of Business Administration, Uniwrsity of North Carolina, Greensboro. Abstracted f r o m J o u d o f international Business Studies 16, No. 2 (Summer 1985): 65-82.This paper examines how the economic structure of the indirect export channel affects the relationship between a particular supplier and an export intermediw. More specifically, Bello and Williamson evaluate the relationship between contractual form and export practices, based on a political economy approach.Economic structure of the channel relationship refem to the arrangement betwen trading p m e m that dictates terms of exchange and takes one of three basic fbrrms:conventional, administrative or contractual. A conventional structure implies autonomous members operating without a formal contract and negotiating each transactiori separately with market forces dictating the terms of trade. According to the authon, this structure has ". . . no common orientation and goal" and ". . . results in a less than optimal exploitation of market opportunity and . . . in higher distribution costs!' An administrative structure is characterized by a high degree of cooperation and coordination of activities due to effective interaction of trading partners. And, although no formal contract exists, routines are established and terms of trade tend to meet the needs of both participants. The contractual structure features integration of activities based on a formal contract; autonomy is sacrificed for effective management of the entire channel. In this study, Bello and Williamson consider Export Management Company(EMC) as a generic term for an independent, intermediary export marketing institution serving the needs of small and medium-sized U.S. firms. The authors thoroughly review the major weaknesses in the middleman-supplier relationship: differing orientations, limited EMC resources, limited EMC experience and sales familiarity with a supplier's product, and EMC ignorance of the best potential geographic market for the supplier's market.The authors adopt a political economy approach, developed by Stern and Reve, to identify and examine the pertinent aspects of the EMC-supplier relationship. This approach groups the interactions between trading partners into economic and sociopolitical categories. In addition, earlier research cited here suggests contractual form sets the parameten fbr all the economic and sociopolitical processes occurring within the export channel.The researchers formulated four exploratory hypotheses to evaluate the extent to which contractual form determines export channel functioning. Each hypothesis considers the association between channel structure and a separate facet of the EMC-supplier relationship. The first hypothesis focuses on a perceived association between contractual form and the amount and composition of an EMC's export volume. The second hypothesis considers whether the conditions under which EMCs 8

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine winery visitors’ use of information sources in making decisions regarding the choice of wineries to visit. Enrichment theory is used as a framework for determining how previous experience influences the decision on how much and what type of information individuals will use when planning a trip using wine tourism as the context for the research. Design/methodology/approach A visitor study was conducted at 23 wineries in the US Southeast. Data were collected from winery visitors using a structured self-administered questionnaire. Findings Results from 832 consumers indicate that an individual’s previous travel systematically influences the number and type of information sources that they will seek out when making future consumer decisions. Findings confirmed the hypothesized expectations about wine tourist information search behavior and help to partially explain the nature of bounded rationality in the case of tourists’ winery visit decisions. Research limitations/implications Because the study focused only on winery visitors in the US Southeast, the research results may lack generalizability. Practical implications These findings can assist winery owners and destinations with wineries in their promotional efforts. Of major importance is the finding that increases in experiential knowledge from prior travel are monotonically associated with increases in the number of information sources marked to be valuable in selecting a winery. The influence of experience is particularly dramatic in that the mean number of information sources marked to be valuable moves from a low of 2.5 to a high of 10.0 out of 16 as travel experience increases. Originality/value The study contributed significant and useful findings that advance the application of enrichment theory to wine tourism. Enrichment theory does not currently differentiate between types of knowledge that enrich a consumer’s ability to more easily encode and use new information. The current study confirms that experiential knowledge is an important knowledge construct in models of bounded rationality.

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Purpose: This paper examines the technological, market, industry and institutional sources associated with the cross-national heterogeneity in e-retail spending.Design/methodology/approach: We used time series cross sectional (TSCS) models linear in parameters for 10 year data from 43 countries to test our hypotheses.Findings: We found that how broadband Internet is accessed, identified as an important determinant of an economy's "e-readiness", explains international heterogeneity in e-retail spending. We also found various specific attributes of the traditional retail environment that produce enhancing effects as well as suppressing effects for e-retail spending. Finally, we also found regulatory forces' impacts on the development of the e-retail industry.Research limitations/implications: Due to the unavailability of reputable data, we could not include many economies at the bottommost of the global economic pyramid.Originality/value: To our knowledge, this is the first study focusing on cross-national heterogeneity in e-retailing in a range of economies. We used the economic theory of complementarities as the theoretical framework. We identified various activities and resources in the e-retail ecosystems that may produce positive and negative synergies in the development of the e-retail industry.

<span>With todays retail department store competitiveness, it is necessary to examine department store cross-shoppers of three department store types: traditional, national chain, and discount. Regular shoppers of one type as well as two or more department store types are examined. The multi-item constructs consist of behaviors and attitudes of these different department store shoppers. The needs of cross-shoppers are dramatically different from the needs of core department store customers suggesting the folly of looking only to the needs of their store loyal customers for the structuring of store strategy.</span>