Search results

With expenditures totaling $227 billion in 2007, prescription drug purchases are a growing portion of the total medical expenditure, and as this industry continues to grow, prescription drugs will continue to be a critical part of the larger health care industry. This chapter presents a survey on the economics of the US pharmaceutical industry, with a focus on the role of R&D and marketing, the determinants (and complications) of prescription drug pricing, and various aspects of consumer behavior specific to this industry, such as prescription drug regulation, the patient's interaction with the physician, and insurance coverage. This chapter also provides background in areas not often considered in the economics literature, such as the role of pharmacy benefit managers in prescription drug prices and the differentiation between alternative measures of prescription drug prices.

The power and usefulness of perceived risk theory in understanding shoppers’ behaviour has been demonstrated many times over recent years in the UK by the numerous food scares. The article explores how retailers use perceived risk in their strategies and develops the links between store attributes and risk dimensions. This re‐interpretation of previous store‐image studies provides a new conceptual framework for understanding store image and deepens our knowledge of how risk and risk‐reduction are operationalised in practice. The paper also reviews some evidence on factors which affect shoppers’ risk perceptions, e.g. age, gender, group discussion, brand name and shopping channel and discusses how the risk concept can be used by food retailers as well as presenting some ideas for future research.

This study identifies those retailing strategies which have been successful in generating high profit performance in the UK. Findings are based upon information on the financial structure and marketing strategies of 88 major UK retailers. The first section identifies the key environmental developments of the later 1970s and appraises their impact on retailers. Second, the methods by which retailers have sought to adapt to these changes are outlined. Finally, a model is developed which distinguishes successful from unsuccessful retailing strategies and provides a methodology for evaluating alternative approaches to market positioning.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a robust examination of the factors that accelerate/decelerate the divestment timing of retail banners in international markets.

The sample represents 3,235 foreign market banner operations of 132 international retailers across 144 countries using an accelerated failure time (AFT) parametric survival modelling technique.

Banner divestment is accelerated by both weak financial performance and smaller size. Furthermore, there is a synergistic negative detriment to the combination of both factors on divestment. Banner divestment is decelerated by deploying the corporation’s dominant format in the home country. Moreover, inadequately performing dominant banners are allowed more time to turn around their operations than subpar non-dominant banners. Concurrently, when host country markets are growing, poorly performing dominant banners are given more time to improve performance. When home market performance weakens, smaller, poorly performing banner divestment is accelerated.

The large data set covers more than half of the world so the authors are limited to observing corporate divestments without the benefit of the managerial decision-making process. The authors only have access to divestment data in annual units, which limits the ability to provide precise timing information. Though the authors have a wide variation in country conditions, data on smaller, poorer countries and domestic competitors is limited.

Small, poorly performing retail chains in foreign markets are divested faster than their counterparts. When retailers internationalize with their dominant chains, management tends to give these banners more time to succeed than non-dominant counterparts. Evidence also suggests that managers hesitate to withdrawal from a foreign market when the dominant banner is involved, regardless of a chain’s stunted growth and subpar performance.

This study provides the first examination of factors driving the divestment times of international retail chains using rigorous empirical survival time methodologies.

Environmental dynamics affect all sectors, and retailing is no exception. Scholarships reveal that, in such turbulent times, entrepreneurial characteristics are essential for business. In academic research, entrepreneurial characteristics like entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and entrepreneurial competence (EC) are seldom evaluated for retailers. This study aims to decode the impact of small retailers’ EO and EC on firm business performance (BP). It also traces the mediation effect of EC in the relationship between EO and BP.

The study executed among 740 small retailers is a pioneering work to trace EO’s efficacy via EC on the retailer’s BP. The present research is a primal work in the Indian context. This work redesigns the EC scale to suit the retail context and evaluate its mediation role in the EO and BP relationship.

Examining the mediation model through structural equation modelling (SEM) adds empirical evidence to entrepreneurial value creation (EVC) theory and throws light on the indispensable qualities required for small business retailers. The outcomes of the SEM model portray that there is an association between the EO, EC and BP.

This study, though carried out methodically, it is constrained by the ensuing intricacies. The investigation was limited to the small- and medium-retailers engaged in retailing with a floor space from 500 to 5,000 square feet. All three constructs used in the study are measured using the self-reported perceptual scale, which infuses the subjectivity in the data. Exploring the EO and EC of widely dispersed retailers, examining the entrepreneurial character of large-format independent retailers and evaluating financial performance measures through retailers will add value to the study in future.

The study verified the central role of EC in the intangible resource-reward relationship. Among the five pillars of EVC theory, the role of intention and external finance are not considered in this work. The present work explored the EO and EC of existing retailers, and hence intention is excluded. The study concentrates on small retailers, and the role of external financing is not explored. Mishra and Zachary (2014b) opined that the EVC process should be studied in different context and listed out several prepositions. Considering the role of intention and external financing and studying several prepositions spelt out in the theory in varying contexts will throw more lights on the EVC process.

Outlines preliminary results from a survey into retail security methods employed by retailers in central Dundee, and forms part of ongoing research into retail crime in this city being undertaken on a joint basis by the University of Abertay Dundee, and Tayside Police. Considers it to be the first survey of this type undertaken at such a local level in the UK. Concentrates on the types of physical and procedural security method employed, their perceived effectiveness from a managerial viewpoint, and which of the alternative security methods retail managers would utilize if they were given a free choice by their employers.

Researchers have investigated the link between business strategy and performance, the process of resource acquisition and employment, and issues associated with strategy implementation. However, empirical investigations into the moderating or mediating effects of resource deployment and implementation in the strategy‐performance relationship have been lacking. Data analyzed in the present study lends support for the notion that the appropriate strategy should be aligned with specific resource competencies if the strategy is to be successful.

Safety precautions in the use of raw materials, in manufacturing and processing, marketing and enforcement of food and drug law on purity and quality may appear nowadays to be largely a matter of routine, with manufacturers as much involved and interested in maintaining a more or less settled equilibrium as the enforcement agencies. Occasionally the peace is shattered, eg, a search and recovery operation of canned goods of doubtful bacterial purity or containing excess metal contamination, seen very much as an isolated incident; or the recent very large enforcement enterprise in the marketing of horseflesh (and other substitutions) for beef. The nationwide sale and distribution of meat on such a vast scale, only possible by reason of marketing methods — frozen blocks of boneless meat, which even after thawing out is not easily distinguishable from the genuine even in the eye of the expert; this is in effect only a fraud always around in the long ago years built up into a massive illicit trade.

Increased market segmentation is likely to be an emerging trend in management education in Australia. To date management education has been “production oriented”, concentrating on functional areas such as accounting, marketing and human resource management. The formal, institutionalised management education industry has sought to turn out functional specialists (B. Com., B. Bus. (accounting)) or generalist managers (M.B.A., B. Bus. (management)) with an underlying assumption that these graduates will function effectively in any industry.

The article aims to focus on how information technology allows firms to deliver services by means of information kiosks.

A total of 22 exploratory in‐depth interviews were conducted with key informants in the retail and other sectors, in primarily Belgium or France. Subsequently, 14 hypotheses were developed that were tested by means of two exploratory surveys, one with 84 customers and one with nine retailers.

The findings suggest that information kiosks can be implemented successfully with up to three easy‐to‐use kiosks at the entrance of the mall or inside the store and, if retailers allow, internet access to a limited number of web sites. Retailers must keep their information centrally updated and relevant, and customers are not interested in ordering all kinds of products and services.

The study is limited by the number of respondents, both customers and retailers, and the way that the sample was taken across three different locations may not be truly representative.

The managerial implications are discussed in terms of advantages and disadvantages vis‐à‐vis the customers and the retailers. What customers want from an information kiosk should be examined so that an appropriate balance is struck between being customer‐ and technology‐led. It is also possible to look at ways that allow firms to communicate with their customers using automatic speech recognition and verification by voice.

Success factors for implementation of information kiosks have not previously been identified in the literature.