Editorial

Citation

Broadbridge, A. (2006), "Editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 34 No. 12. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2006.08934laa.001

Editorial

Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort and David Hillier's paper is topical in light of the growth of the major retailer companies. It examines the growth of anti-corporate retail web sites, outlining their nature and content of their campaigns, tracing the history back to the Boston Tea Party. They highlight the growing awareness of the impacts such large corporations can have on the environment, their employees, on economies and on political decision making. In particular, they highlight the sites relating to the supermarkets, Wal-Mart, Tesco and Sainsbury, who of course each have their own statements of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how they are acting as good corporate citizens. Following on from this theme, the next paper by a former colleague, Mike Pretious, and MBA student, Mary Love, investigates purchasing ethics within the UK clothing retail sector. They point to the major changes occurring in the UK clothing retail sector over the last decade, such as the move of clothing into the major grocery chains as well as the expansion of international and discounting companies, making this an extremely competitive sector. As a result ethical sourcing has received increasing interest by the press over issues such as child labour, minimum wages, excessive overtime and health and safety issues. Many UK retailers have developed codes of conduct which covers purchasing or CRS reports highlighting details of sourcing and supplier related policies. The paper goes on to highlight the results of some qualitative research with senior buying personnel from major UK multiple and mail order retailing on the experiences they have faced regarding ethical issues. The results showed differences between the responses of buyers on issues such as dealing with suppliers, exploitation of the workforce, bribery and corruption and dangerous working conditions. They conclude that the existence of formal ethical purchasing guidelines indicates that UK clothing retailers are committed to ensuring the welfare of individuals who are engaged in supplying goods to them. However, the research did reveal that interpretation of these guidelines might vary between retailers and even amongst individuals within the same retail organisation. While some take codes of conduct literally, others allow greater flexibility and so the authors argue there needs to be more consistency to the way codes of conduct are applied across the clothing sector. Lisa Wood and Barry Pierson's paper adopts a novel approach to evaluate the brand description of Sainsbury's and Aldi. It examines price comparisons and taste tests using five different products and 32 AB consumers. Price differences were assessed using the shopping basket technique and product quality differences evaluated using “blind” perceptual discrimination tests. As might be expected they found Sainsbury's to be highly positioned in its price at almost twice the basket price of Aldi. When it came to the taste tests they conclude that there was no evident quality difference that explain the price differential and argue that where there are comparable product catgories Aldi performs favourably with the Sainsbury brand. While consumers might vary in how they define “preference” and here it is assumed that preference relates just to taste rather than consistency and colour, this paper offers an interesting comparison of consumers' reactions to blind taste tests. The topic under investigation in the final paper by Rozenn Perrigot is franchising networks in France – the main European market for franchising. Using an empirical study of 500 networks, he examines the differences between services and retail networks in terms of age, size, plural form, internationalisation, and contract terms. He puts forward a number of propositions and found significant differences between service and retail networks in terms of age, plural form, franchising fees, franchising and advertising, royalties and contract length. This allows prospective franchisees to better differentiate and understand the service and retail networks.

Adelina BroadbridgeUniversity of Stirling