Twenty-one publications or parts thereof are presented within the subject area of retailing. The aim of the collection is to explore a number of the consequences of increased concentration in the British retail sector. These include the opportunity to appraise retailer strategy and financial performance by evaluating the public's perception of the relative market position or 'image' of competing retailers. How such positioning can be used to monitor retail strategy, explain the process of market innovation and assess location decisions are identified. The effects on small scale retailing and on suppliers to retailers are considered. Finally, two approaches towards understanding consumer shopping behaviour are explored.

Multiple channels are becoming the rule rather than the exception in the distribution of goods and services. The adoption of multiple channel strategies may deliver increased sales volumes and lower distribution costs, but may also provoke channel conflict and even an increase in distribution costs. Despite the popularity and implications of multiple channel strategies, little is known about these distribution structures. In fact, there is a remarkable theoretical and empirical research vacuum in respect of the reasons why multiple channels of distribution emerge. Consequently, the determinants of multiple channel strategies remain an issue, virtually unexplored. The present work is one of the first studies to address this research void. In particular, the work develops a model encapsulating a set of hypotheses on how certain factors determine the development of multiple channel strategies. Given the absence of a directly-related theoretical body of literature, the hypotheses were generated following a holistic view that considers channel design as a result of five different theoretical perspectives, which have been used in the research of other channel design and management issues. These theoretical perspectives are transaction cost economics, the literature on the organisation-environment interface, the resource and capability view of the firm, the competitive strategy field, and the traditional marketing literature on distribution channels. The development of the hypotheses also combines feedback from six exploratory interviews and news and reports in particular from the financial press. To test the research hypotheses, data was collected using a structured questionnaire, personally administered, from 62 financial services organisations. The sample concentrated on companies dealing with (at least) one of the following products: Motor insurance, mortgages, unit trusts, and personal pensions. Logistic regression was the 10 statistical technique utilised to assess the significance of the research hypotheses. For the testing process, two distinct classifications of channel strategies were defined. One involved the utilisation of cluster analysis to identify companies with different patterns of channel usage. This resulted in a classification of channel strategies that considers as multi-channel, only those cases where significant volumes of sales are obtained from each one of two or more distinct channels. The second classification considers as a multichannel strategy, any case where a product is distributed also by at least two distinct channels, but regardless of the importance of the sales obtained through each of them. These two classifications led to the identification of two different sets of relevant variables. Interactions between independent variables were also the subject of statistical analysis. The results supported some of the hypothesised relationships and led to the identification of other significant relationships not initially predicted. In general, the statistical findings indicate that multiple channels are positively associated with volatility in consumers' needs, heterogeneous consumers, market maturity, competitive strength, and scope economies; negatively associated with competitor and intermediary volatility, heterogeneous intermediaries, profit goals, consumer involvement, and internal channel conflict; and associated with intermediate levels of product sophistication. Therefore, this work contributes to the clarification of multiple channel choice through the development and testing of a set of propositions suggesting the factors determining the development of multiple channel strategies. These insights have the potential to stimulate research into multiple channel strategies, and to make multiple channel design a more systematic process, facilitating the development of more customer and competitor-driven distribution systems. The issues raised in this work demonstrate that there is a large scope for future research into multiple channel strategies.

This thesis critically analyses the current popular strategy: Customer Relationship Management (CRM). To date, vendors and management consultants have made significant contributions to existing literature. Important issues have been raised such as the potential benefits to both the organisation and customers. These were promises of achieving strategic objectives and competitive advantage, developing mutual trust and personal relationships, integrating and sharing information across the organisation, providing consistent levels of services through different communication mediums and re-living the corner shop experience. However, many CRM strategies with the complemented CRM systems have failed because long histories of previous strategies and technologies have been ignored. Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Relationship Marketing (RM) all form part the history of CRM. An equally important key issue absent in mainstream CRM literature has been employees, who have become the forgotten people. This gap in the literature is addressed given that only a few studies scarcely mention employees. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the type of working environment created by CRM changes, particularly organisational culture and change, power and control and conflict of interests A critical realist auto-ethnographic approach has been employed to illustrate a richer analysis and support the gap developed. The empirical research deeply analyses the daily working lives of employees at a local building society branch. Participant observations, data collection and interviews were the research methods used. The nature of this research methodology has led to the inclusion of an autobiography to introduce the reader to the type of thesis written. Autobiographical accounts have been embedded in collection of the empirical research, which is justified for its usage in the research methodology chapter. Findings reveal that a sales environment was created as a result of CRM implementation has led to increased levels of monitoring and surveillance that have deskilled the workforce. A conceptual framework is developed for others wanting to make a contribution to this field.

In the service sector literature, both marketers and organisational behaviourists emphasise the importance of the internal dynamics of the organisation in terms of a network of customers and suppliers interacting together to satisfy customers. Although the relevance of internal customers within the context of the service delivery process is frequently referred to in that literature, there is in fact, a somewhat surprising paucity of published research on the topic. The research project reported here was aimed, firstly at identifying and measuring those factors which determine how internal customers perceive the quality of the support they receive from other parts of the organisation. The second objective was to identify the organisational factors which enable support units to deliver the quality of service expected by internal customers. The research consisted of both qualitative and quantitative stages, the main part of the study involving British hospitals, one being located in the private sector. It included exploratory studies, design and development, pilot testing and empirical application of two separate instruments: an internal customers' questionnaire and an internal suppliers' questionnaire. It is felt that this piece of research has contributed to the existing work on organisational processes related to service quality. It has confirmed, that along with customers, employees are able and prepared to produce scaled assessments of the service they themselves receive from other parts of the organisation. Results have indicated that these can be captured as a limited number of perceptual dimensions. It has also contributed to the identification of organisational determinants of internal service quality. The results show that, from the different sets of variables which were felt to be facilitating or inhibiting factors in the delivery of support services to other units, that relating to the group level of analysis, appears to be the one primarily influencing the ability of support units to deliver internal customers·' expectations. ~ll in all, this work has contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics involved in the customer service delivery process using an internal service approach.

This thesis seeks to investigate the concept of employer branding as a way forward for firms concerned with enhancing the commitment and loyalty of their staff and recruiting the most suitable new employees. The aim of this thesis is to develop a holistic conceptual model of employer brand creation and to use it to determine if a large multi site hotel group based in Northern Ireland is an employer brand. The main issue of employer branding is that it falls between two clearly distinct disciplinary areas - that of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) and that of Branding. Whilst the theoretical context is mainly provided by the SHRM literature, the literature review draws upon a number of strands, namely branding, corporate Branding general management, organisation behaviour and human resource management and employer branding literatures. From the extant literature, it was evident that relatively little research has been carried out on the process (Fosler et aI., 2010; Martin et al., 2009; Tiiziiner and Yiiksel, 2009; Moroko and Uncles, 2008; Lievens et al, 2007; Kimpakorn and Dimmitt, 2007; Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). A qualitative case study research strategy was adopted for this thesis. Twenty-six interviews were held with the managers and employees of the focal organisation and four focus group sessions were conducted consisting of a total of thirty-six respondents. The research focused on a comparison of perceptions of the management and of incumbent and potential employees about the attractiveness of the hotel group as a place to work. The key findings emanating from this thesis was that the focal hotel group is far from being an employer brand. The author identified a lack of consistency, coherence, and compatibility of the perceptions of its management, employees and potential employees about the quality of tbe employment experience in the firm. The study also found that whilst its external communication does not reflect the reality of the experiences of those working in the firm. Furthermore, the experiences of employees, particularly those working BOH, suggest that the articulated corporate vision and values are not a true reflection of many managers' attitudes and behaviour towards them. Until this problem is resolved so that the management is generally believed to act with integrity and to value all employees, there is little point in the corporate communications painting a glowing picture of the Group as a place to work. Finally, the author discusses the usefulness of employer branding as a HRM tool to enhance employee recruitment and retention and presents a number of recommendations for future research, and for organisations undertaking employer branding.

Reports of Internet fraud and Internet threats have lost their element of surprise. However, various sources, such as governmental surveys, have indicated that the percentage of Internet users who regularly practice appropriate e-precaution methods is still low (e. g., Schultz 2005). Meanwhile, studies continue to show that fear of Internet fraud remains one of the major obstacles to the even wider spread of e-commerce (e. g., Niite and Parsa 2005). This thesis therefore investigates the decision making processes in adopting e-precaution methods, and studies the effects that marketing can have in accelerating these processes. The research design is based broadly on two theoretical constructs: social marketing and the Transthoeretical Model (TTM). Social marketing involves the application of commercial marketing concepts and techniques, in order to solve social problems; advertising is probably the most commonly used tool by social marketers to influence the public. The TTM model theorises the procedure of decision making and it is used to analysis consumer behaviour in social marketing. The TTM constructs, including the Stages of Change (SOC) and the Decisional Balance Scale items (DBS), are scrutinised for their applicability to the adoption of e-precaution methods. In addition, the effectiveness of two advertising tactics, fear appeal and message framing, are examined based on these constructs. Two e-precaution methods are assessed, checking for https and using antivirus software; respectively, 781 and 930 respondents were acquired through an Internet questionnaire data collection process. The web-based questionnaires and social marketing interventions were informed by earlier qualitative investigations. Messages designed to test the advertising tactics were the interventions shown to the respondents. Scales, including SOC, DBS and other TTM variables, were measured with multiple choices questions. Confirmatory factor analysis, ordinal logit regression, multinomial logit regression and odds ratio analysis were deployed to test the research data.

This study is a reflection of the journey that I have taken as a tourism marketing researcher. Based on emergent design, it is a two phase interpretative, autoethnographic study of the relationships between tourism consumers and brands. Through the adoption of qualitative, systematic methods and projective techniques, phase one highlights the lack of consumer brand awareness and commitment to tourism products, the diversity of contemporary tourism behaviour, and reveals the necessity to adopt a far more individualistic approach to understanding tourism consumption behaviour. Phase two thus considers tourism within the context of postmodernism, focusing on the experiences of individual tourism consumers and their functional, emotional and symbolic relationships with brands. Paramount here are the concepts of reflexivity, positionality and voice, hence I actively involved the participants throughout the research process (including during the data interpretation and presentation) and foregrounded my own involvement and experiences- aspects that all contribute significantly to the richness and depth of the study. The study highlights the complexity of tourism consumption behaviour and influences. Tourism experiences are subjective, inconsistent and are influenced and informed by a range of relationships, narratives and discourses. Complex and individual expectations, aspirations, desires and insecurities are underpinned by a far greater awareness of time compression, a sense of self and intrinsic fulfilment. The study illustrates the participants' awareness of the fragility and temporality of their myriad micro-experiences, and highlights how tourism consumers interpret and infer meaning from brands, products, images and associations in the creation and preservation of the overall holiday experience. It supports the need to reach out and step beyond the safety zone of tried and tested, conventional research approaches and further develop ontological and epistemological perspectives that value consumer-centred, diverse, flexible, reflexive and participatory approaches - and judgement criteria - for tourism research.

The purpose of this thesis is to attempt to profile the UK wine consumer to see who s/he is and why, who or what influences his/her behaviour. The study is not concerned with medical, health or illegal consumption issues. The impetus for this study was given when the author was studying for the internationally recognised trade qualification the WSET Diploma. In discussion with trade people in the cohort comments were made about the profile of UK consumers which were unrecognisable to the author but constantly reiterated by those working in the trade. Since the UK is currently the largest wine market by value in the world it seemed strange that those working within the trade had beliefs and perceptions about their consumers which did not seem to concur with the experiences of the author as a consumer. Initial research showed that only seven academic papers had been written on the social UK wine consumer since 1989 when current purchasing and consumption patterns were beginning to be established. All of these papers had looked at the consumer in isolation and not attempted to investigate what external factors or groups might be influencing behaviour. During the research for this thesis four groups were identified all of whom moderated the purchasing and consumption behaviour of wine consumers in different ways: trade wine buyers, wine production companies, wine related media and the consumers themselves. This thesis is based upon postmodern philosophy using a constructionist epistemology and critical realist stance. This enabled the use of a multi-strategy approach in which several ethnographic methodologies could be used producing a much richer set of data collection than a single method would have done. The variety of methodologies and methods included grounded theory, autoethnography, interviews, focus groups and participant observation and enabled a flexible inductive approach reacting critically to the data construed rather than imposing preconceived ideas and values upon the UK wine consumer as much of the wine trade and current academic theory has been doing. The results of this thesis enabled a range of UK wine consumer profiles to be identified demonstrating both rational and irrational approaches to wine usage and showing how deeply wine usage has become incorporated into the culture of most social groups within the UK. The thesis also shows that all wine related behaviour is cultural, situation, occasion and gender dependant. The adoption of a qualitative stance has enabled the identification of the behaviour of UK wine consumers to a depth impossible in traditional quantitative studies bound by the strictures and conventions of positivist methodologies. The depth of knowledge constructed adds significantly to our understanding of consumer behaviour in relation to the moderate purchase and consumption of wine rather than the immoderate and harmful behaviour which is already well understood and documented. This thesis demonstrates that there is much work still to be done in understanding exactly how wine is currently used in public consumption situations to demonstrate cultural and economic inclusivity or exclusivity from and by particular social groups. It also identifies the gulf of understanding between those who provide and hope to sell wine and those who use and consume wine by showing where there are discordant views between the stakeholder groups. Finally, and unexpectedly, the lack of clarity in the use of wine related language and symbolism in relation to young and new consumers has shown that further research in this area would be of use not just to the wine trade and academia per se but would also help the teaching profession better understand how generational distance can impact upon the student learning experience.

The main aim of this thesis is to explore the relevance of destination branding strategies for destinations in decline and to identify the role of stakeholders in those strategies through a case study of Calella in the Costa de Barcelona- Maresme, Spain. Five research objectives, encompassing a critique of relevant literature, conceptual discussion and empirical research, assist in accomplishing the overall aim. Key concepts that underpin the study are: the role and power of stakeholders and stakeholder management in destination management; the TALC; destination regeneration strategies; destination branding. The study adopts a case study approach, employing four main types of complementary sources: semi- structured interviews, structured interviews, archives and personal observations. The findings provide empirical evidence highlighting that a positive place image is a necessity for an effective destination brand and that stakeholder involvement is paramount for the successful development of destination branding strategies. In the case study destination of Calella it emerges that there is a mismatch between the expectations of stakeholders in the private and public sectors, where the former seem uninterested in adopting a holistic approach and prioritise their own personal business goals - even if these are contrary to the interests of the wider resort community. In addition, there is little community involvement or representation in local decision-making and strategy development. These findings have practical implications for the tourism industry, specifically for post-mature seaside resorts and especially for Calella itself. Recommendations include: enhancing the effective involvement of stakeholders in destination management decisions to increase ‘buy-in’, ‘ownership’ and ‘self-identification’ with marketing and branding strategies.

Understanding consumers’ behaviour towards music acquisition from all channels (both legal and illegal) is essential for marketers and policy makers in order to fight music piracy. Yet, existing research has not examined consumers’ intention to acquire music from all possible channels but has focused on digital illegal acquisition only. The purpose of this research is to create a model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour for music acquisition from all possible channels and to test it in order to explain the reasons that lead consumers to acquire music from each channel. The study employs a mixed method approach with a dominant quantitative component. During the exploratory phase an extensive literature review indicated key themes that led to the creation of the research hypotheses, the theoretical model and the scale associated with it. An initial questionnaire was created as an instrument for the study, which was subject to face and content validity with expert judging (5 academics and 5 practitioners) and a pilot study (19 participants). Purification and validation of the scale was conducted through reliability tests and Exploratory Factor Analysis (n=200). The research hypotheses of the model were tested using Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modelling on a sample of undergraduate students (n=511) from two European countries (UK and Greece) both suffering from music piracy. Four possible distinct music acquisition channels are presented and analysed: bricks-and-mortar stores, street vendors, Internet music shops and P2P platforms. Major findings suggest that music quality and perceived benefits of piracy are the most important determinants of music acquisition. The outcome of this research adds new perspectives to the issue of music piracy, and suggests directions for future research. In addition, the research offers important implications for marketers and police makers who could use the findings in order to reduce the piracy phenomenon.