Search results

The paper investigates firms' optimal pricing policies and green strategies in a dynamic green supply chain with consideration of different retail service strategies. The purpose of the paper is to address the following research questions: (1) What are the optimal pricing policies and green strategies of the dynamic decentralized supply chain with the competitive or supportive retail service? (2) How does the dynamic consumer's perception of green product affect these equilibrium solutions?

The paper establishes the dynamic game models and then derives a firm's instantaneous and steady-state feedback equilibrium solutions in three scenarios as follows: (1) the integrated supply chain; (2) the decentralized supply chain with competitive retail service and (3) the decentralized supply chain with supportive retail service. Finally, we conduct numerical analyses to compare the firm's instantaneous and steady-state equilibrium solutions and profit in the three scenarios.

The theoretical and numerical analysis results suggest that the supportive retail service is less inefficient than the competitive retail service in the decentralized supply chain and that the types of retail service have no influence on the green strategy. Moreover, a firm's myopia leads to lowering the greenness degree, retail service level and severe price competition, resulting in economic losses. Consumers’ initial perception of greenness degree determines whether the retailer should adopt the skimming pricing strategy or penetration pricing strategy. Furthermore, only when consumers’ perception of greenness degree is higher than a threshold, will the manufacturer produce green product with positive greenness degree.

This is one of few studies on the effect of different types of retail service on horizontal competition in green supply chain. The extension of the static study by adopting differential game approaches provides researchers with a deeper understanding of the application of retail service in green supply chain.

With the growing importance of service quality in Indian retail, it becomes critical for the retailers to identify the appropriate dimensions for their retail stores. In the process of evaluating service quality the decision maker is often faced with ambiguities due to the imprecise information gained from the respondents. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated fuzzy (fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to help the decision makers/retailers in practicing and judging the priorities of service quality strategies and accordingly benchmarking retail stores in Indian retail environment.

The study incorporated the five basic dimensions of Retail Service Quality Scale proposed by Dabholkar et al. (1996) and the FAHP approach to three leading apparel retail stores of a major city (Rourkela) of Orissa (an Indian state located in eastern part of the country) to determine the weights of criteria and sub-criteria of retail service quality.

The study identified that the dimensions, namely, personal interaction, physical aspects, reliability and policy are perceived as important by the Indian consumers. Merchandise and the store’s willingness to handle returns and exchanges emerge as the most influencing variable affecting the overall service quality of the store.

The study was restricted to a major city of Orissa and to three apparel stores. The results obtained may not be extrapolated to the country as a whole. The authors believe that the integrated approach of FAHP could be used by a variety of service industries to evaluate the service quality. The study did not investigate switching behavior among the respondents as they had been visiting all the three apparel stores during the preceding months.

The integrated approach of FAHP makes an empirical contribution to the service quality and retail marketing literature by overcoming the uncertainty of concepts those are associated with human beings’ subjective judgments.

The retailer can improve the quality of service provided by them based on the parameters important in Indian context, which will lead to higher customer satisfaction.

This paper can help the retail service providers to identify which of the retail service quality dimensions requires much attention to create sustainable competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate which dimension of salespersons' service quality is of most importance for customer loyalty in a fashion chain stores setting. It also aims to assess the effects of two retail environmental factors (price level and customers' demographic variables) on the customer loyalty of salespersons service quality.

The study uses the SERVQUAL service quality instrument with modification in measuring the salespersons' service quality in the Hong Kong fashion retail environment. In order to measure customer loyalty in fashion chain stores, multi‐item measures were used to collect data on repatronage intentions, word‐of‐mouth intentions, and satisfaction. A total of 232 surveys were administrated to shoppers who were leaving a fashion chain store in Hong Kong.

The results showed that the empathy dimension of salesperson service quality is the most important for customer loyalty in Hong Kong's fashion chain stores but the empathy dimension of salespersons' service quality in fashion retail stores could not be affected by these two retail environmental factors. Furthermore, the salespersons' service quality in the reliability dimension is significantly impacted by the customers' demographic characteristics, but not by price level set by fashion chain stores.

The study was carried out in four popular retail districts of Hong Kong and the results obtained may not be generalized to the country as a whole. The findings that are relevant in a fashion retail setting may not applicable in other retail environments.

The findings can direct fashion retailers to improve the specific service dimensions and work to provide customers with more value through services which will consequently improve internal and external standards of quality and performances in fashion retail settings, thus bringing about repeat customers and increased profitability.

Spanish retail banking can be considered largely representative of retail banking in other developed European countries. The transformations in the Spanish retail banking system since the 1960s, especially the shift in emphasis from production to delivery/sales, brought about by a combination of technological change, heightened competition and increased client sophistication, are analysed from the point of view of their effect on the tasks carried out by front‐desk staff and the skills required to carry out those tasks. The changes in the prevailing culture of front‐desk staff is also discussed. It is concluded that the attempt to change the mentality, or culture, of front‐desk staff from that of “clerks” to that of “salespeople” is unnecessary. Rather, they should be thought of as “salesclerks”, and their culture should be client‐centred rather than sales‐centred.

In this article the authors report the results of a study of use of automated teller machines (ATMs) in Canada. A total of 255 users and non‐users were interviewed regarding their use of ATMs, shopping motivations, attitudes towards and familiarity with technology, age, education and employment status. Discriminant analysis revealed that convenience shopping orientation, attitudes towards ATM technology, social shopping orientation, familiarity with other new technologies and education were very good predictors of ATM use and non‐use. Implications for developing ATM marketing strategy are given.

The convenience of online shopping enables the manufacturer to develop direct channels. To counter manufacturer encroachment, the retailer tends to provide presale service to attract more customers. Meanwhile, the service provided by the retailer also has a positive impact on the manufacturer's sale volume, which is usually called the showrooming effect or free-ride. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic game of pricing and service strategy in a dual-channel supply chain with risk attitudes and free-ride.

This paper considers the risk attitude, characterized by mean-variance theory. First, the optimal pricing and service strategy of two static models under two scenarios are derived. Second, dynamic games are then considered to explore the evolution of the decisions. The classical optimization method is used to solve the problem, and numerical experiments are done to analyze the complex characteristic of the system.

The result shows that the retailer is willing to provide a higher level of service if his risk preference is higher. The offline retail price and online retail price are positively related to the retailer's risk preference. Besides, the free-ride behavior can reduce the offline retail price and the level of service provided by the retailer. Furthermore, the study indicates that the system is more likely to enter chaos if the retailer's risk preference is higher. Additionally, consumers' service sensitivity and cost coefficient affect the stability of the system.

The study provides a different perspective on supply chain management considering risk attitudes and free-ride The findings of the study can offer theoretical and practical guidance for enterprises to choose adjustment measures according to their risk preference.

Skilled graduates delivered through vocational programmes are critical to ensure the future growth of emerging economies. This study explored students' reflections and experiences of online teaching and learning (T&L) during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. The study specifically focused on the transferable skills students acquired and their relevance to working in the local retail and hospitality industries.

Following a case study research design, this study retrospectively delved into the multi-perspectives of students enrolled in vocational programmes. A total of 145 students completed reflective questions via a Qualtrics link regarding the topic in question. Student reflections were grouped and analysed for recurring themes using Atlas.ti. Through thematic analysis, two topical themes emerged related to transferable skills development and the usefulness of skills for future work.

The findings suggest that although students had to rely on online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, they still developed vital transferable skills, including communication, teamwork, organisational, self-management, flexibility, technology, metacognition and problem-solving.

The findings offer valuable input into planning and developing student-centric online courses to facilitate the development of desired transferable skills. Findings could also guide best T&L practices regarding how education and training across digital platforms could be used to ensure that graduates are prepared to navigate the future complexities of working in ever-changing globalised industries.

This study provides new insights into the evolution of T&L and how unexpected situations could provide an opportunity to hone desired skills and prepare students for employment and the 21st century workplace.

This paper reports on a programme of research in the UK aimed at examining the role of mystery shopping in the measurement and management of service quality. The research focused on the views of the senior managers responsible for commissioning mystery shopping research and the directors of market research agencies responsible for the provision of such research. The research findings identify the main uses of mystery shopping in the UK and the methods used to maximise the reliability of the technique. The study also discovers that organisations rarely integrate mystery shopping results with other measures of service delivery performance.

Sound lending procedures in retail financial institutions involve identifying high‐risk applicants, modifying loan conditions such as security requirements, and monitoring repayments post‐loan approval. For managers of credit unions, this procedure is complicated by the need to achieve balance between the institution’s social objective of improving loan accessibility so members can attain lifestyle goals and the possibility of reducing the institution’s viability through loan default. The results of our survey of Australian credit unions, in which 70 per cent of respondents reported experiencing some bankruptcy‐related default on personal loans, indicate managers do not impose more stringent lending conditions on high‐risk borrowers. However, social and viability objectives could be better balanced through careful loan monitoring and timely arrears practices.

The growth in women’s entrepreneurship that has been witnessed recently in regions such as the USA has been lauded by scholars and policymakers alike. However, women continue to start businesses in sectors that reflect the kind of work that women do in the home, such as cooking, cleaning and catering. Research shows that women’s ‘choices’ for female-typed businesses are driven by their need to accommodate domestic responsibilities – that is, caring for children. This raises questions about whether women without such responsibilities are freer to start businesses in the types of industries (e.g. high technology) that have long been dominated by men. Furthermore, given pronatalist assumptions, there are questions about the extent to which childfree women operating businesses in male-dominated sectors are perceived as legitimate by their business relations. Taking these questions as a starting point, this chapter examines the way in which the intersections of parental status (mother/other) and gender role (in)congruence (congruent/incongruent) make the entrepreneurial experiences of women working in male-dominated/masculinised industries and sectors qualitatively different from the experiences of women working in female-dominated/feminised industries. Focus is upon the resources (i.e. social capital) that women entrepreneurs are able to secure from their social network, for the ability to secure such resources is a prerequisite to business success.