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Retailers are using the term retail theatre (theater) to imply a service offer that is different and special. An important component of the offer is an increased opportunity for consumers to interact and participate within the overall experience. This article compares consumer participation in retail theatre with audience participation in actual theatre. It draws on ideas from Bertolt Brecht, a playwright who is widely recognised for his application of radical and innovative methods to engage his audiences in all aspects of a performance. A detailed examination of Brecht’s methods is structured around his management and development of the roles and performances of actors, his techniques for providing planned opportunities for audiences to influence performances, and his arrangement of staging and mechanics to stimulate audience participation. Implications for retailers, of the comparison, relate to both human resource management and operational considerations, and challenge conventional practice. It is advocated that the actual theatre is a rich source of ideas for retailers wishing to offer different and engaging “experiences” to consumers.

The paper aims to describe the role and effects of carnosine and β-alanine on exercise.

The review includes the most updated studies found in Pub-Med all of which are in relation to carnosine and β-alanine on exercise performance.

The use of β-alanine in recent research has shown to increase muscle carnosine concentrations in as short as two weeks, with increasing levels with longer supplementation periods. Although there is strong support that β-alanine supplementation during training possesses ergogenic value, the specific mechanism of action and ergogenic value remains to be fully examined.

The paper gives information to nutritionists, clinical dietitians and sports nutritionists on the newest data about the role and effects of carnosine and β-alanine on exercise performance.

Proposes responding to earlier calls for further research into “fraudulent” or “feigned” customer complaints, and providing insights which explore and describe the motivations and forms of such deliberate “illegitimate” customer complaints.

Critical incident technique was utilized in analyzing 104 interviews with customers who had knowingly made an illegitimate complaint within the six months prior to the interview. Data collection stopped at the point of theoretical saturation and was subsequently analyzed according to the coding procedures advocated by Strauss and Corbin (open, axial and selective coding).

Two key insights emerged from data analysis. First, coding procedures revealed four distinct forms of customer complainants. These are labeled; “one‐off complainants”, “opportunistic complainants”, “conditioned complainants”, and “professional complainants”. Second, six main motives for articulating fraudulent complaints were uncovered during data analysis. These are termed; “freeloaders”, “fraudulent returners”, “fault transferors”, “solitary ego gains”, “peer‐induced esteem seekers”, and “disruptive gains”.

The study is constrained by its exploratory design and qualitative methods employed. Subsequently, future studies could employ survey methods to improve empirical generalizability. Future studies could adopt a more inclusive approach and incorporate insights from employees, managers, and other relevant actors within service encounters.

Practical implications highlighted by the study include a need for businesses to examine and, in many cases, reevaluate their personnel training, customer complaint and service recovery procedures. Furthermore, managers may wish to enforce mechanisms wherein customer complaints are monitored and tracked in a manner that assists in the identification and challenging of re‐offending fraudulent complainers.

The study constitutes the first systematic attempt to explore and describe illegitimate customer complaining behaviors.

Proposes exploring the opportunities for reciprocal learning between the fields of crisis management and services marketing, and stimulating research on crises experienced by service organisations through the adoption of an interdisciplinary approach.

Initially, an overview and summary are given of a crisis management approach by organisations, in order to demonstrate the contrast between the research perspectives adopted in the fields of crisis management and services marketing. To demonstrate the potential for reciprocal learning, a key construct from each field is identified and its potential contribution to learning in the other field is critically evaluated.

The comparison between the approaches of crisis management and services marketing highlights that a concentration, in services marketing, on service failures and recoveries at individual service encounters draws attention away from the “bigger picture” and the multiple stakeholder roles that may trigger a crisis and, while a crisis management approach acknowledges customers as key stakeholders in a crisis, it fails to give enough attention to the roles adopted by customers in service organisations, especially through customer participation in service production.

The selection of one construct from each field is a limitation in itself, and the suggestions for further research are not exhaustive. The paper should stimulate new direction in services research.

The interdisciplinary approach has provided implications for both services marketers and crisis managers.

The paper is breaking new ground by linking the disciplines of services marketing and crisis management as a means of furthering an understanding of crises experienced by service organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the economic impact of an employee internet management (EIM) system.

The paper reviews previous research on economic justification. It implements an EIM system, sniffer, and firewall to monitor real‐time sessions and to record blocked attempts.

The study finds that management may introduce an EIM system as a productivity control tool and bandwidth management tool.

Impacts of backlash were measured by qualitative questionnaires, so there was a possibility of some aberration. Partial elements limited to monetary factors are used among the various economic factors.

The paper proves that the overall impact of an EIM system has a positive value because filtering mechanisms cause users to lose access to few URLs containing useful information, saves users from various risk points and enhances labor productivity.

The study suggests the impact factors and measurement methods to justify the economic values of an EIM system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how offline brand trust moderates: the relationship between consumers' general attitude toward the internet and their perceptions of the quality of a retailer's web site and the relationship between their perceived web site quality and intention to shop from the web site.

Two hundred young female consumers participate in the study. Each selected one of three pre‐determined apparel retailer brands that she has either had experience with or are familiar with. Participants are then asked to keep their selected retailer in mind when completing an online questionnaire. They are also asked to browse the retailer's web site in search of a shirt or blouse. Factor and multiple‐regression analyses are conducted to test hypotheses.

Offline brand trust exerted a significant moderating effect in the relationship between the efficiency factor of attitude toward the internet and the usability and information quality factor of web site quality. Offline brand trust also played a moderating role in the relationship between the interactivity factor of web site quality and online shopping intention. Implications for multi‐channel apparel retailers are discussed.

While a great deal of research has been conducted to study brand trust, most has focused on product brands not on retail brands. Furthermore, none of the studies on brand trust has questioned nor investigated the moderating role of retail brand trust in the relationship between consumer characteristics and their attitudes and behaviors toward the company's new business format. This paper seeks to contribute to the extant literature on brand trust and multi‐channel retailing by exploring the role of offline brand trust in shopping at a multi‐channel retailer's web site.

The first objective of the study was to identify and classify product‐related information that customers expect to receive in interpersonal encounters with employees in a given retail environment. The second objective of the study was to compare the “ability” of both service employees and customers to provide the required information. The third objective was to identify characteristics of customers that differentiate them in terms of their role as on‐site information providers. The study was carried out by questionnaires conducted inside a DIY store. Findings suggest that customers should be encouraged to perform the role of on‐site information providers, responding to other customers’ requests for product‐related information.

Observable oral participation (OOP) of customers, in the service delivery system in general and in a store format retail setting in particular, occurs in many forms and frequencies. Focusses on customer‐to‐customer observable oral participation (OOP2), studied in relation to the more frequently researched customer‐employee observable oral participation (OOP1). From a study of the literature, and through a controlled customer survey at a retail store, findings clearly demonstrate customer reliance on person‐to‐person encounters, even in a predominantly self‐service environment, and identify the characteristics of customers more likely to engage in OOP2. Service providers devote little attention to OOP2 (compared to OOP1) in service delivery. However, OOP2 is a form of word‐of‐mouth which can be observed and, therefore, measured and managed, and customers are arguably a neglected human resource for a service organization. With this in mind, discusses implications for service encounter and human resource management.

Explores observable oral participation (OOP) of customers at the front stage of the service delivery system within a retail store setting. Spoken interactions between a customer and a sales assistant are denoted as OOP1, and those between one customer and another as OOP2. The respective front stage roles of customers and sales assistants are examined through an analysis of the content of OOP1 and OOP2 as described by a large sample of customers of a particular store. A process and structure of classification of OOP1 and OOP2 interactions is described and proposed. Results show that, while overall patterns of OOP1 and OOP2 activities are significantly different, the proportion of products‐related interactions for each is very similar. OOP2 interactions were predominantly positive and there is evidence that, for some customers, product‐related conversations with other customers replace or reinforce those with sales assistants. Discusses the actual roles enacted by persons at the front stage in the context of the management of the service encounter.