This article proposes a comprehensive model for analyzing the environmental forces that affect channel length. The marketing literature regards channel length as a succinct, key measure of channel structure. Transactional cost analysis offers an integrative explanation of the seemingly contradictory phenomena and varied interpretations found in the channels literature. The central thesis of this article is that the developmental process alters the balance between performing channel tasks externally and internally and thereby channel structure. The article also interprets from a transactional cost perspective how selected cultural, political, and urban market concentration factors account for enduring differences in channel structure among nations at similar levels of development.
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