A Conceptual Model of Strategic Considerations for International Retail Expansion

Expansion into global markets is a dominant issue influencing most retailers' plans for strategic growth. However,internationalisation is not a viable alternative for every retailer. This paper discusses four independent elements that areconsidered as preconditions that should take precedence in the global expansion decision-making process. These elementscomprise the PLIN Model.     

Enjoyment of the Shopping Experience: Impact on Customers' Repatronage Intentions and Gender Influence

In this paper the authors investigate enjoyment of the shopping experience, its influence on consumers' intention to repatronise a regional shopping centre and the effect of gender differences on shopping enjoyment. Four dimensions of shopping enjoyment are proposed and a 16-item measure is developed to assess 536 consumer perceptions of the shopping experience across five counties in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that shopping experience enjoyment has a significant positive influence upon customers' repatronage intentions. Furthermore, men are found to have a stronger relationship of enjoyment with repatronage than women. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions.     

The role of retentions in how marketing managers change their strategic orientation

This study looks at how a marketing organization changed its strategic orientation in response to environmental factors, and at the influence of retentions on the change effort. Retentions are defined , here as the concepts and mental models used by marketing managers when trying to respond to environmental changes. The influence of retentions on strategic orientation and factors affecting how retentions change are studied in the context of how a bank trust department responded to the deregulation of the financial services industry between 1982 and 1984. The dominant retentions held by managers both before and after deregulation are presented, and the events that contributed to the change of the retentions are examined. The results suggest that retentions prior to deregulation focused on external sources of influence and were associated with a defender strategic orientation. Retentions after deregulation, once the organization's strategic orientation stabilized, focused on critical resources and competitors and were associated with an analyser orientation. The adoption of the new retentions lagged deregulation by several years, and the transition did not match the steps prescribed by the marketing and strategic management literature. Instead, the transition took place through an iterative sequence of behaviours and evaluations more characteristic of the organizing model (Weick 1979). Managers changed their retentions incrementally by enacting small changes, evaluating the outcomes of their behaviour, and letting the outcomes redefine their retentions.     

The impact of scanning on employment in UK food stores: A preliminary analysis

New technology increasingly is being introduced into retailing at the operational level. One particular example is bar code scanning in food stores. By July 1986 there were 636 shops in the UK with operational scanning systems at point‐of‐sale, and of these 60 per cent were food stores. It has been suggested that scanning checkouts can cause change in employment structures and even job loss. This paper investigates some of the employment implications of laser scanning checkouts in a sample of food stores.     

浅谈如何提高柴油机的性能和寿命

根据工作实际经验,地工作中如何通过加强维护保养,提高柴油机的性能和使用寿命.     

Changes over time in the return to education in urban China: Conventional and ORU estimates

Studies of the return to education in urban China have reported that this has increased over time, and that females typically have a higher return than males. In this paper we adopt a framework provided by the over education/required education/under education literature, and the decomposition developed by Chiswick and Miller (2008), to investigate the reasons for these findings. The finding by Chen and Hamori (2009), from analysis of data for 2004 and 2006, of the return to schooling for males exceeding that for females, is also examined using this decomposition.     

Russian light industry on the threshold of the world trade organization

This paper considers the modern situation in the domestic light industry, production of separate types of products, use of basic assets, employment and labor compensation, share in the total output of processing industries, raw materials base, pressure of imports on the internal market, and the properties of consumption behavior in separate income groups. The prospects for the innovative technical and technological development of the industry and problems arising owing to joining the World Trade Organization are discussed.     

Scientific and technological dimensions of the macrostructural forecast

This paper explores possible approaches to quantifying the relationship between expenditures on research and development and economic development. The mechanisms that underpin the transfer of scientific results via the imports of final products, goods, and services have been analyzed. The impact of total R&D costs on the dynamic and structural characteristics of economic development are investigated. The level of R&D costs, which is required in the medium term in order to pursue the constructive scenario for the development of the Russian economy, has been estimated.