Legitimate Industry Research Articles

PLANT VERSUS COW: Conflict Framing in the Ant/Agonistic Relegitimization of a Market

In this article we focus on the cultural mechanisms of market evolution accompanying the marketplace discord between a market actor and a dominant industry. We situate our analysis in the intersection between marketing and institutional theory and engage specifically with the constructs of legitimacy and framing strategies, but also with Chantal Mouffe’s political philosophy concept of agonistics. To better understand the blurry impact of market-driven activism and conflict on the shaping of markets, we use the ongoing “milk-war” between plant- versus animal-based drink producers as backdrop, and empirically explore how a market actor and their supporting institutional actors frame a previously legitimate industry in an attempt to delegitimize it, without sacrificing its consumer market. We find a rhetorical juggling-act of attempted legitimization of the market alternative and delegitimization of the status quo, where the intricacy of framing strategies constitutes what we call conflict framing. In line with the market-critical fundaments of agonistics, this conflict framing can work to (partly) delegitimize the status quo industry and to relegitimize its market at the same time, but cannot radically disrupt the system. Drawing from research predicting a growing absorption of politicized conflict by the market in general, we problematize and critique a potential rise in presence of marketmediated conflict framing. Our insights contribute to ongoing conversations on market evolution, markets for alternatives, ethical consumption and the ideological functioning of markets.

Rhyme, Reason, Rogue

Popular culture is often othered in conservative theses as inferior and [or because it is] foreign. Scholarship and views on popular music in Nigeria have been sometimes inattentive to the extent that the popular musical forms have gone to entrench themselves as recognizable local forms. This article compares older popular forms that are now canonized—such as jùjú and highlife—with Nigerian Yoruba hip hop to show the peculiar historical factors that justify the latter’s cultural heterodoxy. The dominant hip hop morality that emerged is defiantly divergent from the earlier stress on formal education and legitimate industry. Importantly, hip hop performance in Yoruba has evolved a protocol of social criticism that first presents itself as acquiescent and/or reprobate. Also, existing conceptualization of hip hop acts as hidden [or even public] transcripts is complicated by the novel strategy of mimicry now found in the Yoruba form.

Machine Replication of Human Perusing using Optical Character Recognition with Tesseract

Optical Character Recognition is the machine replication of human perusing. Electronic Conversion of examined pictures where picture can be type composed or printed content. It is executed utilizing Google's open source Optical Character Recognition programming called Tesseract. The OCR accepts picture as the information, gets content from that picture and afterward changes over it into whatever other language that the client needed. This framework can be helpful in different applications like banking, legitimate industry, explorers’ different ventures, and home and office robotization. It for the most part intended for individuals who are unfit to peruse any sort of content archives and to diminish the weight of information passage occupations.[4]

Distilling in the Cabrach, c. 1800–1850: The Illicit Origins of the Scotch Whisky Industry

This article challenges Devine's assumptions that clandestine whisky-making developed into a legitimate industry. The article argues that the 1820s distilling laws marked a key transition in the whisky industry. The illicit manufacture and trade of whisky in Highland Scotland was deliberately sundered to be supplanted by entrepreneurs and landowners, many of whom had supported or shaped the legislative developments, to legitimise their endeavour. In so doing, the direction of the whisky industry was changed with uneven social and economic consequences across the region, including consequential and coercive Highland depopulation, but which undoubtedly prompted a significant step forward in the quality, scale and reach of Scotch whisky. The article poses a series of key questions: was there continuity between smugglers and legal distilleries? How were legal distilleries founded and developed as businesses following 1823? What were the social and economic impacts of the 1822–3 legislation and the subsequent distilling industry on the Highland communities which distilled prior to 1822?

On the edges of the law: sex workers’ legal consciousness in England

AbstractIn England, sex workers are placed at the edges of the law. How the social and legal status of sex workers impacts on their perception of and interaction with the law in a semi-legal setting has not yet been explored. Drawing on fifty-two qualitative interviews with indoor and outdoor sex workers in England, this study investigates their disposition to the law, legality and the state. The commonalities and discrepancies between the experiences of indoor and outdoor sex workers reveal the influence of the combination of legal framework and social status on sex workers’ legal consciousness. This study finds that, even in a setting of semi-legality, sex workers attempt to avoid contact with state authorities. However, this aversion to the current law does not prevent them from making claims for legal change. Surprisingly, indoor and outdoor sex workers hold opposing views on the appropriate level of regulation and state involvement in the sex industry. Remarkably, although outdoor sex workers have more negative experiences with arbitrators of the law, they desire the law's protection. In contrast, indoor sex workers’ main grievance is for sex work to be a legitimate industry that can operate with only minimal state control. These differences in outdoor and indoor workers’ legal claims are explicable by sharp cleavages in social status, vulnerability and degree of criminalisation. These findings demonstrate that intra-group differences in the legal consciousness of marginalised groups are key to understanding the role of social and legal status in shaping legal claims.

A Study on the Impact of Regulatory Policy on the Gambling Industry in Korea

본 연구는 국내 사행산업에 대한 규제정책의 평등성, 형평성, 공정성에 대한 검토를 통해 사행산업간공동발전방향을 제시하려는 것이다. 사행산업들은 매년 사감위가 배분하는 매출총량 범위내에서상대방의 총량을 넘겨받으려는 식의 합법산업간 경쟁을 하는 사이 불법시장은 통제불능의 상태에놓여있다. 개별 사행산업들은 불법과 싸움하기보다는 사감위의 유병률에 의한 규제정책으로 인해체육진흥투표권(토토)와 복권은 급성장한 반면에 경마는 정체되고 있다. 헌법의 평등권 조항에 따라사행산업들은 평등한 대우(규제)가 이루어져야 한다. 규제가 불가피하더라도 타업종과의 형평성이보장되고 규제의 내용도 공정하게 이루어져야 한다. 따라서 합법산업간 제로섬게임(zero-sum game)경쟁을 벗어나 불법시장을 합법시장으로 끌어 들이도록 사감위의 정책 패러다임을 전환시켜야 한다. 이를 통해 사행산업자들은 ‘공공의 적’인 불법시장을 상대로 합법시장을 확대하는 공동의 목표를 향해 상생방안을 모색해야 한다.This study reviews equality, equity and fairness of regulatory policy for the gambling industry in Korea andthen provides guideline for a joint development plan. The legitimate gambling companies in Korea havebeen in a strong competition to take a large portion of the total revenue allocated by the NGCC while theillegal market is beyond control. Toto and Lottery has been dramatically expanding due to the NGCC’sregulatory policies whereas horse racing has been stagnant. It would be fair that all sectors in the gamblingindustry should be regulated equally in accordance with the equality provisions of the Constitution. It isargued that more efforts should be made to bring the illegal market into the light rather than to competefor a “zero-sum” game within the legitimate industry. It is critical for the gambling industry in Korea to expandthe legal market by directing demand away from illegal operators, “enemies of the public”.

Colloidal Gold Probe-Based Immunochromatographic Strip Assay for the Rapid Detection of Microbial Transglutaminase in Frozen Surimi

Adding microbial transglutaminase (MTGase) to frozen surimi to enable the surimi to be sold as a higher-grade product at a higher price defrauds surimi product manufacturers and undercuts legitimate industry prices. Therefore, it is important to develop an accurate method of detecting the presence of MTGase in surimi. In this study, an immunochromatographic strip assay with a colloidal gold antibody probe was successfully developed and used to rapidly and qualitatively detect MTGase in surimi samples. The results were obtained in less than 10 min. The limit for the qualitative detection of MTGase using the immunochromatographic strip assay was identified as 1.0 μg/mL. The results of the immunochromatographic strip analysis of frozen surimi samples were verified by comparison with the results of a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The colloidal gold probe-based immunochromatographic strip assay was thus found to be a rapid, economical, and user friendly method of detecting MTGase in surimi.

High Hopes: Studying the Emergence of the Legitimate Marijuana Industry

The emergence of a legitimate marijuana industry in the United States offers a unique opportunity to explore new theoretical questions in strategy, organizational theory and cognition and also to r...

Moving Forward From rhBMP-2

A few years ago, a storm of controversy not only called into question the safety of recombinant bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) [1], but also introduced an approach that addressed a fundamental weakness in the foundations of evidence-based medicine. Nearly half of all clinical trials are never published [2–4]; those that are often exclude important data and may face long delays to publication [5–6], and individual patient level data has rarely been available for re-analysis [7–8]. Moreover, financial conflicts of interest have been associated with actions that have had the potential to bias the conduct and dissemination of clinical research. All of these foundational weaknesses were at issue when a series of publications in the Spine Journal [1] suggested that the investigators behind the key publications supporting rhBMP-2 had significant financial conflicts of interest and that the published reports of these industry-sponsored studies may have incompletely reported important adverse events. In response to these concerns, Medtronic (Minneapolis, Minnesota) provided the Yale University Open Data Access (YODA) Project with the opportunity to apply its model [9–10] of data transparency and data stewardship to clarify the effectiveness and safety of rhBMP-2. This model entailed the oversight of two independent systematic reviews based on individual patient level data from all clinical trials conducted by Medtronic and the subsequent availability to scientists of the individual patient-level data from the trials. As part of this initiative, Medtronic fully granted jurisdiction over the data to the YODA Project and funded the effort. This project was conceived as a new type of industry-academic partnership to address the problem of unpublished and selectively published clinical evidence, with the hope of advancing open science, developing norms for good stewardship of clinical trial data, and serving patients and society, all while respecting legitimate industry concerns about the use of previously proprietary clinical trial data.

The Infiltration of Terrorist Organizations Into the Pharmaceutical Industry: Hezbollah as a Case Study

Criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations are inherently different, one motivated by profit and the other by political goals. Yet their difference enables them to cooperate for their mutual benefit. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the drug trade; from harvesting and trafficking in illegal substances, it has been an easy transition to counterfeiting and disseminating medications. Hezbollah, in particular, has become involved in the production, smuggling and distribution of counterfeit medications in North America, Africa and the Middle East as a means of raising immense sums of money to finance its terrorist activities. Hezbollah's infiltration into the pharmaceuticals industry illustrates the danger posed by the marriage of terrorism and crime, which arises both from enhanced resources for terrorism, and from the corruption of a legitimate and necessary industry. Understanding the nature and extent of this danger is the first step in preparing to meet it.

Tax Planning for Marijuana Dealers

In recent years, many states have legalized marijuana while the federal government continues to consider all marijuana sales and use illegal. But marijuana industry insiders consider not federal criminal law but federal tax law to be the biggest impediment to the development of a legitimate marijuana industry. State-sanctioned marijuana sellers are required to pay federal income taxes pursuant to § 280E, a formerly largely symbolic provision that Congress enacted to punish drug dealers, but which now could potentially drive legitimate marijuana sellers underground. This paper proposes a tax strategy that enables state-sanctioned marijuana sellers to avoid the impact of § 280E by qualifying as a tax-exempt organization. The IRS has already stated that a marijuana seller cannot be exempt under § 501(c)(3) because the so-called “public policy doctrine” does not permit a charity to have purposes that are contrary to law. This paper proposes that a state-sanctioned marijuana seller could qualify as tax-exempt under § 501(c)(4), since the public policy doctrine only applies to charities, and § 501(c)(4) organizations are not charities. The organization would have to be operated to improve the social and economic conditions of a neighborhood blighted by crime or poverty, by providing job training, employment opportunities, and improved business conditions for commercial development in the neighborhood, just like many existing community economic development corporations that run businesses. This novel argument is more than just a clever strategy – a “tax loophole” so to speak – to avoid the impact of § 280E. Rather, IRS recognition of tax-exempt status for marijuana sellers could actually provide a mechanism to resolve the federalism issues raised by the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. A federal policy that incentivizes marijuana sellers to be non-profit, neighborhood-based organizations whose primary purpose is improving the neighborhood in effect ties federal approval to local support. By following this policy, the IRS would promote state and local policy harmonization by permitting community-based nonprofits to sell marijuana, but only when local community groups favored it. This would surely be better for the IRS than its current role as a lightning rod of the conflict between state and federal policy objectives.

The mobility of criminal groups

This article reviews evidence from past research that addresses diverse themes and theories regarding shifts and patterns in the mobility of criminal groups. Our main objective is to identify push and pull factors that will help us understand how and why criminal groups, organisations or general organised crime patterns are present across a variety of settings (i.e. geographical locations, criminal markets and legitimate industries). Push factors refer to forces which drive criminal groups from a setting. Pull factors refer to forces which draw criminal groups to a setting. A distinction is also made between contexts in which offenders organise around available opportunities (the strategic context) and contexts in which opportunities induce greater organisational levels amongst offenders (the emergent context). The most general statement that can be formulated from the present exercise is that opportunities matter more than the group itself. What we demonstrate is that the problems concerning geographical locations, criminal markets and legitimate industries that are vulnerable to organised crime are persistent and stable over time. Groups that seize such opportunities, on the other hand, are transient and more than often short-lived. Aside from reviewing past research in search of such factors, we also apply the general understanding that emerges from our analysis to critically assess case studies that reflect popular images of organised crime threats in Canada during recent years. The concluding section identifies the key issues that must be addressed within this area.

Intellectual Property Crime: The Urgent Need for Global Attention

In the last couple of months I have spent considerable time with police officials in India. I am worried, very worried about the conversations I have had with them which were largely centred around the state of the informal economy, in which Intellectual Property (IP) crime plays a huge part. The most unsettling linkage is the one between the proceeds of IP crimes and terrorist activities. A senior police officer with whom I have had extensive discussions on the subject acknowledged some recent reports that many terrorist organisations now source their funding through IP crimes. According to him the terrorist outfits or organised criminal networks do not operate in a vacuum but very much in the real world. They need an interface with real commerce in order to fund their nefarious activities. These organisations are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are beginning to control the majority of IP crimes that are taking place, particularly in developing countries. The officer claims that in his state alone (India has 28 states) rampant music piracy results in a massive loss to the economy. He estimates that the size of the informal music sector is at least 12 times the size of legitimate industry. He does not stop there and quotes many more examples from fake designer goods to more serious instances, such as counterfeit drugs, food products and adulterated petrol, which have major health and safety implications. This analysis of the situation in India also applies to other high-growth countries as well as some Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Most global surveys however frequently cite the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations as the worst IP offenders. The BRIC economies are playing a major role in global economic growth and weak IP regimes in these countries are a cause of major concern for companies that sell products into these markets.

For and against the record industry: an introduction to bootleg collectors and tape traders

This paper offers an introduction to a distinct group of musical consumers: bootleg collectors and tape traders. It begins by defining the types of recording under discussion before outlining some of the discourse surrounding the collection of unauthorised recordings. Bootleg collectors and tape traders exist in a relationship of mutual distrust with the legitimate music industry: collectors view the industry as a barrier to musical experience while the industry views these collectors as at best a nuisance and at worst as having a detrimental impact upon official sales. The paper argues, however, that the relationship is in fact more complex. It shows that through an intensification of discourses of authenticity, collectors of unauthorised recordings actually provide ideological support for the recording industry, helping valorise musical commodities and thus maintain a dialectical relationship between collectors and the legitimate industry.

Jokers wild: legalized gambling in the twenty-first century

Introduction Where Are We Now? Gambling Today New Wine in Old Bottles Sin, Vice, and Gangsters Gambling as a Legitimate Industry The Dam Bursts: Indian Gambling and Gambling Vessels Gambling-Lotteries: State-Run Games of Chance The Web of Gambling Intellectualizing the Action: Why People Gamble Effects on Special Populations Effects on Communities Enter the Federal Commission Enough Is Enough Appendix A: Nature of the Industry Appendix B: NGISC Recommendations

The new pariahs: discourse on the tobacco industry in the Sydney press, 1993-97

ObjectiveTo review the principal subtexts contained in all press coverage and references to the tobacco industry in a major Sydney newspaper over five years. Method and sampleAfter excluding value-neutral financial page reports, thematic analysis of all value-laden references to the tobacco industry in the Sydney Morning Herald, January 1993 to December 1997. ResultsSome 155 articles containing 221 separate references to the tobacco industry were identified. Eight sub-texts (callous merchants of death; conspiracy/ cover-up; blood money; toxic pied pipers; corporate leviathans; beleaguered/ legitimate industry; index case of unethical or corrupt practice; and bumbling fools) accounted for all 221 references. Eighty-nine per cent of references to the industry framed it negatively. Journalists or regular newspaper columnists authored 56% of the references. Only 5% of comments were attributed to tobacco company sources. ConclusionsIn press reports, the tobacco industry is routinely framed as a corporate pariah by journalists, the public, government spokespeople and tobacco control advocates. ImplicationsRoutine negative publicity about the tobacco industry is likely to significantly reduce its public credibility and political influence.

Organized cross-atlantic crime

There is concern about penetration of organized crime in the legitimate business. This penetration can take various forms, ranging from a complete ‘take over’ to a veritable symbiosis between crime-enterprises and the legitimate industry. This paper describes the interaction between crime-enterprises in the mineral oil market in the Unites States and North-western Europe. It pictures the landscape or moral decay, lack of supervision by law enforcement and the spread of systematic fraud in a branch of industry which has become ripe for infiltration by organized crime. The paper reveals that organized business crime is not just a concern for the United States of Europe alone. If the entrepreneurial landscape has similar features and there are possibilities of personal bridgeheads organized business crime obtains crossborder, transatlantic dimensions. The paper questions the selective attention of law enforcement to easily recognizable crime and the morally dubious attitude of legitimate industry taking advantage of the profitable offers by criminal entrepreneurs.

Organized crime and business crime-enterprises in the Netherlands

This paper provides a description of organized fraud in the Netherlands on the basis of emprircal research. Organized crime is analysed within the framework of the enterprise theory, which considers criminal as entrepreneurs trading in forbidden goods or services. Large scale organized fraud crime-enterprises operated among others on the meat market, electronic equipment industry, toxic waste industry and the stock market. In most schemes they exploited the price wedge between the costprice and the price due to taxes and government regulations offering goods and services to a gacefully receiving legitimate industry. In the organized toxic waste scams the authorities are suspected to be heavily involved. Money-laundering operations were conducted either by the crime-enterprises themselves or by specialized firms. The research showed that some “branches” of business crime-enterprises have links with traditional drug trafficking enterprises.

Food additives and contaminants. An update.

Food additives continue to be a source of benefits to the consuming public but there are also perceived risks. Concern for the latter in the last decade has produced a society afflicted with cancer phobia. The intentional additives including sugars, salt, corn syrup, and dextrose make up 90% of the direct additives. These, along with a limited number of familiar items make up a large proportion of the remainder of the additives. Such common ingredients as nitrates and nitrites, solanine, cyanogenetic compounds, arsenic, etc., are unavoidably consumed in the diet and with little if any evidence for public health consequences. Major concern on the part of the public in recent years has been focused on man-made chemicals which are intentionally added to foods to enhance flavors and acceptability, nutrient value, shelf life and increased availability. These include food colors, nonnutritive and low-nutrient sweeteners, (saccharin, cyclamate, aspartame); antioxidants; and nitrites. Contaminants, sometimes incorrectly included in lists of food additives, present the greatest potential threat to public health. Such contaminants as mycotoxins, nitrosamines, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, among others, provide a continuing challenge to our regulatory agencies and to public health authorities. Evidence to date indicate that these responsible for food safety are doing an admirable job, and as a society, our food supply has never been better, or safer, and, as a population, we have never been healthier. Aside from contaminants, major concerns relate to an excess of good food and to obesity. These comments should not be taken to infer that we should relax our concern and surveillance; instead more concern and surveillance should be exerted toward those uncontrolled substances such as natural plant products and alleged natural nutrients, roots, herbs, etc., which are given much credit for positive health effects, without meeting the high standards of our legitimate food industry.

Management Policy and Practices in Modern Casino Operations

The prognosis for casino gaming is that it will emerge from the 1980s as a modern, generally well-managed, legitimate industry. These attributes contrast sharply with the legacy from the development years of legalized gaming in Nevada. Casino gaming is completing a stage in which modern management, marketing, and operating techniques are adopted and widely practiced. With half a dozen areas contemplating the legalization of casino gaming, the industry must overcome internal and external constraints that may affect its growth potential. Among the constraints are the development and motivation of employees as a marketing tool, as efficient workers, and as a corporate resource; refinement of management as fair and consistent; marketing as a creative, planned, and profit-oriented technique integrated into every aspect of a casino-hotel operation; the blending of the skills of the veteran casino operator and the corporate executive; and the legitimation throughout society of casino gaming. Depending upon how effectively these issues are addressed, the casino industry faces either unprecedented growth or relegation to pariah status.