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1 – 10 of 78Richard Kwasi Bannor, Bismark Amfo, Helena Oppong-Kyeremeh and Samuel Kwabena Chaa Kyire
This paper aims to assess the choice of supermarkets for purchasing fresh agricultural products among urban consumers in Ghana.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess the choice of supermarkets for purchasing fresh agricultural products among urban consumers in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
Likert scale was used to investigate reasons for purchasing agricultural products from supermarkets, while heteroskedastic probit was used to estimate the determinants. Beta regression was used to examine the determinants of the proportion of food expenditure on raw/unprocessed agricultural products.
Findings
The principal reasons for purchasing agricultural products from supermarkets are convenience, a guarantee of assorted products, high-quality products and food safety, constant supply of products, conducive shopping environment, excellent customer service and social influence. The probability of purchasing agricultural products from supermarkets is high for consumers who are either males, young, educated, high-income earners or salaried workers. Consumers residing closer to supermarkets have a greater probability of shopping for agricultural products from same. The proportion of food expenditure on unprocessed agricultural products increases with age but decreases with education and distance to local markets.
Originality/value
Few prior studies have investigated supermarket’s surge in developing countries and its connection with consumer food-outlet choice. Unfortunately, little is evident in the extant literature on consumers' choice of supermarkets as purchasing outlets for fresh agricultural products. Hence, this study closes the gap on consumers and fresh agricultural product purchases from supermarkets in Ghana. Results from the study will provide grounding evidence to supermarket owners to adjust their services to meet consumers’ needs and provide relevant information to evolving supermarkets or investors who may venture into the supermarket business on the attributes that influence consumers to use supermarkets as a purchasing outlet.
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Dong Hoang, Cathy Barnes and Olga Munroe
The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of the management of traditional retail markets (TRM) in the UK. TRM are indoor and outdoor markets located in town and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of the management of traditional retail markets (TRM) in the UK. TRM are indoor and outdoor markets located in town and city centres across the UK, selling food, household goods, clothing and the like.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a comparative analysis approach of multiple cases using an analytical framework drawn from place management and retail business management literature. The study investigates 11 retail markets in the UK, including 7 run by Local Councils, 2 privately run and 2 operated by Charity Trusts.
Findings
The paper identifies the management challenges of TRM lying at the intersect between its private-like business entity and the management overseen by local authorities, whose roles and functions are mainly on delivering public services. Although some council markets struggle, it remains a popular model for TRM because it offers social space and inclusion which other types of markets lack. The study also highlights that the environment within which TRM operate, such as policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial aspects play an important role in influencing the performance of the markets.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the retail literature’s conceptual and empirical understanding of TRM management – the area which has been mostly neglected and under-researched. It offers an integrated analytical framework, including four dimensions of policy, infrastructure, business and entrepreneurial environment to advance the current limited understanding of this traditional form of retailing and sheds light on future research in this area.
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This case highlights the issues and challenges of implementing solid waste management program in Polytechnic University of the Philippines – San Pedro Campus. As a local…
Abstract
This case highlights the issues and challenges of implementing solid waste management program in Polytechnic University of the Philippines – San Pedro Campus. As a local government-funded educational institution with an enrollment of over a thousand students, management of solid waste has been a concern with lack of manpower as one of the main reasons. The Campus Administration believed that solid waste management requires a collective effort of its stakeholders including the students. These students do not only contribute to the waste generation in the campus, but they can also suffer from the ill effects of poor waste management even in their communities. All of these are hugely attributed to their inadequate awareness about proper waste disposal and lack of initiative to implement changes. From a social marketing perspective, shaping students’ ability to recognize the magnitude of these issues and take corrective measures to solve them will benefit not only the campus but also the community at large.
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Few dispute the very strong likelihood that within twenty years the global information infrastructure, often referred to as the internet or “the net” will become as generalized…
Abstract
Few dispute the very strong likelihood that within twenty years the global information infrastructure, often referred to as the internet or “the net” will become as generalized, indispensable and invisible as today”s phone or electrical networks. Many commentators also expect this digital web to become the host for cyberspace, the next frontier. This article provides an overview of where a wide range of experts from business, government and the academic world believe this rapidly expanding global information infrastructure is heading over the next two decades.
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Paul Michael Greenhalgh, Lynn Johnson and Victoria Huntley
Many national retailers have complained about increases in business rates tax bills since the 2017 revaluation. What impact has the 2017 business rates revaluation had on…
Abstract
Purpose
Many national retailers have complained about increases in business rates tax bills since the 2017 revaluation. What impact has the 2017 business rates revaluation had on independent high street retailers in market towns in the north of England? The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses Valuation Office Agency rating list data to determine rateable value and business rates payable for independent high street retailers in eight northern market towns either side of the 2017 rating revaluation. The data were analysed using business rates matrices to reveal the impact of the new rating list on independent retailers in the eight locations.
Findings
Analysis reveals that the majority of independent retailers in the northern market towns sampled have experienced reductions in both the rateable value of their premises and business rates payable. Increase in the rates relief threshold has extended relief to almost half of the independent retailers in the study, most of whom receive 100 per cent relief.
Practical implications
Charity shops receive at least 80 per cent rates relief which means they are able to afford to pay higher rents. This “sets the tone” for landlords setting market rents in that location which are then used as comparable evidence by the VOA when determining rateable values at revaluation further polarising the gap between rate payers and those to are exempt.
Originality/value
Focussing on independent retailers on high streets in markets towns in north of England, this study provides an alternative perspective to the orthodox view of business rates revaluations having a negative impact on retailers.
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Through adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability, this study aims to offer consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and…
Abstract
Purpose
Through adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability, this study aims to offer consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws insight from the interview data of a wider two-year interpretive research study investigating access barriers to marketplaces for consumers living with impairment.
Findings
The overarching contribution offers to consumer research insight into how the marketplace internally oppresses and psycho-emotionally disables consumers living with impairment. Further contributions offered by this paper: unearth the emotion of fear to be central to manifestations of psycho-emotional disability; reveal a broader understanding of the marketplace practices, and core perpetrators, that psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment; and uncover psycho-emotional disability to extend beyond the context of impairment.
Research limitations/implications
This study adopts a UK-only perspective. However, findings uncovered that the model of psycho-emotional disability has wider theoretical value to marketing and consumer research beyond the context of impairment.
Practical implications
The insight offered into the precise marketplace practices that disable consumers living with impairment leads this paper to call for a revising of disability training within marketplace and service contexts.
Originality/value
Extending current consumer research and consumer vulnerability research on disability, the empirical adoption of the psycho-emotional model of disability is a fruitful framework for extrapolating insight into marketplace practices that internally oppress and psycho-emotionally disable consumers living with impairment.
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In an age when a tourist’s gaze is more involved in the daily lives of locals, it is evident that traditional food markets are being rediscovered as a space for recreation. Yet…
Abstract
Purpose
In an age when a tourist’s gaze is more involved in the daily lives of locals, it is evident that traditional food markets are being rediscovered as a space for recreation. Yet, the pressure of tourism development may result in retail gentrification to the point of losing the sense of local identity. Focusing on the “boutiquing” process at Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem, this paper aims to measure the physical change in the marketplace, to understand merchants’ attitudes towards tourism development, and to differentiate merchants based on their responses to these changes.
Design/methodology/approach
Two main research methods were used: comparative mapping of the business mix and in-depth interviews with merchants. The first method was used to characterize the physical change in the market, and the second method was used to examine merchants’ attitudes and responses to tourism development.
Findings
There has been a significant physical change in the business mix of the market, with displacing mainly of traditional uses. A strong link between the merchants’ responses to tourism development and their stall ownership status has found.
Research limitations/implications
The limitations of the study lie in its nature as a qualitative study of a case study; there is difficulty in generalizing and drawing universal conclusions.
Originality/value
Add to existing knowledge regarding merchants’ responses in traditional food markets to tourism development in the context of retail gentrification.
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Alexandre Silva, Elisabete Figueiredo, Mónica Truninger, Celeste Eusébio and Teresa Forte
The purpose of this paper is to explore and typify the characteristics and diverse features of urban speciality stores selling rural provenance food, taking the case of three…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore and typify the characteristics and diverse features of urban speciality stores selling rural provenance food, taking the case of three cities in Portugal.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was based on hierarchical cluster analysis, performed upon data collected from a survey to 113 shops, located in Aveiro (n = 15), Lisbon (n = 56) and Porto (n = 42).
Findings
The study identified three clusters of shops according to the type of rural provenance products sold, services provided and clientele characteristics: the wine focused, the rural provenance focused and the generalist. The study confirms that in Portugal, small food retail outlets, with different rural provenance patterns and degrees of specialization have considerably grown in large cities over the last decade.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to typifying urban speciality food stores selling rural provenance products and to addressing critical research gaps on this topic. The study highlights the dynamism of small food retail outlets and their significance, mediating and responding to changing patterns of food consumption in urban spaces.
Originality/value
This study contributes to a better understanding and characterization of food speciality shops in urban settings and their links with rural territories of provenance, an under-researched topic on the food retail literature.
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As a result of recent social and economic changes women have becomean important market segment for financial institutions. Documents thedifferences which exist in the financial…
Abstract
As a result of recent social and economic changes women have become an important market segment for financial institutions. Documents the differences which exist in the financial service consumption patterns between men and women. Considers a range of factors which might explain the variations in consumer behaviour namely: the gender schema and financial services; changes in household relations and household form; economic activity rates; sexual discrimination; and the advertising strategies of financial institutions. Finally, considers ways in which financial institutions might market themselves more effectively to women.
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Leonidas C. Leonidou, Dayananda Palihawadana and Michael A. Talias
The article aims to identify differences in consumers' evaluations of goods made in either the USA or China at different levels of analysis; to trace variations in consumers'…
Abstract
Purpose
The article aims to identify differences in consumers' evaluations of goods made in either the USA or China at different levels of analysis; to trace variations in consumers' evaluations with regard to various cues characterizing US or Chinese goods; and to provide a comparison of consumers' evaluations between US and Chinese goods at different levels of analysis and across different product cues.
Design/methodology/approach
The study builds hypotheses that correspond to each of the three research objectives. Information was received through personal interviews from a sample of 404 British consumers, aged 18 years and above. Respondents were randomly selected at central locations using a systematic stratified procedure. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire, with questions focusing separately on the USA and China, at five different levels of analysis, and in six different categories of product cues. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the reliability and validity of the scales were found to be satisfactory. The hypotheses were tested using either student‐t or ANOVA statistics.
Findings
The results provide support to all three hypotheses, revealing that there are significant differences in consumer evaluations across the various levels of analysis, caused mainly by the brand, which overshadows country‐of‐origin effects in the case of the USA, but emphasizes these effects in that of Chinese goods.
Research limitations/implications
The results of the study have serious implications for corporate and public policy‐makers, especially for the countries involved in the analysis. These implications should be seen within the context of various geographical, product, time, and other limitations, which provide the basis for undertaking future research on the subject.
Originality/value
As opposed to extant research on country‐of‐origin effects, the study offers a multi‐level and multi‐cue comparison for products manufactured by two major actors in the international trade arena (USA and China), as these are perceived by consumers living in an important developed market (the UK).
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