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The Malaysian retail industry, which contributes toward almost 45 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is on a downward trend. As such, the main purpose of this study is to improve the performance of the Malaysian retail industry through the incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies. The incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies in the retail industry has led to the emergence of Retail 4.0 which can also be defined as omni-channel retailing.

The adoption of Retail 4.0, which is a combination of omni-channel retailing and also novel technologies, has been proven to improve the performance of retailers in many countries. As such, the authors have given suggestions on how Retail 4.0 can be incorporated by Malaysian retailers for the betterment of the Malaysian retail industry.

Problems faced by retailers these days are boring `brick and mortar' stores, out of stock (OOS) issues, price discrepancy and long queues. Retail 4.0 has enabled retailers to overcome these problems by creating novel shopping experiences, better inventory management, and improved operational efficiency and also more informed decision making in real time.

The incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia is still in the infancy stage. As such, skilled professionals need to be brought in to help implement these technologies in the retail industry.

Omni-channel retailing and the usage of various technologies by `brick and mortar' stores is very appealing to Malaysia's Gen Y and Gen Z who make up 67 per cent of the country's population. The spending power of this young generation can help to boost the performance of the Malaysian retail industry.

To date, no known study has been done on the impact of Retail 4.0 on Malaysian retailers. The results of this study will be very valuable to managers who are keen to improve the performance of their respective retail channels.

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 authors examine the industrywise investment preferences of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and retail investors in the Indian context. They also investigate the factors influencing their preferences.

Using the quarterly shareholdings and returns data of the Indian market from March 31, 2009 to March 31, 2018, the authors employ analysis of variance to study investors' preferences and a random effect panel data model to examine the factors that influence these preferences.

FPIs hold proportionally more stocks in service-oriented industries and large-cap firms, DIIs hold proportionally large numbers of shares in paper industries and retail investors hold proportionally more shares in chemicals and textiles. FPIs prefer stocks with a high export-to-sales ratio and firms registered on a foreign stock market. Domestic investors, especially retail investors, prefer small-cap stocks and firms whose operations require local knowledge. In addition, industry heterogeneity determines investment decisions. Firm-specific and macroeconomic factors that influence investment decisions differ across industries. Finally, government policies and reforms also play a key role in attracting investors.

Policymakers can identify the key variables that influence investment, which can help direct and regulate investment in India and similar emerging markets.

This study fills a research gap by addressing how industry-level heterogeneity affects investors' preferences in terms of the industrywise preferences of different types of investors and the factors that influence their preferences.

Decision-makers must be well-informed to successfully impact the future of the business. The purpose of this study was to explore experiences of US fashion retail executives when making business decisions to understand what resources and strategies are utilized within the decision-making process. Additionally, the role of academic research within executive decision-making process was explored.

This study utilized a phenomenological approach to understand the experiences of fashion retail executives when engaging in business decision-making. Fifteen US fashion retail executives participated in the study. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews and thematically coded to gain a holistic perspective of the decision-making process within the fashion retail industry.

As the result of the data analysis and interpretation, three topical areas emerged:: “Incredible Amounts of Information,” “Industry Specific Academic Research” and “Have a Clear Road Map.” The findings suggested that while the facts gleaned from internal and external data are of great importance to fashion professionals, insights gathered from social media are equally influential within the decision-making process. The authors identified five major strategies utilized consistently by fashion retail executives regardless of the type of business they represented: collaboration, adaptability, speed, gut instinct and creativity.

The results are important to fashion retail companies for improving internal decision-making processes. The identified resources and strategies of the decision-making process can be incorporated into fashion program curricula and considered as learning outcomes when preparing future industry professionals.

Limited studies have explored the decision-making process specific to the fashion retail environment, an uncertain and ever-changing industry. Further, the study shed light on the opportunity for academic research use in fashion retail decision-making and contributes to the literature by developing a fashion retail decision-making model.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe similarities between logistics structures and mid-term planning problems in the grocery retail and automotive industries in a specific internal section of their respective supply chains.

The benchmarking approach is used as a framework for this paper. It is based on insights resulting from several joint projects with grocery retailers and automobile producers. A particular focus of the research was participating in an exchange of ideas and experience between logistics managers in both industry sectors.

The authors have identified parallels when comparing the internal retail supply chain of the grocery retail industry, which consists of distribution centres, transportation and in-store logistics, with the internal logistics network in the automotive industry, which consists of logistics supermarkets, transportation and work zone operations at the assembly line. Strong similarities have been found for three planning problems related to tactical planning tasks: assigning products and parts to delivery modes, selecting packaging units and loading carriers, and determining delivery cycles. In comparison to retailing, there is a clearer trend in the automotive industry to plan line-back and align processes with the operator's requirements at the assembly line.

For logisticians in grocery retailing and the automotive industry, this paper provides relevant input for functional benchmarking initiatives and offers an inspirational view beyond the horizon.

This paper is the first to focus on similarities in logistics network structures and planning tasks between the two industries from the viewpoint of grocery retailing.

The aim of this paper is to study and describe the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) concept in the retail industry by identifying the technology enablers, the benefits and the challenges involved in adopting these technologies.

The work is built on a systematic literature review (SLR) about the I4.0 concept within retail studies through the enablers codified by the Industry 4.0 literature.

The concept of Industry 4.0 within the retail context is presented through three relevant technology enablers I4.0 emerges as a latent concept represented by technologies adopted to study customer behaviour and manage customer relationships and, partially, to optimise retail management. Furthermore, the paper highlights the benefits and challenges stemming from the adoption of I4.0 technology enablers in the retail industry.

The use of a SLR to describe the I4.0 concept in the retail industry identifying the relevant technology enablers and their relations. The article lays the foundations for future studies on the integrated effects of the contemporary actions of multiple technologies on retail management.

The purpose of this paper was to assess and determine the impact of the five core technologies of Industry 4.0 (3D Printing, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Robotics) on the organizational performance of the retail industry in the context of Pakistan.

Pakistan's retail industry was chosen as the target sector, and the target population was composed of senior-level employees, including managers from first-level positions to top-level positions, as well as subordinate employees working under the supervision of first-level managers, possessing the technological know-how of Industry 4.0. The data were collected through a matrix-based survey questionnaire that was based on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The process of data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics.

The findings obtained by this research work showed a significant relationship among the five core pillars of Industry 4.0 and the organizational performance of Pakistan's retail industry. Besides, the obtained findings provided preliminary evidence that Industry 4.0's disruptive technologies, particularly, 3D printing, big data analytics, cloud computing, IoT and robotics, could help Pakistan's retail industry solve various problems and challenges, such as meager revenues, increased expenses and unorganized systems.

The present study extended the theoretical body of knowledge through studying and examining Industry 4.0's five crucial factors that significantly contribute to the service sector, particularly, the retail industry, of the big emerging markets (BEM) economies, including Pakistan.

Soft skills which are a combination of personal qualities and interpersonal skills that help an employer perform their job are an increasingly important concern to businesses and academia, the purpose of this paper is to determine how students ranked the importance of soft skills and compare their rankings to retailing and tourism management faculty and businesses.

A cross-sectional survey of students, faculty and industry leaders was conducted using an existing survey instrument validated by Crawford et al. (2011). Faculty who were members of retailing and tourism management professional organizations were solicited to participate in the study. Retailing and tourism management students from the researchers’ university were sent a link to complete the survey. All participants were asked to rank the order of importance of the soft skills and their characteristics.

Variations in the importance of soft skills were reported between the three groups. Variations in the importance of the soft skills characteristics were also identified between the students, faculty, and industry leaders. While communication was identified as the most important soft skill by all three sample groups, experiences was the least important for students and leadership was the least important for faculty and industry leaders.

A limitation of the study was the variation in the sample sizes between the student, faculty, and industry sample. The strength of this study lies in the ability to provide evidence for the need to compare soft skills research results for retailing and tourism management students. Soft skills are found to be important to all three groups, but differences indicate faculty and industry need to work together to clarify exactly what soft skills students need to successfully compete for employment in the retailing and tourism management field.

As the work world continues to change, employers seek workers who have soft skills that support their knowledge base. While technical skills are a current part of educational curricula, soft skills need to be emphasized at the university level so that students gain expertise that prepare them to be successful in this changing workplace.

The purpose of this study is to propose a comprehensive efficiency evaluation approach to measure the efficiency of the retailers and to determine the relative importance of a wide variety of apparel retail-specific factors that support efficiency.

The first stage of the proposed approach is the measurement of the relative efficiency of the apparel retailers by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) for identifying the best practice frontier and determination of the improvement ratios. The second stage is the prioritization of the factors that are important in the apparel retail efficiency using analytical hierarchy process (AHP).

The findings of the study revealed that the quantitative criteria to be considered for efficiency through input minimization and output maximization were “number of employees” and “profit before tax,” respectively, however, focusing on output maximization was found to be more critical. In addition, it was seen that the most important qualitative components of efficiency were satisfied customers, qualified staff and branding.

The managerial actors in the apparel retail industry can be alerted for new strategic actions to adopt best practices or take precautions for future inefficiencies with the help of the results obtained. The customized hierarchical structure allows determining the priority areas that need to be focused on for increasing the performance of apparel retailers.

In this study, DEA and AHP were combined to build a comprehensive efficiency evaluation approach in the apparel retail industry for the first time in the literature. Thus, both qualitative and quantitative variables that are important in apparel retail efficiency were put forward and evaluated. The originality of the hierarchical structure in AHP was its customization to the apparel retail industry.