Search results

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the antecedents and impacts of a largely overlooked concept, employee development, within the challenging area of returns management.

The proposed relationships are validated through structural equation modeling analysis with survey data collected in India.

Combining the ability–motivation–opportunity model in human resource management and the theoretical tenets associated with dynamic capabilities, the authors confirmed that supply chain learning, returns management orientation and information support are important antecedents of returns management employee development. In turn, the findings suggest that, as a dynamic capability, returns management employee development positively impacts a firm’s returns management and market performance.

To successfully tackle the challenges related to handling returns, companies must focus their resources not only on new technologies and related processes, but also on employee training and development as well.

Although recruiting and retaining talent in supply chain management has long been recognized as a serious global challenge, no previous research has empirically studied employee development practices in the returns management context.

This study aims to explore the relationships among institutional pressures, commitment of resources and returns management. Returns management is regarded as a part of supply chain management. However, the research in returns management has received much less attention. To bridge the gap, this study concerns key concepts from two important schools of thought, i.e. institutional theory and the resource-based view, to build up the research model.

Retailers and maintenance providers in the 3C industry (computers, communication and consumer electronics) in Taiwan were surveyed, and the statistical methods of hierarchical and moderated regression were used to examine the relationships among institutional pressures, commitment of resources and returns management.

Institutional pressures, comprising non-market and market pressures, affect the implementation of returns management (product return practices and product recovery practices). Commitments of resources positively and significantly moderate the relationship between the pressures imposed by non-market and market actors and product return practices and product recovery practices.

This study investigates only the factors that drive returns management. Future research can examine the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of returns management. Furthermore, returns management may become increasingly critical for firms to develop and perform corporate social responsibility (CSR). Therefore, future research can investigate the relationship between CSR practices and returns management.

This research suggests that managers under institutional pressures should continually pay attention to the effects of external factors on returns management. Additionally, the results reveal that a commitment of resources can reinforce the relationship between the pressures imposed by non-market and market actors and the implementation of returns management. Under significant institutional pressures and resource constraints, managers may increase the effectiveness of returns management while attending to the concerns of non-market and market actors.

This study presents a model that considers three major explicative variables: institutional pressures, resources commitment and returns management. It is the first investigation to integrate three streams of literature on institutional theory, the resource-based view and returns management.

The field of returns management has become an important supply chain management topic. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptualization of returns management orientation (RMO), a topic that has been largely ignored by the academic community.

A series of interviews with experts and a review of the literature were used to develop the construct. Empirical survey data were used to validate the proposed RMO measurement scale.

Statistical results support the validity and reliability of the new RMO construct. Different analyses show that the proposed conceptualization satisfies the criteria of the tests for unidimensionality, construct validity, internal consistency reliability, and nomological validity. Furthermore, the results of this study confirm the positive relationship between a firm’s RMO and returns management performance.

The present study provides a starting-point for further empirical research on returns management from a behavioral perspective.

RMO has a significant impact on returns management performance. The proposed RMO measurement scale provides a useful tool for companies to evaluate their management’s emphasis or recognition of the returns management function.

While the field of returns management has gained increased attention from both academics and practitioners, empirical research efforts on this topic are still limited. In order to address this issue, this study takes a behavioral perspective and follows a well-established approach to operationalize the construct of RMO.

With the rapid growth of consumer sales being fulfilled through omni-channel retailing, the purpose of this paper is to explore the subsequent impact on the levels of consumer retail returns experienced through online sales and the emergent returns management strategies being affected by retailers in relation to network configuration and returns management processes.

The authors uses a mixed methods approach from an interpretive perspective. It is appropriate to describe the approach in terms of convergent design, since the authors have collected both qualitative and quantitative data.

Return rates for online retailing can be double those for stores, while return levels for “considered purchases” remain similar. The findings suggest that omni-channel returns management has yet to fully mature and the authors find challenges for network design and returns processes in offering a seamless solution.

For practitioners the authors identify a number of challenges and offer insights to improve performance in returns management process, while for academic colleagues the authors propose a number of avenues for further research both in the qualitative and quantitative fields.

While a significant body of extant literature exists, in researching the generalized retail returns management process this paper make a contribution by addressing the emergent managerial implications of omni-channel retail returns.

From a synthesis of empirical findings and literature, the aim of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for managing retail reverse logistics operations. The framework is designed to assist both practitioners and academics in better understanding the key management aspects involved. The paper also identifies some future research directions that are derived from this conceptual framework.

The study was exploratory and motivated by a grounded theory approach aimed at providing a conceptual framework for managing retail reverse logistics.

Retail reverse logistics operations are multi‐faceted and need to be managed as an integrated supply chain activity. Three overarching management dimensions are proposed; operational performance, organisational integration and management reporting and control.

This is an inductive piece of research and it is important to recognise that only analytical generalisation is claimed rather than any statistical generalisation. Also, the study was undertaken in the context of the UK retail sector and therefore further comparative work could be undertaken in different international contexts.

The adoption of the framework will have impact on practitioners by assisting them in reducing the volumes of products being returned, lower their reverse logistics operational costs and increase their product asset recovery values.

Although there is a growing body of literature relating to retail reverse logistics it is fragmented by multiple perspectives. There is little in terms of frameworks that embody the management aspects involved. Having reviewed the literature the authors' empirical results show that, in some areas, practice leads theory and therefore the findings will add to academic discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to consider theory development related to returns management within supply chain strategy. The marketing/logistics relationship relative to the returns management process is investigated.

Grounded theory qualitative methodology. Managers in five Italian firms, across marketing and logistics roles, at strategic and operational levels were interviewed.

Four key findings emerged: strong evidence exists that strategic goals and policies are being implemented; cross‐functional integration within the firms is broader than was expected; the more integrated firms deal better with external factors influencing the returns management process; and supply chain orientation – including forward and reverse supply chain flows – is linked to effective returns management.

Firms were pre‐selected for participation, due to researcher's time constraints. Additionally, given the pan‐European approach to many supply chains, this Italian research needs to be replicated in other (western and eastern) European settings to determine the robustness of the factors posited to be important to the returns management process. Finally, other functional areas beyond marketing and logistics are involved in returns management, and will be more formally incorporated into future research.

Returns management – increasingly being recognized as affecting competitive positioning – provides an important link between marketing and logistics. The broad nature of its cross‐functional impact suggests that firms would benefit by improving internal integration efforts. In particular, a firm's ability to react to and plan for the influence of external factors on the returns management process is improved by such internal integration.

Returns management has been under‐represented in much of the logistics and supply chain literature. This paper represents the first stage of an on‐going research project aimed at providing a theoretical framework for understanding the returns management process within a firm's supply chain strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional understanding of the management of feedback from customer product returns and the management practices that lead to the occurrence of product returns in the context of knowledge management. The characteristics of product returns indicate that to manage them requires specific knowledge management, as the nature of their management is rather complex.

Understanding of feedback concept for the purpose of product returns avoidance management and its linkages with knowledge management through the theoretical review was performed first. Second, soft systems methodology (SSM) to analyze the very complex situation, as the product returns present, provided the conceptual framework for empirical research. The principles and best practices of SSM were followed and an analysis of documents together with the theoretical knowledge of feedback, product returns and knowledge management served as the basis for the action research.

The research highlighted the importance of knowledge management (even in a rather simple form) for the solution of the problematic situation and underlined the necessary interconnections between different areas of business processes management and the need to manage knowledge. It also showed that product returns act as important feedback for the whole organization.

This paper is the first attempt to apply current knowledge of the feedback construct into the knowledge and product returns management. It is also the first attempt to apply SSM to product returns management.

This paper aims to investigate private pension fund investor sentiment against fund performance and cost in an environment of frequent regulatory changes. The analyses are conducted in a low return, high-cost private pension fund market environment, which makes it easier to observe the relationship between investor sentiment to return and cost.

This paper conducts fixed effect, random effect and random effect within between effect panel data analyses of all Turkish private pension funds from 2011 to 2019. This paper conducts the analyses using aggregate data and subsets based on fund characteristics and pre-post regulation periods.

When regulations provide compensation and improve market efficiency in a pension fund market, investor focus shifted from performance to cost. Investors allocated assets with respect to return realization when adequately compensated for risk or had favorable cost contract clauses. Consequently, investors in pension funds with lower expected returns and no special fee reduction clauses tended to adopt the strategy of cost minimization.

The overlap of regulatory change periods could complicate the ability to distinguish the impact of any one specific change. The findings therefore cannot be generalized to differently structured markets.

Regulatory changes could lead to a switch of investor objectives. When regulatory changes compensate investors and increase market efficiency, investors objective could switch from performance to cost.

This study investigates investor sentiment in a relatively young private pension fund market, in which the relevant regulatory body ambitiously implements frequent changes in regulation. The selected market is unique in the sense that it has negative real returns and high costs, which make investor focus to return and cost more readily apparent.

The authors explore complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory as an updated theoretical perspective for managing product returns that better matches the chaotic nature of recent consumer behaviors. CAS theory highlights the importance of agents who create and self-organize to help systems adapt in unpredictable environments.

This research utilizes data collected from return managers in an online survey and applies regression analyses to estimate the influence of the focal variables.

Empirical evidence of the firm flexibility–firm adaptability link is established, and return processor creativity positively relates to this link. The firm flexibility–firm adaptability link fully mediates the relationship between return processor creativity and returns management performance and partially mediates the relationship between return processor creativity and relationship quality. Nonmediated effects were observed for turnover and revenue size.

Managers of returns who embrace an adaptability approach become facilitators of returns by supporting processor creativity. Enhancing the autonomy of processors in their day-to-day work increases the knowledge-creation capabilities of the firm, which helps the firm move forward and adapt in an uncertain environment.

This research presents empirical evidence of the underlying mechanisms of CAS theory in the product returns context by studying processor agents and argues that CAS theory better fits the current dynamics of the product returns environment. Further, this paper extends work by Espinosa et al. (2019) and Nilsson (2019) by studying how a specific human characteristic – creativity – impacts product returns management.

The study aims at investigating the impact of real earnings management (REM) on the cross-sectional stock return after considering the moderating role of market effect, size effect, value effect and momentum effect.

The study uses weekly and monthly data of 3,085 Bombay Stock Exchange listed stocks spanning over twenty years, from January 2000 to December 2019. REM is measured through metrics developed by Roychowdhury (2006), namely, abnormal levels of operating cash flows, production costs and discretionary expenditure. The study employs univariate and bivariate portfolio-level analysis.

The findings deduced from the empirical results demonstrate that investors perceive downward REM as an element of risk; hence, they discount the stock prices at a higher rate. On the contrary, results show that investors positively perceive upward REM; hence, they hold the stocks even at a lower rate of return. This anomaly is found to be robust for all kinds of considered moderations.

The findings have important managerial implications as investors are found to assign different weights to different forms of REM, depending upon the perception regarding the magnitude of risk involved in different forms. Managers can accommodate this information during their short- and long-term corporate planning.

First, the study is among the earlier attempts to examine the association between REM and stock returns by considering the moderating role of cross-sectional effects. Second, the study considers the direction and endogenous nature of REM while investigating the issue.