Journal of Business and Retail Management Research

This research attempts to understand the leadership styles of store managers in a discount retail chain and how leadership style impacts store performance. Store managers of a Fortune 1000 retailer based in the Midwest of the United States of America took part in the study. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was sent to a sample of 135 store managers, and 103 of them completed the survey. Retail store performance is measured on four indicators namely, employee turnover, customer service scores, inventory shrinkage percentage and net profit margin. The retailer provided data related to the store performance indicators of the stores. Analysis of the survey data with performance data showed a moderate negative correlation between transformational leadership style and employee turnover rate, but a weak negative correlation between transactional leadership and employee turnover rate.

Innovation capability has been recognized as one of the key capabilities which influence organizational success and survival. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship among strategic innovation capability’s dimensions, its antecedents and consequences. The results were derived from a survey of 126 auto parts businesses in Thailand. The regression analyses suggested that strategic innovation capability dimensions consist of new idea enhancement, proactive activity support, market-driving encouragement, risk-taking circumstance acceptance, and dynamic adaptation commitment which have an important positive effect on firm sustainability. Likewise, the finding has shed light on the mediating role of stakeholder involvement exaltation. Moreover, the antecedents show positive influences on the strategic innovation capability dimension. Finally, theoretical and managerial contributions, conclusion, and suggestions for future research are also interesting to be discussed.

Impulsive buying is a much talked and researched subject particularly in view of the immense business that it generates all over the world. The point of purchase factors in brick and mortar stores play a crucial role in determining the buying behavior. Impulsive buying behavior, on one hand is difficult to predict or estimate, on the other hand much talked and extremely crucial area in consumer behavior. Women associate themselves very innately with skin care products for many different aspects like looks, aging, sun protection, moisturizing. As a matter of fact the skincare products become an extension of their very own personalities. In the present research paper an attempt is made to understand the importance of various factors present at the point of purchase and the degree to which they act as positive rein forcers in impulsive buying of skin care items. Twenty two constructs had been identified based on extensive literature review. These were later grouped into eight factors using factor analysis. These factors are in store promotions, merchandising, ambience, atmospherics, support at point of purchase, display, convenience and visual communication. Further cluster analysis is carried out to understand the importance of these factors. A total of 229 completely filled questionnaires are utilized for analyzing the data. ANOVA is used to understand the difference between groups. The study is conducted in the state of Uttrakhand, India.

In the banking sector worldwide more and more financial institutions show interest in credit servicing of ecological investment. That is why banks, step by step, enlarge their loan offer, raise its attractiveness according to conditions, availability and rate of interest, as well as the amount of a granted loan and the length of its repayment period. The document which initiated the beginning and development of ecological banking is the UNO declaration ‘Banking and Environment’, in which signatory banks declared an obligation to take ecological risk into consideration while granting loans, promoting new services and banking products of ecological nature and combining their statutory activity with environmental protection. By accepting this declaration, banks commit themselves, among others, to: • analyze loan applications paying attention to whether they fulfill formal and legal requirements of environmental protection, • apply loan preferences and facilitation for investments and investors who accomplish environmental protection rules, • apply ecological criteria while analyzing and assessing technical and economic assumptions of investment projects within applicable procedures of granting loans, • identify and define risk extent of environmental protection in decisions concerning loans, • offer products and services which finance economic pro-ecological undertakings • refuse loans with bad ecological reputation or investments to units which do not f

This study investigates effect of transformational leadership on strategic human resource management and firm success of Toyota’s dealer in Thailand. Following to the existing literature, transformational leadership is an origin of strategic human resource management that leads to firm success. Therefore, transformational leadership in the dimension of intellectual stimulation is important to create strategic human resource management for the success of firms. The sample of 400 Toyota’s dealer businesses in Thailand and statistics used are tested by ordinary least squared regression. Furthermore, response bias, validity and reliability were examined by researcher. These results reveal that intellectual stimulation has significant positive effect on strategic human resource management. Furthermore, intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation still have has significant relate to firm success by themselves also. Then, strategic human resource management has significant positive effect on firm success respectively. Subsequently, managerial and theoretical contributions, and suggestions for further research are presented.

When a nation that links itself to the global market, this means that the nation would embark itself in the path towards globalization. Global markets offer greater opportunity for domestic firms to tap into larger markets around the world. This translates the possibility of having more access to more capital flow, technology, cheaper imports, and larger exports. One of the ways a domestic firm gets foreign capital, would be through Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). This study aims to look at Malaysia’s inward and outward FDI and determine their relationship with economic growth. Annual data covers over the period of 1984 to 2013 and tested based on the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The results show that there is a positive long-run relationship between inward FDI with economic growth. It was noted that outward FDI have an indirect relationship with economic growth. There is unidirectional granger causality between them as well as between inward and outward FDI.

To understand the generation of WOM motivation, this research studies the relationship between three innate psychological needs (e.g. autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and word-of-mouth motivation based on Self-Determination Theory. How the expertise of the sender, the relationship strength between the sender and the receiver affect the motivation of word-of-mouth through these three psychological needs is also studied. A questionnaire based survey was employed to collect data. The results indicate that three psychological needs affect the motivation of word-of-mouth. Moreover, the expertise of the sender affects the motivation of word-of-mouth through competence need, and the relationship strength between the sender and the receiver affects word-of-mouth motivation through relatedness need. This study will help companies to get deeper understanding of WOM motivation, and suggestions is given to improve satisfaction of consumer basic psychological needs in marketing activities.

This paper analyzes the export destinations of Malaysia and top six trading partners (an average from 1995 (2012) using gravity model and pooled ordinary least square (OLS) analysis. As suggested by the pioneer of gravity model (Tinbergen, 1962), the vibrancy of trading activities depend on the resemblance of exporting and importing countries which in parallel with Staffan Linder theory of trade(1961). These include similarities such as GDP per capita, international language, and border sharing and taste in product consumed (Morales, Sheu and Zahler, 2014).The theory also highlights that the distance between the two trading countries have significant effect on trading activities. However, the empirical study in the case of Malaysia proven opposite effect thus allowing Heckscher-Ohlin theory to be highlighted in contrast to Linder theory as H-O theory suggests that a particular country will trade with another country with dissimilar economic performance level. The general finding of this study suggest that Malaysia is more towards Linder theory based on the coefficient sign of GDP per capita differential.

Purpose -This study explores various internal motivating factors of impulse buying phenomenon in Indian context. This study is aimed at obtaining consumer insights, so as to provide an inclusive conceptualization of this marketing phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach -Data for this research was obtained through in-depth interviews. Since, the purpose of these interviews was exploration, the researcher collected data till it reached saturation (point beyond which further research was not adding any new insights) and so there was no fixed sample size. Sampling technique used in this case is purposive sampling. A total of 56 in-depth interviews were conducted with men and women (age group 25-40 & residing or working close to malls and markets in the region). The analysis of these interviews was done using Open analysis . These interviews were able to provide fresh, non-obvious ways of understanding the internal motivations of an impulse buyer. Research implications -This study extends the existing knowledge base by establishing the significance of internal motivating factors of ‘impulse buying’ – happiness, narcissism, freedom and novelty. Earlier studies on ‘impulse buying’ have focused on external motivating factors and internal motivating factors have largely remained unresolved. Practical implications -This paper provides interesting insights for retail marketers to further enhance the possibilities of impulse buying. Originality/Value – Notwithstand

In the post-war period, the standard of living in the US has increased significantly, and more than two-thirds of families have achieved the American Dream of homeownership. The recent sub-prime mortgage and financial crisis resulted from a perfect storm of bad housing policy, real estate speculation, and necessary monetary policy. A healthy future for the financial markets depends on effective reforms and institutions to regulate financial instruments with limited government manipulation

Mutual Funds as one of the investment options have not been very popular particularly in the Middle East counties in spite of huge investment potential. Investors in the region have long been skeptical of the safety and returns of the investment options as the awareness about investment has been low for most of the investors of the region. This study aims to analyze the performances of mutual funds in Oman on the basis of risk and return criteria using different tools such as Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio, and Jensen Alpha. The basic objective of the study is to provide to the investors a comparative study of the performances of the various mutual funds on offer in Oman and give an insight about the possible good choices to invest. The study concludes that mutual funds in Oman during the last five years have been performing consistently and earning good returns for its investors.

The company is the basic unit of wealth creation, employment and innovation. Encouraging its creation is to implement the conditions for its development and especially its sustainability. In Algeria, the liberalization of the economy and trade, the agreements with IMF, the free trade agreements, led to the proliferation of private companies and especially the microenterprises. These companies which are not integrated into an economic strategy and not enough prepared, are suffering from a lack of competitiveness. Our work demonstrates that there is no link between job creation and these enterprises, so we conclude that these public devices haven’t solved the unemployment problem. We have used for this demonstration the Moran test that shows us whether or not there is a tendency to clustering and then we locate significant clusters by Kulldorff Scanning Method.

The traditional financial theory was purposely invented to analyze the investment performance with the belief that the rational act of an investor could lead to decision making. Most of the theories developed came up with an assumption that the market is perfectly efficient. However, the evolution of the theory led many researchers to find evidence that the decision making process in investment activities could be influenced by the irrational behavior and psychology of an investor. This is called as Behavioral Finance Theory. In this study, linear regression model was used to investigate the effect of sentiment index and the fundamental factors towards future stock returns. Then a Parametric Survival Model by using Log-logistic and Weibull Hazard Model was used to observe the existence and the size of rational bubbles in the market. A time series analysis was performed by using monthly data of NYSE and NASDAQ from five sectors during Global Financial Crisis period (2007-2009). It was found that only 27% out of 30 companies are significant. The sentiment index showed a weak negative relationship towards future stock return while the fundamental factors showed a strong negative relationship towards future stock returns and remained the major contributing factors. Lastly, small in size of rational bubbles were found during the Global Financial Crisis 2008.