Corporate Retail Research Articles

Extending the Competition Commission's Findings on Entry and Exit of Small Stores in British High Streets: Implications for Competition and Planning Policy

The Competition Commission's analysis in 2007 of entry and exit conditions among small stores across more than one thousand British high streets provided a landmark piece of research on a topic in which debate and policy recommendations had moved significantly, and arguably dangerously, ahead of the available evidence base. Within a general context of a continuing long-term decline of specialist small stores in British town centres and high streets, it cast considerable doubt on the popularly held view that a broad-based decline of the independent convenience store sector was taking place across the UK, or that Britain's high streets were experiencing an accelerating decline in their small and specialist stores. Additionally, and even more controversially, the Commission's analysis was able to demonstrate that competitive entry by larger format corporate food retailing was not inevitably and uniformly associated with negative impacts on the small store sector. It is known that the Commission's research was paralleled by an identical analysis conducted on behalf of one of the main parties to the Groceries Market Inquiry by the University of Southampton. The first component of the Southampton analysis, which both corroborated and extended the Commission's findings, is available in the public domain. This paper now presents the second component of the Southampton analysis, which similarly both corroborates but also extends the vitally important ‘conditional entry’ dimension of the Commission's research—focusing directly on the extent to which entry into the small store sector during the early to mid 2000s might have been constrained by, and exit from the sector accelerated by, the competitive impacts of larger format foodstore openings by the major corporate retailers. The paper shows: (a) that there is an important missing regional dimension within the Commission's analysis, and (b) that entry and exit into the small store sector in the UK during 2000–06 was constrained and/or accelerated by the competitive impacts of supermarket opening in a different fashion within ‘London and prospering southern England’ than elsewhere in the country. That is to say, in the region of the UK in which arguments about the threat of corporate retail to the diversity of the small store sector had often proved particularly heated, the Southampton analysis shows small shops in town centres and high streets to have been more robust to the competitive opening of larger format corporate foodstores than elsewhere in the UK. In that context, the paper suggests that the findings represent an ‘inconvenient truth’ which deserves consideration both in policy debate and in future processes of planning regulation reform. Discussion of the relevance of the findings in respect of the proposed changes to Planning Policy Statement 6 released for consultation by the Department for Communities and Local Government in July 2008 is presented.

The Peasant as ‘Canary’? Not too early warnings of global catastrophe

Philip McMichael argues that an ecological sensibility is needed to challenge corporate retailers appropriating local foods. To address the conjuncture of food, energy, and climate crises, the world needs a reversal of the modernist distaste for smallholder farming, fishing, and pastoralism – rejecting the view of the peasant as (disposable) canary, and recognizing the adaptability of peasants to ecological changes under conditions of global warming.

Sustainability in the Turkish retailing industry

AbstractRetailing is a diverse and dynamic industry offering a wide range of goods and services to consumers.There is also an increasing recognition that this corporate retail power is the driving force for the whole of the supply chain. Due to these facts, it is argued that retailing companies have a huge potential to impact on sustainability performance of national economies. In order to materialize this potential, performance in sustainability should be assessed, and evaluating sustainability performance of an industry requires developing a system of performance evaluation framework. In the context of sustainable development, selecting proper sustainability indicators are one of the most crucial steps to fulfill performance evaluations. Since there has been no attempt to develop proper sustainability indicators in retailing industry, this paper aims to select appropriate indicators for future evaluation of industrial sustainability performance for grocery retailing in terms of three sustainability aspects: social, environmental and economic. To this end, (1) a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature was done, (2) and Analytic Hierarchy Process/Weighted Additive model‐based table was developed to rank the indicators for each aspect, (3) the input for the tables was obtained from rapidly growing grocery retailing industry in Turkey by conducting surveys, and (4) using the average values of the tables, sustainability indicators for each aspect were ranked and the most appropriate ones were selected. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Customer acceptance of RFID technology: Evidence from the German electronic retail sector

Radio frequency identification (RFID) represents a novel technology that promises to deliver various benefits for customers in retail settings. However, up until now RFID technology has seldom been tested and drivers of customer acceptance remain unclear. Against this background, the present multi-method study seeks to explore customer acceptance of RFID technology at a German electronic retail corporation with regard to the technology acceptance model (TAM). Our results add to the literature as follows. First, RFID technology has predominantly been analyzed in business-to-business settings, whereas we analyzed an electronic retailing company and explored the customers’ point of view. Second, the TAM could be confirmed on the basis of a stratified random sample of 206 costumers for the present retail setting. In particular, we show that ease of use and security concerns are relevant. Third, despite the overall appropriateness of the TAM, refinements to the model seem to be needed. Therefore, we identify the overall attitude of customers toward novel technologies and data security to be of particular importance. Implications are discussed and future research options are sketched out.

Global production networks, ethical campaigning, and the embeddedness of responsible governance

This article presents a theoretically informed consideration of the role of ethical campaigning in shaping organizational practices of power and authority in global production networks (GPNs). It does so through a focus on responsibility, and the ways in which ethical consumption is challenging the organization of global networks of supply. The arguments draw upon and develop two geographical approaches to understanding transnational trade, namely the GPN framework and the study of commodity knowledge. First, understandings of ethical consumption and circuitous commodity knowledge are mobilized to capture the practices of knowledge translation through which ethics are woven into particular forms of supply network coordination. Second, through a comparative case study of UK and US corporate retailers’ ethical trading programmes, notions of embeddedness advanced by the GPN framework are used and further developed to illuminate how the mobilization of ethics into different forms of network coordination involves organizational processes influenced by spaces of retail and consumption. It is argued from this that the influences of retail and consumption should be more fully incorporated into analytical frameworks for understanding GPNs.

Retail relations: an interlocking directorate analysis of food retailing corporations in the United States

The US food retailing industry continues to concentrate and consolidate. Power in the agriculture, food, and nutrition system has shifted from producers to processors, and is now shifting to retailers. Currently, only eight food-retailing corporations control the majority of food sales in the United States. Expanding on previous research by Lyson and Raymer (2000, Agriculture and Human Values 17: 199–208), this paper examines the characteristics of the boards of directors of the leading food retailing corporations and the indirect interlocks that bind the food retailers into a corporate community.

Organisational geographies of corporate responsibility: a UK-US comparison of retailers' ethical trading initiatives

Ethical trade, involving corporate codes of conduct for sites of production, has become a key means through which labour in retailers’ global supply chains is regulated. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that retail corporations vary markedly in their approaches to ethical trade and that such variation is shaped, in part, by the national-institutional contexts in which retailers are based. This article explores this insight by evaluating the distinct roles played by multi-stakeholder initiatives for ethical trade in the UK and USA. While the UK's core multi-stakeholder initiative, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), encompasses retailers from a variety of sectors and takes a developmental and continuous learning approach to ethical trade, the US multi-stakeholder initiatives are focussed more on corporate accountability based on compliance monitoring exclusively in the clothing sector. Given recent organisational attempts to foster transnational dialogue between multi-stakeholder initiatives, though, we argue that the precise ways in which national-institutional contexts shape retailers’ ethical trading approaches are fluid and mutable. We contribute to the literature on the governance of global supply chains, retailer power and corporate responsibility by emphasising the political significance of national-institutional environments. However, in line with notions of relational economic geography, we understand these national-institutional environments as active and dynamic contexts, and accentuate the coalitional ways in which nationally based organisations evolve in their home countries and go on to shape broader transnational agendas for ethical trade.

Diagnosing the Relationship Between Corporate Reputation and Retail Patronage

Corporate reputation is relatively stable, long-term, collective judgments by outsiders of an organization's achievements. It may be an important factor that influences consumer behavior. A study was conducted in Taiwan to investigate the effects of retailer reputation on consumer store patronage patterns. A sample of 350 supermarket consumers was studied in Taiwanese cities. It was found that corporate reputation does not have a significant impact on shopping expenditure, time traveled and patronage frequencies. Three explanations that hindered the influence of corporate reputation on consumers’ shopping expenditure, travel time and patronage frequencies in grocery shopping contexts are proposed; they are perishable goods, price consciousness and reputation indifference. These imply consumers might have a positive impression toward a grocery retailer; yet they just do not want to patronize the retailer anymore. Implications for reputation and retailing research are discussed.

The Economic and Social Impact of Big Box Retailers: Discussion

Now Big Box retailers such as Wal-Mart are challenging not only local mom and pop retailers but national corporate retail firms such as Sears, JC Penny, A&P Supermarkets, and others. Just like the corporate retail firms did in the 1950s, Big Box Stores such as Wal-Mart have changed how America shops for commercial products, changed customer expectations of retail prices for these products, and changed the distributional structure of retail trade.

Anti‐corporate retailer campaigns on the internet

PurposeThis paper seeks to provide an illustrative review of the internet campaigns being waged against a number of large corporate retailers.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a short history of anti‐corporate protest and this is followed by a brief outline of the dominance of large corporations within retailing. The paper draws its empirical material from anti‐corporate retail web sites on the internet.FindingsThe findings reveal that in some cases internet campaigns target the policies and behaviours of corporate retailers and in others specific retailers are being singled out for special attention. The campaigns address a wide range of issues including the environment and planning, impacts within local economies and communities, workers’ rights and working conditions and the power of retail corporations.Originality/valueThe paper provides an accessible review of the anti‐corporate retailer campaigns being waged on the internet and as such it will interest retail academics, retail employees, political representatives, planning officers and community and pressure groups.

Cognitive, affective attributes and conative, behavioural responses in retail corporate branding

PurposeThe main aim of the present study is to empirically test a model of antecedents and consequences of corporate brand image (CBI) in two book retailers, one selling exclusively online, and the other selling exclusively offline in a British context.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a survey to investigate the relationships of the antecedents and consequences of the CBI. The sample (n=511) comprised experienced customers of these two bookstores (visitors and shoppers of the site or bookstore). The antecedents of CBI which were the functional aspects of brand attributes (such as ease of use, secured web site, interactivity/building relationship, customer care and reliability) were combined with the CBI itself (emotional aspects of the corporate brand or personality traits of the company) and, further, the consequences of these emotional aspects such as customer satisfaction and loyalty were tested using a cross‐sectional study.FindingsUsing two separate structural equation models, the study found an empirical relationship between the brand attributes and the corporate brand image (the emotional values). This relationship in turn influences the customer's responses (loyalty).Research limitations/implicationsBy combining two methodological approaches of brand image evaluation: cognition (assessed through tangible and intangible brand attributes) and affect/emotion (assessed through brand personality scale) this study intends to add to the current understanding of consumer brand knowledge, in particular when the consumer is assessing a company's brand image (the CBI) and also learn how important the effect of cognitive attributes (such as brand attributes of a store and web site) is in explaining the subsequent CBI, and the integration effect on consumer responses such as brand loyalty. Do cognitive evaluations drive conative, behavioural actions in retail buying decision making? Are cognitive evaluations directly related with satisfaction with the retailer and consumer loyalty?Practical implicationsExplicitly, the present study offers practitioners a research framework, aimed at guiding them as to how they could understand their defined or desired brand values (the corporate core values) among their consumers.Originality/valueIn general, the present study adds to the existing literature in cognitive and affective attributes in consumer judgement and corresponding conative or behavioural attitudes in branding and reputation management. It brings together the concept of functional brand attributes, emotional brand attributes (the CBI), and the dependent variables such as customer satisfaction and loyalty in a unique context (internet), and compares this with the bricks and mortar context.

Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequity

Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequity Christine L. Williams. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. For approximately six weeks, sociologist Christine L. Williams worked as a salesperson at two chain toy stores in Austin-a big box superstore on outskirts of town called Toy Warehouse and an exclusive, upscale, urban shop called Diamond Toys-in an attempt to study ways in which attitudes toward race, class, and gender operate in conjunction with modern American toy store. The result is her book, Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequity, title of which reveals what she found and echoes conclusions of Barbara Ehrenreich's 2001 bestseller Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. However, instead of focusing on a particular sales venue, such as Wal-Mart, she addresses a large industry as a whole. Her book does not include as much in-depth information on specific toys as other classics in field, such as Cy Schneider's Children's Television: How It Works and Its Influence on Children, Sydney Ladensohn Stern and Ted Schoenhaus's Toyland: The High Stakes of Toy Industry, and Ellen Seiter's Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture. Instead, it takes a business organization's approach, addressing dynamics of relationships and interactions among store managers, sales employees, and customers. One senses that Williams's findings are not exclusive to toy industry but could be applied to any number of other corporate retailers. Her goal, she writes, to understand how shopping was socially organized and how it might be transformed to enhance lives of workers and consumers (20). Conducting research as a participant-observer, Williams found that in many ways two toy sales venues were very much same. Both sold similar merchandise, although Diamond shoppers thought they were getting exclusive items, and both offered similar pay and working conditions, even though Diamond Toys was unionized while Toy Warehouse was not. Both were more likely to employ male managers and demonstrated a preference for putting white or lighter-skinned women in more visible, customer-interactive positions in store. Both stores had a gender ratio of 60:40-60% women and 40% men. This ratio was repeated with race; however, at Toy Warehouse, it was 60% minority versus 40% white, whereas at Diamond Toys figures were reversed. In general, Williams writes, the more upscale store and high paying position, more likely employee will be a white, middleclass woman, or man (38). …

Bare-knuckled broadcasting: enlisting manly respectability and racial paternalism in the battle against chain stores, chain stations, and the Federal Radio Commission on Louisiana's KWKH, 1924–33

Between 1924 and 1933 William Kennon Henderson, a clear-channel Shreveport, Louisiana broadcaster, ‘abused’ radio to defend its regional autonomy. Defying principles of the ‘American System’ of commercial network broadcasting, Henderson charged chain and network broadcasters, chain retailers, and the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), the regulatory body overseeing broadcasting, with impinging on local control of the airwaves and of everyday life itself. Henderson's neo-populist critique operated synergistically by interspersing combative political commentaries with cultural programmes that championed white Southern paternalism, manly respectability, and conventional gender and racial modes of social organization. Henderson's ‘abuse’ of the market-friendly cult of respectability heard elsewhere on the dial won supporters across the country and generated consternation in the United States Senate, among corporate retailers, and within the FRC. This essay argues that the Depression exacerbated regional tensions such that the KWKH airwaves readily became a self-reflexive space for debates over modernity and embodiments of economic, social, and cultural power.

International Retail Restructuring and Divestment: The Experience of Tesco

A key purpose of this study is to explore the lessons learned from international retail divestment and market withdrawal experiences. Drawing on 33 in-depth interviews with leading investment banks and key retail executives at Tesco, the study investigates the company's international restructuring and divestment activities in Ireland and France during the mid -1980s and 1990s. It has been demonstrated that, despite the progressive merger and acquisition wave sweeping through the corporate retail landscape recently, international retail divestment is quite widespread. The main conclusion from this study is that Tesco originally did not envisage divestment or de-internationalisation as part of the original internationalisation strategy process in either the acquisition of Three Guys in Ireland or Catteau in France. There was no appreciation from Tesco during their early period of expansion of the fact that exit pressures might arise during the course of market entry. In this regard, the case study provides insights into the relationship between investment and divestment within the context of international retail restructuring. The case evidence also demonstrates the positive impact of the Three Guys and Catteau divestments which helped management to refocus and rejuvenate the company's internationalisation process.

CORPORATE REAL ESTATE DISPOSAL IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE RATIOS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of corporate real estate disposals on corporate performance ratios in Europe between the years 1998–2002. In addition, it was studied whether the retail and telecom corporations that conducted large real estate disposals were in significantly worse condition before the transactions than other corporations in the same business sector. The study indicated that those retail corporations that had divested corporate real estate were less profitable compared to other corporations in the same business sector before the transactions. Similarly, some evidence was found that the telecom corporations that were disposing of real estate had worse capital structure and short‐term solvency before the transactions than other European telecom corporations. It seems, however, that the overall economical environment and other corporate operations have often influenced the development of the performance ratios more than the property disposals, at least in the most volatile business sectors.

Corporate real estate disposal impact on performance ratios

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of corporate real estate disposals on corporate performance ratios in Europe between the years 1998–2002. In addition, it was studied whether the retail and telecom corporations that conducted large real estate disposals were in significantly worse condition before the transactions than other corporations in the same business sector. The study indicated that those retail corporations that had divested corporate real estate were less profitable compared to other corporations in the same business sector before the transactions. Similarly, some evidence was found that the telecom corporations that were disposing of real estate had worse capital structure and short‐term solvency before the transactions than other European telecom corporations. It seems, however, that the overall economical environment and other corporate operations have often influenced the development of the performance ratios more than the property disposals, at least in the ...

Measuring delayed and long‐term effects of pricing decisions on market share

Market‐share analysis focuses on the competitive interrelations between products or brands. Marketing activity may affect the performance of a company's own product and that of its competitors not only within a single time horizon but also over several extended periods. Starting from a static market‐share analysis model, the dynamic relationships of market shares between competitive brands are described by multiplicative competitive interaction (MCI) time‐series models, in which the problem of logical consistency for estimated shares is resolved. A Bayesian shrinkage estimator solution is applied to the further problem of model‐induced collinearity in cross‐differential MCI models. Dynamic elasticity is defined and used to measure the delayed and long‐term effects of marketing mix variables on market shares. The dynamic relationships of future market shares are predicted by means of predictive density. Strategic simulations are conducted under several scenarios for marketing planning. It is argued that the new dynamic model proposed here, applied to daily national or store tracking data, provides useful insights into dynamic competitive relationships in the marketplace, to the benefit of corporate planners, marketing directors, brand managers and retail strategists.

Managing the geography of street trading in the UK: a case study of local authority regulation

Acknowledges there is an increasing recognition that corporate retail power is the driving force for the supply chain. States a variety of large shopping developments in out of town and edge of town locations, plus continued construction and redevelopment of shopping centres within town and city centres, provide a potential physical pointer regarding retail corporate power. Concludes that major retail centres seem to be prioritised above more informal retail activities, such as street traders.

Retailing as a career: a comparative study of marketers

This note reports how positions in retailing—particularly store-based positions—compare with other marketing-related positions. While much of the past literature concerning work experiences in retail settings is primarily perceptual and anecdotal, the results of this nationwide study are based on an examination of actual workplace experiences in marketing-related positions. The findings suggest that workplace experiences in corporate retailing are positive and equivalent to other marketing-related careers. However, workplace experiences in retail store management are less satisfying. The retail store managers studied were paid less, experienced less variety and autonomy on the job, felt less satisfied and committed to their work, and had greater turnover intentions compared to the other marketing managers studied. Managerial implications and recommendations are presented.

Flexible Retailing: Gap Inc. and the Multiple Spaces of Shopping in the United States

In the last 15 years a range of new and revitalised forms of retailing have emerged in cities and suburbs across the USA. Power centres, hybrid centres, speciality retail centres, and street‐based retailing have complicated the existing mix of shopping centres, malls, factory outlet/off‐price centres, and festive/restoration centres. After examining the literature on retail change and establishing our theoretical framework, we analyse the history of mall construction and contrast it with a representative retail firm, Gap Inc., in order to gain some insights into the diversity of contemporary American retailing. Through this empirical examination we argue that retailing in the USA is currently operating through a range of spatial forms. This diversity in retail forms has been assisted and promoted by the emergence and increasing predominance of large corporate retailers – from clothiers to home furnishing vendors to booksellers – who are able to operate profitably in a range of spatial settings. As mall construction nationally has declined new shopping centre formats and the recent revival of street‐based retailing appear as innovative spatial forms that extend the opportunities and broaden the experiential aspects of shopping for a wide range of consumers. We conclude that contemporary retailing, like manufacturing, has become increasingly flexible in its locational practices.