Special Issue of the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services
Retailing and Consumer Services at a Tipping Point: Developing New Conceptual Frameworks, Theories, and Measures to Understand Emerging Retailing and Service Practices
Deadline 31 Mar 2018
Guest Editors:
Justin Paul (Professor, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, USA; email: justin.paul@upr.edu, profjust@gmail.com)
Mark Rosenbaum (Professor, Northern Illinois University USA and Externado University, Colombia; Email: mrosenbaum@niu.edu
The globalization of production and consumption has brought about several challenges, as the pace of globalization is different across markets (Buckley & Ghauri, 2004). Consequently, the fields of marketing and world business have expanded and have gathered momentum with the establishment of the World Trade Organization (Agarwal & Wu, 2004). Given the pace of globalization, technology, and social, cultural, and political change, it is important for academics to study new theoretical foundations, different paths, processes, and problems associated with the retailing and consumer service industries (Paul, Shankaranarayan & Mekoth, 2016).
Retailing and consumer services are undergoing change. Yet, do we know which antecedents stimulate change regarding consumers’ marketplace decision? How should retailing practitioners make decisions? How are changes impacting retailing and consumer services in industrialized, developing, and least developed nations (Elg et.al, 2015)? How should retailing managers orient themselves with differing buyer characteristics; for example, technology usage, and shopping preferences of consumers (Karande & Merchant, 2012; Mei, 2013; Paul, 2017)? Quite succinctly, how should academics and practitioners prepare for Retailing 2020?
In this context, it is worth noting that traditional brick-and-mortar retailing is at a “tipping point” (Corkery, 2017). On one hand, retail pundits say malls are dead; yet, other academics find that shopping centres can promote individual and societal well-being (Rosenbaum, Otalora & Ramirez, 2016). E-commerce players, such as Amazon, Warby Parker, Bonobos, Blue Apron, and Birchbox, have made it easy, fast, and convenient for consumers to shop for apparel, cosmetics, groceries, and other consumer products online. Yet, many of e-commerce are now building physical stores. Is physical store retailing dead or simply changing?
Turning attention to the USA, one may speculate how the anticipated loss of 1 billion square feet of retail space will impact the American consumer and tourist. Further, the American retail marketplace is seeing the growth of “dollar stores” and the loss of luxury, as the country’s middle-class continues to shrink. Globally, retailers are looking to China, India, and to the Middle East to fuel luxury sales; with companies such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s expanding in India and to the Persian Gulf. As we write this call, the USA’s eminent luxury retailer, the Neiman Marcus Group, is struggling to remain viable as luxury retailers can no longer simply expect profits raising prices and Sears in near bankruptcy.
In addition to the changing retailing industry, service companies, such as Uber and Airbnb, have altered transportation and hospitality as we know it and created the so-called sharing economy. Clearly, the global retailing and consumer service industries are rapidly changing and these changes reflect a need for a new understanding of consumer behavior within these industries.
The purpose of this special issue is to develop new conceptual frameworks, theories, or measures that explore emerging retail and services and attempt to understand consumer behaviors towards them. For example, topics in this area may include the following:
- Omni-channel retailing
- Retailing via mobile phone and mobile applications
- The future of brick-and-mortar retailing in industrialized, developing, and least developed nations
- Transforming mall space from retailing to consumer services
- Experiential retailing
- Subscription retailing
- Transformative service issues: the societal impact of the loss of physical retailing, the loss of enclosed malls on a community, identifying the new “hangout.”
- The internet of things: how does the transfer of personalized information result in the creation of customized retail solutions.
- Consumer wearable technology: the impact of wearable technology on retailing
- The impact of technology on retailing and consumer services
- The future of luxury retailing
- E-commerce and price pressures
- The new role of the retail sales associate and service providers given technology
- The concepts like dollar store
- The role of the independent “mom-and-pop” given technology
- Brand management in services sectors including retailing
- Specialized modes/formats of retailing such as franchising and vending
- Going from Internet to Physical and vice versa
- Any other innovative works
Goal of this special issue: To encourage researchers to focus on theory development rather than doing replete and recycled research on the same topics repeatedly. Therefore, We encourage scholars to be creative and to use a variety of empirical and descriptive methods to construct new theories and frameworks that may act as foundational manuscripts on these topics. We also encourage researchers to draw upon MacInnis (2011) to engage in novel conceptual framework on the burgeoning topics in the retail domain. Further, we encourage scholars to partner with practitioners to develop relevant and meaningful models that could be linked to managerial applications and real issues.
Deadline for paper submission: 31 st March, 2018. Authors are requested to send papers to the guest editors (MS word version,12 size font. Follow the guidelines of Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, ranked as A journal in the journal quality list of Australian Business Deans Council.
Review reports for authors – within one month
Suggested References for Ideas
Agarwal, J., & Wu, T. (2004). China’s entry to WTO: global marketing issues, impact, and implications for China. International Marketing Review, 21(3), 279-300.
Bang, V. V., Joshi, S. L., & Singh, M. C. (2016). Marketing strategy in emerging markets: a conceptual framework. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 24(2), 104-117.
Buckley, P. J., & Ghauri, P. N. (2004). Globalisation, economic geography and the strategy of multinational enterprises. Journal of International Business Studies, 35(2), 81-98.
Cambra-Fierro, J., Pérez, L., & Grott, E. (2017). Towards a co-creation framework in the retail banking services industry: Do demographics influence?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 34, 219-228.
Deborah J. MacInnis (2011) A Framework for Conceptual Contributions in Marketing. Journal of Marketing: July 2011, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 136-154.
Demirkan, H., & Spohrer, J. (2014). Developing a framework to improve virtual shopping in digital malls with intelligent self-service systems. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(5), 860-868.
Elg, U., Ghauri, P. N., & Schaumann, J. (2015). Internationalization through sociopolitical relationships: MNEs in India. Long Range Planning, 48(5), 334-345.
El-Adly, M. I., & Eid, R. (2016). An empirical study of the relationship between shopping environment, customer perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty in the UAE malls context. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 31, 217-227.
Karande, K. & Merchant, A. (2012). “The impact of time and planning orientation on an individual’s recreational shopper identity and shopping behavior.” .Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(1), 59-72.
Mei, G. (2013). Culture Determines Business Model: Analyzing Home Depot’s Failure Case in China for International Retailers from a Communication Perspective. Thunderbird International Business Review, 55(2), 173-191.
Michael Corkety (2017, April 15). Is American Retailing at a Historic Tipping Point? . New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/business/retail-industry.html?_r=0.
Paul, J. (2015). Masstige Marketing Redefined and Mapped. Introducing a Pyramid Model and MMS Measure. Marketing Intelligence and Planning. 33(5), 691 -706.
Paul, J., & Sahadev, S. (2016). Service failure and problems: Internal marketing solutions for facing the future. Journal ofRetailing and Consumer Services. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.08.007.
Paul, J (2017) What determine shopper’s preferences for malls in an emerging market?, Young Consumers, Vol. 1 8 Issue: 1, doi: 10.1108/YC-09-2016-00632.
Paul, J., Sankaranarayanan, K. G., & Mekoth, N. (2016). Consumer satisfaction in retail stores: theory and implications. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 40(6), 635-642.
Rosenbaum, M. S., Otalora, M. L., & Ramírez, G. C. (2016). The restorative potential of shopping malls. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 31, 157-165.
Rosenbaum, M. S., Cheng, M., & Wong, I. A. (2016). Retail knockoffs: Consumer acceptance and rejection of inauthentic retailers. Journal of Business Research, 69(7), 2448-2455.
Sakarya, S., Eckman, M., & Hyllegard, K. H. (2007). Market selection for international expansion: Assessing opportunities in emerging markets. International Marketing Review, 24(2), 208-238.
