An Analysis of the Barriers Hindering Small Business Export Development

Notwithstanding the benefits derived from exporting in an increasingly globalized marketplace, for many smaller-sized manufacturers the internationalization path is beset by numerous obstacles. This article offers a comprehensive analysis of 39 export barriers extracted from a systematic review of 32 empirical studies conducted on the subject. These have been classified into internal (incorporating informational, functional, and marketing) and external (comprising procedural, governmental, task, and environmental) barriers. The impact of export barriers is shown to be situation-specific, largely depending on the idiosyncratic managerial, organizational, and environmental background of the firm. However, certain barriers, such as those relating to information inefficiencies, price competitiveness, foreign customer habits, and politicoeconomic hurdles, seem to have a systematically strong obstructing effect on export behavior. Several conclusions and implications for small business managers, public policymakers, business educators, and exporting researchers are derived.     

Incentive compatibility and information superiority of the core of an economy with differential information

Summary We analyse the coarse, the fine, and the private core allocation of an exchange economy with differential information. The basic questions that we address are whether the above concepts are: (i) coalitionally incentive compatible, i.e., does truthful revelation of information in each coalition occur; and (ii) taking into account the information superiority or information advantage of an agent. Moreover, the above three concepts are examined in the presence of externalities and a comparison and interpretation of all of these core notions is provided.We wish to thank Stefan Krasa, Frank Page, Wayne Shafer, Anne Villamil, and Myrna Wooders for several useful comments, discussions, and suggestions. The comments of two referees were also helpful and we thank them for their careful reading. Obviously, we are responsible for any remaining errors.     

Arbitrage and equilibrium in strategic security markets

Summary. In view of the fundamental price taking hypothesis, arbitrage is never compatible with equilibrium in Walrasian markets because the existence of an arbitrage opportunity in a competitive situation always leads to unbounded arbitrage activity. In strategic markets however, the mere effort of individuals to profit alters market clearing prices and thus distorts arbitrage opportunities as well. This observation suggests a different relationship between arbitrage and equilibrium, than in the competitive model. Indeed, we show that in such markets a spread between the cost of a portfolio and its returns is compatible with equilibrium. We provide an example of an equilibrium where a resourceless individual holds a portfolio with zero cost and positive return in every state. We further demonstrate via an asymptotic result, that no arbitrage is intimately related to price taking behaviour.Received: 8 September 2001, Revised: 6 March 2003, JEL Classification Numbers: G12, D4, D5, D52. Correspondence to: Leonidas C. Koutsougeras     

Exporter-importer business relationships: Past empirical research and future directions

We present a systematic and comprehensive review of the extant empirical literature on exporter-importer business relationships during the period 1975–2017. The review covers 196 articles published in academic journals, which were content-analyzed with their theoretical background, research design, scope of research, sampling/data collection methods, data analysis, and thematic areas covered. Our findings reveal that this line of research is characterized by: (a) a sound theoretical foundation, the most frequent theories being the behavioral paradigm, transaction cost economics, and relational exchange theory; (b) heavy emphasis on formalized, statistical, cross-sectional, and causal research designs; (c) focus on single-country studies, conducted mainly in Europe, Asia, and North America; (d) a tendency to employ probabilistic samples, of a relatively large size; (e) an adoption of relatively sophisticated methods to purify and analyze data collected; and (f) an emphasis on topics relating to behavioral and structural relational dimensions, followed by external and internal influences. Guidelines for researchers focusing on exporter-importer relationships are provided, as well as suggestions for potential new research topics.     

Exercised power as a driver of trust and commitment in cross-border industrial buyer-seller relationships

The article reports the findings of a study conducted among 151 U.S. export manufacturers of industrial goods regarding their working relationships with foreign customers. Specifically, the emphasis is on the sources of power exercised and how these affect trust and commitment in the relationship through the mediating role of conflict and satisfaction. Using structural equation modelling, it was confirmed that the exercise of power derived from coercive sources increases conflict and reduces satisfaction, while the exercise of non-coercive power sources leads to lower conflict (but not significantly increasing satisfaction). Conflict was found to be negatively associated with trust, as opposed to satisfaction which enhances trust. Trust was subsequently revealed to foster commitment in the relationship. Conclusions and implications are derived from the study findings and directions for further research are provided.     

Social media in marketing research: Theoretical bases,methodological aspects,and thematic focus

The widespread use of social media as a marketing tool during the last decade has been responsible for attracting a significant volume of academic research, which, however, can be described as highly fragmented to yield clear directions and insights. We systematically synthesize and critically evaluate extant knowledge of social media marketing extracted from 418 articles published during the period 2009–2021. In doing so, we use an organizing framework focusing on five key areas of social media marketing research, namely, social media as a promotion and selling outlet, social media as a communication and branding channel, social media as a monitoring and intelligence source, social media as a customer relationship management and value cocreation platform, and social media as a general marketing and strategic tool. Within each of these areas, we provide important theoretical, methodological, and thematic insights, as well as future research directions. We also offer useful managerial implications derived from the articles reviewed.