An economic feasibility study for the production of apple cider vinegar in Lattakia Governorate – Syria: دراسة الجدوى الاقتصادية لإنتاج خل التفاح في محافظة اللاذقية – سورية

The presence of an excess of the apple crop, and the increasing problem of its marketing in case the season is exposed to bad weather conditions, makes the best solution to confront this problem by manufacturing apple cider vinegar, as the apple cider vinegar manufacturing project emerges as an important model for the application of small agricultural projects in Syria, during the next stage, so the aim of the research To study the economic feasibility of a project to manufacture apple cider vinegar in apple- growing areas within Lattakia Governorate in Syria. To achieve the objectives of the research, the descriptive approach and the case study approach were used to study the hypotheses of the study, the most important of which is the existence of an economic feasibility for the manufacture of apple cider vinegar, or the lack of feasibility. The investor is 47.53%, based on production costs, 115.03%, while the profitability coefficient based on the invested capital is 44.49%, and for production costs, 107.67%, and the recovery time of the invested capital is 1.37 years. That is, this project, which achieves an added value, especially for apples that are not suitable for marketing, concludes the research with a number of recommendations, the most important of which is that it should work to encourage agricultural investors to enter this field by providing loans through village banks, development or small projects, and securing a market exchange. for their products, and opening new markets, especially in the field of export.

EXPRESS: Sales and Self: The Non-Economic Value of Selling the Fruits of One’s Labor

A core assumption across many disciplines is that producers enter market exchange relationships for economic reasons. This research examines an overlooked factor, namely the socio-emotional benefits of selling the fruits of one’s labor. Specifically, the authors find that individuals selling their products interpret sales as a signal from the market, which serves as a source of self-validation, thus increasing their happiness above and beyond any monetary rewards from those sales. This effect highlights an information asymmetry that is opposite to that in traditional signaling theory. That is, the authors find that customers have information about the quality of products that they signal to the producer, validating the producer’s skill level. Further, the sales-as-signal effect is moderated by characteristics of the purchase transaction that determine the signal strength of sales: the effect is attenuated when product choice does not reflect a deliberate decision and is amplified when buyers incur higher monetary costs. In addition, sales have a stronger effect on happiness than alternative, non-monetary forms of market signals such as Likes. Finally, the sales-as-signal effect is more pronounced when individuals sell their self-made (vs. other-made) products and affects individuals’ happiness beyond the happiness gained from producing.

A Matter of Transition: Authenticity Judgments and Attracting Employees to Hybridized Organizations

Category-spanning organizations have been shown to face a number of penalties compared with organizations occupying a single category. The assumption seems to be, however, that organizations spanning the same categories will be evaluated similarly. Yet, this is not always the case. We know far less about why evaluations may differ within category-spanners, largely due to existing studies’ focus on comparing single-category to category-spanning organizations in equilibrium states at a fixed point in time. Instead, this paper investigates audience judgments of organizations as they transition from single to multiple categories. We rely on the empirical setting of social-commercial hybrids—an intriguing context in which to explore category-spanning across market and nonmarket domains associated with distinct values, norms, and expectations. In a series of two experimental studies, we investigate how hybridization affects audience judgments of organizational authenticity and the ability to attract potential employees. We find that across organizational fields associated with nonprofit (communal) and for-profit (market exchange) norms, hybridization—more than hybridity itself—triggers audience cynicism and leads to decreased judgments of authenticity. However, the penalties for hybridizing are only observed when organizations also move away from field-level profit-status norms. The findings contribute to the category-spanning and authenticity literatures by integrating social psychological and organizational theory perspectives to offer a dynamic view of spanning beyond for-profit, market contexts. They also offer empirical support for the theorized multidirectionality of mission drift in hybrid organizations, while suggesting that drifting need not always be detrimental.

The Sharing Economy and Social Capital: The Fictional Expectations of Sociality in a Time Bank

This article looks at time banking ­– a system of exchange in which people trade services with one another using time instead of money as currency. Time banking is framed from a social work perspective as a social innovation that contributes to poverty alleviation and increasing inclusion. However, most such organizations fail to institutionalize as care providers and fail within the first three years. In this paper, I discuss a rare success story—a time bank in Nizhny Novgorod, the fourth largest city in Russia—which has been functioning for over 15 years and positioned itself as a non-charitable organization. I engage with sharing economy studies—a growing but ambiguous field—to explain the success of the time bank in Nizhny Novgorod. Research in the sharing economy has mostly concentrated on two extreme cases: business-to-customer operations or grassroots communities practicing radical alternatives to market exchange. The case studies have been united by an assumption that sharing economy organizations would generate social capital. However, there has been limited evidence to support this claim. In this article, I aim to test this hypothesis and explore whether the informal networks, norms of reciprocity and trust that are fostered among members of the Nizhny Novgorod time bank are the factors that explain the sustainability of this association. The study is informed by 22 in-depth interviews with the gatekeepers and members of this community. In the interviews, I paid attention to the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and the structure of their social capital; the characteristics of the mode of exchange practiced in the community (the volume, direction, and range of services, the relatedness to professional activities and other spheres of life); their value set and worldview (egalitarianism, altruism, justice); and indicators of generalized trust. Results revealed that time bankers do not tend to create strong and sustainable relationships outside of the framework of the exchange. I put forward the following explanatory hypothesis: the calculativeness of time bankers, the market-driven valuations of ‘egalitarian’ service exchange and a unilateral attitude to the exchange are in conflict with a longing for Gemeinschaft—a community with strong bonding interdependence based on the norms of mutuality. This association failed to provide the conditions for generalized trust to emerge. The attempt to simultaneously create a tightly bonded community, but still answer the needs of the digital age resulted in a pastiche of a sharing economy platform. Beyond the case at hand, this study theorizes the rhetoric and reality of the sharing economy by summarizing the grounds for the expectations of generating social capital and explains why certain expectations could not be met.

System of Marketing Models of Goods

The aim of the article. The purpose of the study, which is the subject of the article, was the formation of a system of product models, which covered the stage "production - distribution - exchange - consumption", which creates a basis for analysing the competitiveness of goods over time. To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set and solved: a) a comprehensive analysis of existing models in marketing; b) the formation of new models of goods that are not present today in the world scientific literature; c) formation of a system of product models in marketing as a basis for analysis of product competitiveness in the temporal aspect. Analyses results. Traditionally, in the process of analysing the competitiveness of the company in the centre of the analysis is the product as an object of market exchange. The issue of product competitiveness implies the need to determine the key aspects or components that will be subject to comparative analysis, as competitiveness is a relative concept. For a comprehensive analysis of competitiveness it is necessary to take into account the entire cycle of its production and market presence, its life cycle, in particular, within the classical scheme: production - distribution - exchange - consumption. At each of the stages of this scheme, the key are different aspects and characteristics of the product, according to the characteristics of interaction with it, which should be reflected in the marketing models of the product, developed separately for each stage. Within each stage, appropriate models are identified that reflect the specific requirements for the product related to the technical and economic characteristics of the enterprise. The first stage - production - aims to optimize production activities, so the model should reflect the characteristics of the production of goods. In the second stage - distribution - the product must meet the goal of optimizing logistics activities, therefore, the corresponding model reflects the characteristics of the product associated with logistics of sales. The third stage - exchange - is the point of intersection of supply and demand. Within the fourth stage of consumption, the product model should be focused on motivation and consumer behaviour. The presented models are connected into a system that is cross-cutting for the entire life cycle of the product and can serve as a basis for a comprehensive assessment of its competitiveness. Conclusions and directions for further research. The presented product models form an interconnected group, covering the entire economic cycle from the beginning of production to consumption. This approach helps to take into account the nuances of marketing management at each stage and to form a set of marketing measures to strengthen the competitiveness of the enterprise in terms of its product policy. A further area of research may be the development of an algorithm that will form a system of criteria for the competitiveness of goods in accordance with the specific market situation, taking into account the peculiarities of the implementation of stages within a certain market.

Market Exchange and Alienation

Efficient markets are alienating if they inhibit us from caring about one another inour productive activities. I argue that efficient market behaviour is bothexclusionary and fetishistic. As exclusionary, the efficient marketeer cannotmanifest care alongside their market behaviour. As fetishistic, the efficientmarketeer cannot manifest care in their market behaviour. The conjunction entailsthat efficient market behavior inhibits care. It doesn’t follow that efficient marketbehavior is vicious: individuals might justifiably commit to efficiency becausedoing so serves the common good. But efficient market systems nevertheless havesignificant opportunity costs. This serves as a corrective to the prevailingassumption amongst welfare state capitalists, liberal egalitarians and marketsocialists that resolving distributive objections to markets will resolve thisrelational objection. 

Alternatives to Commodification

This chapter discusses alternatives to commodification. The opposite of commodification is de-commodification. De-commodification imposes limits on the commodity character of goods and services traded on markets, but it does not provide for an alternative. Following an understanding of commodification as subjugation of use value to market/exchange value, the chapter argues that an alternative must seek to “free” use value and reinstate it as the primary goal of production. Or put differently, an alternative to commodification must focus on the satisfaction of human needs rather than the expansion of private profit. Three elements are crucial for the promotion of (collective and ecological) use value: democratization, sustainability, and solidarity. The chapter discusses each one in a separate section. It then brings the three elements together into an alternative vision that is called use-value society.

The Biblical Ethic of Free Market Exchange

Despite the calls of ‘Christian Socialists’ to bring market forces under the control of the state and its temporal power, the supreme text of Christianity not only supports the existence of free markets, it also prescribes their existence and operation as the normal, God-given means of social interaction. Both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible provide an ethical defense of the market itself, the division of labor, the principle of voluntary exchange, and the condemnation of force, fraud, and coercion. As the introduction of force into society and exchange is always and ever the policy of interventionists and socialists, the aim of this paper is to oppose those doctrines on the grounds of Biblical ethics. This is not to dismiss the pragmatic, historic, or epistemological failings of the interventionists. The dismantling of socialism on these grounds has been thorough and devastating as provided by the Austrian school of economics. This work provides a moral and ethical ground that not only dismisses the socialist agenda, but adds to an already robust body of work that rejects its interventions due to its inefficiencies, failed states, and its pretense of knowledge.