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This study aims to investigate the mediating role of shopping intention and the moderating roles of employee incompetence and consumer similarity in the relationship between consumers’ personal traits and their shoplifting behaviors

Drawing on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the authors develop and test a model that links personality traits to shoplifting intention and behavior. The results from a sample of 507 consumers.

The results from a sample of 507 consumers show that shoplifting intention mediates the effects of personality traits (materialism, alienation and sensation seeking) on shoplifting behavior. In addition, both employee incompetence and consumer similarity are found to moderate the relationship between shoplifting intention and behavior. The findings offer some useful theoretical and managerial implications.

Drawing on the TPB, the authors investigate how personality traits (i.e. materialism, sensation seeking and consumer alienation) influence shoplifting behavior via shoplifting intention. They find that the effects of materialism, sensation seeking and alienation on shoplifting behavior are mediated by shoplifting intention. More importantly, they also find strong support for the moderating roles of employee incompetence and consumer similarity on the relationship between shoplifting intention and behavior. While employee incompetence enhances the relationship between shoplifting intention and shoplifting behavior, consumer similarity negatively moderates the relationship between shoplifting intention and shoplifting behavior.

The cost to supermarkets from shoplifting is a growing problem. Despite huge investments in formal security measures, supermarkets experience shrinkage and face heavy financial losses. Hence, this paper explores an alternative approach to shoplifting prevention. The purpose of this paper is to propose that quality relationships between a supermarket and its customers could be a viable strategy for shoplifting prevention. A conceptual model is presented at the end of this paper for encouraging shoplifting prevention using a theory of planned behaviour perspective.

A systematic search of literature on relationship quality was conducted. Research papers were shortlisted from peer-reviewed journals published between 2007 and 2016. For the convenience of readers, studies on relationship quality are presented in six cross-checked information categories in a table.

This study produced two results. First, it finds three antecedents of supermarket-customer relationship quality. These are as follows: a supermarket’s participation in corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing initiatives, a supermarket’s service quality, and a customer’s attachment to a supermarket’s place/location. Second, there are three major effective dimensions of relationship quality. These are as follows: satisfaction, trust, and commitment. The proposed model incorporates factors from both findings, to measure a supermarket-customer relationship quality that may influence intention of customers to engage in shoplifting preventive behaviour.

This research paper has reviewed the existing literature to utilise it in the context of shoplifting prevention, and developed a novel model/framework for effective shoplifting prevention with a theory of planned behaviour perspective.

Proposes responding to earlier calls for further research into “fraudulent” or “feigned” customer complaints, and providing insights which explore and describe the motivations and forms of such deliberate “illegitimate” customer complaints.

Critical incident technique was utilized in analyzing 104 interviews with customers who had knowingly made an illegitimate complaint within the six months prior to the interview. Data collection stopped at the point of theoretical saturation and was subsequently analyzed according to the coding procedures advocated by Strauss and Corbin (open, axial and selective coding).

Two key insights emerged from data analysis. First, coding procedures revealed four distinct forms of customer complainants. These are labeled; “one‐off complainants”, “opportunistic complainants”, “conditioned complainants”, and “professional complainants”. Second, six main motives for articulating fraudulent complaints were uncovered during data analysis. These are termed; “freeloaders”, “fraudulent returners”, “fault transferors”, “solitary ego gains”, “peer‐induced esteem seekers”, and “disruptive gains”.

The study is constrained by its exploratory design and qualitative methods employed. Subsequently, future studies could employ survey methods to improve empirical generalizability. Future studies could adopt a more inclusive approach and incorporate insights from employees, managers, and other relevant actors within service encounters.

Practical implications highlighted by the study include a need for businesses to examine and, in many cases, reevaluate their personnel training, customer complaint and service recovery procedures. Furthermore, managers may wish to enforce mechanisms wherein customer complaints are monitored and tracked in a manner that assists in the identification and challenging of re‐offending fraudulent complainers.

The study constitutes the first systematic attempt to explore and describe illegitimate customer complaining behaviors.

Defines a particular form of returned purchases and explores its pervasiveness. Consumers who engage in “retail borrowing” purchase items with the deliberate intention to return such items once they have been used satisfactorily. To facilitate the purchases of good and to act responsibly when purchased items may be defective retailers have extended generous return policies to consumers. Increasingly however some consumers have taken advantage of such policies to “borrow” needed items from retailers. Provides an insight into retail borrowing and the type of most commonly “borrowed” products. Also identifies reasons that trigger the willingness to “borrow” from retailers and discuss the emotions and thoughts that accompany the behavior. Discusses the managerial and social perspectives of the phenomenon.

While the positive effects of customer citizenship behavior are well established, research on its potential negative consequences is scarce. This study aims to examine the indirect relationship between customer citizenship and dysfunctional customers via customer moral credits and entitlement, as well as the moderating influence of customer citizenship fatigue.

Study 1 employed a cross-sectional design with a self-administered survey. The data were collected from 314 customers using an online research panel. In Study 2, the authors manipulated customer citizenship behavior using 203 participants to establish causality and rule out alternative explanations of the findings of Study 1. In Study 3, the authors replicated Study 2 and enhanced internal validity by using a more controlled experimental design using 128 participants.

This study shows that when customer citizenship fatigue is high, customer citizenship behavior elicits customer moral credit, which leads to customer entitlement and, in turn, promotes dysfunctional customer behavior. Conversely, when customer citizenship fatigue is low, customer citizenship behavior does not generate moral credit or entitlement, preventing dysfunctional customer behavior.

The study shows that promoting customer citizenship behavior does not always lead to positive outcomes. Therefore, when promoting customer citizenship behavior, managers should consider the psychological licensing process and ways to mitigate the influence of moral credits.

This study challenges common wisdom and investigates the dark side of customer citizenship behavior. Specifically, it demonstrates that customer citizenship behavior could backfire (e.g. dysfunctional customer behavior). It also shows that only customers who experience a high level of fatigue from their citizenship behaviors are psychologically licensed to gain moral credit, leading to dysfunctional customer behavior.

Retailers are implementing technology-enabled mobile checkout processes in their stores to improve service quality, decrease labor costs and gain operational efficiency. These new checkout processes have increased customer convenience primarily by providing them autonomy in sales transactions in that store employee interventions play a reduced role. However, this autonomy has the unintended consequence of altering the checks and balances inherent in a traditional employee-assisted checkout process. Retailers, already grappling with shoplifting, with an estimated annual cost of billions of dollars, fear that the problem may be exacerbated by mobile checkout and concomitant customer autonomy. The purpose of this paper is to understand the effect of mobile checkout processes in retail stores on cybercrime in the form of shoplifting enabled by a technology transformed the retail environment.

The authors conducted an online survey of a US sample recruited from a crowdsourced platform. The authors test a research model that aims to understand the factors that influence the intention to shoplift in three different mobile checkout settings − namely, smartphone checkout settings, store-provided mobile device checkout settings, and employee-assisted mobile checkout settings − and compare it with a traditional fixed location checkout setting.

The authors found that, in a smartphone checkout setting, intention to shoplift was driven by experiential beliefs and peer influence, and experiential beliefs and peer influence had a stronger effect for prospective shoplifters when compared to experienced shoplifters; in a store-provided mobile devices checkout setting, experiential beliefs had a negative effect on shoplifters’ intention to shoplift and the effect was weaker for prospective shoplifters when compared to experienced shoplifters. The results also indicated that in an employee-assisted mobile checkout setting, intention to shoplift was driven by experiential beliefs and peer influence, and experiential beliefs had a stronger effect for prospective shoplifters when compared to experienced shoplifters.

This study is the among the first, if not first, to examine shoplifters’ intention to shoplift in mobile checkout settings. We provide insights into how those who may not have considered shoplifting in less favorable criminogenic settings may change their behavior due to the autonomy provided by mobile checkout settings and also provide an understanding of the shoplifting intention for both prospective and experienced shoplifters in different mobile checkout settings.

Presents a report of the study about shoplifting problems in retail clothing outlets which was carried out during the autumn of 1993, with the primary purpose of examining managers′ attitudes towards shoplifting in some detail and the secondary purpose of identifying coping strategies that can be used by retailing managers to deal with shoplifting. Investigates four crucial issues: layout design, magnitude of the problem, prosecution efforts and detection and prevention considerations. Includes recommendations and implications based on a survey taken to help retailers with their shoplifting problems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how interactional justice within a retail context may influence employee organizational commitment and how this may evoke guardianship behaviors that manifest in shoplifting prevention.

This research uses a phenomenological approach conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews with 26 shop-floor employees of two major national supermarket chains in New Zealand.

The findings suggest that interactional justice in the workplace is important in shaping organizational commitment amongst employees. Additionally, heightened organizational commitment may have a significant effect on employee propensity to engage in shoplifting prevention/guardianship behavior. A conceptual model is developed based on these findings.

Retail managers may promote and exercise interactional justice practices with employees to improve their organizational commitment and consequential shoplifting prevention/guardianship behaviors.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of interactional justice and its effect on organizational commitment and, specifically, on guardianship/shoplifting prevention behaviors. Second, and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may assist retailers in developing interactional justice strategies that encourage organizational commitment of employees that consequently leads to employees’ guardianship/shoplifting prevention behaviors. Finally, it explores significance and role of employee perceptions of interactional justice, employee workplace attachment and organizational commitment within the context of retail crime prevention.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly considered a central tenant of marketing strategy and a source of competitive advantage within the retail sector. As such, it may affect a supermarket’s customer, employee, and other stakeholder attitudes and behaviours. This research explores how a supermarket’s involvement in CSR activities may influence employee engagement and how this may manifest itself in positive employee behaviours. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the role of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and consequently, employee propensity to exhibit intervention behaviours to prevent in-store retail crime.

This research uses a phenomenological approach through semi-structured in-depth interviews with shop-floor employees of a national supermarket chain.

Findings suggest that external and internal CSR practices of supermarkets are important in shaping organisational engagement behaviours among employees. Additionally, heightened employee engagement may have a significant impact on employee propensity to engage in shoplifting prevention behaviours. A conceptual model is developed based on these findings.

Retail managers should fully communicate CSR practices to employees to increase employee engagement and consequential shoplifting intervention prevention behaviours.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First and from a theoretical perspective, it offers both a conceptual foundation and empirical-based evaluation of CSR and its impact on employee engagement and specifically, shoplifting prevention behaviours. Second and from a pragmatic perspective, the conceptual model derived from this research may aid retailers in developing and communicating CSR strategies that engage employees and consequently lead to shoplifting prevention behaviours.

Shoplifting has become a widespread crime problem worldwide. The study aims to investigate retailers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED)-based techniques to prevent shoplifting in Istanbul.

Data collection involved 370 face-to-face interviews with store managers at shopping malls in Istanbul by using a structured, self-explanatory questionnaire. The current study applies CPTED approach to measure the effectiveness of informal and formal surveillance techniques.

The results revealed that store managers perceived awareness of sales staff as the most effective CPTED-based approach to prevent shoplifting. The study identified six factors underlying perceived effectiveness of CPTED-based techniques: surveillance (informal surveillance), image/maintenance and surveillance (formal surveillance), territoriality, surveillance (formal surveillance), surveillance (mechanical surveillance) and target hardening.

No research to date has addressed the effectiveness of CPTED-based techniques in Turkey at shopping malls. Given the limited number of prior research, the results provide important insights regarding the perceived effectiveness of CPTED-based techniques.