When nature calls: The role of customer toilets in retail stores

The scarce previous literature indicates that the customer toilet facilities influence shopping value and should be a concern for retailers. However, customer toilets are often inadequately capitalised in retail stores. This study aims to provide a scientifically robust argument about the critical role of customer toilets in retail stores. The explanatory survey data (n=655) from a Finnish out-of-town department store is examined to explore (1) the importance that consumers place on the customer toilets and (2) the effect of toilet usage on actual shopping behaviour. The results support the assumptions of previous literature by suggesting that customer toilets are considered as an important store attribute and, more importantly, the use of toilets is associated with prolonged in-store time which, in turn, increases spending. The findings offer both academic and managerial contribution and encourage academics and practitioners to regard customer toilets as more than mere an unwanted property expense and discover their full marketing potential.     

The Media's Role in Influencing Perceptions of Housing Values and the Resulting Impact on the Macroeconomy

The housing market is a major component of the economy and persistent negative media reports can adversely affect perceptions and expectations of homeowners as to the value of their home. As a result, households reduce their expenditures and increase their savings in an effort to rebuild lost wealth. In the short run the economy suffers and the recession is magnified. This paper demonstrates, through an empirical study, how negative media reports regarding the deteriorating conditions of the national housing market affects what households feel their housing is worth.     

Employee performance outcomes and burnout following the presentation-of-self in customer-service contexts

This study examines how emotional intelligence and occupational commitment have a moderating effect on the relationship between emotional labour and its potential outcomes. Two acting strategies reflect emotional labour, namely surface and deep acting, with burnout and performance as the prospective outcomes. Burnout is operationalized into emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and diminished personal achievement; whereas performance is operationalized into task performance and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). The study investigates employee responses from several tourism and hospitality organizations in Florida, USA. The results show that emotional labour relates most positively to task performance and to burnout in the case of surface acting. Tests of moderation show that occupational commitment enhances performance outcomes by facilitating emotional labour strategies, and the prevalence of higher emotional intelligence amongst employees reduces burnout. These findings contribute to the literature on emotional labour by incorporating emotional intelligence and occupational commitment as moderators and by incorporating OCBs within performance analyses.     

Some Determinants of Core Competencies: Evidence from a Binary-Logit Analysis

Despite the increasing recognition of the salience of core competencies in the process of competition, the notion of core competencies has remained largely ambiguous in the literature. Neither is it clear what strategies, institutions, and resources are necessary for developing and sustaining core competencies. This paper uses the binary-logit model to explore the determinants of core competencies, and identifies investment in intangible assets, marketing/promotional activities and firm size as significant determinants of core competencies. An evaluation of the technology strategies of two competence-seeking firms also points to the increasing salience of intangible assets, decentralization/globalization of the R&D function, and the intensive search for knowledge and capabilities.     

Assessing ethical behaviours in the Spanish banking and insurance industries: evidence and challenges

This study aims to improve understanding of the ethical nature of the relations in two labour-intensive industries to facilitate the creation of an ethical culture. For this purpose, the authors first review literature related to the main influences on ethical behaviour, then perform an empirical analysis of those factors using a hierarchical stepwise regression of a database of 525 banking and insurance employees. Contrary to expectations, leadership has a less important effect on ethical behaviour than other organizational factors. The results reveal several implications for improving the management of ethical behaviour in these industries.     

Expatriate or local bosses? HCN subordinates' preferences in leadership behaviour

This article explores host-country national subordinates’ preferences in leadership behaviour comparing expatriate bosses and local bosses. From a sample of 240 middle managers in Hong Kong with experience with both local Chinese bosses and expatriate bosses from a broad spectrum of Western and Asian countries, it was found that the subordinate managers assessed the leadership behaviour of their expatriate bosses to be significantly closer to that of their perceived ideal boss. American leadership behaviour was the most preferred and Japanese leader style was the least preferred, with British leadership style comprising a middle group. Implications of these findings for international business firms and future academic research are discussed.     

Seat belt utilisation and awareness in UAE

Seat belts (SBs) are effective devices for reducing injury risk due to traffic accidents. Seat belt wearing was made compulsory in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in January 1999 for drivers and front seat passengers (FSPs). No comprehensive study has ever assessed SB wearing rates across the country. Also, little is known on drivers' awareness of the importance of wearing seatbelts and how human factors affect wearing habits. This study aims to determine SB wearing rates for drivers and FSPs in UAE through an observational field study. It also aims to investigate perceptions and behaviour of drivers on this issue as well as human factors that affect wearing rate through a randomly distributed questionnaire. The results of the field study show that the overall SB wearing rate across the country was 61% for drivers and 43.4% for FSPs and that there were significant differences between the seven emirates that constitute the country. The questionnaire results show that age, education level, gender, marital status and nationality of drivers affect wearing habits and perceptions. Future implications in terms of improving traffic safety awareness are discussed.     

Visitors’ learning for environmental sustainability: Testing short- and long-term impacts of wildlife tourism experiences using structural equation modelling

Wildlife tourism experiences have the potential to positively impact tourists’ awareness, appreciation and actions in relation to the specific wildlife they encounter and the environment in general. This paper investigates the extent of such impact across multiple sites, and uses Structural Equation Modelling to identify factors that best predict positive long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Three sets of variables were measured – visitors’ entering attributes (including pre-visit environmental orientation and motivation for the visit), salient aspects of the experience, and short- and long-term learning and environmental behaviour change outcomes. Although attributes such as pre-visit commitment and motivation to learn were among the best predictors of the long-term impact of the experience, there was evidence that aspects of the experience were also important. In particular, reflective engagement which involved cognitive and affective processing of the experience was found to be associated with short- and long-term environmental learning outcomes. The implications for wildlife tourism managers are discussed.     

shopper taxonomy for retail strategy development

Segmentation of shoppers has been explored by many academic researchers and business practitioners seeking to understand shopping behaviour or to develop marketing strategies for particular customer groups. Market segmentation holds the key to successful marketing strategy as it encourages understanding of the key variables that differentiate specific segments.

The shopper taxonomy determined through this study is based on a set of variables that is relevant and appropriate for shopper segmentation and reflects the key aspects important to shoppers in motivating shopping behaviour towards a specific retail location. This taxonomy extends the proposed motivational taxonomy of Westbrook and Black (1985), derived from Tauber's (1972) earlier research. Westbrook and Black defined this taxonomy through shopping motives, and identified categories of product-oriented, experiential and a combination of product and experiential shoppers. Their research findings, however, pointed to a six-cluster typology, defining department stone shopping around seven motivations aligned with evaluating options and acquiring the products, engaging in the sales process and gaining stimulation and affiliation through the retail environment.

The “apathetic”, “shopping-processed involved” and “choice optimisation” shopper segments described by Westbrook and Black align with the “have to” “experiential” and “practical” “segments found in this study in terms of their focus on the shopping activity itself and the affiliation and stimulation motives associated with the shopping activity. Other associations between shopper segments across the two studies are less clear, and may be explained through the differing purposes for which the studies were undertaken and resulting variation in the measures used to define the motivational constructs.