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Market entry strategies range from foreign direct investment to licensing with varying levels of commitment, risk and opportunity. Exporting products or services is one of the most common of the intermediate market entry strategies. It is typically accomplished through authorized international channels of distribution. However, when significant price differences exist between markets, alternative, parallel channels of distribution are almost certain to arise. These parallel channels, often referred to as gray marketing, are generally legal but unauthorized distribution channels that create an alternative export market entry. After a review of the literature, a case study highlights these complex issues from the perspective of both manufacturer and parallel marketer. The case study provides a tool for evaluating theory and a basis for discussing this important alternative mode of market entry. The case and the discussion which follows also highlight the role of international trade shows as an important element of the marketing mix for entering many foreign markets.

To manage workers in the gig economy, we must understand the various types of gig workers and how they perform. This chapter focuses on the many types of gig workers and how professional gig workers overlap with knowledge workers in the knowledge economy. The chapter will next go through the distinctions between the gig economy and the talent economy. This chapter will finish by examining the informal economy and its relationship to the gig economy.

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.

Introduction: Decision making is always based on several factors which may affect the possible outcomes, especially in financial markets. Instead of having many criteria which may be required for decision making, “Multiple Criteria Decision Making” (MCDM) models might be used as a tool to reduce all criteria into a single one.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to measure the financial performance of commercial banks listed on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) by the MCDM.

Method: To this end, data from 15 different financial ratios from 11 commercial banks were used between the periods of 2002 and 2018. Both TOPSIS and gray relational analysis (GRA) models were used, which are commonly used in the literature for detecting the financial performance of listed banks in BIST based on their consolidated financial statements.

Results: According to the TOPSIS method, while the best bank is QNB Finansbank, HALKB, a public bank, was determined as the best bank using the GRA method. There is no significant correlation between financial performance indicators and market returns obtained by either method, with exceptions. There is no generally significant correlation detected between financial ratios and market returns. Accordingly, it is concluded that the bank stock prices in the study are shaped by the influence of external factors and expectations. The study results include information that can be used for different purposes among bank managers, academics and financial investors.

Over the last decade, market entry activities have continued to play a critical role in global economic development. In the transitional economies in China, Russia, and the Eastern European countries, newly emerged private enterprises, both large and small, have operated beyond national borders to build their wealth and social identities. In the developed economies in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim, more and more companies have relied on joint ventures and direct investment abroad to relieve pressure from mature domestic markets. In the developing economies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, governments have continued to embrace direct and indirect exports as a means to emerge from deprivation and poverty and participate in market globalization.

Institutional theory and organizational ecology have long proposed alternative (albeit not always contradictory) processes to interpret founding and creation of a novel organizational form. Much of the debate has dealt with the issue of how legitimation processes shape such important events or acts. Empirical research on both sides is rich with interesting results, while much of the controversy regards how legitimation is empirically captured and the ways it unfolds over time.

Recently, within organization ecology this specific issue has received increasing attention in the search for a theory of forms and identities. A central piece of the proposed theory links identities to specific audiences or constituencies, both internal and external, which act by attributing legitimation to novel constructions. The new formulation has originated different efforts aimed at better understanding how audiences develop and how they are shaped by wider social movements. Existing research has mainly been dealing with organizations (and forms), which appear to be legitimate (albeit not legitimated) from their inception, benefiting from the generalized acceptance of business organizations in modern societies. Limited attention has been devoted to analyzing contrasted forms, i.e. organized forms of action which act at the border or outside the border of established economic and social action. I contend that it is by analyzing these extreme cases that a clearer interpretation of legitimacy and legitimation processes can be achieved. By analyzing the evolution and the principal dynamics of three populations that are operating in gray and black market, I propose a critique to existing theories of legitimacy.

In this paper, we investigate the process by which social control agents define wrongdoing over time and the principles they employ in drawing the boundary between right and wrong. We empirically examine how Italian state actors sought over four decades to categorize behaviors in the so-called “gray area,” i.e., the conduct of individuals supportive of the mafia organization Cosa Nostra and its criminal aims, but not members of the organization. Based on an archival analysis of texts produced since the 1960s, we reconstruct how state actors started from a preliminary definition of wrongdoing, moved to stigmatize the behaviors in question on moral grounds, and ultimately criminalized them with legal sanctions. We conceptualize the main principles behind this evolving categorization as intentionality of conduct, freedom of choice, and scope of harm. The paper contributes to the debate on the factors and conditions shaping the definition of wrongdoing over time and the contribution that social control agents provide to this aim.

Warranty policies for certain products, such as automobiles, often involve consideration of two attributes, for example, time and usage. Since consumers are not necessarily homogeneous in their use of the product, such policies provide protection to users of various categories. In this chapter, product usage at a certain time is linked to the product age through a variable defined as usage rate. This variable, usage rate, is assumed to be a random variable with a specified probability distribution, which permits modeling of a variety of customer categories. Another feature of the chapter is to model the propensity to execute the warranty, in the event of a failure within specified parameter values (say time or usage). In a competitive market, alternative product/warranty offerings may reduce the chances of exercising the warranty. This chapter investigates the impact of warranty policy parameters with the goal of maximizing market share, subject to certain constraints associated with expected warranty costs per unit not exceeding a desirable level.

The existence of parallel imports (PI) raises a number of interesting policy and strategic questions, which are the subject of this survey article. For example, parallel trade is essentially arbitrage within policy-integrated markets of IPR-protected goods, which may have different prices across countries. Thus, we analyze fully two types of price differences that give rise to such arbitrage. First is simple retail-level trade in horizontal markets because consumer prices may differ. Second is the deeper, and more strategic, issue of vertical pricing within the common distribution organization of an original manufacturer selling its goods through wholesale distributors in different markets. This vertical price control problem presents the IPR-holding firm a menu of strategic choices regarding how to compete with PI. Another strategic question is how the existence of PI might affect incentives of IPR holders to invest in research and development (R&D). The global research-based pharmaceutical firms, for example, strongly oppose any relaxation of restrictions against PI of drugs into the United States, arguing that the potential reduction in profits would diminish their ability to innovate. There is a close linkage here with price controls for medicines, which are a key component of national health policies but can give rise to arbitrage through PI. We also discuss the complex economic relationships between PI and other forms of competition policy, or attempts to limit the abuse of market power offered by patents and copyrights. Finally, we review the emerging literature on how policies governing PI may affect international trade agreements.

Despite the growing interest in IJVs and their governance, systematic research is limited on the board of directors and their roles in international joint ventures in emerging markets. In this study, we draw from corporate governance research that suggests that the levels of control and collaboration by boards are influenced by organizational complexity. While joint ventures possess several similarities compared to unitary firms, they also have unique sources of complexity given the fact that two or more international partners collaborate within JVs under an incomplete contract. Based on a sample of 114 IJVs, we argue and show four separate conditions that influence the functions that boards undertake as well as how control and collaboration as two separate functions are interrelated. Our findings address calls for research to open the black box of what boards actually do as well as to bring corporate governance theory to new organizational forms such as joint ventures.