The foreign-market mode-fit screen
A market screen becomes a mode-fit decision only when common conditions, mode conditions, firm capability, commitment, learning, and validation are recorded together.
| Screen field | Question to answer | Level to declare | Next evidence or decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common market condition | What opportunity, constraint, or institutional fact applies across the candidate modes? | Dated external indicator and market boundary | Which condition is still unverified? |
| Mode-specific condition | What changes if the route is export, FDI, or another named mode? | Mode, variable, weight, and rationale | What mode-specific test could overturn the fit? |
| Firm capability | What can the firm deliver, govern, finance, or learn? | Firm and industry assumptions, not a country proxy | Which capability gap blocks the route? |
| Commitment and reversibility | What capital, control, time, and exit burden does the mode create? | Decision horizon and commitment boundary | What is the smallest reversible step? |
| Learning value | Which uncertainty is worth buying through the route? | Question, experiment, and owner | What observation would update the screen? |
| Validation signal | What later observation would support, narrow, or falsify the selection? | Outcome, comparison, date, and threshold rationale | Proceed, learn, constrain, or stop |
Swipe or scroll horizontally if the table is wider than your screen.
Reference & Evidence
Source: Author's decision screen grounded in Zhou, Gomes and Vendrell-Herrero (2025), Goodman (1972), and Waheeduzzaman (2008). The study's historical export and FDI illustration informs the separation of common and mode-specific fields; all screening labels and decision rules are author synthesis.
Each line is a claim from the register this journal publishes against, resolved from the register at build time.
- A Type III error is the paper's own coinage for the mismatch: "firms entering appropriate markets via an unsuitable entry mode", "termed herein as Type III error" zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C1 - A The two decisions are evaluated together: "our study proposes a novel IMS approach that simultaneously integrates market at"tractiveness and entry-mode suitability zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C2 - A The illustration, verbatim: "we evaluate 86 prospective international markets across 30 variables" zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C3 - A The weighting is the paper's configuration and not a rule: 20% common variables against 80% mode-related ones, in an illustration where "we evaluate 86 prospective international markets across 30 variables" zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C4 - A The 45-degree comparison and its measured spread: "the average distance between export and FDI among the 86 countries is 7.01", because "not all markets are analogous, that is, equally attractive for export and FDI" zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C5 - A The data boundary is the paper's own: the variables were collected "using the most recent available data, ranging from 2017 to 2021", and the illustration omits industry- and firm-level variables zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C6 - A The authors say the configuration is not transferable: "each firm can customize the criteria to align with their unique requirements" zhou-gomes-vendrell-herrero-2025-international-market-selection ·
ZGV25-C7 - B Goodman's own distinction: market potential is a measure "of an environmental state at a point in time (present or future)", whereas "sales forecasts are measures of expectation which are conditional upon inputs of the various marketing decision variables", and "it is usually necessary to rely on proxy data for most of the things a marketer would like to measure" Goodman. (1972) ·
MSB27-C1 - B The four criteria are the paper's own: Table 1 "provides an evaluation of the methods on the basis of four criteria, viz., precision, prediction, price, and pragmatism" Waheeduzzaman. (2008) ·
MSB27-C4
Grades: A, verified against the printed page of the primary source · B, primary source, text layer only · C, authoritative secondary · D, reported.