The retail sector in India is experiencing a shift from an industry dominated by small grocers serving the needs of local markets to one characterized by chain retailers, both national and international. The liberalization of the retail sector in the last decade has edged the street-vendors, squatters, and small retailers from the prime business spaces to marginalized peripheries, which had led to widespread localized protests by the small retailers all over the country. The Aminabad Market in a metro city in northern India provided a unique opportunity to study ongoing resistance against chain retailing. The retailers of Aminabad were at the center of the most vocal protests and organized numerous strikes that led to the government action. Within this setting, this study employed an ethnographic methodology to explore the narratives of resistance by the street vendors, squatters, and small retailers in a traditional market in India. The study further explores the protests that are constituted in ‘local’ market conditions; and how they can become the basis for universalization of ‘local’ resistance into the mass-based movements. For this purpose, the theoretical framework utilizing Harvey’s conceptualizations of local resistance movements as well as Williams’ concept of the “militant particularisms” and narrative storytelling were used in this study. To this purpose, the study examines small retailers’ participation, their use of communication strategies to develop resistance narratives, and the techniques used in universalizing the resistance. The implications of current study suggest that although the typical small retailers maintains a defiant narrative against chain retailing, the social, economic, political differences within prevent the formulation of a unified agenda that represents their diversity. The unresolved ideological, social, and economic particularities within small retailing have a divisive influence on their resistance movement. The study also discusses the use of “Participatory Action” approach for facilitating a productive participation among the constituents, which can be a way forward for future research. Participatory Action can actively facilitate the resolution of underlying ironies for reforming and recreating the institutions according to the small retailers’ needs and resistance discourse that reflects their collective expression.

"Le Droit c'est l'instrument de réalisation d'un choix économique qui prolonge, lui-même, un choix politique fondamental" écrivait le Professeur Jean-Marc MOUSSERON. Poursuivant un choix politique de relance du pouvoir d'achat et / ou de lutte contre l'inflation, le droit économique a en effet cherché à protéger puis à encadrer la grande distribution. La prohibition du refus de vente, la prohibition de la majoration discriminatoire des prix ainsi que la prohibition des prix minimums imposés avaient ainsi pour objectif de protéger la concurrence de la grande distribution. La fragilisation du commerce indépendant traditionnel apparaît néanmoins comme un effet pervers de cette protection législative. Les pouvoir publics ont alors tenté de protéger cette forme de commerce traditionnel par des barrières à l'entrée légales anticoncurrentielles. En somme, soit les pouvoirs publics protègent la grande distribution au profit de la concurrence mais au détriment du commerce traditionnel, soit ils protègent le commerce traditionnel au détriment de la concurrence. Face à cette alternative il apparaît alors que seule une action législative tournée vers l'intérêt du consommateur -comme acteur de concurrence- permettra une régulation du marché de la distribution au profit tant de la concurrence de la grande distribution que du commerce traditionnel. / The French lecturer Jean-Marc MOUSSERON wrote that “law is the tool bringing economic choices into being, these economic choices themselves following fundamental political ones”. It is indeed by pursuing political choices such as the increase of the purchasing power or the reduction of consumer price that economic law protects and controls big retailers' action. By prohibiting the refusal to sell, the price discrimination practice and the minimum prices' resale practice, the French government tried indeed to protect the competition from grocery retailers. However as a consequence of this protection, small independent retailers lost their competitiveness. The French government tried hence to protect them by introducing anticompetitive legal barriers. To sum up, the government either protects the competition of grocery retailers to the detriment of traditional retailers or protects the small traditional retailers to the detriment of the competition. Bearing that alternative in mind, it seems that only a legislative action aiming to protect consumers will bring about a satisfyingly regulated retail market for the benefit of both the competition of grocery retailers and small retailers.

The aim of this thesis is to describe perceived barriers and drivers and analyze its impact on the implementation of strategies among food retailers in order to reduce food waste. On supply chain, food retailers are in the powerful position, communicating both consumers and suppliers. Existing literatures and our findings show that food retailers engage mostly in strategies to prevent and re-use food waste. The methodology used in this thesis is qualitative research through single case study design in order to gain valuable insights from food retailers and develop the existing theories. The empirical date is collected through semi-structured interviews with a store manager, the head of logistics and a project manager and environmental ambassador, Karin Bildsten. The findings had formed several learning points. First, in this case the major barrier is lack of resources in financial and knowledge terms in order to implement strategies. Second, consumers have a strong impact on the implementation of strategies, playing both as drivers and barriers. Lastly, environmental consideration of employees is a strong driver as well as positive response from society toward implementing different strategies. This research intended to give inspiration to other researchers into this new field of research. The authors concluded with practical recommendations to food retailers as well as some advices to different stakeholders.

The purpose of the study was to determine the practices of a selected number of chain shoe store organizations in training management personnel for their retail shoe outlets. The data secured from these sources will also be compared with the opinions of several authorities in the field of management to determine the extent to which the practices in actual use agree with those recommended.

Background Worldwide, one-third of all produced food is going to waste, and the number is increasing every year which consequently calls for action. A substantial share of the food waste is the outcome of grocery stores throwing away suboptimal food which yet is eatable but due to the date labeling, damaged packaging or in terms of appearance standards cannot be sold. Throughout the last years, numerous unique businesses have been formed in Sweden to offer suboptimal food both online and in physical stores. Still, Swedish grocery stores stand for 30 000 tons of food being wasted which is directly linked to the still evident unwillingness to offer, purchase and consume suboptimal food. By no means, this is a significant problem and need to be changed in order to reach a more sustainable world. Till this day, qualitative research on the topic is scare. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to understand which components that affected Swedish grocery shoppers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards suboptimal food in-store. Method In order to fulfil the purpose of this study, a qualitative methodology has been utilized. The qualitative data has been collected through semi-structured interviews amongst Swedish grocery shoppers. To explore the attitudes and purchase intentions towards suboptimal food product, an abductive research approach was applied to strengthen previous research findings and attempt to discover possible new theory.  Conclusion The empirical findings revealed that Swedish grocery shoppers in this research study hold an overall positive attitude towards suboptimal food. The study further reports four prominent barriers towards Swedish grocery shoppers’ purchase intentions of suboptimal food. In result, even though an overall positive attitude presented, the intention to purchase suboptimal food could be severely weakened by substantial restrictions encountered in grocery stores.

Background: The e-commerce market has developed and it has become the new marketplace for current manufacturing and service industries. Customers’ behavior on the e-commerce market are changing with this Internet development and the competition is increasing. Customer’s purchase intention on the e-commerce market emerges when the customer compare brands and products in order to decide whether to purchase or not. Achieving e-loyalty is important for e-retailers to be profitable in the long run, which is defined as the customers’ positive attitude towards an e-retailer and results in repeat purchases. The primary antecedents of e-loyalty are e-trust, e-satisfaction and perceived value. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explain how e-trust, e-satisfaction and perceived value impacts customers intentions to purchase from e-retailer(s). Methodology: This thesis had a quantitative research method and a deductive approach with an explanatory purpose. The research design was cross-sectional. An online questionnaire was used as the data collection method, which gathered 212 answers that passed the qualification question through convenience and snowball sampling. Reliability testing, validity testing and significance testing were used to test the data. A multilinear regression was used to test the hypothesis and analyse the results further. Findings: The original model of this thesis was tested and found insignificant. A new model was tested and found significant. 4,6 % of customers’ purchase intention could be explained to impact e-satisfaction. E-trust was found insignificant and had a negative impact on customers’ purchase intentions. Perceived value had a negative impact on the f-value and was therefore taken out of the regression analysis. Conclusion: The thesis contributes with a new conceptual model for the rejected hypothesis of e-trust impact on purchase intentions and the accepted hypothesis of e-satisfactions impact on purchase intentions. There are managerial implications of this study of how they should focus on e-satisfaction in their business practices, as well putting less focus on e-trust.

This paper presents the challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption of smart packaging in food packaging industry. The paper introduces three largest food retailers in Sweden, and the problems they faced during the introduction of the adoption of smart packaging technologies packaging. Introduction- The authors present the paper with complete background of the food packaging industry in general, as well as each types of smart packaging techniques. In addition, the paper introduces the adoption process for the smart packaging. The research question of this paper is: What are the hinders of adopting smart packaging technology in food packaging industry and why? • What challenges do they face during the adoption process? • What are the hinders in this adoption process? • What are the new hinders in this adoption process? Purpose- The main purpose of this paper is to find the challenges that occur during the adoption of smart packaging in food packaging industry faced by the retailers. Knowing the basic knowledge of the food packaging industry and giving importance to the challenges may lead to achieve our aim. Methodology- This research paper uses the research onion model as a methodology to analyse the gathered data. The authors performed interviews with retailers and end-users of food packaging industry to analyse their challenges during the adoption of smart packaging. The collected data are further discussed in the analysis and discussion part. Conclusion- This paper concludes the adoption in the new technology and concentrates on how each retailer has their own perspective to see the quality and use it to overcome the adoption process. This paper describes the common and unique challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption process. The main common challenges faced by all the retailers in common was to create awareness and to make end-user understand the adoption process but also the benefits of adoption. The most important challenges faced by the retailers of ICA is they consider that adopting to new technology in smart packaging is a challenge for them, because they must create an understanding about the new technology to the end-users which requires a lot of time for the adoption process. According to Coop the open to new smart packaging technologies because since they use only localize products and resources, the overall cost of the product increases which again becomes a barrier for end-user adoption. The interviewee from Willys state that they offer affordable smart packaging technologies without creating barrier for customer adoption, at the same time they are not willing to adopt new technologies without testing its feasibility with the customers. Omar, Uma Thesis in Industrial Innovation Management (IN7001) iii Limitation- The aim of this study is focused on only one element of smart packaging i.e. “Adoption”. Moreover, this study is limited to adoption of smart packaging done in three companies (Coop, Willys & ICA Maxi) in the retail sector in Halmstad, Sweden. This study is conducted from the retailer perspective, by analysing the challenges faced by the retailers during the adoption process.

M.. Tech. (Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / Store choice has become an area of concern for a retailer, with no clear verdict as to what drives customers in the selection of a store. Shopping at the right store with the right social reputation may be essential for many customers. Therefore, the dynamic store choice decision can be conceptualised as a problem of deciding where and when to shop. The primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of perceived social risk and buying behaviour on apparel retail store choice among Generation Y female students within the Sedibeng district. This study focused on perceived social risk, as the literature shows that publically consumed products are the ones with a high level of social risk and the consumer’s need for social acceptance with regards to brand and store choices. This study also looked at the buying behaviour of apparel by Generation Y female students within the Sedibeng district because in today’s increasingly complex retail environment, an understanding of consumers’ buying behaviour and their knowledge of products and services is critical for high quality business decisions. In addition, an understanding of consumers’ buying behaviour will assist retailers to segment their client base and target specific customer groups with strategies designed to meet their retail needs. A quantitative research approach was used for this study and a non-probability convenience sampling procedure was adopted in this study. A structured questionnaire was utilised to survey 400 students from the two universities in the Sedibeng district. The target population for this study was restricted to Generation Y female students within the two universities, namely Vaal University of Technology (VUT) and North West University (NWU). Pre-testing and a pilot study preceded the main survey and reliabilities were measured using the Cronbach alpha coefficients. Out of 400 questionnaires sent to the participants, a total of 370 responses were received and this resulted in a return rate of 92.5 percent for the main study. The statistical analysis of the collected data included descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling to test the posited hypothesis. The analysis results of the factor analysis showed that based on the Kaiser-Guttman rule, for each of the constructs (perceived social risk, buying behaviour and retail store choice) only two factors that have intrinsic value greater than one were extracted. For the perceived social risk construct, two factors, which were labelled anxiousness and significant others were extracted and for the buying behaviour construct two factors, which were labelled acceptance and reaction were extracted. Lastly, for the retail store choice construct, two factors, which were labelled word of mouth as well as convenience and physical characteristics of the store were extracted through the exploratory factor analysis technique. According to the results of the structural equation modelling analysis, the tested relationships produced satisfactory results consistent with how they were hypothesised. Specifically, it appeared that there is a direct relationship between perceived social risk and buying behaviour. Buying behaviour also has a positive effect on retail store choice and finally, perceived social risk has a good impact, but there is no significant influence on retail store choice as indicated by the findings. Insights gained from this study will assist marketers of apparel products to increase the patronage levels in their stores by expediting the factors identified in this study. Moreover, these findings may enable apparel retail store managers to comprehensively understand how perceived social risk influences a consumer’s retail store choice and to predict as well as develop a current view of the buying behaviour of female Generation Y consumers, thereby facilitating the evelopment and implementation of more effective marketing strategies in their stores. Implications of the findings are discussed and limitations and future research directions are alluded to.

Many rural districts are facing economic decline because of a range of factors such as demographic change, changing socio-economic development patterns, farm amalgamations, the entry of large retail businesses, the so called ‘Big Box Retailing’ (BBRs), and a decline in rural infrastructure investment. These factors in turn affect the viability of many small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the primary employers and the engines for economic growth and employment in rural districts. The combined effect of these processes is that many rural districts struggle to keep young people, maintain economic and social diversity and attract new settlers and investment. This thesis seeks to answer the question as to how large scale retail businesses, rural farm amalgamations and declining rural populations impact on the viability of SME retail businesses in rural areas. In order to answer this question, this study identifies the key factors, which affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts using the South Taranaki District as a case study. The role of economic development agencies and district councils is also examined using case studies of small towns in rural districts of Australia and the United States of America (USA). This study found a number of factors affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts. For the South Taranaki district, these factors include the arrival of large-scale supermarkets, followed by large scale retail chains such as The Warehouse. These factors, combined with changing rural population structures and economic ‘spikes’ relating to sporadic energy development, have significant implications for the long term viability of many SMEs in the district. Case studies of similar rural districts in the USA and Australia provided examples of strategies that could be used to manage these impacts. This thesis recommends policies, initiatives and strategies that may be considered by territorial local authorities, regional councils and central governments to help address the economic development challenges facing rural districts.

One of the newest emerging areas of research in supply chain management is ReverseLogistics. It involves all activities related to the flow of products from the customerback to the supplier. In the last decade scholars have developed theories and models,however empirical data is still in its infancy. In response, this paper strives to close thisgap by conducting research to create new knowledge on the first element of reverselogistics, which is the product return process. The main intention of having a returnprocess is to handle returned products efficiently in order to recover value and to savecosts. Therefore, it is a value-adding operation and can become profitable for thecompany.The purpose of this study is to investigate the implementation and perception of thereturn process of Swedish e-retailers. Sweden is considered to be one of the mostmatured e-commerce markets. In addition, e-retailers experience the highest rate ofproduct returns. Together those two factors influenced the decision to dedicate thisthesis to this particular region and industry.Initially, this paper introduces reverse logistics focusing specifically on the productreturn process. An overview of the existing theories and concepts within the returnprocess is presented and summarized, resulting in the creation of the Boomerang ReturnModel. Based on this foundation the questionnaire was created. By cooperating with theSwedish e-retail federation - Svensk Distanshandel, access to the industry was gained toperform a quantitative study.It was found that the empirical data only gives insight into the implementation andperception of the return process of small sized companies. The findings demonstrate thelimited awareness of the importance of an efficient return process. Companies tend toperceive the return process as unimportant instead of value adding. Hence, there is anopportunity for improvements in the Swedish e-retail market. From these findings amodified version of the Boomerang Return Model was created to adjust the initialmodel particularly for small sized companies. The model can be utilized as a theoreticalgroundwork in future research. Additionally, it could also serve as guidance for smallcompanies how to implement an appropriate return process.