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This chapter investigates how new technologies of encryption and cryptocurrencies enable entrepreneurial opportunities outside legality in the dark net. Since ventures on illicit dark net markets lack access to the legal system and to law enforcement agencies, they must rely on mechanisms for settling disputes with business partners without the involvement of mediating agencies. To this end, the presence of trust is decisive in coordinating cryptomarket activities. Hence, entrepreneurs on dark net markets utilize technology to gain trust, establishing new ways of drug dealing, with disruptive potential for classic illicit drug markets. Against this background, this chapter shows how technological change affects the identity of entrepreneurs on the dark net. Special emphasis is given to the entrepreneurs’ self-concept, their consumer service, knowledge and capabilities and how, in a holistic view, this development innovates the traditional way of dealing illicit drugs.

This study seeks to explore the presence and the relative strength of market efficiency in the onshore and offshore Renminbi (RMB) forward markets.

In the onshore and offshore foreign exchange markets, the RMB forward contracts are designed in similar ways. However, the underlying economic forces and regulatory frameworks are very different in these two markets. We first analyze the functioning of each market, by examining the covered interest rate parity (CIRP) conditions. Second, we explore the CIRP deviations in the two markets and quantify the role of market frictions and government interventions.

We find that the CIRP condition does not hold in either the onshore or the offshore RMB forward markets. We also find that the offshore market is more efficient than the onshore market in conveying private information about investors’ expectation.

Our results reveal that the onshore RMB forward market provides an imperfect platform for investors to manage their currency exposures. We suggest that by opening the offshore market to domestic participants and the onshore market to more foreigners, the forward rates may become more informative with a greater investor mix. These liberalization efforts are important steps in the right directions to improve market efficiency in the Chinese FOREX market.

This chapter focuses on testing optimal capital structure theory: The role of intervening variable debt to equity ratio (DER) on the influence of the financial performance, Ownership Structure of Independent Board of Commissioners (IBCO), Audit Committee (ACO), and Institutional Ownership on Firm Value. The research design was explanatory research using path analysis. Using purposive sampling, 61 manufacturing companies, observation period from 2014 to 2018 with 286 N samples. The research novelty empirically can prove the role of intervening variable DER on the effect of return on assets (ROA) on firm value and shows the market response to the ROA is fully reflected by DER, indicating the existence of an optimal capital structure. The role of DER on the effect of ROE and IBCO on firm value is a partial mediation with the inverse direction. This phenomenon shows that the mechanism of forming a balance between the responses of investors and creditors relates to debt financing.

This study traces the boundaries of online-based social networks and its possible extensions and intersections with offline social networks. It focuses on the massive multiplayer online (MMO) gaming community. Most online gaming research has only addressed one side of the equation, that is, the online aspect of social interaction, omitting the offline context. The primary objective is to look at both offline and online social contexts of gamers. The data analyzed here are part of a bigger research project. Using a sample of 242 respondents and a total of 1,452 social ties (three online and three offline) this work addresses the differences and similarities between online gamer’s offline and online networks. Around 72% of the participants were between the ages of 18 and 37. This group provides insight into the management of social interactions and ties in the digital age among millennials and the coming-of-age of Generation Z. The analysis suggests that overall offline ties are slightly more important than online. Still, this does not imply that online ties are not meaningful at all. The length of their online relationships plays a significant role in how participants qualify their ties. Most participants that had not met face-to-face were willing to meet their online ties. They also reported sharing personal and everyday life matters with their online social network at a lower rate of their offline network. Time spent with online relationships stemming from online gaming and a cooperative environment is more likely to be considered higher quality time. This suggests that in MMOs the gap between online and offline relationships is becoming narrower.