Editorial

Citation

Fernie, J. (2002), "Editorial", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 30 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijrdm.2002.08930aaa.001

Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of 2002!

It is now 12 years since my first editorial of IJR&DM in the wake of the merger of Retail & Distribution Management with the International Journal of Retailing. The journal has changed considerably in the intervening period. In 1990, most contributions were from UK academic and trade practitioners focusing upon the UK and European retail market. Now we receive contributions from a global audience writing on a variety of topics. This is reflected in the current issue, which has contributions from Brazil, Australia, The Netherlands, the USA and the UK, covering topics such as Wal-Mart in Brazil, fair trade retailing, retail co-operatives, service encounters and relationship quality.

The first paper, by Alex Nicholls, discusses an emerging topic in the marketing literature, monitoring the growth of ethical consumerism and the opportunities this presents to retailers in offering fair trade products in the UK. He synthesises the market research data available on the subject and interviews key personnel involved in the commercial development of fair trade to provide an ethical strategy matrix for use by retailers developing a strategy in this area.

The next two papers deal with aspects of service management. Jos Lemmink and Jan’Mattsson discuss the role of emotion in service encounters. In experiments with videotaped non-routine and routine service encounters, the authors found that warmth correlated highly with post experience measures. In a second study in a hotel setting similar results were recorded, suggesting that service firms should invest by training employees to deal with emotions. The paper by Amy Wong and Amrik Sohal discusses the concepts of trust and commitment at the salesperson and store level. From a survey of 1,261 shoppers in a department store in Australia, the authors suggest that managers should address the issue of employee retention, in that salesperson commitment is essential to building strong customer-salesperson relationships. The paper by Leslie Stoel also deals with relationships in a retail cooperative environment. Mergers took place in the retail hardware co-operative sector in the 1990s to achieve economies of scale to remain competitive. This study examined size of co-operative group in relation to group identification, communication frequency and relationship effectiveness. The results show that size does not influence the relationship between the variables in the study.

Our final paper examines the entry of Wal-Mart in Brazil and the company's impact on the existing market structure. The main impact was the acceleration of change in the industry. This led to greater concentration of the sector and modernisation of management practices. Angela da Rocha and Luis Antonio Dib have classified competitive responses into four categories – neutralising competitors' actions, establishing competitive advantage, redefining markets and changing ownership. They argue that the transference of retail "know how" may enable domestic retailers to compete effectively in Brazil and allow them to expand into other Latin American countries.

John FernieHeriot-Watt University