UK Charity Retailing: Managing in a Newly Professionalised Sector

The charity retail sector has seen unprecedented growth in the UK over the past ten years. Alongside this growth charities have become progressively professionalised and commercialised and have begun to adopt strategies developed in commercial retail contexts. This paper unpacks this process of professionalisation examining exactly what it constitutes on the ground. It then goes on to consider in turn how this new professionalism has impacted on store managers. The paper closes in considering the challenges represented by these requirements and offers some suggestions for future research.     

Development pressure and retail planning: a study of 20-year change in Cardiff,UK

This article describes and explains changes in the retail landscape of a major British city over the last 20 years. It thus serves to continue the survey of change initiated in 1989 with a comparative analysis of the retail structures of Cardiff (UK) and Charlotte (USA). The changes reviewed in the present study are shown to exemplify broad trends in UK retailing, as well as the growing influences of town planning and urban regeneration policies.     

A distribution revolution: Changes in music distribution in the UK 1950–76

Little business history has been written on the popular music industry while sociological study has tended to focus on the effect of the industry on society. This paper concentrates on how recorded popular music reached the customer, charting the evolution of the industry in the UK from a cartel structure distributing only to specialists, into an industry which allowed upstream entry freely but increasingly emphasised large-scale distribution through mass retailers by the mid-1970s. The paper examines the structure of music distribution in the UK prior to 1965 and how the industry adapted its distribution strategy to the changing environment after 1965.     

GEM, 1964–1966: Britain's First Out-of-Town Retailer

Britain's first major out-of-town store opened in West Bridgford, Nottingham, in November 1964. Operated by an American company, GEM, it employed a concessionaire system. This paper traces the store from the planning phase to its opening, and provides some insights to the impressions this new retail format created at the time. GEM were not able to produce the results and expansion they anticipated in the United Kingdom, opening just one further store in Leeds in the spring of 1965. After just two years of UK trading the controlling interest in GEM's British operations was acquired by ASDA stores. The paper suggests some reasons for the failure of the GEM experiment and explores local impacts in West Bridgford. It concludes that the short-lived GEM operation may still be significant as a precursor of out-of-town retailing in the UK and an important step in the early development of ASDA.     

Conceptualising innovative customer-facing responses to planning regulation: the UK food retailers

While receiving extensive coverage across a wide range of industries, brand adaptation in the face of regulatory change has been largely under-researched in the field of retail marketing management. This paper seeks to fill this void by reviewing the strategic customer-facing responses of the leading UK food retailers to the tightening of retail land-use planning regulations; in doing so, this paper exposes a highly variable range of strategies that include store format adaptation, new format development, entry into new markets and more controversially the outright challenging of government regulation. The findings underline that although regulatory intervention can serve to restrict continued expansion, it can also encourage customer-focused innovation where well-established retail brands retain market focus but modify the shape of their ongoing growth.     

Innovation in retail internationalisation: Tesco in the USA

This paper examines the market entry of the UK's largest retailer (Tesco) into the USA. Tesco's launch of a new brand – Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets – in virgin territory is a bold move, notwithstanding the firm's considerable success with its overseas investment strategy (which within ten years has resulted in more than 50% of the firm's operating space being outside its ‘home’ market). The paper contextualises the study by taking a historical view of innovation in the retail industry, which reveals that generally - and certainly for the most part of the twentieth century – innovations have dominantly flowed from the US to the UK. The paper suggests that Tesco's US experiment is unusual both in terms of the innovatory aspects of its market entry and the reversal in that conventional direction of knowledge transfer. The Fresh & Easy story is then examined in terms of ten ‘dimensions of innovation’ involved in the market entry. The paper concludes by drawing out from these ‘dimensions of innovation’ a number of important issues for management scholarship raised by the study, stressing the need to incorporate insights from a wider social science literature.     

‘What's so special about family business?’ An exploratory study of UK and Irish consumer experiences of family businesses

While family‐owned businesses are considered to have specific advantages in customer relationships, limited research has been conducted into how these abilities are developed or understood by the public. Consumers may indeed perceive family businesses differently from non‐family businesses, but this aspect has received scant attention within the literature. This paper sets out exploratory work designed to gain an understanding of Irish and UK consumer perceptions of family‐owned businesses, within both urban and rural communities. The study provides insight into the meaning of ‘familiness’ in consumers' minds when linked to family businesses, and explores the relationships and experiences that respondents have of family firms. Emerging issues include family business heritage, community bonds and social stewardship, consumer loyalty and generational transfer, distinction, choice and retail heterogeneity. The findings of this exploratory study suggest that researchers should be paying more attention to the positive aspects of family businesses within communities, and concludes with suggestions for future research to further extend this area of study.     

Assessing GIS for retail location planning

Proprietary GIS is rapidly becoming a popular tool in the retail industry for site location analysis. GIS vendors have been quick to exploit this market. At the same time, however, vendors have recognized the limitations concerning the level of spatial analysis available in many of these packages, and have invested in new techniques to add to the kitbag of available GIS solutions. The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the use of proprietary GIS for retail location planning, using data built up for the city of Leeds in the UK. The paper addresses the appropriateness of simple functions such as mapping, overlay and ‘buffer and overlay’, which have been used in many examples of retail planning. Following this appraisal, we move on to look at more ‘sophisticated’ techniques, such as spatial interaction models, which have only recently begun to appear in proprietary GIS, but to date have received very little evaluation in the literature. In particular, we examine the ease of use of such methods and compare their results with much simpler forms of analysis. Finally, we compare the results from models run within GIS packages with those from more customized software.     

Book reviews

Many commentators suggest that market and competitive dynamics threaten the very survival of small shops in the UK. In light of this, the research presented here reports the findings of a major study that investigates the relationship between market orientation and performance in small UK retailers through an empirical analysis of survey data. Findings indicate that market orientation and performance are positively related and, moreover that, the customer strategy focus of small retailers is the key determinant of success compared with other components of market orientation and environmental influences. The implications for practitioners and policy makers are considered, particularly the importance of market-oriented culture in formulating and implementing customer-led strategies which distinguish successful small retailers from those that struggle to survive.     

城市商业网点规划理论框架构建

目前我国城市商业网点规划编制工作全面展开,构建城市商业网点规划的理论框架对于今后各地编制城市商业网点规划具有重要的现实意义。在分析城市商业网点的发展趋势与商业网点规划理论依据的基础上,探讨我国城市商业网点规划的主要内容,认为核心内容是商业网点空间布局,商业业态规划及商业网点发展的激励与规制政策,构建我国城市商业网点规划的理论框架。     

Sacrificing personal or professional life? A gender perspective on the accounts of retail managers

This article examines the issue of multiple role demands experienced, and the sacrifices managers make, in their career and personal lives. A series of 22 in-depth biographical interviews were conducted with retail managers of large companies in the UK. Respondents reported various instances of conflict between their work and personal lives. The findings revealed more of an asymmetrical permeability for both men and women managers, with work demands more likely to spillover to personal life. Combined together, these can represent very real problems in terms of the sacrifices managers need to make with regard to their work and /or personal lives. Women managers were found to undertake the majority of household duties and are therefore more likely to suffer from role overload. However, the findings also showed that both male and female managers are making sacrifices in one domain in order to accommodate the other. Significantly, women were more likely than men to have made sacrifices with regard to having children. It is acknowledged that the research cannot be generalised to the wider population of UK retail managers. However, the findings revealed some relevant issues that should be addressed by retail companies if they want to gain competitive advantage via the people they employ.     

An innovation perspective on Chinese retailers' competitive advantage

Given the emergence of strong local retail firms in China over the last two decades, this paper aims to explore their competence enhancement and capability building process from the innovation perspective. Innovative measures on retail format, activity and governance dimensions of three leading local retailers in China are investigated using an in-depth case study approach. After each case is studied on the three dimensions, a cross-case analysis is conducted using thematic analysis to examine their innovative strategies and to explore their sources of innovation. The three cases share notable similarities in their strategies that are in sharp contrast to those of foreign retailers. On the retail format dimension, they have all achieved differentiation by formulating niche strategies and succeeded in creating a strong reputation among customers and retaining the same. On the retailing activities dimension, they have all developed a profit-making model through unique supply chain management and stressed construction of logistics centres and operational standardisation. On the governance dimension, they have established an efficient incentive and reward mechanism to motivate employees and encourage innovative practice. They have also built long-term collaborative relationships with their suppliers. Based on these three cases, it is also found that local embeddedness, latecomers' advantages, business agility and a risk taking entrepreneurial mentality are the crucial factors behind the generation of efficient innovations of China's local retailers. With these findings, this paper has extended and enriched existing knowledge on latecomers' catch up and service innovation. It has constructed an analytical framework for retail innovation by building on relevant attempts in the existing literature. A theoretical framework that explains how indigenous Chinese retailers have managed to successfully compete with foreign retailers in China using innovative strategies has also been established based on empirical data.     

论我国商业银行零售银行业务的发展策略

零售银行业务是目前商业银行的主要业务之一,对于商业银行的发展至关重要。我国的零售银行业务还处在起步阶段,如何加快其发展,是商业银行面临的迫切问题。本文针对我国商业银行零售银行业务的现状,从业务领域、客户管理、组织结构、网上银行、风险管理、人才培养等方面提出了具体的发展策略。     

零售营销策略组合及零售业态多样化

现代零售业的一个种重要特征就是业态的多样化,各种新业态层出不穷.而不同业态的主要区别,在于其营销策略的组合方式.本文在总结前人关于零售业态演变理论的基础上,提出消费者偏好理论,指出消费者对零售服务需求的差异性,决定了零售经营形态的多样性,而消费者需求偏好的改变,导致了零售经营形式的改变,推动了零售业态的演化和发展.     

零售业低碳化与促进中国低碳零售发展的政策选择——基于企业的自然资源基础观

基于企业的自然资源基础观,把零售企业低碳化的实践活动由低到高分为内部经营、外部协调和可持续发展三个层次,每一层次的活动都会影响到零售企业相应的竞争优势。当前,国外零售企业的低碳经营涉及到以上全部三个层次,而中国内资零售企业的低碳经营主要限于第一个层次,与国外差距较大,致使内资零售企业无法获得领先者优势和未来制高点优势。     

关于零售业态变革的研究

零售业态的变革有其内在规律性。对其变革规律的解释有五种理论。我国零售业近几年得到了很大的发展,也有自身的发展规律。我国零售业在面临许多新的发展机遇的同时,也面临着许多严峻的挑战,面临着如何选择和调整零售业态。     

零售企业自有品牌成长路径研究

与国际知名零售企业相比,国内零售企业自有品牌建设还处于起步阶段,如何有效实施自有品牌战略值得关注和研究。本文基于对自有品牌战略实施条件的分析,从零售企业的品牌运营能力、产品研发能力和管理协同能力三个维度,构建零售企业自有品牌成长路径分析模型,并提出品牌运营能力主导型和产品研发能力主导型成长路径及其实施战略,并以超市业态为例探讨零售企业对生鲜蔬果类、粮油类和服装类产品实施自有品牌战略的成长路径选择。     

Testing for Wage Overpayment in UK Financial Services: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

The past ten years have witnessed a sharp rise in competition in UK financial services. This has been due to factors such as liberalisation, increases in technology and advancing globalisation. As a result of these pressures there has been an increasing emphasis placed on cost management and overall efficiency in the financial services firm. This article examines the impact of these developments on the degree of wage overpayment in the UK financial services sector between 1991 and 1999. By utilising stochastic frontier methodology, we surprisingly find that overpayment levels are large at around 30 per cent and that there is no evidence of a decline in overpayment levels over the testable period.     

集约背景下城市零售商业网点布局研究

为应对日益紧张的全球能源安全和气候变化的威胁,世界范围内掀起了关于集约型城乡规划的理论探讨和实践热潮。而零售商业网点的布局对集约型城乡规划的发展有着重要影响,中国快速城市化进程中出现的零售商业网点布局不合理问题日益凸显,基于此本文在集约型发展背景下对城市零售商业网点布局进行分析研究。     

Diminishing varieties of active and creative retail experience: The end of the music shop?

In qualitatively defining the spatial attractions of music shops for a group of highly involved and long-term consumers, the elaborated consumption event implies a socially and culturally relevant creative retail process. This takes the form of an immersive interpretation and investigation of aspects of music store space design and merchandise relevant to the exploration and construction of meaningful, personal mythologies in a self-developmental, transactional event whilst being out ‘in-the-world’. Supporting this event were deep levels of product involvement, with inter- and intra-personal communication in a supporting space relating to a set of community values, particularly encoded in 12” vinyl artefacts.