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This chapter examines representations of gender in online modafinil markets. While gender has often been absent from scholarship on online drug markets, our analysis demonstrates the ubiquity of gender in representations of modafinil users and sellers. The analysis draws on visual images, blogs, and marketing emails relating to three websites selling modafinil, discussed pseudonymously. We describe the range of ways that notions of gender are represented in advertising. Although women represent around 40% of that buying modafinil online, websites and communications tended not to feature women. Although sexist stereotypes of women were rarely present (in contrast to direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising), the ways that modafinil was imagined tended to focus narrowly on corporate spheres of work and productivity. We contrast this narrow imaginary with female journalists’ own accounts of using modafinil to manage illness and enhance creativity. Thus, we conclude that the ways that modafinil has been imagined reflects working assumptions as to who is considered the ‘normal’ participant in online modafinil markets.

The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of the B2B customers’ perspective regarding salespeople’s social media use.

The study adopts a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with 26 key informants performing their job in customer role in various industries.

The authors inductively identify five themes regarding the B2B customers’ perspective of social media use in B2B selling. These themes allow for valuable implications for social selling activities and expected outcomes.

Against a growing body of literature on drivers, best practices and outcomes of social media use by B2B salespeople, less attention has been paid to the customer’s side. The authors extend current research by providing a more complete picture of social selling activities and expected outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and theoretically explain how line managers and lower-status experts work together in public health-care organizations. Hence, this study explores how lower-status experts influence line managers' decision-making and task prioritizing in order to guide staff experts' cooperation and performance improvements.

The authors used a qualitative method for data collection and analysis of the experts' and line managers' explanations about their cooperation. A theoretical approach of experts' identity positioning, in terms of differences and similarities, was used in analyzing the interaction between managers and experts.

This study shows that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously. Similarity is constructed by way of strategic and professional alignment with the line managers' core tasks. Differences stem from the distinction between knowledge-grounded skills and professional attributes such as language, analytical tools, and jargon. Lower-status experts need to leave their entrenched positions and match the professional status of line managers in both knowledge aspirations and appearance to reach a respected approach of experts' identity positioning.

Unlike many previous studies, this study demonstrates that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously.

The online sourcing, supply, and purchase of illicit drugs is fast transforming drug markets worldwide. Although the long-term development of simple communications technology over time (from pagers to mobile phones) continues to impact and extend local drug supply dynamics, it is the recent developments of dark web cryptomarkets, social media applications (like Instagram), encrypted messaging applications (like WhatsApp), and surface web platforms, such as LeafedOut, that are changing the drug supply landscape online. The use of technology in drug supply has tended to go hand in hand with improving the efficiency of supply and opportunities to reduce exchange-related risks for both buyers and sellers. In relation to app-mediated supply, for example, the use of encrypted messaging provides enhanced security for arranging purchases beyond the lurking surveillance of law enforcement. Despite the perception of improved safety, however, the use of social media apps and other online platforms can expose both buyers and sellers to risk scenarios they may not fully appreciate. Drawing on two recent studies on the use of social media apps and the online platform LeafedOut as mediators of drugs supply, this chapter will consider how these mid-range (between cryptomarkets and traditional telecommunications such as basic texting/calling and material ‘street’ markets) virtual spaces are being utilised for drug supply and the extent to which this is ‘just more of the same’ or provides new structures and experiences for those engaging with it and in what ways. Consideration will also be given to contradictions in the mid-range market space where the broad perception of reduced risk from the use of encrypted messaging can in fact produce greater levels of risk for some buyers and sellers depending on how they engage with the process/es.

Face threat sensitivity (FTS) has been found to influence objective negotiated outcomes when the threat to face is activated. The purpose of this study is to extend that research by testing whether FTS – which is defined as a propensity to act – is associated with the outcomes of negotiators when the threat has not been specifically activated. Face theory specifies that face threats can cause individuals to take proactive steps to avoid threats before they might occur.

Drawing on face theory and social role theory, the authors conduct a negotiation experiment and use hierarchical regression to test hypotheses concerning the relationship between FTS for sellers and buyers on negotiated outcomes in both distributive and integrative negotiations. The authors also use moderated regression to test if gender moderates the relationship between buyer and seller FTS and negotiation outcomes.

Results show that, when the threat is not activated, high FTS buyers pay more than low FTS buyers. Consistent with face theory and social role theory, this effect is moderated by gender, with the association being stronger for women buyers than for men buyers.

This paper exhibits that FTS can influence negotiator behavior even when FTS is not activated. This is valuable to negotiation scholars and practitioners who are interested in the role that individual characteristics play in negotiation behavior.

The very criticism of public policy being rigid and generalized on one hand, and insouciant and noncustomizable on the other has to be addressed to cope up with the comingled economic, social and environmental challenges. Policies that fail the litmus test of changing and challenging conditions will run the risk of not achieving their purpose and obstructing the ability of citizens, communities and businesses. This paper draws the case of Bangladesh to explore the principles of adaptive policies in the surfacing of the recently adopted Digital Commerce Management Guide 2021 under the National Digital Commerce Policy, 2020.

This is a qualitative paper that is based on both primary and secondary data. While secondary data on the policy crafted a strong call for increased adaptiveness, primary data extracted from the interviews presented several lacking and loopholes from respondents’ firsthand experiences. Based on secondary content and primary data from consumers and business owners of the most-used social commerce platform (a form of digital commerce), Facebook commerce, hereto referred to as F-commerce, this paper discusses the possible characteristics of adaptive policy-making for more innovative, contextual, gender-inclusive, efficient and environmentally sustainable policies.

The paper points out some reform and adjustment scope for the recently introduced digital commerce policy to make it more adaptive to the present and upcoming policy context.

It must be mentioned that there is a dearth of research on digital commerce policy and the platform as a whole.

Hence, this paper offers a fresh perspective toward time befitting policy formulation in the digital commerce sector and set in motion the policy attention that this platform requires.

This chapter explores the disruptive potential of the Internet to transform illicit drug markets while also challenging stereotypical depictions and superficial understandings of supply and demand. It argues that the digital transformation of illicit drug markets combines, on one hand, a reconfiguration of the scope and impact of how sellers, buyers, and other actors interact within and upon digitally mediated retail drug markets and, on the other hand, continuing trends in the embeddedness of market structures in cultural, economic, political, and legal realms. We develop conceptual ideas for studying the architecture of digital drug markets by drawing on interdisciplinary approaches to digitalisation, markets, and drugs. To understand the functioning of online drug markets, we first need to understand digitalisation. Thus, we draw on scholarship on the digital transformation of society and, second, put forward an understanding of markets that considers how personal relations and social structures enhance and restrict market exchange. Thus, we draw on economic sociology. Third, we build on and extend social science research on illicit drug markets which points out that drug markets exhibit significant variations over time and across jurisdictions. The introduction aims to provide a research agenda that can help us to explore ongoing digital transformations of illicit drug markets. It expands and deepens scholarship on the technological, structural, economic, and cultural factors underlying the resilience and growth of digital drug markets. It also goes beyond a concern with just one type of digital drug market into wider forms of digital environments.

The growth in cryptomarkets has reinvigorated the research on illicit drug distribution due to the availability of large-scale data. This data has enabled researchers to ask new and detailed questions about how participants in these markets trust each other enough for the market not to collapse. This question deserves more attention because it has become a taken-for-granted notion that repeated transactions and social categories create trust. Whether online or on the street, economic exchanges under illegality are more uncertain than transactions in the legal economy. This puts higher demands on trust, as there is less information and the stakes are higher. In this chapter, the author presents definitions, typologies, and disciplinary contributions to the study of trust and examine how it has been operationalised in a sample of 13 peer-reviewed articles. These articles focus on three dimensions of trust: process-based trust that derives from repeated transactions with known partners; character-based trust measured by the networked reputation scores; and institutional-based trust in the platform and its administrators. In practice, the trust bases are intertwined. Drawing on the broader social science literature on trust, a mesolevel operationalisation that centres on networked reputation scores as embedded in processes and institutions can draw the research together in a multidisciplinary framework.

This study aims to examine the relationship between sellers’ ethical behaviour and customer loyalty. The mediating effect of trust and satisfaction in the relationship between ethical behaviour and loyalty was also assessed in the sportswear industry.

Data were collected from 265 consumers. Ten hypotheses were developed and tested by applying structural equation modelling.

There is a significant influence between sellers’ ethical behaviour and consumers’ loyalty. Also, satisfaction and trust mediate the relationship between sellers’ ethical behaviour and consumers’ loyalty. Trust is also found as the most proximal antecedent to customer loyalty.

This study empirically justifies the relationship between sellers’ ethical behaviour towards customer satisfaction and trust. This study also provides insight into the relationships between customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty in an integrated model.

Este estudio examina la relación entre el comportamiento ético de los vendedores y la lealtad de los clientes. También se evaluó el efecto mediador de la confianza y la satisfacción en la relación entre el comportamiento ético y la lealtad en la industria de la ropa deportiva.

Se recogieron datos de 265 consumidores. Se elaboraron diez hipótesis y se comprobaron aplicando un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales.

Existe una influencia significativa entre el comportamiento ético de los vendedores y la lealtad de los consumidores. Además, la satisfacción y la confianza median en la relación entre el comportamiento ético de los vendedores y la fidelidad de los consumidores. La confianza también se revela como el antecedente más próximo a la lealtad de los consumidores.

Este estudio justifica empíricamente la relación entre el comportamiento ético de los vendedores con la satisfacción y la confianza de los clientes. Este estudio también proporciona una visión de las relaciones entre la satisfacción del cliente, la confianza y la lealtad en un modelo integrado.

本研究考察了卖家的道德行为与顾客忠诚度之间的关系。同时评估了在体育用品行业中, 信任和满意度在道德行为和忠诚度之间的中介效应。

收集了265名消费者的数据。通过运用结构方程模型, 提出并检验了10个假设。

卖方的道德行为和消费者的忠诚度之间存在着显著的影响。同时, 满意度和信任感对销售者的道德行为和消费者的忠诚度之间的关系起到了中介作用。信任也被认为是顾客忠诚度的最接近的前因。

本研究从经验上证明了卖家的道德行为与顾客满意度和信任之间的关系。本研究还对顾客满意度、信任和忠诚度之间的关系提供了一个综合模型的见解。

This book chapter takes an institutional perspective on competing logics in global markets concerned with sustainability values and how market actors in the form of buyers and sellers attempt to solve these conflicting situations. We do this by identifying competing institutional logics in global market contexts aiming for sustainability values, together with techniques for navigating these competing institutional logics in the organizational field studied. As an empirical illustration, we use a case study of buyers and sellers in two different markets where sustainability has come into focus for their market relationships. This viewpoint allows us to better understand how global market actors deal with the competing institutional logics in their market context. We make three contributions with this research: firstly, we identify the institutional logics in global markets towards sustainability; secondly, we demonstrate how global market actors prioritize among the competing logics and their market relationships and thirdly, we outline what this means for the relationship between buyers and sellers in global markets towards sustainability.