Journal of Business and Retail Management Research

This quantitative correlational research study was conducted to compare the degree to which spiritually-based and mainstream retailers’ leadership practices do or do not affect employee morale and employee perceptions of retention. The sample consisted of 98 random retail employees from the Chicago, Illinois area. The employees represented four retail organizations, two spiritually- based and two mainstream organizations. Correlational analyses using data from the survey devise the research findings. The findings revealed that a small difference does exist in employee morale between spiritually-based and mainstream retail employees. Specifically, there exists a difference in the two groups between the relationship between retention and morale. The results also indicated a relationship between leadership practices and employee perceptions of retention in both groups.

In labor organizations, moral harassment has been worsening in the last few years and it has called the attention of professionals of a wide range of areas, such as medicine, law and psychology, because this phenomenon involves repeated incidents or a pattern of behavior that intends to intimidate, offend, degrade or humiliate a particular person or group of people. The aim of this work is to evaluate how the organizational culture can enhance moral harassment at work. The sample was composed of a hundred and fifty bank workers and a hundred and fifty private practice workers, with ages between eighteen and forty-nine years old and an average social class. The instrument used consists on the application of a questionnaire to measure the incidence level of moral harassment at work in terms of auto perception. It was used the NAQ-R and to analyze the kind of organizational culture we used FOCUS-93. In order to evaluate the relationship existent between organizational culture and moral harassment we followed two lines of orientation, one based on the Quinn’s competing values model and the other one based on the theory of moral harassment of Hirigoyen. The obtained results showed that the organizational culture enhances moral harassment and the goals’ culture is the predominant one. According to Heinz Leymann (1996) this type of culture valorizes stability and control, as orientation to competitiveness in the organization. This culture has an explanative variation of 90% of t

The Indian retail market is one of the most promising in the world and it is growing. So is the Indian consumer, across all socioeconomic strata, regions, towns and classes. Rising incomes, multiple income households, exposure to international lifestyles and media, easier financial credit and an upbeat economy are enhancing aspirations and consumption patterns. The retailing industry in India, specifically organized retail, seems poised for a significant growth in the coming years owning to the presence of a vast market, growing consumer awareness about products and services, higher disposable income of the consumers and the desire to try out new products. Supermarkets will be one of the major centers for shopping. Thus to tap the opportunities in this sector, it is important to understand what factors that influence consumers and how is the current shopping behaviour pattern in India. Study finds out that, physical factors (discounts, quality, local brands, display and visual appeal) (2) social factors include (salesmen behaviour and choice of children) (3) temporal factors (open space) should be considered by the super marketers while designing marketing strategy for Indian consumers as these factors are having influence upon the number of visits and amount spent in the supermarket.

In this research paper researchers basically focused on behaviour of consumer mainly on purchasing pattern in various store formats and store preference on the basis of product availability, spending pattern, consumers preferred store, sales man services, and store layout. Researchers observed that the customers prefer retail outlets because of price discount, followed by variety of products in the store and convenience to the customer.. Researchers have also observed that departmental stores are most popular amongst consumers. Customers purchase behavior varies with price and availability of products and customers spending pattern shrinks due to poor quality of products.

The oil crises of the 1970s were the major driving factor which made the government to intervene in the oil & gas sector. Until the late 1990s, the country’s fuel prices were controlled by the government through a policy called the Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM). Subsequent to the 1991 economic reforms in India, had given a new direction to the oil & gas sector. The oil industry is divided into three streams like upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream basically covers exploration and production of crude oil & gas, midstream covers movement of materials through pipelines and downstream covers marketing of petroleum products through retail outlets (ROs). In general term selling petroleum products through outlets is known as Petro-retailing business. Petro-retailing is the face of oil marketing companies and sells products/services directly to the customers. Petro-retailing in Indian market is facing many challenges like low margins, increasing cost of land in urban as well as in rural areas, since switching cost for customer is low and expecting high services leads to a very low loyalty for the outlets and increasing competition due to entry of private players like Reliance, Shell & Essar etc. To overcome all burning challenges oil marketing companies now thinking of offerings non-fuel services/allied services like convenience stores, ATMs, Fast food outlets etc. The basic objectives behind such offerings are not only to maximize the profit but increase the c

Color plays a significant role in triggering emotions in people. The current research studied the role of perception of colors in consumer decision making process. The study focuses on how the departmental stores by using different colors/color combinations in logo, the brand name, the tagline, and the slogan reach to their audiences. How are these colors interpreted by audiences and do they have a positive or negative effect on decision making? How do consumers perceive these messages and eventually decide to make purchases into a particular departmental store. Data collected from fifty respondents through an administered survey by unstructured questionnaire method is analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The sampling technique used is convenient sampling. The data collected is mostly primary in nature. Major conclusions of the study were that colors do play an important role in triggering emotions of the consumers. Consumers relate certain colors to socio economic class and accordingly decide to choose their shopping place. They were also able to recall departmental store names on the basis of color/color combinations. However few respondents agreed that color does not play any important role in their decision making; it is in fact the appearance, music played in the store, services offered by the store that help in decision making.

The aim of this research is to analyze logistics performance management of retail firms in Thailand. We explore how the relationships between information systems usage and logistics performance management that are measured by logistics performance indicators. In addition, the study also examines correlation analysis to find what factors that have influence on logistics performance management. We conducted a survey of 103 retail firms in Thailand. The empirical results indicate that the information systems usage in logistics activities has a significant impact on the firm’s logistics performance management.The implications and further exploration are discussed.

Counterfeit products account between 5-7% of world trade, worth an estimated US$600 billion in revenue a year (International Chamber of Commerce 2007). Theoretical and empirical research on counterfeit products is scarce, especially research from consumers' perspectives. This paper presents a pragmatic study that focuses on factors that influence Indian consumers' perceptions on attitudes about counterfeits. A descriptive study of eight respondents was conducted; their participation in the discussions was analyzed. Conclusions have been drawn based on consensus and views expressed. Research findings indicate that consumers are influenced by peer pressure, social acceptance and cost benefits as factors that motivate them to indulge in buying or using counterfeit products. Additionally, there are strong factors that bear an influence to use genuine products such as home conditioning, influence of role models and appreciated personalities.

Self-service technologies in retail have not been studied on a large scale despite their increasing importance. The major aim of this article is to increase our understanding of automated processes in retail by employing an in-depth analysis of one case. The object of study is a fully automated food shop in Western Finland, in a small village. After a brief review of customer participation and self-service technologies in general, the object of study is analyzed by means of a survey. A total of 82 persons (= 27.3 % of the village population) took part in the survey. The findings indicate that the automated concept has great relevance for the customers. Customers were committed to the service concept and the general perception of quality is rather high. Lack of personal service is not generally perceived as an issue, but according to this study, age seems to have a weak impact on the customers’ perceived difficulty of use of the vending machines. Managerially it has become clear that traditional retail research does not provide sufficient information for automated stores. In terms of further research, a study on automated stores in urban surroundings and an in-depth analysis of the ways of communication between vending machines and customers are suggested.

This study endeavoured to examine the antecedents of customer’s willingness to buy store branded household cleaning products. The study examined this phenomenon in a retail setting by considering the key constituents of perceived value, as proposed by Sweeney, Soutar & Johnson (1999). Respondents were recruited through an in-store survey and the data analysed using PLS path modelling. The results verify those identified by Sweeney et al. Strong relationships between perceived relative price and perceived product value, as well as between perceived product value and willingness-to-buy, were found to exist. A powerful negative relationship was observed between perceived product quality and perceived risk. The results indicate that establishing a value perception is critical in the buying process. Tangible cues exhibiting high quality (e.g. packaging, shelf space, media placement, etc) need profound attention. Furthermore, it is suggested that risk, which plays an important part in the consumer decision process, is minimised through optimal retail service quality and customer reassurances.

This paper offers an exploratory review of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues currently being publicly addressed by the world’s leading fashion goods retailers. The paper begins with a short discussion of the origins and characteristics of CSR and a thumbnail sketch of the fashion goods industry. The empirical information for the paper is drawn from the CSR information posted on the Internet by the world’s top ten fashion goods retailers. The findings reveal that while all the top ten fashion goods retailers publicly provide information on the impacts their businesses have in the marketplace, on the environment, on their workforce and on the communities in which they operate there was considerable variation in the extent of that information. More generally the paper offers some reflections on the CSR agendas being pursued by the world’s leading fashion goods retailers.

The main aim of this paper is studying of globalization effects on job level. The data set used cover 10 countries over the period 1980-2009. Before proceeding to estimate panel data, we carry out unit root tests to examine whether the variables are stationary. Empirical studies show that the globalization has both increased and decreased the employment. Decrease or increase of employment and its relationship with globalization is studies in this paper. In the present study, using the method of estimating the function of labor demand and the dynamic theory of labor market through four main criteria of globalization namely trade liberalization, employment, FDI, financial market effect (Islamic banking) and the theoretical foundations of the relationship between globalization and market of labor has been studied. The employment with respect to the gross domestic product, the degree of economy openness and Islamic banking is positive but the employment with respect to the government size is negative. The foreign direct investment has had a slight positive effect on the employment growth.

Microfinance has proved to be one of the effective tools for poverty reduction in developing countries. Following the success stories of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, the microfinance revolution has stormed the developing countries today. This paper looked at whether or not microfinance is an effective strategy for poverty reduction in developing countries. It was found out from the related literature that microfinance has a positive impact on poverty reduction and so, it is an effective tool for poverty reduction in many countries including Bangladesh, Bolivia etc. However there are doubts about its large scale impact. It also became clear from the literature that the impact of microfinance on poverty alleviation is a keenly debated issue and it is generally accepted that it is not a silver bullet, it has not lived up in general to its expectation. However, when implemented and managed carefully, and when services are designed to meet the needs of clients, microfinance has had positive impacts, not just on clients, but on their families and on the wider community. It was recommended among others that more efforts needs to be geared towards institution building including the strengthening of groups especially Self Help Groups(SHGs). There is also the need for the development of more effective management information system to promote the consolidation of sustainable financial service delivery through well performing Self Help Groups (SHGs).