Rujirutana Mandhachitara

Customer expectations of CSR, perceived service quality and brand effect in Thai retail banking

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how social responsibility initiatives can influence perceived service quality and brand effect from the perspective of retail banking customers in Bangkok, Thailand. The paper also aims to examine the impact of trust as a mediating variable between perceived service quality and brand effect.Design/methodology/approach – The study is quantitative in nature, using the responses of 275 bank customers to a closed‐end questionnaire administered on a face‐to‐face basis by trained fieldworkers. The data analysis is performed by partial least squares (PLS), a second generation statistical SEM variance‐based modeling technique.Findings – The results of the study demonstrate how corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influence service quality perceptions and also examine CSRs impact on trust and affective attitudes of customers towards their banks. The studys hypothesized relationships were principally supported, i.e. perceived service quality is positively associat...

Causal path modeling of grocery shopping in hypermarkets

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudinal and behavioral shopping patterns related to hypermarket shopping in an Asian market, which has undergone a revolutionary transition from traditional to modern trade food retailing in the past decade. The first class includes shopping enjoyment, risk aversion, price signaling, innovativeness, trust and future purchase intentions. The second group of behavioral shopping patterns includes advocacy, time, and money spent shopping.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 244 shoppers was interviewed across Bangkok using a structured questionnaire through face‐to‐face personal interviews.Findings – The study finds that grocery shoppers tend to be more risk averse when time pressured, but less risk averse if they are innovative. Bangkok Thais score high on innovativeness and shopping enjoyment and are more frequent patrons of hypermarkets than other grocery store formats. While a particular aspect of hypermarket grocery shopping behavior is found to ...

Why Private Label Grocery Brands Have Not Succeeded In Asia

Abstract Lower disposable income among Asian grocery shoppers, heavily discounted private label grocery brands, relative to national brands, and a favorable retail distribution structure would seem to predispose the former to success. But this has not been the case. To learn why private label grocery brands have not succeeded in Asia, two identical shopper surveys were conducted in Wichita, Kansas (United States) and Prakanong-Bangna, Bangkok (Thailand) to examine possible factors relating to retail grocery shopping differences. The authors found that poor market knowledge, and the tendency of Thai consumers to infer product quality by using extrinsic cues such as high price were salient. Additionally, Thai choices were influenced more by social factors than Americans, making them less prone to bargain hunting. The paper concludes with the discussion of managerial implications and offers recommendations to retail chain owners operating in the region.

Psychological antecedents of career women's fashion clothing conformity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between independent and interdependent self‐construal and attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) on professional career womens fashion clothing conformity.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 207 professional career women aged 21‐50 living in London and New York were interviewed using a structured questionnaire via the internet.Findings – A partial least square analysis found that interdependent self‐construal has strong and positive relationships with ATSCI, and that this construct, in‐turn, has a strong and positive relationship with motivation to conform. Independent self‐construal has a significant, but unhypothesized, relationship with ATSCI. However, independent self‐construal is significantly negatively related to conformity motivation.Research limitations/implications – A limitation of the study includes the reliance on internet self‐administered data collection method.Practical implications – The integrations of ...

Fast moving luxury goods: positioning strategies for Scotch whisky in Thai department stores

This paper examines the Scotch whisky market in Thai department stores over a two‐year period and shows their importance to Thai retailing. The paper then finds that the category behaves as both a fast moving consumer goods market and as a luxury market. Product movement is rapid when compared to other luxury good categories and there is some evidence of discounting. The data, derived from a sample of weekly sales through 25 department stores over two years, show differences in distribution, merchandising, and pricing strategy across different chains. The paper concludes by looking at the potential causes of profit differences across these chains.

Macroeconomic Shock and Product Disposition in an Emerging Market

Emerging markets are often viewed as the source of greatest business expansion in coming years. Yet, their economies tend to be more volatile, and the associated economic crises are deeper and more prolonged than is the case in advanced economies. This study examines consumer disposition processes in Thailand at the time of that nation’s economic crisis. Disposition has not been studied either in an emerging market context or in the context of consumers faced with crises derived from macroeconomic forces. The study examines sellers’ motives and behavior at a retail institution that arose spontaneously out of the Thai economic crisis: the car boot sale (CBS). This institution and its variants are well known in the United States and United Kingdom but had not existed as acceptable upper-middle and upper-class retail formats in Thailand prior to the crisis. The study also examines the Thai CBS phenomenon in cultural terms.

Retailing in Bangkok: an intriguing example of agglomeration

Retailing organizations in Bangkok range in type from the traditional through to the most modern. Also, while there are agglomerations of small stores selling similar ranges of goods, there are also some of the most up‐to‐date large shopping malls in the world. Although such agglomerations of retailing activity are not unique to Bangkok, Bangkok’s development is arguably unusual in three ways: the number of agglomerations continues to grow; these new agglomerations are dealing in a wide range of goods and not just electronic gadgets; and one particular agglomeration dominates the Bangkok market for its range of goods. A survey was carried out in 1999 of a sample of the stores in Pantip Plaza, a mall that is in an agglomeration. The results show the need to improve our understanding of the factors leading to agglomeration.

Small business performance in Thailand: key success factors

Purpose This paper investigates how affirmative leadership management styles, market orientation, and marketing intelligence drive the performance of small business enterprises in Bangkok, Thailand. Design/methodology/approach Small business performance is a formative measurement consisting of financial and marketing metrics. Other constructs are reflective. Some 200 manager-owners of small businesses were interviewed. The authors use structural modeling, partial least squares (PLS). Findings Affirmative leadership does not have a direct impact on firm performance. Nonetheless, market orientation mediates such relationship. Marketing intelligence plays an important role in driving small business success only when mediated by market orientation. Research limitations/implications The data was collected from two of 50 districts in Bangkok. The study is cross-sectional. Performance measures were self-reported. Practical implications Building and exercising affirmative leadership skills and behaviors in small ...

Professional Women's Fashionable Clothing Decisions in Bangkok and New York City

abstract The primary objective of this study is to learn how much of the variances between womens fashionable clothing decisions can be explained by (1) membership of Eastern (collectivistic) and Western (individualistic) cultural groups, (2) membership of three major professional groups, and (3) level of self-esteem. The authors identify five dimensions of womens fashionable clothing decisions: clothing concerns, fashion consciousness, fashion conformity motivation, susceptibility to interpersonal influence, and variety-seeking behavior. A multivariate analysis of covariance is performed on a sample of 233 professional women in Bangkok and 158 in New York City. A multivariate test reveals that cultural group membership contributes the strongest predictive power, followed by self-esteem, and then by the three professional groups. The study concludes with implications concerning cross-cultural fashionable clothing decisions, which will be valuable to both scholars and practitioners in the field. Directions for future research are identified.