Understanding omni-channel shopping value: A mixed-method study

This paper aims to investigate the omni-channel shopping value (SV) by proposing and empirically testing an omni-channel SV model based on SV literature and omni-channel literature reviews to identify the key omni-channel concept characteristics. A mixed-method design combining quantitative (n = 59) and qualitative (n = 17) methods in an abductive logic was adopted. The four key findings were omni-channel SV is caused by touch points’ SV; this causal effect is moderated by omni-channel shopping perceived consistency; but the content and measure of the constructs must be reconceptualized in the omni-channel shopping context; and physical shopping's nature evolves in both its utilitarian and social dimensions.     

Introduction to Future Special Issue

No abstract available for this article.     

Culture Comes First: Introduction to the Special Issue

The Special Issue “Culture Comes First” attracted fifty five submissions offering a diverse collection of contributions from scholars within the domain. The Editorial team reviewed many interesting papers and the result of the process of review and revision by the team is nine papers and one commentary. The papers in this special topic issue include a wide variety of topics with application to scholars and management practitioners and aspects of these papers are summarized in this introduction. The introduction offers some thoughts about the process of scholarly publication and briefly discusses some cultural facets of current business training and the practice of management.     

Retailing and consumption: evidence from war time Britain

Insufficient attention has been given to the place of the consumer in debates surrounding the history of retail development and retail change. This paper uses empirical data from the archive of Mass-Observation to explore directly consumers' reactions to the issue of retail development and change in early 1940s Britain. Mass-Observation data is shown to provide clear evidence of consumers' differing perceptions of the retail industry, their preferences for particular retail types and their reactions to retail change. It also confirms the need to remain alert to the importance of social relations in understanding consumers' reactions to the retail change process. The paper ends by arguing the case for further historical studies of the retailing and consumption interface.     

Revisiting an Evasive Concept: Introduction to the Special Issue on Competitiveness

The term competitiveness stems from the analysis of firms and is usually thought to be well defined at the firm level. Today, however, the notion competitiveness has become a prominent concept in the assessment of countries, regions and locations. The competitive advantage of nations and the competitiveness of locations have become important topics in economic policy. Interest in this field has been notably stimulated by the work of Michael Porter. Although the diversity of approaches presented in this issue may appear large to the reader, it is in reality dwarfed by the multiplicity of concepts, articles and books which have been written in reference to the term competitiveness. The vagueness of the general term, the lack of theoretical background, implicit preferences and prejudices, and finally the scope of policy recommendations made in reference to this term have induced outstanding researchers to warn that the term competitiveness of a nation could be dangerous, obsessive, elusive or meaningless.¹ The articles presented in this volume share some elements of this critique, but also demonstrate that research is being continued, and that it is indeed relevant to the design and evaluation of economic policy, most notably, the so-called Lisbon Strategy of the European Union.     

Moving from multi-channel to Omni-channel retailing: Special issue introduction

In this special issue “Moving from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel Retailing”, the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services presents a series of papers covering topics to gain a better understanding of research and practices in the move toward Omni-channel retailing. The aim of the special issue is to gain a better understanding of marketing theory and practice in multi-channel and Omni-channel retailing. The topics for the special issue include, but are not limited to (1) The impact of channel integration on consumers’ channel preferences; (2) Service integration in Omni-channel retailing; (3) Customer touchpoint in the context of Omni-channel retailing; (4) Consumer behaviour in Omni-channel retailing; and (5) Building and maintaining customer relationships via Omni-channel retailing.