines why the traditionally protectionist German textile and apparel sectors accept the recent trade agreements with Eastern Europe. Producers can exploit technological and product changes by gaining access to export markets. Furthermore, to take advantage of low labor costs abroad, producers shift production to these countries for later reimportation. Lower trade barriers are therefore attractive to producers. This strategy is also supported by increasingly liberal trade policy orientations in Germany, the European Union (EU), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). German producers have therefore modified their protectionist focus to a qualified support for more free trade, and German workers have reluctantly followed suit.

Threshold Modelling of Stock Return Volatility on Eastern European Markets.

A common finding for developed stock markets is that negative shocks entering the market lead to a larger return volatility than positive shocks of a similar magnitude. The following paper considers two emerging Eastern European Markets where the first point of investigation is whether an analogous asymmetric characteristic is reflected in emerging markets. The second point of investigation is whether the findings differ depending on the institutional microstructure of the exchange being examined. Hence, econometric techniques are adjusted and a ‘double-censored tobit GARCH’ model is developed. This paper finds that no asymmetry exists on either markets and possible reasons for this are proposed. JEL Classification: G14, G15, P21, P34.

Testing the Information Structure of Eastern European Markets: The Warsaw Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the content of the information set used by the agents in the Warsaw Stock Exchange - WSE. Three “candidate variables” are examined — consumers’ prices, the zloty/US$ exchange rate and the refinancing rate of the National Bank of Poland — with respect to three WSE stocks, from different sectors of the economy. The methodology employed supposes that the innovations in the price series are orthogonal to all variables within or outside the information set. Beyond the question of how to specify the agents expectations, the WSE trading rules and the high volatility period present in all monthly price series were additional problems to render it operational. Given the solutions adopted, in only three out of the nine cases tested, it was possible to reject the null that the candidate did not belong to the information set. This is a signal that macroeconomic fundamentals are still absent from the WSE.

Stock Return Volatility on Emerging Eastern European Markets

A common finding for developed stock markets is that negative shocks entering the market lead to a larger return volatility than positive shocks of a similar magnitude. We consider two emerging Eastern European markets where the first point of investigation is whether an analogous asymmetric characteristic is reflected in emerging markets. The second point of investigation is whether the findings differ depending on the institutional microstructure of the exchange being examined. Hence, econometric techniques are adjusted and a “double‐censored Tobit GARCH” model is developed. We find that no asymmetry exists on either emerging market but asymmetry does exist for a stock return series on the developed market; possible reasons for this are proposed.

Re‐casting the politics of steel in Europe: The impact on trade unions

In this article we explore the response of European trade unions to the 1990s steel crisis. Trade unions have faced wide ranging challenges including: the globalisation of the industry; steel companies becoming increasingly international; privatisation; the eastern European steel market; the liberalisation of world trade; the new emerging priorities of the EU and internal company reorganisation. Our key argument is that their response has been highly traditional and unsuited to the new challenges. When we consider the more progressive responses they have made, there is little sign that these alternatives will be anymore successful.

Value Differences Between Polish and Romanian Consumers:

The importance of values in understanding consumer behavior has been amply acknowledged in existing research. Many marketing practitioners planning to do business in Eastern Europe erroneously assume that the Eastern European market is relatively similar in terms of the value structure of consumers across different countries in that region. This paper argues that there are substantial differences between consumer segments in the various countries in the area, since their belief systems have been shaped by different environmental influences and cautions against the use of a regiocentric approach to marketing in Eastern Europe. To illustrate these differences, a cross-cultural study of instrumental and terminal values held by different demographic segments in two Eastern European countries, Poland and Romania, was conducted. The findings suggest that demographic segmentation can be effectively used for identifying and targeting consumers with different value structures in Poland, but, for Romania, demographic segmentation has practically no utility in this respect. Several managerial implications of the findings are discussed.

U.S. Hospitality Investment in Six Potential Eastern European Markets. Yae Sock Roh and William Andrew. Hospitality Research Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 41-50. Coucil on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education, 1200 17th Street, N.W. , Washington, DC 20036-3097. $50 annual subscription

U.S. Hospitality Investment in Six Potential Eastern European Markets. Yae Sock Roh and William Andrew. Hospitality Research Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 41-50. Coucil on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education, 1200 17th Street, N.W. , Washington, DC 20036-3097. $50 annual subscription

U.S. Hospitality Investment in Six Potential Eastern European Markets

Political and economic liberalization in much of Eastern Europe has led to the opening of importantpotential markets for U.S. hospitality firms. These markets vary, however, in investment opportunities and climate across individual Eastern Euro pean countries. This article examines the state of U.S. hospitality investment in six major Eastern European countries. Recent developments that have led to the present economic and political climate in these countries are discussed, and the major U.S. hospitality firms doing business in these countries, country-specific investment requirements, and potential opportunities for new investment are identified. Understanding the unique characteristics of each market is critically important to U.S. hospitality managers considering expansion into the markets of Eastern Europe.

Developments by Western Retailers in Eastern European Markets

Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union comprise vast consumer markets, offering many high profile opportunities to develop retailing, wholesaling, distribution, manufacturing and buying channels. Many Western retailers have already taken the plunge accepting that his must be viewed as a very long-term investment. This paper summarises the structures of some of these new markets, and recent developments by certain western retailers, including Littlewoods, McDonalds and IKEA. It conlcudes with a brief review of the major issues and hcallenges posed by these markets, notably, logistics and supply, communications, management skills, political stability, inflation and the black market.

Eastern European marketing systems and Western marketing research voids: A research agenda

Starting with détente, there has been a marked improvement in North American trade with the U.S.S.R. and other Eastern European countries. This trend is predicted to continue at an accelerating rate in the years ahead. Despite this, trading and business systems of these countries are not likely to alter much. In most cases, planned purchases are going to continue, although the intensity may vary. Public policy makers in these countries decide well in advance what type of products or services they are going to purchase, because their purchases must conform with the goals of the annual foreign trade plan and the allocations of foreign exchange available for that particular purchase. Most aspects of Eastern European markets and marketing practices are not well known by North American company managers dealing with these countries. In most cases, lack of information about these markets often leads to misunderstanding and, hence, lost opportunity. The purpose of this article is to determine the critical research voids in an effort to facilitate the expansion of North American-Eastern European trade. To this end, a four-step procedure is proposed to pinpoint areas of research for immediate attention.

An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Deciphering the Former U.S.S.R. and Eastern European Markets

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, most Western businesspersons recognized the market potential of the Eastern European Bloc of countries and later the former U.S.S.R. Both the consumer and industrial markets were in need, as they are today, of large quantities of updated products and technology. The process of segmenting the demands of consumers in various markets becomes the key to success for entrepreneurial firms. This paper describes a means to develop a dynamic segmentation strategy and entry modes that are most appropriate for each of the market segments of the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern European countries.

Container Boom in the Port of Koper

For the Port of Koper the Central and Eastern European market is very important. The Port of Koper is especially interesting for goods flows relating to the exchange of goods on the East – West route (and vice versa) and bound for the EU, in particular to the catchment area of the North Adriatic ports.The year 2009 was a difficult year for business, especially due to the uncertain international economic situation. In the first nine months of 2010, 16% more goods were handled in the Port of Koper than in the same period in 2009. The container transport especially exploded in tons (45% increase) as well as in container units (40% increase). Within this period they handled 355,000 TEUs (new record) in the container terminal (214,000 TEUs in the same period on the seventh pier in Trieste).The growth of container transport in the Port of Koper as well as the beginning of construction on the new container terminal have made the reconstruction and extension of the current container terminal an absolute priority. The extension is in line with the estimated growth of traffic as well as with the exploitation of present and future terminal capacities.This paper aims to present and analyse: (I) supply chains of the flow of containerised goods through the Port of Koper to/from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; (II) the changes which enable this boom, current state and strategies to handle even more containers in the future; (iii) market potential, current and future investments in new capacities.