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1 – 10 of over 33000Md Rokonuzzaman, Abdullah Alhidari, Ahasan Harun, Audhesh Paswan and Derrick D'Souza
Hoping to increase the productivity of their employees, firms provide and expect their employees to use approved mobile apps. However, despite an intuitive appeal, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Hoping to increase the productivity of their employees, firms provide and expect their employees to use approved mobile apps. However, despite an intuitive appeal, the relationship between information technology usage and productivity is still seen as paradoxical. This study examines the relationship between employees' experience and engagement with business mobile apps provided by employers and its effects on employee work productivity.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from respondents who use employer-provided business apps were used to test the hypotheses. Measurement-corrected latent scores extracted from the PLS measurement evaluation were used in regression-centric assessment using PROCESS.
Findings
Results indicate that employee-users’ experience-based attributions of the business app, i.e. customization, performance quality and compatibility, have positive effects on productivity mediated by participation intensity. Further, work type (retail vs non-retail) and the depth of the employee user’s experience moderate experience-based attributions' indirect effects on productivity.
Originality/value
Unlike previous studies delving into this topic, this study focuses solely on the mediation and moderation effects for hypothesis testing. Specifically, this study investigates effects conditional on work type (retail vs non-retail), which the authors believe has significant implications for retailing. These findings have interesting implications for both future research and managers.
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Te‐Lin Chung, Brian Rutherford and Jungkun Park
This study aims to examine the multi‐faceted job satisfaction of retail employees. In addition, it seeks to investigate the moderating effect of gender on the relations between…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the multi‐faceted job satisfaction of retail employees. In addition, it seeks to investigate the moderating effect of gender on the relations between proposed antecedents and multifaceted job satisfaction. The seven facets of job satisfaction include satisfaction with supervision, overall job satisfaction, company policy and support, promotion, pay, co‐workers, and customers.
Design/methodology/approach
Data for this study constitute a subset of a larger study examining salespeople from both business‐to‐business (B‐T‐B) and retail sales contexts in the USA. A total of 352 usable responses from retail employees were retained. Hypothesized relationships were tested by multiple regression analyses, Chow equality tests, and hierarchical regression analyses.
Findings
The study suggests that perceived organizational support, role ambiguity, and emotional exhaustion are the most influential factors for most facets of retail employees' job satisfaction. Role conflict and work‐family conflict only predict satisfaction with promotion, and family‐work conflict does not predict any facets of job satisfaction. Gender differences only played a part in satisfaction with customers. All other variables, such as perceived organizational support, work‐family conflict, family‐work conflict, and emotional exhaustion affect male and female employees differently.
Practical implications
The study provides managerial implications, suggesting that there is no one perfect policy to satisfy retail employees in all aspects and retailers should be more careful in assigning tasks to employees.
Originality/value
The literature concerning multifaceted job satisfaction has contributed significantly to understanding sales personnel job satisfaction. However, as many of the job characteristics for B‐T‐B and retail are different, a separate examination of factors influencing retail employees' job satisfaction is necessary. This study extends the current literature examining the job satisfaction of retail employees by borrowing from retail literature concerning global job satisfaction and from sales management literature about multifaceted job satisfaction.
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One area of concern for retailers is the impact of employee theft on retailing profit margins and operations. It is possible that the application of the theory of planned behavior…
Abstract
Purpose
One area of concern for retailers is the impact of employee theft on retailing profit margins and operations. It is possible that the application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to the employee theft could shine some light on the problem and possibly offer some assistance to retailers. The purpose of this paper is to apply TPB to this phenomenon.
Design/methodology/approach
A model and series of propositions are developed. The propositions are open to empirical verification and can form the basis for a research stream on retail employee theft.
Findings
The model incorporates certain individual difference factors that are likely to influence intentions to engage in retail theft. The model proposes that variables such as organizational commitment and an employee's moral norm are likely to have an impact on retail theft.
Research limitations/implications
The propositions stemming from the model have to be tested empirically. The model incorporates certain individual difference factors that are likely to influence intentions to engage in retail theft. There are additional individual and external factors that will have direct and indirect on the variables in the proposed model.
Practical implications
Before efforts can be undertaken to stem employee theft, retail managers need to understand the phenomenon. The application of the TPB to this phenomenon is a step in that direction. It can provide insights to retail management on the nature of employee theft and who is likely to engage in it. In addition, information can be obtained for use in human resources efforts such as pre‐employment screening.
Originality/value
Prior work on retail employee theft has not applied the TPB in an effort to understand the phenomenon. This is an initial effort to do so.
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Aaron D. Arndt, Juliet F. Poujol and Béatrice Siadou-Martin
The customer retail experience is frequently interrupted by disturbances such as ringing phones and other people. Employees must be able to respond to retail disturbances…
Abstract
Purpose
The customer retail experience is frequently interrupted by disturbances such as ringing phones and other people. Employees must be able to respond to retail disturbances effectively to ensure that customers have a satisfactory experience in the retailer. Using Affective Events Theory as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model for understanding how retail disturbances affect customers outcomes and how retail employee response mitigates the negative impact of retail disturbances.
Design/methodology/approach
The model was tested using a pre-study of retail managers and consumers, a survey study and four experimental studies.
Findings
Retail disturbances reduce interactional justice and customer positive emotions. Customers pay attention to how employees address retail disturbances, even when they are not directly involved.
Research limitations/implications
The research experiments focus on sound-based disturbances. Other stimuli (e.g. olfactory or visual) should be examined in more detail.
Practical implications
Employees can mitigate the negative effects of retail disturbances on customers with a positive response to the disturbance and to customers. Employee responses influence customers currently receiving service and nearby shoppers.
Social implications
The findings demonstrate the deleterious effect of solicitation calls on small retailers and provide recommendations for reducing solicitation calls.
Originality/value
This research shows that retail disturbances reduce customer outcomes, employee response becomes part of the disturbance event, and that it is possible for employees to address a group of nearby customers indirectly through unintentional observation.
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Carlos M.P. Sousa, Filipe Coelho and Susana C. Silva
The creativity of retail employees seems to be of the utmost importance for ensuring the performance of organizations in service settings. This paper contributes to the existing…
Abstract
Purpose
The creativity of retail employees seems to be of the utmost importance for ensuring the performance of organizations in service settings. This paper contributes to the existing theory by investigating the direct and indirect effects of goal orientations on the creativity and performance of retail employees. The authors propose a framework depicting the relationships between goal orientations and employee creativity and performance, including the intervening effects of self-efficacy and customer orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted with retail frontline employees of a large retail bank in Portugal. The sample consists of 267 valid responses. Structural equations are used by applying the maximum likelihood method to test the conceptual framework.
Findings
Results are broadly supportive of the hypotheses. Learning orientation is, directly and indirectly, related to creativity, but only indirectly to performance. As to performance orientation, it is indirectly related to creativity through self-efficacy and customer orientation, and directly as well as indirectly, to performance. The authors investigate the extent to which the effects of goal orientations on creativity and performance are mediated by self-regulatory mechanisms, namely self-efficacy, and customer orientation.
Originality/value
The results recognize that learning and performance goals are neither mutually exclusive nor contradictory, which collide with past empirical evidence showing that learning goals are generally associated with more favorable outcomes and performance goals with more negative or equivocal ones. These outcomes underscore the need and relevance for managers to foster both goal orientations to promote the creativity and performance of retail employees, representing a particularly salient issue in retail businesses characterized by significant interpersonal interactions.
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Jin Ho Jung, Jaewon Yoo and Yeonsung Jung
The aim of this paper is to test how leader–member exchange (LMX) interacts with procedural justice climate to influence three types of employee motivation (i.e. achievement…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to test how leader–member exchange (LMX) interacts with procedural justice climate to influence three types of employee motivation (i.e. achievement striving motivation, status striving motivation and communion striving motivation). Furthermore, this study empirically examines the indirect effects of LMX on customer loyalty through employee motivation and service orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a matched sample of 188 retail service employees and 376 customers from a large shopping mall in South Korea to test the empirical model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping method were employed to test a series of proposed hypotheses.
Findings
The results show that LMX significantly enhances customer loyalty through two motivational dimensions and service orientation. In particular, this study shows that achievement and status striving motivation are directly related to service orientation, but communion striving motivation does not affect customer-focused service attitude. In addition, procedural justice climate serves as a critical moderator and synergistically interacts with LMX to influence achievement and status striving motivation.
Research limitations/implications
This study offers new insight regarding how managers' roles in both individual (leader–member exchange) and organizational (procedural justice climate) level affect different forms of retail service employee motivation and service orientation, which in turn, result in customer loyalty.
Practical implications
The results suggest that when retail service employees perceive procedural fairness at retail stores, they are more motivated to work hard to complete their assignments and achieve their sales goals in conjunction with leader support. Therefore, managers must provide a clear guideline and procedure regarding salary raises and performance evaluations or engage in thorough discourse on such matters with employees prior to announcements of such decisions. Moreover, as retail service employees interact with customers in the frontline, and how they serve customers plays a key role in creating customer loyalty. Managers should encourage retail service employees to engage in service-oriented behaviors.
Originality/value
The results suggest that LMX facilitates more formal task-related motivation to achieve either tasks or status while it is less related to relationship-building motivation, which is a unique contribution of this study. The results offer better understating of how LMX differentially leads to specific types of employee motivation in the existing literature.
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Jungkun Park, Jiseon Ahn, Hyowon Hyun and Brian N. Rutherford
In this study, the authors examine the impacts of two facets of retail employees' cognitive support and affective commitment on emotional labor-related outcomes.
Abstract
Purpose
In this study, the authors examine the impacts of two facets of retail employees' cognitive support and affective commitment on emotional labor-related outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the study hypotheses, 521 retail service employees participated in the survey. By using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion.
Findings
By using the structural equation modeling, the results show that employees' perceived organizational support directly and positively influence employees' affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion. The extent of employees' affective organizational commitment directly and negatively influences emotional labor and exhaustion. Furthermore, employees' emotional exhaustion exerts an influence on retail employees' propensity to leave.
Research limitations/implications
Drawing on social exchange and conservation of resources theories, this study contributes to emotional labor research and practices by examining factors that potentially influences employees' propensity to leave. For future studies, researchers can expand the proposed framework of the current study to other retailing settings.
Practical implications
Findings of the study suggest that retail organizations need to manage employees' support and commitment concerning to understand emotional labor.
Originality/value
The current study found that employees' affective commitment influences key emotional labor constructs including emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Employees who have a high level of identification, involvement and emotional attachment toward the organization, they are less likely to feel of overload and inefficiency. Given the importance of emotional labor in the retailing setting, the proposed model and findings of this study contribute the existing knowledge of retail employees' behavior.
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Pallavi Pandey, Saumya Singh and Pramod Pathak
Research investigating turnover intention among frontline employees in the Indian retail industry is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to explore factors affecting withdrawal…
Abstract
Purpose
Research investigating turnover intention among frontline employees in the Indian retail industry is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to explore factors affecting withdrawal cognitions among front-end retail employees in India.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the factors responsible for developing turnover intentions among the front-end employees. Data were analyzed using the ground theory approach.
Findings
Qualitative investigation revealed nine factors (abusive supervision, favoritism, perceived job image, insufficient pay, work exhaustion, perceived unethical climate, organization culture shock, staff shortage and job dissatisfaction) are responsible for developing turnover intention among front-end employees in the Indian retail industry.
Originality/value
The study uncovers antecedents of turnover intention among front-end employees in the relatively neglected Indian retail sector through a qualitative technique. Theoretical contributions, managerial implications, limitations and direction for future research are discussed.
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Snehal Chandra, Piyali Ghosh and Saitab Sinha
Employee turnover, a reality that Indian retail organizations cannot ignore, is the central theme of this paper. The authors have aimed to empirically establish corporate social…
Abstract
Purpose
Employee turnover, a reality that Indian retail organizations cannot ignore, is the central theme of this paper. The authors have aimed to empirically establish corporate social responsibility initiatives (CSRI) and transformational leadership (TL) as rather unconventional predictors that can potentially influence retail employees’ intention to stay (ITS) through sequential mediation by employer branding (EB) and organizational identification (OI).
Design/methodology/approach
Data collected using a structured questionnaire from three hundred and five frontline employees working with twenty-nine Indian retail outlets in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) region was tested using structural equation modelling.
Findings
Findings confirmed the impact of both CSRI and TL on ITS, with sequential mediation by EB and OI. While OI partially mediated the effect of EB on ITS, TL exerted more influence than CSRI in enhancing EB.
Originality/value
This study enhances retail literature by empirically testing a unique fusion of organization and individual-level predictors that influence ITS as an individual-level outcome. Having TL and a firm corporate philosophy of CSR spending can enhance a retailer’s image as a preferred employer brand and generate OI to successfully address employee turnover
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Pilar Gardiazabal and Constanza Bianchi
This paper aims to analyze the well-being consequences of value co-creation activities at an ecosystem level, focusing specifically on the micro and meso levels. This study is…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the well-being consequences of value co-creation activities at an ecosystem level, focusing specifically on the micro and meso levels. This study is performed in a retail ecosystem, a highly relevant context where individuals spend a considerable amount of time and resources, but where well-being is usually not deemed as a relevant outcome.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation analyzes qualitative data from micro and meso level actors of a retail ecosystem. At the micro-level, in-depth interviews performed with customers, employees and suppliers were assessed. The meso level analysis included most of the actors embedded in the retail ecosystem: employees’ headquarters, suppliers’ headquarters, nearby competitors, family, other retail outlets and external employees.
Findings
This study is one of the first in the transformative service research area to analyze well-being from a retail ecosystem perspective. Hence, this analysis broadens the literature on transformative service by considering supermarket retailing, an everyday service context that is not assumed to generate well-being outcomes. Results reveal that actors who spend more time or have fewer options available for them in the retail ecosystem see their well-being deeply affected. It also extends the conceptualization of value co-creation to a retail ecosystem, a specific ecosystem, which differs from previous studies that focus mostly on health-care ecosystems.
Research limitations/implications
Although useful to understand new insights, a limitation of this investigation is that it is based upon a single qualitative study.
Practical implications
The study portrays how activities happening within a business context have consequences beyond traditional measures such as loyalty or turn-over. It proposes specific value co-creation actions to be performed by employees, suppliers and customers to promote positive well-being consequences for the micro and meso level retail ecosystem.
Social implications
Retail ecosystems are usually not deemed as relevant when trying to understand societal well-being outcomes. This study empirically depicts that all services, even the ones without transformative goals, need to be aware of the impact they have on societal well-being.
Originality/value
This paper provides a novel conceptualization of well-being effects in a retail ecosystem. Specifically, this is the first study in the transformative service research literature to identify the micro and meso level well-being consequences of value co-creation activities within a retail ecosystem.
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