“All Business is Glocal”: The future of the automotive industry

Daimler AG is a globally leading producer of premium passenger cars and heavy- and medium-duty trucks. Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, was interviewed by Dr. Christian Schmitz, Head of Business-to-Business Marketing at the University of St. Gallen.     

Will AI ever sit at the C-suite table? The future of senior leadership

As the sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) systems develop and AI becomes a key element of organizational strategy across a wide spectrum of industries, new demands are being placed on senior leaders. To understand the growing challenges leaders will face in the age of AI, we conducted interviews with 33 senior leaders in several countries across a wide range of industries. Our research highlights key capabilities and skills that leaders will require. Underlying these capabilities is a mindset oriented toward continuous learning and self-development, which will enable ongoing and rapid adaptation to change. Our findings identified the following key capabilities: digital know-how, data-driven focus, networking, ethics, and agility. To successfully navigate the coming era, senior leaders will need to focus on reskilling the workforce, recruiting and retaining highly skilled talent, building an intrapreneurial culture, and managing unprecedented changes in technologies and the nature of work.     

Does the digitalization of retailing disrupt consumers’ attachment to retail places?

This study breaks new ground in the marketing domain by extending the concept of place attachment to the study of the online retail environment. We provide empirical evidence that consumers can establish strong attachments not only with traditional offline places but also with online retail stores. Moreover, we assessed how distinct dimensions of the place affect the formation of consumers’ attachment and their behavioral loyalty. Our findings show that while consumers who feel a strong sense of attachment toward the place engage in spreading positive word-of-mouth regardless of the environment, their attachment to the store does not prevent them from switching to another provider, especially in the online environment.     

The role of the human resources manager: strategist or conscience of the organisation?

The human resource manager treads a fine line in seeking to reconcile the values of the organisation with professional values about the ethical management of people. This paper seeks to explore this ambiguity. The research findings suggest that the extent to which HR professionals can influence organisational ethics is dependent on the culture and structure of the organisation, as well as on the status and credibility of the HR specialists themselves. In the main there is little evidence that their influence is significant.     

A catalogue of success? Argos and catalogue showroom retailing

With the exception of Argos, catalogue showroom retailing has not been a major success in Europe. Argos, founded in 1973 by the Green Shield stamp entrepreneur, Richard Tompkins, has grown to be one of Britain's leading retailers. Its corporate history, with two periods of independence and two periods as a business unit in a conglomerate, is of interest. Its innovativeness, through its catalogue development and format experimentation, makes Argos important to our understanding of retail change. The catalogues themselves are essential social and retailing history documents. Now part of GUS plc, Argos has to face the challenge and opportunities of the Internet. With experience of the catalogue as an intervening element in the customer purchase process, Argos has further potential as a multichannel retailer.     

Am I cheap? Testing the role of store personality and self-congruity in discount retailing

This study examines whether consumer perceptions of store personality (SP) differ according to the store's format (hard-discount versus soft-discount and value retailing). A consumer survey (n?=?306) is conducted in which respondents are asked to rate these retail formats on five SP dimensions and in terms of self-congruity (SC). The findings of both repeated measures ANOVA and hypothesis testing of proportion difference indicate that the three formats differ significantly in terms of all five SP dimensions. Moreover, consumers perceive a greater match between their self-concept and the value retailer's personality than the discounter's. A PLS model is estimated linking SP and SC to store loyalty and word-of-mouth intentions (WOM). The SP measurement model is only partially confirmed by the data. The effect of SC is found to dominate in explaining loyalty and WOM. These results provide valuable insights for optimising retail positioning strategies.     

The Illusion of Merit and the Demons of Economic Meritocracy: Which are the Legitimate Expectations of the Market?

Journal of Business Ethics - Meritocracy is gaining momentum in public discourse, being close to the determinants of people’s demand of social justice (equality of opportunity, social...     

Barriers to ‘industrialisation’ for interwar British retailing? The case of Marks & Spencer Ltd

Research on international differences in retail productivity has highlighted formidable environmental barriers to the ‘industrialisation’ of mass retailing as a driver of declining British interwar productivity growth in this sector (and in services more generally). We examine evidence for such barriers, using a case study of a firm that built its interwar expansion strategy on ‘American’ retail methods – Marks & Spencer (M&S). We find that, rather than facing barriers to the adoption of American mass retail practices, M&S reaped major productivity gains from this process. This adds further evidence to an emerging literature rejecting the barriers to industrialisation thesis for retailing.     

Developing a critical view on e‐learning trend reports: trend watching or trend setting?

Trend watching reports are an indispensable resource in the e‐learning domain. Many HRD departments consider these reports as essential cornerstones for the development of their e‐learning strategy. But what is the quality of the forecasts made in these reports? In this article, several methods of forecasting trends are discussed, resulting in a checklist to evaluate the quality of trend studies. Next, this checklist is applied to evaluate some significant trend studies. The evaluation results show that the reports do not meet basic quality criteria, such as ‘sound methodology’ and ‘objectivity’. The article concludes with some critical remarks on the role trend watching reports play in the domain of e‐learning.     

The future of marketing: brightest star in the firmament,or a fading meteor? Some hypotheses and a research agenda

Excellent marketing has always emanated from a deep understanding of consumer needs and expectations, combined with their right to be informed, protected and their right to quality of life. Evidence for this fundamental bedrock of marketing is provided. The problem is that in 2009 "marketing" just doesn't mean "good marketing", or even "honest marketing" and is widely seen as "mismarketing" in practice, largely the result of marketing's demotion to promotion and puffery. Evidence is provided for this view. The paper then makes some suggestions about possible new initiatives/directions for the discipline. These are:

? the name marketing itself

? making the discipline truly professional

? making marketing fully accountable for its expenditure

The accountability issue, however, is, in the author's view, the principal way to rescue the discipline from demise, so the bulk of the paper concerns this issue and sets out an agenda for research.     

The Regulation of Retail Investment Services in the EU: Towards the Improvement of Investor Rights?

Despite the fact that a substantial body of European Community (EC) law already exists to protect retail investors, the markets in retail investment services and products in the EU remain fragmented. Moreover, the recent financial crisis has undermined investor confidence in financial markets more generally, and “packaged” retail investment products (PRIP), such as investment funds or life insurance policies, in particular. To rebuild retail investor confidence in PRIP by empowering retail investors to make active use of their rights, in 2009 the European Commission proposed to extend the provisions of the 2004 Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) to PRIP. Is the MiFID, however, fit for the purpose which the Commission has in mind? This contribution explores to what extent the MiFID actually confers rights on retail investors and empowers them to make use of these rights. The author concludes that investor rights and remedies should be taken more seriously when making European financial services law. The current overhaul of the EC legal framework for the provision of investment services provides a good opportunity to do so.