Search results
1 – 10 of 12Jianjun Xu and Lanlan Cao
The purpose of this paper is to characterize the optimal ordering and allocation policy for a store replenishment decision in the context of an omnichannel retailer in a franchise…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to characterize the optimal ordering and allocation policy for a store replenishment decision in the context of an omnichannel retailer in a franchise network. The authors further show that a myopic policy is optimal, which circumvents the curse of dimensionality for the multi-period inventory model and help store managers optimize their decisions about the amount of inventory to stock for both online and offline demands and the percentage of inventory to reserve for online orders.
Design/methodology/approach
This research is trigged by several managerial studies which suggest reserving a certain percentage of the in-store inventory for online orders as a good store inventory allocation practice for omnichannel retailers in a franchise network. The authors used an analytical model to develop this practice by clarifying how store managers can decide on the amount of inventory to replenish and the percentage to reserve for online orders.
Findings
This study develops a finite horizon, periodic review inventory model to identify an optimal and dynamic replenishment and allocation policy. The analysis uncovers the system’s fundamental structural property concavity. The research shows that, due to this property, the optimal replenishment policy is a base-stock policy. The latter is due to the base stock level being independent of the initial inventory at hand, and the optimal allocation level being non-decreasing on the base-stock level.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the literature on store inventory management for omnichannel retailers in a franchise network by investigating their optimal store inventory ordering and allocation policy. Nevertheless, the zero-lead time and zero-setup cost assumptions limit the findings.
Practical implications
Insights into an optimal store inventory policy may guide franchisee store managers to decide on the amount of inventory to replenish and the percentage to reserve for online orders.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in its focus on in-store inventory management for omnichannel retailers in a franchise network. The findings are helpful for franchisor retailers to implement the omnichannel strategy at the level of in-store inventory management. Beyond using incentive systems, the franchisor should leverage legitimate powers by mentioning a relevant measure in their contracts with their franchisee to minimize their channel conflicts and ensure their customers have seamless shopping experiences.
Details
Keywords
This paper seeks to answer three questions about how retailers can benefit from AI. (1) What are the main strategies for retailers to improve their AI-related data management? (2…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to answer three questions about how retailers can benefit from AI. (1) What are the main strategies for retailers to improve their AI-related data management? (2) How do retailers use AI to provide solutions in business processes? (3) What are the value creation logics of AI applications in retail?
Design/methodology/approach
Data- and solution-centric perspectives, as well as the concept of value creation logics, serve to build the analytical framework. The grounded theory multiple-case analysis of 54 representative retailers' adoptions and implementations of AI between 2008 and 2018 help to investigate the firm's AI applications and value creation logics.
Findings
This study identifies five main strategies for AI-related data management and reveals 28 AI-powered solutions, changing 14 business processes, with five management areas involved in AI applications to create value via four logics: automation, hyper-personalization, complementarity and innovation.
Research limitations/implications
This paper advances the research into AI applications in business and management by providing research propositions with an integrative framework to understand how firms can use and benefit from AI. However, secondary data and exploratory study still limit the findings.
Practical implications
The findings provide retail managers with an analytical framework that can help them to develop a rationale for their strategic choices and best practices relating to the adoption and implementation of AI.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in its systematic examination of AI applications and value creations in retail. The findings provide managers with guidance, rational strategic choices and best practices to take action to embrace the great business opportunities created by AI technologies.
Details
Keywords
Aniket Sengupta and Lanlan Cao
This study investigates the role of an augmented reality (AR)-based tool in customers' shopping processes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the role of an augmented reality (AR)-based tool in customers' shopping processes.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) and consumer decision-making models, this study builds a comprehensive theoretical model that investigates the mechanism sequentially connected AR-enabled shopping tool and customer responses. Décor Matters was chosen as the AR-enabled mobile application for this study. Qualtrics, which conducted the survey, collected 150 responses in the USA. The authors used structural equation model to test the hypotheses.
Findings
This study enriches the retail-related AR theory by offering a holistic and structural view of the factors that connect customers' cognitive and affective internal processes with customers' shopping task. However, having used only one type of AR-enabled app in the study, the findings remain limited.
Research limitations/implications
This research advances the understanding of AR's role in the customer shopping process by validating the positive effect of immersion on purchase intention, as well as revealing the mediating effect of decision-making quality and the moderating effect of privacy concerns. However, as only one type of AR-enabled app was used in the study, the findings are still limited.
Practical implications
The findings can help retailers to understand why and how firms can benefit from investing in AR-enabled apps (i.e. by focussing on customer perceived immersion and decision-making quality with AR).
Originality/value
This study's originality lies in the SOR model's extension, which integrates the customer decision-making model, allowing for connecting customers' cognitive and affective internal experiences with their shopping task. The findings can help retail managers to understand more clearly and in-depth why and how AR works in customers' shopping process.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to explore children’s responses to store atmosphere, and the role of parent-child interaction in these responses.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore children’s responses to store atmosphere, and the role of parent-child interaction in these responses.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative study within two French stores and employed a grounded-theory approach to analyse data. Data were collected from 41 in-store observations and 20 in-depth interviews with children aged 7-11.
Findings
This research reveals that the impact of store atmospherics on children’s responses to store environment and on their behaviour in-store is a complex phenomenon. Children passively and actively respond to store atmosphere. They appropriate and re-appropriate store environment for their own goal of play. Store atmospherics may lead to positive outcomes in the form of children’s exploration of the store, desire to stay longer and intention to revisit. However, store atmosphere can also become the source of conflicts between parents and children, and therefore have a negative impact on children’s behaviour in-store.
Research limitations/implications
The study deepens the understanding of children’s responses to store atmosphere by taking account of parent-child interaction. It extends research on the effects of store atmosphere on children’s behaviour by suggesting the moderating effect of parent-child conflict. Nevertheless, the number of stores selected limits the findings.
Practical implications
The findings of this study enable retailers to improve the atmosphere of their stores by making it fun and creative in order to attract children to play there. Furthermore, the study provides interesting findings for retailers on how to overcome the challenge of inappropriate store atmosphere creating or aggravating parent-child conflict during shopping trips.
Social implications
The authors suggest solving conflicts between children and parents through common activities within the store or through interactive technologies that favour communication and enable children to learn through play.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in its focus on the role of parent-child interaction in children’s responses to store atmosphere. The authors intend to reveal the complicated relationship between store atmosphere, children’s responses and parent-child interaction in-store.
Details
Keywords
Lanlan Cao and Daniele Pederzoli
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment in emerging markets.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment in emerging markets.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on in‐depth interviews with top managers from a grounded‐theory perspective, the research provides a comprehensive analysis of the implications of the institutional environment for the strategic choices of international retailers in an emerging market, especially in China.
Findings
The international retailer's strategic choices are often identified as pragmatism, dynamism, public policy‐orientation, seeking lead position in the market and decentralization if the institutional distance between the home country and host country is high. Moreover, when international retailers can commit to cultivating local markets and creating shared added value, they are better able to respond proactively to an institutional environment that is geared to a collective social network and still in a phase of transition.
Research limitations/implications
This paper focuses on only one country, China.
Originality/value
The major value of this paper is to highlight the specificities of international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment of an emerging market. Attention to these specificities would enable researchers to analyze better the reality of retail internationalization process in an emerging market.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
The retail sector can benefit from the adoption of AI, boosting performance and gaining competitive advantage.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.
Details
Keywords
Guangling Zhang, Chenchen Liu and Hui Wang
Currently, the issues of cross-channel integration (CCI) have become the attentive focus. However, little research based on institutional theory details the drivers of and…
Abstract
Purpose
Currently, the issues of cross-channel integration (CCI) have become the attentive focus. However, little research based on institutional theory details the drivers of and obstacles to adopt CCI strategy. Combined with resource-based view (RBV) and institutional theory, this thesis studies the effect of institutional pressures on the manufactures' extent of CCI, through exploring the moderating effects of firm's technology competence and relationship governance capabilities on the relationship between institutional pressures and the extent of CCI.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey data of 249 valid research samples were obtained from Chinese manufacturing enterprises. Statistical software such as SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 18.0 was used to analyze the data and test the conceptual model and relevant research hypotheses from an empirical perspective.
Findings
The results of empirical study from 249 manufacturers indicate that the mimetic, coercive and normative pressures perceived by enterprises can significantly promote their extent of CCI; relationship governance capabilities attenuate the positive impact of mimetic pressures on the extent of CCI, but strengthen that of normative pressures on the extent of CCI; besides, technology competence can attenuate the positive effect of mimetic pressures on the extent of CCI, but enhance that of normative pressures on the extent of CCI.
Originality/value
Few studied the impact of the interaction of internal capabilities and external institutional pressures on CCI of enterprises. This study combines institutional theory and resource-based view to fill the theoretical gap in this regard.
Details
Keywords
Marta Frasquet, Xavier Brusset, Herbert Kotzab and Christoph Teller
Erdem Galipoglu, Herbert Kotzab, Christoph Teller, Isik Özge Yumurtaci Hüseyinoglu and Jens Pöppelbuß
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify, evaluate and structure the research that focusses on omni-channel retailing from the perspective of logistics and supply chain…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify, evaluate and structure the research that focusses on omni-channel retailing from the perspective of logistics and supply chain management; and to reveal the intellectual foundation of omni-channel retailing research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a multi-method approach by conducting a content-analysis-based literature review of 70 academic papers. Based on the reference lists of these papers, the authors performed a citation and co-citation analysis based on the 34 most frequently cited papers. This analysis included multidimensional scaling, a cluster analysis and factor analysis.
Findings
The study reveals the limited consideration of logistics and supply chain management literature in the foundation of the omni-channel retailing research. Further, the authors see a dominance of empirical research as compared to conceptual and analytical research. Overall, there is a focus on the Western retail context in this research field. The intellectual foundation is embedded in the marketing discipline and can be characterised as lacking a robust theoretical foundation.
Originality/value
The contribution of this research is identifying, evaluating and structuring the literature of omni-channel research and providing an overview of the state of the art of this research area considering its interdisciplinary nature. This paper thus supports researchers looking to holistically comprehend, prioritise and use the underpinning literature central to the phenomena of omni-channel retailing. For practitioners and academics alike, the findings can trigger and support future research and an evolving understanding of omni-channel retailing.
Details
Keywords
Kechen Lv, Xinyu Yang, Tangqing Wu, Song Xu, Lanlan Liu, Lin Sun and Xinming Wang
High-silicon chromium iron (HSCI) has been used in ground grids in southern China, while there was a lack of study on its corrosion behavior in this soil environment. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
High-silicon chromium iron (HSCI) has been used in ground grids in southern China, while there was a lack of study on its corrosion behavior in this soil environment. The purpose of this paper is to discover the corrosion of HSCI in acidic and alkaline soil solutions.
Design/methodology/approach
The original defects on the HSCI surface were observed using optical microscopy, and the corrosion behavior of the HSCI in the acidic and alkaline soil solutions were jointly detected using electrochemical measurements and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectrometer.
Findings
The results showed the corrosion rates of the HSCI in the acidic and alkaline soil solutions were limited, and the high contents of Cr and Si in matrix was responsible for its high corrosion resistance. The HSCI showed a similar corrosion tendency in the two solutions, while its corrosion rate in the acid soil solution was higher than that in the alkaline soil solution. The corrosion pits on the specimen surface were originated from the original defects in matrix, and the edges of the corrosion pits were more rounded than the original defects after 720 h immersion in the two solutions. The original defects in the HSCI matrix played a significant role in the corrosion process.
Originality/value
The paper discovered the corrosion evolution of HSCI in the acidic and alkaline soil solutions. What is more, the acceleration role of the original defects on the corrosion of the HSCI in the acidic and alkaline soil solutions was discovered in the paper. The results are beneficial for the material selection of ground grid equipment in engineering.
Details