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This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the literature addressing blockchain technology (BT) in general management and economics (GME).

A systematic literature review methodology is used to collect and analyze the literature.

Three clusters of research are identified, namely, law, economy and innovation. The use of BT in law areas fosters the registration of intellectual property (IP) rights, although conflict between some of BT applications and regulatory frameworks is present. Research on cryptocurrencies is of high interest to the economy today. In the innovation cluster, BT improves security, traceability and transparency in operations over supply chains. However, BT has many technical imperfections that hinder its wide adoption. Furthermore, the need for the full commitment of all business actors complicates its implementation. Research on BT is still at a nascent stage. Conceptual papers dominate the literature (18 theories are discussed). Eight main future research directions are described. For example, the relationship between the use of BT in supply chains and competitive advantage is not established; and quality standards for BT platforms are not developed.

The review is restricted to academic journals in the fields of GME, which limits the extent of the conclusions.

The paper synthesizes 47 studies published in academic journals, avoiding misleading claims and inaccurate information insofar as possible; and provides a spectrum of descriptive statistics and qualitative meta-synthesis analysis of the current literature.

The purpose of this paper is to study the optimal pricing problem that retailers are challenged with when dealing with seasonal products. The friction between expected demand and realized demand creates a risk that supply during the season is not cleared, thus forcing the retailer to markdown overstocked supply.

The authors propose a framework based on a Cox regression analysis to determine optimal markdown paths. They illustrate this framework by a case study on a large department store.

The framework allows one to determine when and how much to markdown in order to optimize expected total profit given the available supply. When the law of demand holds at a disaggregated level, i.e. the individual retailer, it is also possible to optimize the markdown path.

This paper provides a framework for the complex dynamic pricing problem in retail using transactional data. The case study shows that significant revenues can be generated when applying this framework.

This paper aims to evaluate the results of an empirical research whose objective was the analysis of the impact of the actual economic crisis on the expectations, preferences and attitudes of the Hungarian people towards the purchase of food and household items in retail stores.

A review of literature is followed by the description and evaluation of an empirical research. A sample of 1,000 people was randomly selected and data were collected by a pre‐tested questionnaire. By main component analyses 12 main components were identified and a k‐component cluster analysis was performed.

The findings of the empirical research show that people of the same country react entirely differently to the crisis from a behavioural point of view and that in Hungary the economic crisis resulted in the social polarisation of the citizens.

The paper provides evidence for the social polarisation of the Hungarian people which has a serious impact on their purchases in retail stores and which makes the retail store managers rethink their actual strategy and positioning. As the crisis continues there is room for a longitudinal study in the country and for a comparative cross cultural study in the region.

The paper shows an original approach of analysing how the Hungarian people's purchases of food and household items changed after the break‐out of the economic crises by using behavioural and psychographic variables as the basis of evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether the image of a retailer – beyond the distinct contributions of the website and the stores ‐ is improved by the perceived congruence of its channels, and for what types of customers.

An online survey was conducted on 1,478 customers taken from the behavioural databases of a major French multichannel retailer. Structural modelling and one‐way ANOVA were used to test the working hypotheses.

Congruent channels improve retailer image even when these channels have a less good image. However, channel congruence cannot be elevated to a universal guiding principle as it only affects multichannel and online buyers, with no detrimental impact on retailer image.

The study is mainly limited by the type of retailer studied, and the choice of an online questionnaire, limiting the representativeness of the offline purchasers.

In order to improve its image, a multichannel retailer must seek maximum congruence of its website and stores. Congruent channels lead to benefits for the retailer even when they are poorly valued by consumers.

Despite a broad theoretical consensus, this is the first study to demonstrate empirically that website and store congruence improves retailer image, and not only online purchase intentions. It is also one of the first published researches that uses congruence as a mediating variable.

Urban logistics presents a series of challenges, as the interests of the different stakeholders are not always aligned. The aim of this research is to explore the potential of applying Lean principles to reduce waste in urban logistics.

As a structure for “going to gemba,” the authors implemented the shadowing technique to better understand the perspective of companies distributing products in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. Then, meetings were conducted to validate the observations by the people shadowed.

The results show that most of shipper's time is dedicated to waiting (59%), which is followed by driving (22%), and only a small section of time was dedicated to unloading and verification activities (19%). Although collaborative solutions are needed along with the different stakeholders, this research highlights how deploying Lean thinking can improve significantly urban logistics achieving up to 25% improvement in the number of stores served per shift.

From an academic point of view, this study emphasizes the importance of continue applying and evaluating the Lean practices into transportation contexts. From a company's perspective, the authors have presented a list of propositions that can be implemented for carriers in order to reduce waste and/or improve the efficiency of the urban transportation process.

Based on the literature review carried out, the subject study of Lean and its application to urban logistics remains mostly unexplored in the scientific literature.