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Antitrust exemptions to shipping alliances in the liner shipping sector have prevailed for many years. This study aims to examine anti-competition of ocean shipping alliances from a legal perspective of the USA, the European Union (EU) and People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Adopting the standard “doctrinal approach to legal research and analysis” in legal literatures, this paper reviews landmark court cases and legislations in the USA relating to shipping conference system from its beginning to its erosion, followed by its latest transition to non-ratemaking agreements, with discussions on the EU and some PRC treatments on shipping conferences.

Although antitrust exemptions to shipping conferences in the liner shipping sector were eliminated in the trades to/from the USA and the EU, there is a lack of evidence of the deterioration found in the viability of liner shipping carriers in both parts of the world trades. For the USA, shipping alliances will shift the focus to sharing resources for improvement of collective operational efficiencies, whereas the shipper groups in the EU have worried that a protected system of sharing information may lead to price fixing conducts among the carriers.

Through the discussions on the legal treatments of shipping conferences from the USA, the EU and PRC perspectives, this paper provides legal researchers with not only a new research direction on raising collective operational efficiencies through resource sharing but also an insight into shifting their research focus from purely price determination to the area of merger.

This paper reviews landmark court cases and related legislations about the treatments of different regulatory regimes, including the USA, the EU and PRC, to explore the illegitimacy of anti-competition conducts in ocean shipping alliances.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).

The research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.

The findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.

The authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.

This article aims to explore the concept of chain value of the public port system in Ecuador from the perspective of importing/exporting companies, analyzing how perceived value in the use of port services affects customer satisfaction and the intermediate links of the influence of trust and commitment on customer loyalty.

Relying on a survey of 634 Ecuadorian companies with experience in international trade as port users and a theoretical framework well-established in the literature on consumer behavior, the empirical study found evidence of a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge of chain effects.

The findings confirm the chain effect and reveal ways to maintain an ongoing satisfactory, trust and committed relationship with users, thereby ultimately gaining and maintaining their loyalty. The conclusions suggest how this postulate can help to close the gap referred to the effective management of port services, and point out that port managers should be concerned with a continuous in-depth understanding of the perceived value and its chain effects.

The authors add evidence of the use of the postulate of the chain of effects on these dimensions, whose applicability is very well established, tested and consensual for the doctrine in industrial marketing. In contrast, it is scarcely present in the port relationship with its users.

Comprehensive studies examining how Korean e-commerce trade works are currently limited. This study seeks to explore whether Korea’s e-commerce trade is more applicable to traditional trade theory or to modern theories. According to our analysis, the share of intra-industry trade (IIT) in modern trade theory is less than that of general trade for Korean e-commerce. Therefore, trade based on comparative advantage can be more valid in explaining e-commerce trade. From results in analyzing the gravity model, it was found that Korea’s e-commerce exports are higher as IIT with its FTA partners. In contrast, it is found that the lower the proportion of e-commerce trade, the higher chance for the import growth. Lastly, this study looked at what kind of comparative advantage is realized through imports. While Korea has been mostly exporting goods of high quality, its major trading partners import products based on price and selection of goods. In order for Korea’s e-commerce to grow, a more strategic approach is necessary. A strategy of high price based on superior quality is not effective, and as e-commerce has radically reduced sales and marketing costs, so a price reduction needs to be reflected in the price of goods for consumers.

This paper aims to focus on the influences of the COVID-19 pandemic on business-to-business (B2B) firms’ relationship initiation and customer relationship management in an under-explored and unique context of high-tech industrial microenterprises. The authors analyze the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the specific context of B2B relationship initiation and customer relationship management dynamics by examining Finnish B2B industrial microenterprises.

The paper uses exploratory in-depth case studies undertaken in three Finnish industrial microenterprises to analyze the influences of the COVID-19 pandemic on their new business relationship initiation and relationship management with the current customers.

The case firms quickly adjusted to the “new normal” and used a number of technological resources, including online meetings and three-dimensional demonstrations, among others. A key reason for this quick adjustment was them being microenterprises. However, despite this, lack of access to customer sites remained a hindrance as their products need to fit certain production processes, which cannot be done without physical visits. Furthermore, the development of trust with new customers, especially those based in emerging markets, was challenging due to the lack of physical meetings and site visits.

The research highlights the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to B2B relationships and gives an account of the changing dynamics of relationship initiation and customer relationship management amid technological and societal disruptions. It also highlights the continued role of personal relationships and psychical meetings in such relationships. As such, the research informs B2B research that examines the role of personal relationships in B2B marketing.

The study offers industrial microenterprise executives insights into how to face and tackle COVID-19 driven challenges in B2B customer relationship management and how to integrate technological tools in relationship management practices while understanding where face-to-face meetings are indispensable.

The study demonstrates areas in which virtual tools can and cannot be substitutes for conventional means of B2B relationship initiation and customer relationship management across developed and emerging markets. It also highlights the specificities of industrial microenterprises and their business development and customer relationship management dynamics mechanisms, a research area that has been rather ignored by prior studies.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the trade of goods and services in Spain.

This paper uses monthly trade data at the product, region and firm level.

The COVID-19 crisis has led to the sharpest collapse in the Spanish trade of goods and services in recent decades. The containment measures adopted to arrest the spread of the virus have caused an especially intense fall of trade in services. The large share of transport equipment, capital goods, products that are consumed outdoors (i.e., outdoor goods) and tourism in Spanish exports has made the COVID-19 trade crisis more intense in Spain than in the rest of the European Union.

The nature of the collapse suggests that trade in goods can recover swiftly when the health crisis ends. However, COVID-19 may have a long-term negative impact on the trade of services that rely on the movement of people.

It contributes to understand how COVID-19 has affected the trade in goods and services in Spain.

This study aims to build on social capital theory (SCT) and its dimensions by examining the role of social capital in the public procurement process and by identifying related contingencies that may influence procurement performance.

A systematic literature review and a thematic analysis regarding social capital in procurement are conducted. The antecedent–behaviour–consequence (ABC) model is used for illuminating linkages between social capital, contingencies and procurement performance.

The dimensions of social capital are investigated in the procurement process; however, the extent of social capital role can vary between the phases of the process. It is concluded that the contingencies of social dynamics are linked with social capital and may influence the outcomes and performance of the procurement process.

Social capital can ease interactions between public buyers and private suppliers by contributing to effective tendering, improving social interaction in negotiations and balancing rigidity in contract management, supporting the interests of both parties. The provided framework helps decision makers to comprehend the social dynamics in public procurement.

Improving social dynamics and solutions in public procurement.

This study extends social capital research in the field of public procurement and creates a framework connecting social capital and prevailing contingency factors to procurement process performance.

The psychic distance often hinders the interaction between cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) and consumers. This paper aims to discuss the issues of psychic distance of consumers in the CBEC. In addition, it attempts to explain the factors that affect psychic distance from three dimensions of culture, economy and politics and the two different shopping behaviors caused by psychic distance.

This research incorporates both theoretical and empirical studies. In this study, 249 validated questionnaires were selected from 300 Chinese CBEC consumers by snowball sampling, and the relationship between variables was tested using structural equation model (SEM). This was done through online research, and it is ensured that the data obtained are first-hand information.

The paper suggests the theoretical model operationalizing CBEC psychic distance and the empirical analysis results show that all the six influencing factors have a positive impact on the psychic distance of consumers. Logistics infrastructure barriers in the economic dimension are confirmed as the major influencing factor, and the significance of the political dimension is relatively small. Based on consumers' uncertainty of various kinds of information, psychic distance subconsciously causes consumers to deviate in the cross-shopping process.

Currently, research on e-commerce mainly focuses on saving trade costs and improving consumer welfare, while research on the internal impact of CBEC on consumers is insufficient. Psychic distance is a new concept in the field of cultural and social research. The originality of this paper is that the concept of psychic distance has been extended from overseas invested enterprises to research with CBEC consumers as the selected object. The obstacles of CBEC have been widely studied, but few are related to the closeness of consumers, or the inner feelings of consumers are ignored. In the context of CBEC, this paper lists the actual external factors and potential threats that may affect consumers' consumption concerns of CBEC from three dimensions. The real emotions of consumers in the face of these difficulties indirectly affect the purchase satisfaction and reduce the purchase desire. Consumer psychic distance is a real phenomenon in cross-border shopping, and it is almost inevitable for these difficulties. On the premise of inevitability, high psychic distance will slow down cross-border shopping in the eyes of consumers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore international market development for mature products and practices used in a novel business context.

Taking a qualitative approach, the case study method was chosen to investigate how firms develop markets in relation to a new international business context. Critical international decisions are analysed using a managerial perspective.

The success of international ventures depends on managerial learning and effectiveness. In this paper, the authors argue that decisions about international market development can add significantly to the understanding of how business firms enter and develop markets in novel business contexts. Two case studies show different approaches for meeting challenges in distant markets. Four propositions are developed.

A theoretical contribution of this study is the importance of factors that explain international market development decisions in novel business contexts. The balance between incomplete knowledge and making resource commitments is of central concern to international managers. Some of this is tacit knowledge that a firm achieves and learns during the process of market development and other knowledge can only become available after an actual market entry. A second theoretical contribution of this study is the significance of contextual market knowledge in a novel business context.