Guest editorial

Citation

Davies, M.A.P. and Waite, K. (2011), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 39 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2011.08939caa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Volume 39, Issue 3

We chose “Individualism in retailing” as the theme for this special issue for several reasons. The twenty-first century can be considered as offering ample opportunity for demonstrating individual behaviour. To achieve business success, retailers face an increasing complexity in their decision making, this complexity is facilitated by global expansion opportunities and technological advances. These cumulative forces intensify the need to understand the individual both as retail consumer and retail employee. The first two papers examine issues relating to the consumer as an individual. Consumer decision making is subject to both internal and external influences and this special issue presents work that examines how perceptions of one’s own individuality influences clothes shopping. Trends in technology have intensified the need for retailers to develop multiple distribution channels and thus we have included research that examines customer channel choice. The final two papers examine issues relating to individual autonomy and diversity in relation to retail employee actions and evaluations. The retail experience can be considered in its simplest form as an exchange between individuals and with this focus we present a study that explores how the orientation of individual employees results in customer service evaluations. Finally, we felt that attention should be given to how the individual is researched and thus we present a paper that critically evaluates the sufficiency of the individual account as research data within a retail setting.

Our first paper, by Elena Millan and Jonathan Reynolds, examines the interplay and distinction between independent and interdependent self-concepts for explaining consumer shopping attitudes and behaviour toward clothing in an emergent market: Bulgaria. The shape of self-concept depends in part on cultural influences, with a tendency for individualistic societies to be more independently minded compared to more collectivist societies associated with a greater reliance (interdependence) on others. The findings and analysis reveal distinctive relationships between independent or interdependent consumers and their motives and preferences for self-expression, status, or affiliation. Independent consumers display more positive attitudes and behaviour toward clothes shopping than interdependent consumers. The results reflect the complexity of consumers in their self-concept profiles in a given market context and offer insight for retail targeting, segmenting and positioning.

Our second paper, by Sanjukta Pookulangara, Jana Hawley and Ge Xiao, also reflects the increasing complexity of retail buyer behaviour, in the form of multi-channel consumers. Their North American survey draws on the theory of reasoned action. Their work examines how attitudes and subjective norms impact on shopping channel migration (based on switching intentions between physical stores, catalogues and the internet). The findings reveal that experiential, hedonic and utilitarian beliefs are important predictors for migrating from traditional stores, with only utilitarian beliefs significantly influencing migrating from catalogues and from the internet. Both attitudes and subjective norms significantly predict channel migration intentions from all three channels. The authors offer a number of explanations for their findings which will be of interest for multi-channel retailers. This work contributes to our understanding of individual channel choice within a multi-channel marketplace.

Our third paper examines the effect of the behaviours of individual employees on consumer evaluation of retail service. Chanaka Jayawardhena and Andrew Farrell test a conceptual model that contains measures of individual employee customer and service orientation. They apply this model to data gathered from supermarket customers in central India. Analysis shows that customer service evaluation is affected by both the customer orientation and service orientation of retail employees. They suggest that employee training and recruitment should focus on these attitudes as being important. An important finding is the absence of a relationship between perceived value and satisfaction. The authors identify that this finding may be due to a cultural effect and hence suggest the need for additional research into the salient dimensions of service quality and satisfaction for the Indian consumer. Overall, this paper emphasises the importance of service encounter quality for retail organisations.

Our fourth paper furthers methodological knowledge in relation to researching the individual. Carley Foster reports on her use of hypothetical scenarios in research amongst individual retail employees that has focused attitudes towards diversity and equality. She reports on both the advantages and disadvantages of this technique. In particular, she questions the extent to which this technique captures real-life work experience. Her research suggests that when commenting on the scenarios, interviewees did not always ground their responses in actual practice so that they reflected inaccurately on their retail role and attitudes towards diversity. Her findings are important for both academics and practitioners. For academic researchers, this paper provides support for wider concerns regarding the validity of projective research techniques. Practitioners who use case studies or scenarios as training aids should be advised that this may lead to an unrealistic assessment of how the employee may respond in practice.

We hope that you find this special issue both informative and enjoyable. We would like to express our thanks to the Editor Professor Neil Towers and the Publishing Editor from Emerald (Richard Whitfield) for their assistance in ensuring that the publication process ran smoothly. Finally, we would like to express our thanks to all the researchers who submitted their work and the reviewers who provided timely and constructive commentary.

Mark A.P. Davies, K. WaiteGuest Editors