Georgina Whyatt

Town centre management: how theory informs a strategic approach

Town centre management has gained recognition as a mechanism for urban renewal. The partnership between the private (mainly retailers) and the public (local authority) sectors has become accepted as a vital ingredient in achieving vitality and viability. The town centre management model has evolved from a tactical to a strategic role. This paper considers how current theory can inform the task of creating sustainable competitive advantage for an urban area. It discusses how the frameworks of partnership and services marketing should be adapted in order to meet the needs and expectations of todays consumer. The conclusion outlines how the management of urban areas can be more effective, now that the concept of town centre management has matured.

Implementing relationship marketing: supermarkets' perspectives

Purpose – There is a stream of literature which implies that for supermarkets, as organisations that operate with low staff‐customer interaction, within a price competitive environment and are dependent on high economies of scale, the return on investment in a relationship marketing (RM) approach does not justify the expense. The purpose of this paper is to explore how supermarkets select and implement RM strategies and seek value from that investment.Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were undertaken with senior marketing managers in German and UK supermarkets. The interview themes were drawn from the RM literature. Loyalty frameworks provided guidelines for the data analysis.Findings – The results suggest that definitions of RM have historically been too narrow due to research having been focussed on the sectors with a high‐service element and undertaken at a time when customer data collection and analysis were more expensive than currently. In addition to those already i...

Commitment to business ethics in UK organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to determine the commitment to business ethics in UK corporations. This study reports on the responses of those organizations that participated in the survey and possessed a code of ethics.Design/methodology/approach – An unsolicited questionnaire was sent to the top 500 private sector organizations by market capitalization in the UK. A total of 92 companies responded, of which 56 possessed a code of ethics.Findings – The empirical findings indicate that the processes involved in developing business ethics commitment have begun to be recognized and acted upon at an organizational level. The supporting measures of business ethics commitment appear to be under‐utilized by many of these UK organizations. This suggests that many organizations have not so far developed a strong organizational commitment to embedding their codes of ethics into organizational practices.Research limitations/implications – While the responses provided a rich picture of organizational actio...

A Trend Analysis of Private Label Research Between 2000 and 2012

The aim of this study is to review the state of empirical and theoretical research about Private Label (PL) and to identify gaps and future research avenues. This paper uses a bibliometric approach of recent advances in the research of PL; it focuses on the period of greatest scientific output (2000–2012) and includes all international publications on PL in marketing journals ranked by the Academic Journal Quality Guide. The analysis systematically considers main authors and universities, countries, topics of investigation and methodologies used. The result reveals that research on the topic has been strongly influenced by a small group of authors and that most studies come from United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Netherlands, France, Australia and Germany. The paper discusses key emerging topics on PL such as consumer perceptions and behaviour, price, channel relationships and quality. Most of the articles have been focused on grocery products using a quantitative approach. Directions for future research are suggested.

A CROSS VALIDATION OF CONSUMER-BASED BRAND EQUITY (CBBE) SCALES IN FASHION RETAIL INDUSTRY

The Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) literature has, in recent years, introduced various CBBE models and measurement scales. This study aims to compare the external validity of the two prominent CBBE models in the fashion retail industry; those introduced by Yoo and Donthu (2011) based on Aaker (1991)’s CBBE concept and Nam et al. (2011). In order to make this comparison, the study collected data from 285 respondents in Turkey. Research findings show that Nam et al.’s (2011) CBBE model is, in the fashion industry context, the more reliable and valid. When the concept of “brand awareness” is included in this model, the psychometric properties of the model are improved.