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The purpose of this paper is to explore how gender identity is played out in a particular type of work setting, that of charity retail, and to explore the impacts of increased managerialism on this process of identity construction.

The paper is informed by interviews with 22 charity shop managers from three UK cities. The narratives of three of these managers are chosen for more in‐depth analysis. The paper focuses primarily on understandings of identity as practised, exploring the enactment of a series of conflicting and overlapping “selves” in the workplace. The practices and discourses surrounding the retail (or businesslike) self, the charitable self and the caring self in particular are discussed.

It was found that the process of creeping managerialism in the sector both values and promotes the discourses of “retail” but marginalises those of “charity and of care”. This presents serious dilemmas of identity for charity shop managers and is a source of considerable stress for them. However, it was also found that managers were using the discourses of charity and of care to resist this managerial process. Attention was paid to the ways in which gendered identities are constrained and enabled by and through the discourses circulating in organisational life. Presents a series of observations concerning the future possibilities that retail work in particular might offer for identity construction.

The analysis is based on a small sample of qualitative interviews, therefore the findings are not meant to be generalisable to the wider population. This “vignette” approach allows us to explore in some depth the relations between identity construction and organisational context.

Empirical paper using an alternative lens to analyse gender identity and the impacts of increasing managerialism on processes of identity construction. Highlights in particular the continual struggles over meaning within organisations.

Explores the development of the charity retailing sector in the past decade. Examines the role of charity shops in their local communities. Provides some suggestions as to the likely future of the sector.

The charity retail format has experienced significant growth over the last 30 years to a situation where charity shops have now become a taken for granted feature of local high streets across the UK. Traditionally charity shops have played an important service role in their local communities by providing low cost goods and employing voluntary staff. However, alongside the growth of the sector, charities have become increasingly professional in their approach to managing their shops. Changes include the introduction of paid managers and shop assistants and an overall ’‘trading up” of the charity retail environment. This paper explores in detail this professionalisation of the charity retail sector. It then examines the impact of this professionalisation on the role of charity shops in their local communities and speculate on the likely future for charity retail in this context.

Charity shops have met a number of challenges in light of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper aims to explore the economic and social impact of charity shops and reviews the transformative impact they have on place, the experience of place and the social environment.

The paper conducts a review of the extant literature in the field of charity shop retail. Considering the issues that are raised, the article proceeds to discuss the opportunities that arise for place marketing efforts and charity shops in the retail environment, the wider sector, the high street and as a positive, key component of place(s).

The paper provides novel sectorial insights and recommendations that can be adopted by charity retail outlets. This includes discussion on transformative place marketing, the experience of place and the charity shop’ role in the social environment beyond the existing references to charity shops in place(s) and the high street.

Charity shops play a vital role in society and yet they are an under researched field. The paper contributes knowledge on the role of charity shops in transforming and experiencing place. The paper concludes with observations made from the discussion on charity shops, and states areas for future research regarding the role of the charity shop and place marketing, place identity and transformation.

Little attention has been paid to the evolution of charity retailing. A recent upturn in interest results from an increase in the number of charity shops in operation and their increasingly professional management. Charity retailing has expanded and developed over the past decade and the rapid expansion in numbers in the 1980s has heightened interest in them, although they do not feature as a sector in their own right in retail statistics. Explores the development of charity shops and suggests a three‐fold category classification. The definition of charity trading relies largely on the mix of the merchandise being sold and this mix determines the three categories of charity retailing. The classification highlights trading implications of technology and competition which in turn affect volunteers, customers, other charities and established retailers alike.

Humanitarian relief organisations such as charities count on donations to provide assistance to people in need when disasters occur. In the UK, about 11,200 charity shops collect second-hand goods from donors to raise funds for their parent charity to support target beneficiaries. As their numbers increase, charity shops are finding it difficult to secure good quality stock. Furthermore, they may need to plan ahead to secure sufficient stock when the economy experiences a downturn. This paper identifies the charity shop's role and its donation flow in the multi-tier supply chain and empirically assesses the barriers that influence intention to donate with a mixed-methods approach.

In order to explore the charity shop's role within the multi-tier supply chain, this study begins with a literature review and then develops a conceptual model. In order to empirically evaluate the barriers that influence intention to donate, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 14 charity shop managers and collected 222 usable questionnaires from donors. The interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach was applied to examine the interrelationship among barriers and rank their priority.

This paper identifies ten significant barriers that influence intention to donate: lack of good quality items for donation; lack of information on how charity shops make use of donations; lack of familiarity with the donation process; lack of information of what items can be accepted by charity shops; lack of awareness of the impact that donations make; the difficulty of being available at the scheduled times for charity shops' free pick-up services; the difficulty of donating during shops' opening hours; the difficulty of finding parking to access charity shops; and living too far away from charity shops. In particular, the questionnaires' results indicate that lack of good quality items is the most significant barrier. This is also reflected in the ISM model, and thus needs more attention.

The results are very useful for charity shops themselves to understand current barriers to securing good quality stock and to develop potential stock-securing interventions based on these barriers' priority.

Although charity shops have been investigated by several researchers, their supply chain remains insufficiently explored. This paper fills this gap by identifying the charity shop's role and its donation flow in the supply chain and by empirically assessing the supply-side barriers with a mixed-methods approach.

This paper extends the debate on gender and career choice using the case study of managers in charity shops in the UK, a group that have previously not been researched. The charity retail sector has undergone considerable change over the last few years, particularly in its effort to professionalize. As a result shop managers' positions have changed from being voluntary to paid. With the changes taking place in the sector, the purpose of this research was to explore the views of current charity shop managers with regard to their career choice and career development issues.

The methodological approach taken to the research was qualitative and used a series of in‐depth interviews with 22 shop managers.

The research found that charity retail management serves an important purpose for many women in the transition from the home to working environment. It provides the balance necessary to effectively combine the multiple role demands between personal and professional lives. Career success for these managers was less to do with occupational status or income, but encompassed the satisfaction, autonomy, challenge and self‐fulfillment the job presented them. As such, the majority had little interest in progressing their careers linearly but were contented with other forms of career development.

Being an exploratory study, the results are not generalisable to the population. A quantitative research methodology could be utilized to test the findings of this paper and enable researchers to draw firmer conclusions.

The findings of this research may aid recruitment and selection practices for the future recruitment and development of charity shop managers.

This paper seeks to evaluate the particular conditions informing locational decision making and related network planning in the charity retail sector. Its purpose is to identify both differences and commonalities with related debates that have been focussed very largely on the grocery sector and the superstore format. Its wider purpose is to contribute to the growing literature on charity retailing which has not considered this aspect of retail management in detail.

Details the particularities of charity retailing locational decision making and network planning through a detailed case‐study consideration of a hospice charity's emerging retail store network.

Finds that existing conceptual and practical considerations pertaining to locational decision making in retailing require a nuanced re‐revaluation in relation to the locational and network planning of charity retailers. Identifies the importance of supply chain (stock donators) and workforce factors together with the customer demand in informing locational decision making.

Detailed academic consideration of location planning in the charity shop sector is absent in the literature. The paper addresses this.

Buying secondhand clothing is not only interesting for consumers wanting to save money but also for sustainable clothing enthusiasts. It is now among a number of consumption practices which slow down fast fashion production while saving 10 to 20 times the energy (Fletcher, 2008, p. 100). While most of the recent scholarly work focuses on secondhand consumers (Bianchi & Birtwistle, 2010; Franklin, 2011; Norum, 2015), this paper aims to examine business activities. This perspective from economic anthropology enhances understandings of secondhand clothing, as research to-date has tended to neglect the semiotic function of clothing while underlining exchanges. To gain insight into the dynamics of the sector in Germany today, two businesses from Hamburg have been ethnographically examined by the author since 2014. This study outlines their work practices and explains the development of this high-end segment of the market from the 1970s until the digital age. For businesses, the digitalization of the trade has had massive effects on their business practice because it seems to solve inherent problems connected to the selling of pre-owned clothing. I argue that the digitalization did not only promote acceptance of buying secondhand clothing in Germany but also the emergence of new businesses models.

The study aims to examine whether and how second-hand clothing shoppers differ from non-shoppers on various psychographic variables, including environmentalism, perception of contamination, price sensitivity and perception of vintage clothing. Additionally, this study hopes to uncover whether and how the aforementioned psychographic variables help predict second-hand clothing shopping behaviour, specifically shopping frequency at second-hand clothing stores.

Data were collected through a survey method from 152 college students.

Results showed that college students who shopped at second-hand clothing stores were more likely to be environmentally conscious, more sensitive to higher prices and more likely to wear used clothing to express a vintage look and to be “green”, and to perceive used clothing to be less contaminated, as compared to those who did not shop at second-hand clothing stores. This study concluded that, among college students, second-hand clothing shoppers may do so not only for economic reasons but also for creation of style and feeling special about themselves.

This study suggests that college students who shop at second-hand clothing stores are different from those who do not shop at second-hand stores in terms of their environmental attitudes, perceptions of contamination from used clothing, sensitivity to prices and how they feel about vintage clothing. Further, financial concern (i.e. price sensitivity) is no longer the only reason for second-hand clothing shopping.

Little research has been conducted to understand second-hand clothing shopping behaviour among college students. This study examined multiple psychographic variables and provided insights into college students’ second-hand shopping behaviour.