Journal of Business and Retail Management Research

This two-study, experimental design, research proposes and tests if and how national stereotypes based on perceptions of competence versus warmth affect consumer expectations of the utilitarian versus hedonic nature of products as well as their subsequent purchase likelihood. The results of our first study found that higher perceived warmth results in greater expectations of hedonic product properties, and that higher competence perceptions result in greater expectations of utilitarian properties. It is further shown that perceived competence and warmth mediate the effect of country of origin on utilitarian and hedonic product expectations, respectively. Importantly, the second study demonstrates the downstream impact of national stereotypes on consumer behavior, showing the asymmetric effect of perceived warmth and competence on purchase likelihood of hedonic versus utilitarian products, whereas competent perception favor both utilitarian and hedonic purchase likelihood. Managerial and policy implications are offered for the marketing, retailing, and promotional strategies of products as well as of nation-brands. A social psychology of post-colonial globalization stereotypes nations as more competent ('developed' or ‘emerged’) versus warm (‘developing’ or 'emerging'): what can nations do to deliberately overcome the confines of negative and positive stereotypes in order to best promote their goods and services exports?

Consumers treat and react to promotions diversely in terms of their promotion proneness and variety seeking tendency. This paper investigates 589 consumers with 169678 transaction records in the US salt-snack market ranging from year 4 to year 7 in IRI Market Dataset for exploring how their purchase behaviours evolve in the consumer life cycle. A set of algorithms is presented to process store scanner data for measuring consumers’ promotion proneness and variety seeking tendency, which are then used for conducting clustering analysis. Four types of purchase behaviours including “Promotion averse”, “Bargain hunters”, “Opportunistic explorers”, and “Opportunistic exploiters” are identified and assigned accordingly for each consumer in each year. Even though consumers’ purchase behaviours will dynamically and freely shift within or among those four behavioural segments over time, two clear behavioural evolvement patterns can be identified statistically in the consumer life cycle. In the US salt-snack market, some consumers who are initially not sensitive to promotions will gradually evolve to take advantage of promotion to try alternatives for extending their market knowledge. Some explorers’ promotion proneness will gradually increase and outweigh their variety seeking tendency over time, thus, those opportunistic explorers become inclined to buy any brands on promotion. In contrast, consumers who initially prefer to buy their familiar brands will become m

This study aims to investigate the influences of social capital on three dimensions: the structural dimension, the relational dimension and the cognitive dimension in relation to absorptive capacity and organizational innovation. The data were collected by using a questionnaire from 119 leather product exporting firms. The results indicate that both the relational and cognitive dimensions have a significant positive impact on absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity has a significant positive impact on organizational innovation. This study might be useful to scholars and those who share an interest in the subject. The current study can also be used as a guideline for future research projects. Potential discussion with the research results is effectively implemented in the study. Theoretical and managerial contributions are explicitly provided along with the directions for future research.

The purpose of this study is to identify the major marketing communication tools that are beneficial on building bank brand equity through customer-based brand equity dimensions (CBBE) (brand awareness, brand perceived quality, brand associations, brand loyalty and brand trust) fromcustomers’ perspective in the Egyptian context.This studyused qualitative approach, which consists of semi-structured interviews.Fifteen interviews were conducted until the saturation level.Data collected were analysed by using themed analysis.The findings of this study showed that in the Egyptian banking sector, the major bank marketing communication tools consist of advertising, personal selling and direct marketing. The most important tool was personal selling; the next tool was direct marketing; and, finally, the advertising on building bank brand equity through CBBE dimensions. This study contributes on the theoretical level in the following ways: by adding to the field of branding particularly in the service brand equity in the Egyptian banking sector; by identifying the major bank marketing communication tools that help build bank brand equity through CBBE dimensions; and by developing a proposed conceptual framework that links between major marketing communication tools, CBBE dimensions and overall brand equity.It also provides directions to the service provider and particularly the bank managers on building, improving and maintaining bank brand equity to achieve a sustainable competitive

This study considered the adoption of private label brands, with a particular focus on breakfast cereals sold under a retailer’s own label, within the South African grocery sector. A panel of twelve corporate and academic experts was assembled and consulted to probe these issues and draw suitable qualitative insights for retailers to improve the inherent quality of their private label merchandise and the marketing thereof. Based on the insights gleaned, a number of conclusions and managerial implications were reached. This study produced results to suggest that packaging is an inadequate feature of PLBs in their current state, suggesting a potential reason for their poor quality perceptions and relative lack of success in the South African market place. Moreover, the study stressed the importance of value, and particularly the effect of price in this equation. Lower prices have served as the basis on which these products have traditionally been sold, yet product quality should not be overlooked as a determinant in the value equation. Moreover, the leverage potential of the store image was also highlighted as a prominent factor to allay such fears and create a ‘halo effect’ for the brand.

Brand personality applies human personality traits to describe a brand. While brand personality has attracted interests from marketing researchers for decades, the application of brand personality to describe a country as a person is still in its infancy. To fill in this void, the present study employs a qualitative research to gain insights in this topic and explore the possibility that new country personality dimensions and/or traits will emerge. Data collected from Thai consumers reveal six dimensions of Korea’s country personality including Development (e.g., advanced, developed, highly educated), Agreeableness (e.g., friendly, sincere, sympathetic), Good Appearance (e.g., cute, beautiful, surgical, handsome), Trendiness (e.g., entertaining, fashionable, touristic),Conservatism(e.g., religious, orderly, patriotic), and Negativity(selfish, impolite, chaotic).Several research implications are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.

Palm oil is one of the most important commodities as a source of national income in Indonesia. Increasing demand for this commodity encourages land conversion from shrub land to palm oil plantation in Parinduregion, West Kalimantan. As the result thereof, the ecological function of shrub land is neglected. This research examines whether the full conversion of shrub land into palm oil plantation is worth using the concept of total economic value. This concept considers three ecosystem services from shrub land, which are regulating services, provisioning services, and cultural services. The valuation shows that the estimated economic value of shrub land for the local community is Rp830, 293 (for provisioning service), Rp20 to Rp40 (for cultural service), and Rp831, 613 to Rp831, 633 (for regulation service). This means that the economic value for shrub land until the next twenty years is in the range of Rp5,997,592to Rp7,782,421 (or equal to USD 454.019 to USD 589.131) per hectare. It is to prove that despite its small economic value, shrub land indeed appears to have considerable economic value. Hence, based on the cost-benefit analysis on the three ecosystem services, the palm oil plantations worth to build on shrub land. However, further research is suggested to complete the total economic valuation with other ecosystem services, since the cost of pollution decreases the monetary value of shrub land, so that in terms of long-term sustainability, the development of palm oil p

In today’s highly competitive, global marketplace, a company that excels is one that continually strives to identify and focus on factors critical to its customers and improve its processes in order to provide the highest – quality product or service possible. The implementation of total quality management in hospitality industry is an essential approach for business that attempts to maximize their competitiveness through the continual improvement of the quality of its products, services, people, processes, and environments in order to meet customers’ requirements which will subsequently lead to customers’ satisfaction. Moreover, it is worth to stress on the effect of dealing with the employees as internal customers in achieving customers’ satisfaction which will lead to present high quality service in the hospitality industry within the framework of TQM criteria. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the implementation of TQM and the customer satisfaction and employee’s satisfaction, as well as to study the relationship between the application of the TQM and achieving the organization goals and gaining competitive advantage through achieving customers’ satisfaction in hospitality industry in Alexandria, Egypt. Two questionnaires were distributed in four and five hotels in Alexandria; the first one is distributed to customers to measure the elements that affect their satisfaction during their stay in Alexandria hotels. The second one was

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing the adoption of ICT among SMEs, to examine the influence of ICT adoption on marketing capabilities, and to analyze the influence of marketing capabilities on business performance among Indonesian SMEs in the fashion industry. A questionnaire-based survey was employed to collect data from 204 SME owners/managers. The results suggest that complexity, trialability, and observability are among the technological factors that have a significant influence on ICT adoption. Research advantage and compatibility do not influence ICT adoption. Meanwhile, organizational factors such as owner/manager knowledge and innovativeness significantly influence ICT adoption among SMEs. Environmental factors such as competitive pressure, institutional intervention (excepting market turbulence) contribute significantly to the adoption. Moreover, data analysis reveals that ICT adoption has a positive influence toward SMEs’ marketing capabilities. Finally marketing capabilities significantly influence a firm’s business performance. The findings contain valuable insights that could educate owners/managers of SMEs about the potential gains they will get by adopting the cost-effective capabilities of Internet adoption for their businesses. This study also provides justification and recommendations for government and lawmakers to foster the growth of SMEs in Indonesia by building more IT-related infrastructure and developing necessary skil

The objective of this research is to verify the relationships among human resource outsourcing of four activities such as recruitment activities, training administration, payroll management, and human resource information system and organizational performance through HR cost efficiency, effective HR development and HR flexibility. The model is tested by using data collected from mail survey questionnaires of 165 multinational firms and using a questionnaire as the instrument. The results of OLS regression analysis show that HRM outsourcing has a significant impact on organizational performance both direct and indirect via HR cost efficiency, effective HR development and HR flexibility. In sum, this study contributes to manager by providing the knowledge that organizational performance can be increased by HR outsourcing implementation. Theoretical and managerial contributions, conclusion and directions of the future research are mentioned.

The growth in the consumer food retail companies in 2008 and 2009 was primarily due to continued Egyptian population growth, relatively strong economic growth despite the global downturn in 2009, and the presence of new international and domestic retail companies. Changes in consumer lifestyle, as Egyptian consumers become more westernized in their work hours and eating habits, along with the presence of more women in the workforce, contributed to increased retail and food service sales. The economic climate will further improve as the global economic crisis is resolved, breathing new life into the ever growing Egyptian market. While the global financial crisis has reduced the growth rate in the catering business in Egypt by about 15-20%, retail sales have increased by the same proportion due to the expansion of international chains, variety of products offered and an increase in the level of income and brand advertising. The food retail sector in Egypt continues its rapid development. More hypermarkets and supermarkets are sprouting in suburban Cairo and Alexandria in addition to more supermarket chains establishing a position in the rest of the governorates, primarily the Red Sea resort area. Carrefour (France) now operates 6 stores and has a plan to open 18 new stores over the next 5 years including 16 small express stores. Makro Cash and Carry (the local brand of the Dutch Metro chain) expects to open two outlets in 2010. The local Metro supermarket chain has 39 branche

This paper outlines research exploring differences in approach to outsourcing and offshoring by multinational corporations. In particular, a comparison is drawn between German and UK headquartered organizations in the airline / transport and also the engineering sectors. A novel conceptual framework is developed that uses differing varieties of capitalism (VoC) to compare and contrast a series of criteria. Underlying theory that is drawn from the resource based view (RBV) of the firm and global production networks (GPNs) are also considered. The initial findings from two case studies are that German organizations are less inclined to outsource (in both sectors) preferring to retain control as a wholly owned business offshore. The UK businesses were less risk adverse and seemed to be more flexible and agile in their sourcing policies being prepared to outsource, offshore and partner or acquire as appropriate, even using competitors when there is a sound business case. The relationships’ with trade unions / works council was also found to be very different, with reluctance by management in Germany to progress radical initiatives. A favorable economy in Germany has also created an environment in which overseas expansion could take place without a significant loss of jobs at home.

In this paper we explore the impact of the ivasion of large global retailers into the Hungarian FMCG space. As well as giving the historical evolution of the market, we also show a recipe on how the local SME’s can cope with the foreign competition. “If you can’t beat them, at least emulate them well”.