J I A B S - SCI Holding Ltd. 香港

Will Africa continue its economic upsurge and will African consumers be able to improve their living standards sustainably?

In roughly a decade, Africa has gone from being labeled "the hopeless continent" to enjoying an unprecedented boom. Africa had been described and critiqued as a lost continent, eternally plagued by tribal wars, famine and mass poverty. But since the turn of the millennium, the world has a different take on Africa thanks to an economic boom that refuses to fit into the usual distorted picture.
The same voices that once proclaimed the continent dead are now predicting a rebirth for Africa, the awakened giant with nearly incalculable natural resources (around 40 percent of the world's raw materials and 60 percent of its uncultivated arable land), fast-growing markets and a young, highly motivated population.
The first special issue of the J I A B S intends to cover in-depth analysis of business practices, trends, change and cases in relation to how African and foreign corporations tap the purchasing power of a new and fast growing African middle class. The issue should discuss how businesses are developed in Africa by analyzing approaches based on localization or internationalization of business, considering the influx of technology, mobile and smart phones, internet and
improved infrastructures as well as institutional and organizational innovations e.g. in the fields of micro and developmental finance, insurance and health care.
Especially welcomed are papers focusing on improvement or short comings in customer service, the authors will be invited to an international conference on customer service in Africa November 3rd to 5th 2014, hosted by the Harold Pupkewitz Graduate School of Business.

Submission should cover one or more of teh following topics:

Analysis and studies of consumer behavior in different African Regions
Brand awareness and perception
Methods of business development and establishing marketing channels
Public and private initiatives in competition and cooperation
Role of Development Aid and NGO’s
Early Recognition and market research for new services and products
Business Innovation and Innovation Management
Intercultural challenges and approaches
Best practice and case studies

Guiding Question:

What is helping corporations to develop new markets, marketing channels, business models?
Which mistakes are to avoid?
How investors can deal with ambiguity and uncertainty?
What are needed core competencies? Are there methods, concept and systems which can be leveraged?
How forecasting and assessment can be handled realistic?
How organizations can leverage the potential of their employees and how growth can be achieved by avoiding bureaucratization?
What are the differences between entrepreneurial strategies and strategies of established ventures?
Are customers really in focus and benefiting?
What are strategic and organizational consequences?

Guidelines for Manuscript Submission

We are interested in compact presentations of theory and research, suspecting that very long manuscripts contain an unclear line of argument, multiple arguments, or no argument at all. Each manuscript should contain one key point, which the author should be able to state in one sentence. Digressions from one key point commonly occur when authors cite more literature than is necessary to frame and justify an argument.

We are interested in good writing and see poor writing as a reason to reject manuscripts. We're looking for manuscripts that are well argued and well written. By well argued we mean that the argument is clear and logical; by well written we mean that the argument is
accessible and well phrased. Clear writing is not an adornment but a reflection of clear thinking. A problem common to rejected manuscripts is that authors are unable to evaluate their own work critically and seem to have made insufficient use of colleagues before the work is submitted. Obtaining and responding to comments from trusted colleagues before
submitting a manuscript helps authors anticipate reviewers' reactions and will increase the probability of a favorable review.

A provisional abstract / summary of the paper or the idea should be submitted up to
April 30th to hpgsb1 (at) gmail . com

Finalized manuscripts should be submitted electronically up to
September 1st 2014 to hpgsb1 (at) gmail . com

Preparation of Manuscripts

Include an informative abstract of 200 words or fewer that describes the material presented in the paper, including the question or focus, the type of study reported (e.g., empirical, laboratory, qualitative, field study, etc.), the context (e.g., work groups, Fortune 500 firms, hospitals, cooperatives, etc.), and the major findings. Provide three or four keywords for the paper. To preserve anonymity in the blind-review process, authors should
avoid revealing their identity in text through obvious self-references to previous work or in footnotes. If authors cite their own published work or work in progress, however, these references must be included in the references with full bibliographic information.
Authors should reference their own work as they would the work of any other scholar. Reviewers will ask what the contribution of a manuscript is above what has already been published and must have this information.
Manuscript should comprise between 15,000 and 40,000 spaces, written in standard MS-WORD Calibri 11 / lines spaced 1.15. Graphs and tables should be provided in the text as well as on extra pages.

Sample page for the print version of J I A B S

Here you can find a sample page for the print version of J I A B S; it illustrates the guidelines of formatting manuscript submissions. If you don’t have access to MS-Word 2007 or later text processing software or compatible open source versions for emulation refer to the APA guidelines. The text will be converted manually to the print format.

Otherwise adhere to the following format:
Two columns, the left 4.7’’; left column, 2.2’’ (automatic configuration if two columns are chosen in MS Word 2007). Chose 0 pt spacing after and before new paragraphs, separation just by one line. Headlines are separated from the text by 3 lines after a paragraph and two lines before the next paragraph. Distance between lines is to set as exactly 13 pt. Font is Calibri. Side edges are 0.5’’ at all four sides of the page (automatic configuration of MS-Word if small edges are chosen).

J I A B S Call for Papers:

Special Edition 1 / 2014
Customer Service, Consumer Preferences, Branding and Market

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