Journal of Business and Retail Management Research

In the current economic climate, competition between retailers is high and customers face numerous choices. Smart retailers can learn to manage their corporate reputation and brand equity as strategic tools in the fight for customers, and gain a competitive advantage in the market place.In light of this, this study provides an in-depth explanation of the relationship between corporate reputation and customer-based retailer brand equity (CBRBE) and clarifies the effect of the dimensions of corporate reputation on CBRBEin the South African context. Specifically, this paper contributes to literature on the South African retail industry byproviding an updated account of customer perceptions. A survey of retail customers in two major cities finds a strong, positive relationship between corporate reputation and CBRBE. Additionally, the six dimensions of corporate reputation are found to have a positive relationship with the dimensions of CBRBE. The findings of this study reveal that retailers wishing to improve their CBRBE should focus on their products and services, as well as financial performance.

We focus in this work on the cluster approach in Algeria. The Algerian economy is a rentier economy suffering from deindustrialization worsened since the 1980s and a lack of competitiveness of its manufacturing industry. In this context, the Algerian authorities are trying to revive the industry through a proactive approach leveraging the oil wealth they have since the 2000s. We believe that this approach will only be successful if it starts in areas favorable to the creation of clusters even in an embryonic state. We will in this work aim to statistically detect clusters after presenting the adaptation of the cluster concept in Algeria and an overview of the Algerian industry.

Retail Industry is likely to be the next big thing for services in this decade. The industry is very diverse, with several sub-segments, each displaying its own unique characteristics. The retail players need to be excellent in every facet of operations as the market is highly competitive at every level and re-defining itself every day. It is mainly a service oriented industry so employee’s especially frontline sales people who do have a major role in customers purchasing decision are the key people to its success. Now –a- days the main USP of any industry especially service industry is satisfied customer. The main focus of this research is to determine the department store service effectiveness. This is achieved by means of assessment of the customer expectation and customer perception of the service effectiveness rendered by frontline sales personnel. For the purpose of the conduction of the study both primary and secondary data was used. The questionnaire used for primary data collection was based on a modified fifteen-item, seven –point scale that measures customer expectations and customer perception of service effectiveness developed by Parasuraman et.al. (1988). The secondary data was collected using various published and unpublished paper and electronic sources. For analysis and interpretation of data univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques like factor analysis and reliability analysis were used .The interpretation of the results showed

This paper focused on analyzing the costs and benefits of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in Nigeria drawing on a sample of ten (10) banks in Port Harcourt. The paper was intended to ascertain the worthiness of BPR projects in the banks. Two research questions (what are the benefits of BPR? and what are the costs of BPR?) and one hypothesis (there is no significant difference between the benefits and costs of BPR), guided the study. The result showed that there is a significant and positive difference between the benefits and costs of BPR. Consequently, it was concluded that BPR is a worthwhile exercise in Nigerian banks since the findings showed that the benefits outweighed the costs. Based on this, it was recommended that: BPR should never be carried out for the mere sake of it rather, it should be preceded by strategic planning, which addresses leveraging IT as a competitive tool; such an exercise should place the customer at the center of the re-engineering effort. This can be achieved by concentrating on re-engineering fragmented processes that impact negatively on customer service; for a successful BPR, there must be recourse to corporate culture while constant communication and feedback should not be ignored; to achieve maximum result from a BPR, it must be effort of the organization members and not that driven by a group of outside consultants or sections of the organization; a specific time frame between three to six months should be designated for any BPR proj

The primary aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for the right pricing strategies for offline retailers when expanding in the online sales channel. Despite lots of research of price levels and price dispersion in the online channel, the fact that offline retailers do pursue a specific pricing strategy when they make the decision to expand in the online sales channel is widely neglected. This paper closes this research gap and provides recommendations that are dependent on the retailer´s current pricing strategy. Germany´s largest consumer electronics retailer Media Markt serves as an illustrative example in this realm.

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has provided consumers with the opportunity to offer their experiences and opinions to other consumers on a global scale. Both traditional word of mouth (WOM) and eWOM have been found to play a major role in determining consumers’ behaviour and attitudes towards a brand. Negative eWOM has been found to have a greater impact on consumers than positive eWOM. This study investigated whether the willingness of a frequent flyer to engage in negative eWOM has a significant negative impact on brand attitude. Brand attitude was measured by three components, namely brand trust, brand affect and consumer purchase intent. The study further examined whether willingness to engage in negative eWOM differed between customers of full-service and low-cost carriers. The primary finding of this study revealed that willingness to engage in negative eWOM after a service failure did indeed have a negative impact on frequent flyers’ attitude towards the brand. However, no difference was found between the two types of customers. It is believed that this study can assist airline companies in understanding the effect of eWOM after a service failure and, in a scholarly context, goes some way to addressing the dearth of research in this area of enquiry.

Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) is a relatively new concept in contemporary marketing studies. Although its general understanding seems to be rather intuitive and simple within business managerial environments, as the sole name of it induces the usage of Social Media (SM) and data that it contains and constantly produces in company’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies, scholars still struggle to create its holistic definition or even one unified description and a general list of characteristics. In this paper, we discuss and find deficiencies and incoherencies among researched works and detecting a group of characteristics archetypal to contemporary SCRM.

This study identifies possible sources that generate dissonance and finds important variables that may improve information systems (IS) professionals' level of satisfaction in each source. A logit model is used to identify significant variables that affect the formulation of higher job satisfaction. Results show that the effective management of variables related to the output side variables such as pay level, career progress opportunities, chance to learn new skills, etc, directly impact on the formulation of turnover intention among IS professionals.

This study investigated the effects of market infrastructure and poor access to markets on marketing of grains in selected states of northern Nigeria, West Africa. Data for this study was collected from a sample size of 300 farmers using the questionnaire. Each questionnaire response was captured by a computer software programme designed for the purpose of analysis. The product moment correlation coefficient and regression analysis were used to test hypothesis one and two respectively. It was found that, the correlation coefficient r=0.914 showed a strong positive relationship between market infrastructure and grains marketing. It was equally found that, a significant relationship existed between poor access to markets and marketing of grains as r=0.791, while r2 =0.626, implying that 62.6% of the variation in grains marketing is accounted for by poor access to markets. The study recommended that market infrastructure should be improved upon while markets in the northern states of Nigeria should be made more accessible if the objective of achieving effective and efficient marketing of grains in the northern states of Nigeria is to be contemplated.