The grocery retailing industry is a key sector of the UK economy, accounting for 16% of consumer expenditure. As such developments in this sector will have an important effect on UK economic and social welfare. Arguably, competition in the sector has intensified in the last two decades. Yet significant consolidation in the sector has put it under the spotlight of the UK competition authorities. Previous research analysing factors affecting the performance and positioning of UK grocery retailers has tended to be restricted to a limited time period and a small sample size. This study extends this research by investigating industry evolution and factors affecting performance and industry structure with longitudinal panel data, covering a two-decade time period. The sample used covers a wide variety of grocery retailers with a range of different attributes over a significant period in the development of the industry, running from 1985 through to 2003. Strategic group theory is employed to study industry evolution and examine the effects of strategic positioning on performance. Specifically, fixed-effect panel econometric models are estimated at different levels of aggregation to analyse firm, industry and strategic group effects on the performance of retailers. Also, stochastic frontier models, in the form of Cobb-Douglas and Transcendental Logarithmic functions, are estimated at different levels of aggregation to analyse the efficiency of retailers in the sector. The results from cluster analysis on strategic groups suggest that industry structure is likely to become more concentrated, and the size of retailers will be a significant mobility barrier in the industry. The profitability analysis finds industry level factors and strategic group composition to be crucial in explaining performance differences. The efficiency analysis finds large retailers exhibiting economies of scale through operating large store formats to be significantly better positioned from smaller-format retailers with fewer outlets. Consistent and significant time dummies demonstrate the favourable macro environment enjoyed by the retailers for much of the 1990s. The analysis reveals potentially useful insights for retail managers, especially concerning the importance of positioning in the industry and the choice of strategic orientation. More generally, the study opens up further possibilities for future studies of performance and efficiency measurement over an even longer time as the sector continues to develop and shape the way consumers shop in the UK.

Via the submission of six published papers, this thesis draws together the body of work by Broadbridge on retail management and women’s careers. It reveals the factors that continue to be problematic for women’s careers and why in 2010 they continue to be under-represented in the retail management hierarchy. A contextual background to the selected papers is provided in three chapters which summarise some wider issues for the non specialist reader: an introduction to career development models, the gendered processes in management and a contemporary overview of retail employment in the UK. Of the six papers presented, each adopts a different theoretical perspective and so cumulatively a comprehensive understanding of the reasons for women’s continued under-representation in retail management positions is gained. The overall findings from the papers indicated that the main reasons for women’s and men’s differential experience in the retail management hierarchy can be located in issues of male control. Retail management is male dominated, male identified and male centred. This can present itself in a variety of different ways, and through overt or covert means of behaviour and underlying organisational cultures. Key theoretical contributions to the thesis are located in three sets of theory: the sexual division of labour and the organisation of retail work; the gendered retail career, and work-life balance and multiple role demands. Empirical and methodological contributions come from the corpus of data and the use and refinement of a mixed methods approach to understanding the subject area.

The population percentage, population growth, buying power, and geographic concentration of Hispanic-Americans in the United States is causing marketers and retailers to carefully examine this market segment. Through a better understanding of Hispanic-American consumers, marketers and retailers will be more capable of meeting their wants and needs. Tailoring marketing promotions and strategies can help a company more effectively reach the Hispanic-American market. This study compared Hispanic-Americans and Anglo-Americans in their general shopping characteristics, responses to excitement in the mall, consumption patterns, and repatronage intention. A total of seven hypotheses were developed, all of which were either supported or partially supported.

This study investigated the consumers' intention towards multi-channel shopping and the function of synergy in a multi-channel retailing format (i.e., brick-and-mortar stores, catalogs, and the Internet). Two questionnaires were developed, one for the multi-channel consumers and the other for the multi-channel retailers. The structural equation modeling was used to predict the effect of shopping benefits and costs perceived from each channel on the consumer's purchase intention. Data analysis (N = 500) indicated that the purchase intentions were affected by different shopping benefit and cost variables. Qualitative analysis of retailers (N= 10) revealed that the retailers considered synergy to be an important part of their multi-channels. Also, there existed a high level of synergy among the existing three retail channels.

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.

In this thesis I focus on the retail trade development in Belarus in recent years and opportunities for entering the Belarusian retail market for foreign retailers. First of all I describe current situation in Belarus, both economic and political. Then I described the retail market, its basic indicators, the most common methods of sale, types of retail outlets and marketing communication. Finally I described consumer behavior of Belarusian customer and opportunities for foreign retailers to enter Belarusian retail market.

The purpose of this study was to explore the integration of a branded retail application in physical stores. Doing so, this study was conducted with a qualitative and abductive approach in the form of a case study focusing on H&M. The empirical material was collected through think-aloud observations and semi-structured interviews with 22 participants in total. The theoretical framework consisted of 6 aspects related to smart customer experience, including convenience and time convenience, personalisation, interactivity, control, usefulness, and involvement. Furthermore, the concept of the purchase decision process was also included in the theoretical framework. Five themes regarding the usage of the branded retail application in physical stores was found, including prior store visit usage and in-store usage, in-store information, selective information, visualisation of items in-store, and in-store communication. From this, it was concluded that using the app in-store provide several benefits depending on how the app is used. This leads to the conclusion that the app influences in different phases of the purchase decision process.

Omnichannel has become a central part of future retailing and is expected to be implemented by multiple brands. Omnichannel is an extension of multichannel enquiring complete integration between channels. As customers’ demands changes and demonstrate switching of brands, maintaining loyal customers’ in the evolving retail market with unlimited options is a continuous challenge. There are indicators of omnichannel retailing increasing customer satisfaction but there is no research investigating how it could affect brand loyalty, either through attitudinal loyalty, behavioural loyalty or a combination of both. This research aims to explore how implications of omnichannel retailing could facilitate the demanded satisfactory shopping experience and lead to embarked brand loyalty. A qualitative method was chosen to explore this phenomenon by using primary, secondary data and conducting of in-depth interviews. The results shows that omnichannel is an significant factor facilitating a satisfactory shopping experience, in turn inflicting attitudinal loyalty, but there were vague signs of behavioural loyalty. Thus, omnichannel was not considered the main factor affecting brand loyalty due to lack of expressed commitment to repurchase, hence omnishoppers rarely surpasses the step of satisfaction to fully becoming brand loyal.

A compra por impulso vem sendo discutida e pesquisada há mais de cinqüenta anos, porém um salto qualitativo ocorreu nos últimos anos com os esforços realizados em busca de modelos explicativos sobre esse tipo de comportamento. Esta tese tem como propósito reduzir essa lacuna no seu corpo teórico a partir do desenvolvimento de um modelo dos antecedentes e das conseqüências das compras impulsivas em dois ambientes distintos de compras: nas lojas físicas e nas lojas virtuais. Além disso, o estudo teve como objetivo avaliar a relação entre elementos ambientais de loja e o comportamento de compra por impulso. Para tanto, foi realizada uma pesquisa tipo survey com consumidores com experiência de compra pela Internet, sendo verificadas, a partir do emprego da técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais, as relações existentes entre o ambiente de loja, a impulsividade individual, a circulação na loja e a realização de compras impulsivas. Os resultados do estudo evidenciaram que o ambiente de loja afeta a ocorrência de compras por impulso. A impulsividade, igualmente influenciada por elementos do ambiente em lojas físicas, foi identificada como o antecedente de maior impacto sobre a realização de compras impulsivas. A partir da comparação entre os dois modelos propostos, foram identificadas diferenças entre os comportamentos de compra impulsiva entre lojas físicas e virtuais, principalmente em relação à importância dos elementos ambientais das lojas na Internet sobre as compras impulsivas. Quanto às conseqüências das compras impulsivas, evidenciou-se que as emoções positivas, para ambos ambientes de varejo, são os sentimentos mais freqüentes; os afetos negativos, como culpa ou frustração, não apresentaram grande impacto. Por fim, são expostas as contribuições acadêmicas e gerenciais do estudo, apontando caminhos para novos estudos na área. / Impulse buying has been discussed and researched for more than fifty years, but a qualitative leap occurred in the past few years with the efforts for predictive models about this behavior. This dissertation has as its purpose to reduce this gap in its theoretical body from the development of a model of the antecedents and consequences of impulse purchases in two distinct shopping environments: in virtual and physical stores. Moreover, the study had as an objective to evaluate the relationship between store environment elements and impulse buying behavior. For this purpose, a survey research was conducted with internet purchases experienced consumers. Analysis of the data, utilizing structural equation modeling, verified the relationships among store environment, individual impulsivity, in-store browsing and impulse purchases. The results evidenced that store environment influences the occurrence of impulse purchases. Impulsivity, also influenced by physical stores environmental elements, was identified as an the antecedent of stronger impact on impulse purchases. From the comparison between the two proposed models, differences between impulse buying behaviors in physical and virtual stores were identified, mainly concerning the importance of the environmental elements of internet stores on impulse purchases. As consequences of impulse purchases, positive emotions, for both retail environments, are the most frequent feelings; negative emotions as guilt and frustration didn’t show a strong impact. Finally the academic and managerial contributions of the study are presented, as well as future research on this issue.

A internacionalização de empresas é fator fundamental para o desenvolvimento de um país. Embora este seja um processo de pequenas proporções no Brasil, ele está em fase de crescimento. Dentre as empresas que estão se expandindo internacionalmente, estão as franquias. O Brasil é o terceiro maior mercado mundial de franquias, que possui, ainda, a particularidade de ser composto, predominantemente, por empresas nacionais. Este estudo teve por objetivo caracterizar o processo de internacionalização de franquias brasileiras que, por ser um fenômeno recente, é carente de pesquisas. Optou-se pela realização de um estudo quantitativo exploratório que possibilitasse identificar o perfil de franquias nacionais que atuam no exterior, os fatores organizacionais associados à internacionalização, os motivos, destinos e métodos de entrada empregados, bem como as barreiras que dificultam a expansão de outras redes. Foram utilizadas técnicas de estatística descritiva, multivariada e não-paramétrica. Os resultados demonstraram que o total de lojas no Brasil, o tempo de atuação no sistema de franquias e a dispersão geográfica no mercado doméstico são fatores que impactam na atitude da empresa diante da internacionalização. Percebeu-se, ainda, uma postura pró- ativa das empresas que se internacionalizaram, sendo México e Portugal os destinos preferidos e máster-franquia o método mais utilizado pelas organizações. As principais barreiras à internacionalização foram falta de conhecimento sobre o mercado internacional e dificuldades de operação no exterior e de controle sobre a rede, sendo que as empresas não internacionalizadas atribuíram importância muito maior às barreiras do que as já internacionalizadas. Espera-se que as conclusões obtidas possam auxiliar no desenvolvimento das franquias que já atuam no exterior e incentivar a expansão de tantas outras. / The internationalization of companies is very important to the development of a country. Although this is a process of small ratios in Brazil, it is increasing. Amongst the companies which are expanding overseas, there are the franchising ones. Brazil is one of the three biggest world-wide markets of franchising, which has the particularity of being composed, predominantly, by national companies. The objective of this study was to characterize internationalization of brazilian franchisors. As it is a recent phenomenon, it is devoid of researches. It was opted to accomplish an exploratory quantitative study, which allowed to identify the profile of national franchising companies that operate overseas, the organizational characteristics associated to internationalization, the motives, destinations and methods of entrance, as well as the barriers that inhibit the internationalization of others companies. Techniques of descriptive, multivariate and nonparametric statistics were used. The results demonstrated that number of stores, experience with franchising and geographic dispersion in the domestic market are factors that have impact on the attitude towards internationalization. It was also possible to observe a pro-active position of companies that had internationalized, being Mexico and Portugal the preferred destinations and master-franchising the most used method. The main barriers to internationalization were lack of knowledge about the international market and difficulties to operate overseas and to control the franchisees. It is also important to mention that companies that operate only in the domestic market gave much more importance to barriers than internationalized ones. It is expected the conclusions can help the development of franchising companies operating overseas and stimulate the expansion of many others.