Sorry, wrong analysis. It is a very good attempt though. You need to understand a bit better what goes into manufacturing and selling the products, so I reckon you need to do some more research. Try to answer this questions:

How are the products manufactured?
How are they installed in their final working place?
What kind of interaction they have with the user?
What provisions need to be taken to distribute and retail them?

Once you understand the whole manufacture-distribute-retail-use process for each of them, try to rank them in terms of how standardised they are and then it should be a lot easier to see which one requires a global rather than a multi-country strategy and viceversa.

I'll give you feedback on your second attempt if you are still interested 8-)

If by PR you mean "public relations" you might want to have a look at the business school in University College Dublin. They have a group doing research on marketing and some of the topics could include PR.

But if you want to go to Spain, I would look into the "Instituto de Empresa" and "ESADE". I do not really know if there is research in that area there.

Another one you could try out is the business school in Bocconi, Milan.

I hope it helps...

So, basically you want me to do your homework for you, do you?

Here is a hint: it depends on the nature of the product.

The more standardised, the more likely to be distributed and marketed with out changes around the world.

The less standardised, the more likely you need to adapt to each region (or country) standards both for distribution and marketing. It's called topicalisation

Now you tell me, which strategy would you follow and why ;-)

Hi girls,

checking in for the day. I managed to sort out things at work so I can work non-stop from today, and obviously it's going to take the whole weekend.

TG; fantastic news that you finished chapter 7! you really beat me on that, I haven't been able to finish my 3rd.
Lara; you are going to be grand, just keep focused and stay at it. even if you take breaks, just come back and work some more.
Rubyw; I know the feeling, seems like no matter how hard we work, we are always behind, both at work and on the thesis. I'm with you, we'll get through this.

It seems like we all have a pretty critical weekend ahead. I too have to finish this chapter 3 by Sunday, otherwise I won't be able to do the rest of the chapters in time. Can I propose something? Since our deadlines are similar, why don't we just post short messages every time we stop for a break with a brief description of the progress we are making, and then try to do some more to account for in the next post, and so on. It's like running a marathon with your mates keeping you company; we are not competing with each other, but trying to finish together. What do you think?

Fantastic! thanks a million! (up)

Another question for the forum people. I already asked this before, but since my thread was utterly ignored, I thought I might ask it again here. Any chance to get notifications on posts for selected threads and/or a way to keep track of read posts?

Hi Billy,

How are you doing? I hope you are not stuck and that you are making some progress.

======= Date Modified 27 Aug 2008 11:10:08 =======
Hi everyone,

I didn't do any work on the thesis yesterday either, but I did deal with the one thing that could have made me go to work today, so at least I have all day today and Friday. I also did some exercise, went to footie for the first time in almost 4 weeks (I usually play once a week), so every muscle and joint from the waist down is sore... but it feels great!

So, I'm still trying to finish section 3.1, which has a number of smaller sections within.

May we all have a productive day 8-)

Hi Lara,

I got some words squeezed out to my brain and into the document, unfortunately not enough to even make it a section. I couldn't stay at the office any later than 7.30pm because I was wrecked, so I came home to have dinner. I'll do a little bit more tomorrow, although I have to work; but I'm organising so I don't have to go to work on Wednesday. That should make it a much productive day than today... fingers crossed.

How are you doing?

Mine is also around 4000. It's about case study research. Did you include a discussion on the paradigm? that usually takes a good chunk of the chapter.

Ah well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. She's just probably in some rural area with no internet access doing field work. I'm sure she'll get back to us soon enough. In the meanwhile, you know what to do... Don't you? Just keep writing :-)

On a completely unrelated matter: since you mentioned the other day Lara, we haven't heard from Antropologa in quite a while. I hope she's OK and just indulging in some churrascos and chimichurri (some very tasty Argentinian food that just came to my mind). And, when we are all through this ordeal, you are going to have to show us your DVD collection; sounds like you have a film for every occasion.

;-)

Hi girls,

I'm starting quite late today, but I think I went over a few critical things in my to-do list at work, so I could probably claim that I'm "on top" of things in that front. Anyway, since TG is having with chapter 7 the same issues I'm having with chapter 3, I think we could go about writing them in tandem, so I'll work on that chapter and report the progress here and hopefully by the end of the week we'll both have finished it and moved on to other bits of the thesis.

So, progress so far on Ch3:

It's structured
Papers to go in are organised
9 sections partially written
word count 8158

Aim for today: to edit and complete all sections in first half of the chapter (one out of two main topics that need to be discussed).

Good luck to you all (up)

Another reason to be at the university while working on your research, and further, to try to participate in collective exercises such as seminars and conferences; is that knowledge can not possibly be produced without discussion and debate.

The ultimate goal of a research project is to generate some kind of new knowledge, and if you are aiming to do research as an occupation, you need to learn to interact with other people and look for such opportunities to exchange ideas and learn from each other. I know that academic departments are not great at that, and that most of them just dismiss the importance of students participating in the knowledge generating process; but if you want to make the most of the PhD programme, by not interacting with people you are just missing out on an important part of that process.

Hi Lara and TG,

I am exactly in the same situation you two are. Had to work intensively through the weekend to just get closer to what could be considered a decent progress. I even thought about pulling out a 3-day long all-nighter which I started on Friday. The result is that I chained my self to the desk Friday and Saturday, got very little done, and haven't been able to do anything at all today. I did do some cleaning at home, which was well overdue, and still need to go do the shopping; nothing that will get me any nearer to finishing the thesis, I know :-(

Anyway, the only thing that we can do now, is get something done tonight, even if it's a little thing and then start afresh tomorrow. I know it will help me if I can get up really early (6.30 or so), go to work, clear my to do list as much as possible and get back to working on the thesis by lunch time; so, I'll try to do that.

Good luck girls, just keep it up ;-)