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Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐17; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐17; Property Management Volumes 8‐17; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐17.

Compares and contrasts the effects of the resale price maintenance abolition of 1964 emerging in different products and markets, with particular emphasis on the furniture and footwear trades. Finds that the furniture trade has been more significantly affected, with a higher consciousness of consumer needs among its retailers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how furniture retailing firms in Greece monitor competition and its effects on the formation of their strategies with respect to competitive intelligence (CI) setting.

The study is exploratory in nature and data were collected by carrying out semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with 15 senior managers in an area of strategic marketing importance in Greece, representing a reasonable percentage of the firms in the sector.

Greek furniture retailing firms monitor competition with the help of traditional and effective marketing tools. Also, the pricing of the products is the principal information that the managers are interested in. Finally, the respondents believe in the importance of monitoring the competition and ideally they would apply it to their company.

This research is an exploratory study of a small sample of managers from the major companies in a national setting. Recommendations are presented for further research.

In today's unstable business environment, CI can make a crucial strategic contribution to competitive success. It has clear value to strategic planning for marketing in Greece itself, but also in general.

The paper offers empirical findings from furniture retailing companies, where a shortage of studies has been observed and broadly confirms the findings and conclusions of earlier studies in other industries in the international context.

Given that planned marketing strategies and observable behaviors often are contingent on buyer and third‐party (e.g. competitor) responses, deep understanding and descriptions of the thoughts and actions of marketers need to reflect the dynamic interplay of such contingencies. The same view applies to planned organizational buying strategies and observable behaviors: buying behavior adapts through time based on information learned and marketers’ responses to requests made by the customer organization. Consequently, a two‐way, or multiple‐party, approach to theory construction is useful in particular for mapping the “if‐then” responses of the marketer’s thoughts/actions linked with the if‐then responses of buyers’ thoughts/actions through several time periods. Using in‐depth interviews and case histories of one marketing organization and 28 buying organizations related to the office furniture industry, the article illustrates descriptive modeling of the contingency dynamics in the thoughts and actions across the multiple parties involved in marketing‐buying interactions.

The primary aim of this study is to gain insight into the entrepreneurial marketing strategy (EMS) decisions made by microenterprises in the craft sector and draw comparisons between the marketing strategy formulation and implementation of conventional businesses and those of craft-based microenterprises with a specific focus on the context of emerging markets, particularly India.

This paper follows a qualitative interpretivist paradigm using a multiple-case methodology approach. It tracks craft-based microenterprises that make furniture or home décor products in India. The study participants were the founders, principal designers, studio managers or craftspersons.

This study’s findings reveal that craft-based microenterprises implement an EMS that adopts a hybrid form of market orientation strategy. In this approach, the product or creative concept is at the centre of the decision-making, and the customer needs are factored in at a later stage for customisation. These microenterprises prioritise product positioning over segmentation and targeting strategies.

This study tries to understand marketing strategy decision-making processes among craft-based microenterprises in India. Given that study participants came from only two-product-based craft businesses, this limits the generalisability of the findings to similar or related contexts. This study provides a framework and methodology for replication in other contexts and industries to formulate a nuanced understanding of micro, context-specific, craft-based businesses.

This study uses qualitative analysis to understand EMS in craft-based businesses in India. This study contributes to this fledgling stream of literature at the interface of marketing and entrepreneurship to understand entrepreneurial marketing. This study analyses the marketing strategy of craft-based businesses using the framework of Morgan et al. (2019).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how human and social capital assist in the development of clustered and non‐clustered firms in the wooden furniture industry in Sri Lanka. The study resulted in three major findings: the most experienced and educated entrepreneurs played an important role to secure their market introducing brand name for the product; human capital acquired through formal education and experience is highly significant for the performance of clustered firms than that of non‐clustered firms; and irrespective of clustered or non‐clustered, performance of the firms in the wooden furniture industry in Sri Lanka is significantly relying on social capital.

Both cross‐sectional and time series data of 96 active firms related to the wooden furniture industry in Sri Lanka are used in this study. The data were collected through questionnaires which were distributed by visiting wooden furniture firms in Sri Lanka in the year 2010. To test the hypotheses, two dependent variables, namely, brand name dummy and the size of the firm (in value added revenue) were used.

The number of years of schooling of the managers and their operational experience within their own business have a positive and highly significant effect on the introduction of a brand name for the products in both type of wooden furniture firms (clustered and non‐clustered). Formal education and prior work experience as managers are more significant in the case of clustered wooden furniture firms than non‐clustered firms.

The author visited these firms personally and interviewed the managers. From this, the author tried to see how both human and social capital contribute to the firms' performance. According to the author's knowledge, this type of study has never been done before in Sri Lanka.

To demonstrate the linkage between Porter's cluster theory and supply chain management, and provide evidence of their potential joint positive impact on competitiveness and firm performance.

The paper examines the linkage between cluster theory and supply chain management using data from a case study of the Amish furniture industry in Homes County, Ohio, USA.

Using the Amish furniture industry and a representative furniture firm as examples, the paper shows the positive impact of operating within an integrated supply chain in a geographically concentrated cluster.

Use of a single case study approach limits the generalizability of the findings; the paper recommends further study of linkages in other industries and locations.

The study suggests that firms build competitive advantage by initially focusing primarily on local resources when selecting supply chain partners, rather than looking only for low cost advantage through distant sourcing.

This paper adds to the literature on business linkages by proposing an expanded definition of clusters as geographical concentrations of competing supply networks.

This paper aims to present a history of the marketing of hope chests in the USA, focusing in particular on one very successful sales promotion, the Lane Company’s Girl Graduate Plan. The Girl Graduate Plan is placed within its historical context to better understand the socioeconomic forces that contributed to its success for a considerable period but ultimately led to decreased demand for the product.

The history of the marketing of hope or marriage chests draws upon primary sources located in the Lane Company Collection at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Secondary sources and images of advertising culled from Google image searches provided additional insight into the operation of the company’s Girl Graduate Plan.

While the Lane Company benefitted in the form of increased sales, profit and brand awareness and loyalty from prevailing socio-economic trends, which supported the success of its Girl Graduate Plan, including targeting the youth market, this promotion ultimately fell victim to the company’s failure to stay abreast of social changes related to the role of women in society.

Like all historical research, this research is dependent upon the historical sources that are accessible. The authors combined documents available from the Virginia Historical Society archives with online searches, but other data sources may well exist.

This history investigates how one manufacturer, a leader in the North American industry, collaborated with furniture dealers to promote their products to young women who were about to become the primary decision makers for the purchase of home furnishings. As such, it provides an historical example of the power of successful collaboration with channel partners. It also provides an example of innovation within an already crowded market.

The hope chest as an object of material culture can be found in many cultures worldwide. It has variously represented a woman’s coming of age, the love relationship between a couple and a family’s social status. It has also served as a woman’s store of wealth. This history details how changing social values influenced the popularity of the hope chest tradition in the USA.

The history of the marketing of hope chests is an area that has not been seriously considered in consumption histories or in histories of marketing practices to date, in spite of the continuing sentimental appeal for many consumers.