Comparative marketing studies have been criticized for their low comparability. This article proposes a new, multidimensional definition for markets that seeks to remedy this weakness. A structural approach is adopted, and previous works on market structures are reviewed. The central task of the article is to synthesize these works to arrive at a definition, and the result is a compact framework for market definition along five dimensions. Propositions are derived that specify interrelationships among the five dimensions, and implications of the framework for comparative research are discussed.
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