Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 101-103).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, August 1999. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1925. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135).

The evaluation and understanding of customers’ service quality perception has been a topic of major interest for academics and practitioners since the 1980s. Despite this intense research focus, there is a gap in understanding service quality in multichannel settings. This is surprising, since multichannel service systems have become increasingly important with the rise of E-commerce. The overall aim of this study, therefore, is to contribute to the interpretation of multichannel service quality by explaining it from the perspective of so-called ‘multichannel customers’. The study looks at interactions when purchasing a fashion product at a multichannel retailer with the aim of conceptualising service quality in a multichannel fashion retail context. Therefore, the study considers extant service quality research from traditional, electronic, and multichannel settings. The perspective of the current study is different from mainstream positivist service quality research, which sees service quality as static, objectively measurable and dualistic. This study, however, acknowledges service quality as a dynamic, subjective and pluralistic phenomenon. Following this line of argument, the study postulates the existence of multiple realities as consistent with social constructivism. Therefore, the current study investigates the service quality perceptions of experienced multichannel customers. Perceptions are considered to be the meaning that these customers give to their service experiences. The current study indicates that the customers’ perceptions of service quality in multichannel settings imply some fundamental uniqueness. This study proposes a holistic conceptualisation of multichannel customers’ service quality perception by considering (1) the heterogeneity of multichannel customers and (2) all moments of contact between customer and retailer. The proposed framework contributes to research about service quality with a theoretical interpretation of the phenomenon.

The shopping centre has evolved into an integral part of modern day society. New generations especially are unable to imagine a world without shopping centres. In 2008 a world wide economic down turn emphasized the competition to attract a buying market to shopping centres, some centres thrived and some centres struggled. The need to understand what creates these different responses to highly competitive scenarios is discussed in this study, with particular attention given to the tenant mix that exists in different shopping centres. Criteria that determine an optimum tenant mix are examined and the constraining factors are discussed. A literature review of shopping centres is discussed and the evolution of the shopping centre to our current day understanding of the term shopping centre is examined. Accepted definitions and categorisations of shopping centres along with a brief history of the shopping centre, as revealed by the literature, is presented. To create a tenant mix the body of tenants needs to be divided into sub- categories and various ways to achieve this are examined. The objectives of this study are to determine what strategic approaches to managing the tenant mix exists in the literature and what factors determine the formulation of this mix. Furthermore the study examines to what extent these or other strategic approaches are used in practice and finally makes recommendations to promote the optimum tenant mix in shopping centres. A literature review was conducted to determine what the theory reveals about the shopping centre industry. This was followed by an empirical survey conducted in the Port Elizabeth area of the Nelson Mandela Metropole. Finally the findings and theory were compared to make conclusions and suggest recommendation to achieve synergy in shopping centres through a optimum tenant mix.

This study examines the spatial characteristics of specialized (high order) retail trade within Vancouver, B.C. Conclusions arrived at are presumed applicable to most contemporary North American cities of a similar size range. Literature is examined in order to sift out existing generalizations concerning this class of retailing activities. The most persistent notions in the literature suggest: (i) that specialized (high order) retail businesses depend upon the infrequent purchases of a large threshold population for support, i.e. on an intra-city scale such businesses are oriented to a city-wide market for potential or eventual customers and their market hinterlands are thus presumed to be city-wide, embracing nests of lower order hinterlands; (ii) as a result, specialized, (high order) businesses are seen to be located centrally within the city since this is seen to be the point maximally accessible from across the entire city, and thus the optimum location for businesses depending on customers presumed scattered across the whole city. These ideas are basic to analysis of intra-city retail spatial organization in terms of distance minimizing theories, such as ecological theory and central place theory. However, close examination of the operating characteristics of specialized retail businesses questions these accepted concepts and their theoretical underpinnings. Especially it is stressed: (i) that specialized (high order) retailing tends towards monopolistic competition, since merchants attempt to attract customers through "product differentiation!' and "image projection". It is argued that this permits locational flexibility, not central fixation for specialized (high order) retail businesses: (ii) the normal background for retail activity in North America is a pluralistic socio-economic environment. Consequently, retail stores - especially specialized (high order) stores - are likely to appeal to socially distinctive and areally localized groups for custom. It is argued that this results in selective and morphologically sectoral (not indiscriminantly city-wide) market hinterlands for specialized (high order) stores. Recognition of these characteristics, and the subsequent welding of traditional geographical theories (ecological and central place theories) with insights from economic theory and sociological theory, enriches traditional geographical ideas in a context where existing ideas had hitherto been obscure or misleading. The same recognition also emphasizes that such traditional theories best explain the geography of low order retailing rather than high order retailing. The argument developed permits certain deductions about the locational and hinterland characteristics of specialized (high order) retail businesses to be made, which are phrased as hypotheses for test. Hypotheses are tested in Vancouver in terms of a number or stores identified as "high order". Hypotheses concerning the locational attributes of such stores are tested by interviews with store merchants and managers, to establish reasons for the choice of particular store locations and to discuss methods of business operation. Hypotheses concerning the hinterland characteristics of such stores are tested by the analysis of store hinterlands using credit record, sales slip and questionnaire derived data. This programme of interview and hinterland analysis yields a large number of case studies which are analysed in terms of hypotheses outlined. Many of these case studies are reported, with examples being chosen to cover all possible ramifications of the argument and a "spectrum" of "orders of good" being discussed in order to demonstrate changes in the geography of retail activities with changes in the "order of good" variable. Reporting of these case studies makes up the bulk of the study, and the evidence reported tends to confirm the hypotheses suggested and the arguments on which they rest. On the basis of the merchant interview programme, it is suggested that analysis of the cultural background and behavioural motives of merchants usefully illuminates patterns of location of high order retail businesses, now shown to be disparate, not centrally fixed. A verbal model is presented which systematizes the process of intracity retail site selection by business men, and which emphasizes this behavioural approach, to analysis of store location. Further implications of the argument concerning the internal structure of the city - especially in terms of the role of the C.B.D. in the contemporary city - are drawn out and made explicit as the study proceeds. One of these suggests that the C.B.D. may have lost its accessibility monopoly in the modern city, that centrality may have lost its value to certain traditionally core located activities, and that the historic market place in the centre of the city may have been replaced by a territorially larger area of the city (the "inner city market area") which now shares the accessibility advantages once enjoyed only by the C.B.D. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

Many changes have occurred in retailing practices in Canada in recent years. These changes have been caused, in part, by socio-economic and demographic shifts in Canada's population. The movement of population to urban areas, increased disposable incomes and the mobility of the consumer have caused the retailers to respond to the changes with a number of innovations. Among the innovations are the development of the supermarket, the shopping centre and the discount house. Particular attention is focused in the thesis on the progress and adaptability of consumer co-operatives to the changes taking place in retailing in Canada. A second area studied is that of efficiencies possible through the integration by co-operatives of the functions of retailing, wholesaling and manufacturing. The response of consumer co-operatives to change is assessed first, in terms of the long-established co-operatives in Great Britain, Sweden and the United States and, secondly, with respect to the operation of consumer co-operatives in Canada. British and Swedish consumer co-operatives carry out substantial portions of the retail trade of Great Britain and Sweden while the American consumer co-operatives are a minor factor of the retail trade of the United States. The British co-operatives recognized the need to assess their operations and appointed a commission of inquiry. The Swedish co-operatives have recently been re-organized, particularly with respect to the operation of department stores. A detailed analysis of consumer co-operatives in Canada indicates that the main source of sales has been in farm supplies and consumer goods in rural areas. Progress is being made, particularly in Western Canada, in the development of consumer co-operatives in urban areas. Two co-operative wholesale societies are discussed from the point of view of the integration of co-operative enterprises. It would appear that there is a possibility that the British Columbia Co-operative Wholesale Society and Federated Co-operatives Limited could achieve a higher degree of integration than now exists. A study of the Sherwood Co-operative Association in Saskatchewan indicates that this co-operative has radically altered both its facilities and the product lines offered over a thirty-year period. An analysis of a sample of member-purchasers showed that the co-operative relies on a small minority of members for the bulk of its sales volume. A further sample was developed in order to analyze the residential location of the membership. The latter sample indicated that although the membership of the co-operative in the period up to 1944 was essentially rural, in more recent years there has been an increased participation by people in metropolitan Regina. A mail survey of British Columbia co-operatives resulted in a response from nineteen co-operatives, of which nine were vendors of food products. The nine consumer co-operatives in food products expended over one million dollars for improvement and construction of facilities in the previous five years. Projects totalling over $750,000 are planned for 1962. Three general conclusions were reached in the study. 1. Consumer co-operatives are making progress and adapting to changes in retailing in Canada. 2. Benefits of integrated operations through co-operative wholesale societies are possible but in some instances are not fully realized by the consumer co-operative associations. 3. Consumer co-operative development in the large metropolitan areas is necessary for any substantial growth in consumer co-operative sales in the future. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

M.Comm. / Franchising is growing in stature as one of the most powerful business methods. Fifty percent of retail sales in the USA are generated through franchised chains. Franchising happens when an entrepreneur seizes a viable business opportunity. A system is developed to extract the maximum value and the rights to use the business system are sold to a franchisee to operate a business along the same principles and systems as the original opportunity. The franchisee and franchisor work together as a team or alliance to build and maintain the brand. In order to exploit the business opportunity in a meaningful manner, it is important for the franchisor and the franchisee to understand and to analyse the different relationships in the franchising model. The franchise relationship model developed by Spinelli et al is very useful and provides a sensible approach in analysing and identifying the different relationships in a franchised business. The most important aspect of the franchise relationship model is the relationship with the customer. The service delivery system is created by the franchisor and franchisee to provide the best service or to deliver the product in the most effective way to the customer. The service delivery system is the blue print of the franchise operation and outlines the flow of tasks and transactions in the franchise model. In order for franchisors and franchisees to ensure that uniformity and standards are maintained across the franchised business, it is important for them to have a system through which franchisees can be monitored. The main focus of the monitoring system is to prevent shirking, free riding or to avoid that franchisees erode the brand of the business. An important tool in the monitoring process is the franchise agreement. The franchise agreement is a specialised agreement that outlines the relationship between the franchisor and the franchisee. Other important tools used in the monitoring function are field visits, external service audits, peer review, analytical tools, customer feedback and mystery shopping. Transactional analysis is used to determine which tasks are to be carried out by whom in the franchise relationship. The service delivery system tasks are defined and different tasks awarded to either the franchisee or the franchisor. As an example of this method, the real estate function is analysed indicating what the essential tasks are when executing this function and who is responsible for it.

No description available.

No description available.