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This study aims to investigate affective commitment (ACS) and leader–member exchange (LMX) as resources mitigating against burnout and counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) in the hospitality sector, and examines the effect of zero-hour contracts on these relationships.

Through conservation of resources theory, this study tests a framework exploring ACS and LMX as resources against burnout and CWBs, using a data set of 260 frontline hospitality employees working in Ireland, considering zero-hour contracts as a moderator.

Findings indicate that burnout is associated with CWB, and ACS and LMX are resources against burnout and CWB. Furthermore, zero-hour contract perceptions moderate the resource effect of ACS and LMX. Yet, zero-hour contract perceptions do not moderate the relationship between burnout and CWB, indicating these employees may be caught in a resource-loss spiral.

This study proposes mechanisms to enhance resources against burnout, with specific strategies to support young employees who are more likely to experience burnout. As findings suggest unique negative impacts of burnout for employees on zero-hour contracts, this paper also provides guidance to support these vulnerable employees.

This study provides unique insights into hospitality employees’ ability to harness resources against burnout and CWB consequences of burnout. The results indicate that perceived precarity does not moderate these relationships, suggesting that burnout affects this cohort differently.

Despite repeated calls for research to explore the effects of the physical work environment on employees within the servicescape literature, gaps in knowledge remain. There is a need to understand the nature, influence and impact of environmental stimuli (e.g. music, colour) on employees. Extant research remains ambiguous on whether employees perceive individual stimuli within their work environment or perceive and interact with their physical work environment as a holistic experience. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental stimuli on employees within their physical work environment and the effect on their satisfaction and loyalty.

A two-stage approach was applied, with expert interviews followed by an employee survey which was analysed using structural equation modelling.

This research validates a holistic physical work environment construct, consisting of five dimensions: Colour & Design, Cleanliness & Odour, Music, Lighting and Layout. This study provides empirical evidence of the impact of environmental work stimuli on employee satisfaction, a relationship which is mediated by pleasure.

Firstly, this study examines the neglected side of servicescape research: employees. Secondly, the findings support the view that employees do not perceive individual elements of their physical work environment as distinct and separate elements but rather perceive, and interact with, their physical work environment as an integrated whole. Evidence of how environmental stimuli at work increase employee job satisfaction is a key takeaway for retail practitioners focussed on improving service experiences for all actors.

The effect of personality traits on impulse purchase is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how two such traits, shyness and sociability, impact on impulse buying tendency. Understanding drivers of impulse purchase, a significant source of retail sales, is important to succeed in the challenging environment that store-based retailers face.

A customer intercept approach was taken to collect 194 responses from two locations in a busy city centre shopping street in Dublin, Ireland, and the hypotheses were tested using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

Sociability has a significant positive effect on both affective and cognitive impulse buying tendencies whereas shyness has a positive effect on cognitive impulse buying tendencies only. Age was found to be a significant moderator of these effects.

This study uses an in vivo street-intercept approach and hence the results may differ for other data collection approaches. The lack of discriminant validity of the sub-scales for impulse buying tendencies has implications for future research.

The findings suggest that retailers should factor customers’ psychological traits into their decision making. Individuals with high levels of sociability and shyness are prone to buying on impulse but in different ways. Younger people are more likely to exhibit these behaviours.

This paper meets a need for research on how customers’ traits affect their impulse purchase tendencies, and offers retailers advice on how to attract and serve customers with these traits.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the effect of including the customer as a resource in efficiency measurement. Variations in counting the customer illustrate the different impacts on efficiency between a transactional and a relational approach to bank branch marketing.

The paper uses data envelopment analysis to analyse the efficiency of the branch network under consideration. This technique, while well established in the bank branch efficiency literature, is used here to gain insight into how relationship and transactional paradigms are affecting performance.

Although the average profile of the efficiency scores was similar, the scores of the individual branches differed greatly depending on how customers were counted. Some branches then can be typified as relationship oriented while others as transactions oriented bearing in mind that all branches have both remits.

Future research in efficiency measurement should include customers as a resource of the bank given the importance of them for the activity of co‐production. Careful consideration is required however of the method of accounting for these customers bearing in mind that different conceptualisations may significantly affect the efficiency score of the individual branches.

This paper sheds light on what is happening at branch level in a large network in the UK in terms of how transactions and relationship marketing approaches are affecting efficiency scores and the objectives of the branch. It also answers a call for research into organisations that simultaneously use relationship and transactions marketing.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the benefits delivered to traditional retailers from using shopping portals as their entry mechanism to the online trading environment. The paper also aims to highlight the possible drawbacks inherent in such an approach.

A case study approach was used with an online portal, combining documentary analysis and semi‐structured interviews, using a team‐based interviewing approach. This facilitated the development of a multi‐layered picture of the organisation.

Using a shopping portal delivers several benefits to traditional retailers in terms of marketing synergies, site traffic generation, access to web site management and fulfilment services, and the ability to offer customers a multi‐channel retailing experience. Drawbacks may include partner interdependence and turnover, restricted organisational learning and restricted delivery capabilities.

Highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of shopping portals generates guidelines that traditional retailers can consider to help them decide whether such portals are the right choice for their individual firm or not.

This paper expands the literature on the phenomenon of the online portal by demonstrating its potential as a mechanism for traditional retailers to engage in electronic retailing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the servicescape should be subsumed as a dimension within service quality conceptualizations or whether it is a unique construct in itself which precedes service quality evaluations and behavioral intentions. The authors both propose and operationalize this model and in doing so make a theoretical contribution by demonstrating how a delineation between these two constructs is necessary in order for theory to progress in this area.

A total of 355 customers were intercepted as they exited a retail store and surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The data were then analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the research hypotheses.

This paper finds that it is more appropriate to model the servicescape as a separate construct which precedes service quality thus highlighting a need for a demarcation to be made between these important constructs. In addition, the authors find that design is a significant contributor to behavioral intentions further confirming the necessity to manage service environments in order to generate repatronage behaviors.

Service providers should consider the influence of store environments in shaping service quality perceptions and their subsequent impact on behavioral intentions.

The paper adds to the existing literature by disentangling the complicated relationships between service environments, service quality and behavioral intentions. Furthermore, the findings indicate to practitioners which aspects of the servicescape require attention so as to maximize repatronage intentions.

On the basis of lessons gleaned from previous research into successful strategic marketing practices in times of both recession and growth, and in the face of an ongoing post-global financial crisis “hangover” characterised by unpredictable trading conditions both worldwide and in the Asia-Pacific region, the purpose of this paper is to provide insights and advice for marketing strategists within New Zealand’s manufacturing sector.

The inquiry is based on two point-in-time mail surveys, one during recessionary conditions and the other during favourable economic conditions, with similar samples of 427 and 272 New Zealand manufacturers, respectively. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS and sought to compare and contrast successful strategic marketing decision making between the two time-points.

The results confirm that, irrespective of prevailing economic circumstances, basic strategic marketing plays a pivotal role in facilitating the competitive success of New Zealand manufacturers. However, with the notable exception of three “evergreen” practices – targeting selected market segments, competing on the basis of value-to-the-customer, and finding new ways to do business – the results also suggest that different economic conditions otherwise necessitate quite different priorities for success at each stage of the strategic marketing decision-making process.

Due to relatively low-response rates, the extent to which the study samples are representative of the population under scrutiny remains unknown. Also, since an identical questionnaire was administered at two time-points ten years apart, differences in the respondents’ interpretation of certain questions and some of the marketing vocabulary and terminology used cannot be ruled out.

The research highlights the important contribution that strategic marketing makes to the achievement of competitive success in New Zealand’s manufacturing sector. It also identifies some of the underlying “key drivers” that best predict successful strategic marketing decision making in times of recession compared with growth, thereby indicating a number of key lessons for marketing strategists.

This study addresses a number of gaps in the empirical marketing literature. Although many previous studies have shown various strategic marketing activities to be critical to competitive success, few have examined it as a multi-step decision-making process and none have done so in the context of New Zealand manufacturing. Nor have previous studies sought to compare and contrast effective strategic marketing decision-making set against the background of contrasting economic circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the influence of individual risk preferences on the effectiveness of incentive pay schemes, by examining the link between individual effort and risk aversion in situations where outcome uncertainty multiplies with effort. Such “multiplicative noise” situations are common, occurring whenever payment is awarded per success rather than per attempt.

The paper develops a theoretical model which predicts a negative risk aversion-effort link under multiplicative noise without a performance target (PT), and a weaker negative link once the target is introduced. This model is then taken to the data from a lab experiment where participants were randomly assigned to a control group, which received fixed pay, and a treatment group, which received a piece rate awarded with a certain probability, with and without a PT. Risk aversion is measured with a menu of lottery choices offered at the end of the experiment.

Compared to their peers in the control group, the more risk-averse participants in the treatment group put in progressively less effort in the absence of a PT. The introduction of a PT substantially weakens this negative risk aversion-effort link, so that there are no more significant differences in performance between the more and the less risk averse.

The paper’s findings speak to the empirical puzzles of incentive pay schemes backfiring and of the proliferation of PTs. The negative risk aversion-effort link may be one reason behind the failure of incentive schemes to deliver improved performance, whereas the weakening of this link may be one justification for the existence of PTs.

In the multiplicative noise environments, managers should take their workers’ risk preferences into account when designing incentive pay schemes. A PT may be a useful motivational tool for the risk-averse workers who are more likely to under-perform.

The multiplicative noise environment has been largely overlooked by the existing literature, yet it is common in practice. An example is the work of a sales agent who receives a bonus per sales which succeeds with a certain probability after each customer contact. This paper is one of the first to model, and test experimentally, worker performance in this environment.

The purpose of this research is to study the relationship between the HR control system and organizational results, examining the moderating effect of uncertainty and HR risk behavior.

The study analyzes the relationship between HR control systems and organizational results introducing two major moderating variables as, uncertainty and risk behavior. The data used for this study comes from questionnaire responses by sales and human resource managers of 108 Spanish firms.

The empirical results show that these moderating variables have an influence on the success of the control system, but it can be stated that the control system has an independent impact on the organizational and sales force performance.

Small sample size and cross sectional study, and the use of subjective measures of company and HR performance are the main limitations of the work.

To make correct decisions about HR control systems, managers should assess their environment and the composition of the workforce. There is not a control system that is good for all situations.

An analysis was made of an important non‐executive employee group, as the sales force is, and addressed the important issue of control and performance while the literature is focused on management control systems. The study does not limit the performance measures only to company variables, displaying customer satisfaction and human resource performance factors.