Competitive and Cooperative Behavior in Embedded Markets: Developing an Institutional Perspective on Bazaars

In an ethnographic study of a retail setting, we examine relationships among competitors. We find that competitors often emphasize various forms of cooperation, and we describe socio-economic behaviors that illustrate how cooperation transcends or mediates competition among retailers. Retailers selectively cooperate and compete for customers in ways that alter our understandings of concepts such as loyalty and market stability, and practices such as marketing communications and pricing. We highlight the significance of these institutional practices and the role they play in forming and maintaining community in a bazaar.     

Multistrategic Spatial Competition in Banking

This paper presents a model whereby banking firms use various strategies (price and non‐price) simultaneously in a monopolistically competitive model of spatial competition when the various strategies are used across different markets in the presence of a multioutput technology. The theoretical model is estimated with Spanish data pertaining to the pre‐ and post‐deregulatory periods in order to investigate the effects of deregulation of both interest rates and branches on the (differential) strategic conduct of private and savings bank.     

Regional and Categorical Patterns in Consumer Behavior: Revealing Trends

We offer a method of analysis that allows for an “unbundling” of the data to a disaggregate household level, and then “rebundling” it in a manner designed to identify patterns and relationships which are otherwise masked. Applying the method in the context of ‘healthy’ products and using census block group level data, we study consumption over several categories in two locations. The analyses show that studies involving geographically dispersed data must test for, and take into account when required, conceptually sound spatial effects in order to accurately assess impact. We also show that while both location and the product category have a significant impact on the proportion of healthy products purchased, the degree to which consumers choose healthier alternatives is a function of the category as well as the location. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence from survey data that supports the variations we find, and further explores attitudinal differences as well. There are rich implications for retailers in that new products introduced to benefit from popular trends (such as ‘healthy’ alternatives) may not succeed for all categories or locations. Retailers would benefit from understanding the spatial, demographic and attitudinal effects that play into consumption behavior, and such effects can be better understood when studying choice at the category and region level. Finally, public policies aimed at promoting healthier purchasing habits may have greater impact if special attention is given to specific categories and regions.     

Retailing in the 21st century: reflections and prologue to research

Retailing in the 21st century will no doubt be very different from retailing in the 20th century, just as retailing in the 20th century was very different from retailing in the 19th century. To understand and explain current retailing phenomena and retailing-related phenomena, and accurately predict such phenomena, it is necessary to have a coherent and consistent definition of retailing as well as comprehensive retailing theories based on this definition. This introduction to the special issue argues for such a definition and related comprehensive theories.     

金融科技如何影响银行业竞争

金融科技的产业化发展给商业银行和银行业竞争格局带来了显著而深远的影响。本文利用2011—2016年全国31个省份的经济金融面板数据,通过构建空间计量模型实证检验金融科技对于地区银行业竞争的影响。研究结果显示,金融科技对于地区银行业竞争的影响存在显著的空间地理效应和产业竞争效应。其中,金融科技的空间地理效应主要体现为显著的空间依赖效应,而金融科技的产业竞争效应则主要来源于“市场挤出”和“技术溢出”两个作用渠道。研究结论对于如何通过金融科技促进银行业有效竞争,促进商业银行更好地发挥服务实体经济功能具有重要意义。     

房价与地价关系研究:模型及中国数据检验

本文通过构建一个线形城市的住房市场和土地市场模型,分别就Cournot空间竞争和规制情形,探讨了房价和地价关系.本文的基本结论是:规制情形下的房价和地价高于无规制情形下的房价和地价;在供大于求时,房价与地价成线性负相关关系;在供小于求时,房价与地价成线性正相关关系;房价与地价Granger因果关系检验表明,短期内房价和地价相互影响,长期内地价是房价的Granger因.因此,要将房价降下来,短期内,一方面应增加土地供给,另一方面应控制房价和地价过快上涨;在长期,主要应抑制地价的过快上涨.     

International business–government relations research 1945–2015: Concepts,typologies, theories and methodologies

Seventy years after its postwar inception, the field of international business–government relations (IBGR) is rich in new concepts, typologies, theories and methodologies that have broadly reflected the three post-WWII periods of Confrontation, Accommodation and Competition. This analysis discusses the correspondence between these “new terms” and IBGR practice during each one of these periods which have continuously brought up new actors, issues and ideologies whose study keeps growing in quantity if not always in quality. It concludes with what can be anticipated regarding the international relations between business and governments in a future marked by much greater political disorder and less economic multilateralism as well as by nonmarket strategies that may remain localized.     

Grocery pickup creation of value: Customers’ benefits vs. spatial dimension

This article examines an Internet grocery shopping model very frequent in the UK and in France: the grocery pickup system. It strives to answer this research questions: does this system create value for consumers? The methodology relies on in-depth interviews with retailers and data from French retail grocery industries. The exploratory approach through experts’ interviews concerning the content of retailers’ selling propositions for consumers reinforces the theoretical framework related to customers’ value and grocery pickup. It appears that long term value could exist through the satisfaction of functional, experiential and relational benefits responsible for the uniqueness of the retailer's positioning. Given the asymmetry between retailers approach and consumer's one, the second part is focused on a particular aspect of the functional benefit: closeness in retailing. Then, an entropy measurement in a French context from two large samples of 1576 hypermarkets and 1473 grocery pickups are conducted. Results show that grocery pickup locations fulfill this sine qua non successful condition. Nevertheless, it is made evidence that this new channel is most of the time developed in overstored areas.     

Categorization of multiple channel retailing in Multi-, Cross-, and Omni‐Channel Retailing for retailers and retailing

Business experts have enthusiastically projected a seamless, retail world where customers can shop across channels, anywhere and at any time. This type of multiple channel retailing is often referred to as Omni-Channel Retailing. Within academia, by contrast, there have been proportionately fewer attempts to systematically categorize the diversity of multiple channel retailing that currently exists. Hence, the concepts Multi-, Cross-, and Omni-Channel are used indistinctly. This article proposes a categorization of Multi-, Cross-, and Omni-Channel Retailing for retailers and retailing by means of a literature review, a taxonomy of multiple channel retailing, a literature classification table, and by way of illustration, a mobile Click and Collect shop.     

Objects in the rearview mirror may appear closer than they are

This paper addresses the use of historical methods in the context of retail management studies. It acknowledges the research activity which has already taken place and the number of calls for further research which have been made. However, it also notes that historical method still remains an under-exploited means of understanding retailing. The paper explores the problems of integrating historical method within retail studies and the inhibitors which have restricted the use of this approach to research. The paper explores the problems associated with methodological assumptions and the future direction which historical studies may take if they are to make a contribution to retail management studies.     

空间竞争、房价收入比与房价

本文通过构建一个房地产市场空间竞争模型,分别就Cournot竞争和价格合谋情形,探讨了开发商的位置及其密度如何影响均衡开发量、房价和社会福利.本文的基本结论是:空间竞争决定了房价,而非房价收入比;市场决定的价格不一定为合理性价格;房价与市中心距离和开发商密度成反比;空间垄断是房价刚性的根本原因.因此,要将刚性房价降下来,政府一方面应将大项目拆分为小项目,促进竞争,另一方面应对空间垄断进行管制.     

Spatial Interaction,Spatial Multipliers and Hospital Competition

The hospital competition literature shows that estimates of the effect of local market structure (concentration) on pricing (competition) are sensitive to geographic market definition. Our spatial lag model approach effects smoothing of the explanatory variables across the discrete market boundaries, resulting in robust estimates of the impact of market structure on hospital pricing, which can be used to estimate the full effect of changes in prices inclusive of spillovers that cascade through the neighboring hospital markets. The full amount, generated by the spatial multiplier effect, is a robust estimate of the impacts of market factors on hospital competition. We contrast ordinary least squares and spatial lag estimates to demonstrate the importance of robust estimation in analysis of hospital market competition. In markets where concentration is relatively high before a proposed merger, we demonstrate that Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) can lead to the wrong policy conclusion while the more conservative lag estimates do not.     

Warmth during non-productive retail encounters: the hidden side of productivity

Productivity in retailing usually has been narrowly defined in short term economic performance. Although this is important, underlying salespersons' decisions are at work. As the core encounter of the entire value adding process from beginning to end, the interaction between salespeople and customers in the final step before consumption must be vital to understand the underlying human factors at work. We argue that this `soft' side (human factor) determines the `hard' productivity outcomes and that the dynamics of the service delivery process must be understood. Therefore, in this paper the point of sale has been studied second-by-second from the customer perspective to simulate how evaluations and perceptions vary during the encounter. By mapping the dynamic aspects we attempt to unravel the hidden side of how productivity is generated. The results obtained in two different `non-productive' retail encounters show that there is a substantial correlation between perceived warmth during the service encounter as a measure of perceived relationship and likeability, perceived service quality and loyalty.