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This paper aims to identify content strategies on social media that influence engagement and to analyze those operations to describe important features for co-creation and trust.

This paper addresses the question of how social media content can influence engagement by using a medium-sized Swedish company for an empirical case study. This empirical study is based on a participatory action research methodology. By using the company account on LinkedIn, the authors experimented with relational content to understand the effects on customer-perceived value and trust.

Results reveal that action-oriented messages had a more significant impact on engagement than product-oriented messages and value-based messages.

This paper builds on the existing literature in two ways: drawing upon business-to-business relationships and perceived value and using recent advances in the use of social networking sites to understand the value of co-creation through a participatory culture.

Today, customers’ perceived value does not only depend on the products, but also on the services provided by a firm. In e-commerce, it is important to shift the focus beyond the product and discuss the value of personalized services in the context of e-commerce fulfillment. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold: to develop a conceptual framework proposing satisfaction through personalized services as a middle-range theory; and to suggest foundational premises supporting the theoretical framework, which in turn shape middle-range theory within the context of apparel e-commerce fulfillment.

In this theory-driven paper, the authors apply the scientific circle of enquiry, as it demonstrates the role of theorizing with the help of middle-range theory and empirical evidence and as such provides a methodological scaffolding that connects theory formulation and verification. The authors synthesize literature related to customer perceived value (CPV) and satisfaction, followed by abduction focusing on understanding the empirical domain as it occurred in practice from company cases. The presented case studies are based on semi-structured interviews with three Swedish online retailers within the apparel industry. The theory-driven analysis results in suggestions of foundational premises.

Based on the theoretical foundations and empirical generalizations, three propositions are suggested. The premises regarding satisfaction through personalized service applied in the domain of apparel e-commerce fulfillment are: to ensure customer satisfaction requires a value co-creation perspective using data during the pre-purchase phase; to ensure customer satisfaction and retention require added-value perspective during the post-purchase phase of the shopping journey; and to ensure satisfaction and convenience require an added-value perspective at the last mile.

The apparel firms lose a substantial amount of revenue because of poor online customer satisfaction, leading to e-commerce not reaching its full potential. To enhance customer value, online retailers need to find a resort in advanced technologies and analytics to address customer satisfaction, and it is suggested that retailers shift their focus beyond the products and find ways to improve personalized service offerings to gain market advantage, improve fulfillment, drive sales and increase CPV.

To consider personalized services as a source for improving e-commerce fulfillment and CPV, the main contribution of this study is conceptual as it presents a theoretical model developed from general theory, middle-range theory and verified with empirical claims.

The objective of the study is to describe and analyse different tourist shopping typologies based on their motives for visiting a shopping destination well known for its low prices.

The data were collected by means of structured questionnaires administered to tourists visiting the Swedish destination. The survey instrument measured constructs designed to understand shopping motivation and feelings experienced during the course of shopping.

Two distinct tourist shopping typologies were found, based on a tourist's primary purpose in travelling, and designated “Follow the Plan” and “Go with the Flow”. The present study proposes the use of a theoretical continuum that takes into account feelings experienced at a low‐priced destination and consumer shopping motivations.

This study contributes to the existing literature on tourism shopping by suggesting typologies built on feelings experienced and shopping motivations, thus providing new insights on tourist shopping typologies found at a low‐price destination. Results are not general for any low‐priced destination, thus further research is needed in other destinations as well.

Digitalization denotes an on-going transformation of great importance for the retail sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the phenomenon of the digitalization of retailing by developing a conceptual framework that can be used to further delineate current transformations of the retailer-consumer interface.

This paper develops a framework for digitalization in the retail-consumer interface that consists of four elements: exchanges, actors, offerings, and settings. Drawing on the previous literature, it describes and exemplifies how digitalization transforms each of these elements and identifies implications and proposals for future research.

Digitalization transforms the following: retailing exchanges (in a number of ways and in various facets of exchange, including communications, transactions, and distribution); the nature of retail offerings (blurred distinctions between products and services, what constitutes the actual offering and how it is priced); retail settings (i.e. where and when retailing takes place); and the actors who participate in retailing (i.e. retailers and consumers, among other parties).

The framework developed can be used to further delineate current transformations of retailing due to digitalization. The current transformation has created challenges for research, as it demands sensitivity to development over time and insists that categories that have been taken for granted are becoming increasingly blurred due to greater hybridity.

This paper addresses a significant and on-going transformation in retailing and develops a framework that can both guide future research and aid retail practitioners in analysing retailing’s current transformation due to digitalization.

The paper aims to clarify how an incumbent retail organisation explores digitalisation for its existing business.

The paper draws from an in-depth case study of home-furnishing retail giant, IKEA conducted with semi-structured interviews, participant observations and document analyses.

In the exploration phase of digitalisation, three major activities – interpreting, interrelating and integrating – illuminate how the exploration process can be organised in practice.

Although digitalisation ranks amongst the most significant ongoing transformations in retail businesses, research on how incumbent retail organisations have engaged in exploring digitalisation in practice has remained scarce. The paper contributes insights into digitalisation processes in retail businesses that may also apply to other trends affecting the retail industry.

Incumbent retail organisations need to develop new capabilities to adapt with the increasingly competitive retail landscape. Despite the growing relevance of innovation in retail practice, the strategic management of innovation in retailing is still vastly under-researched. This explorative study thus aims to investigate how incumbent retail firms can organise for innovation from an organisational ambidexterity perspective.

A single-case study of an established Swedish retail firm was conducted from December 2016 to July 2018 and followed up in June 2021. The authors followed the process of implementation of organisational changes aimed to increase innovation in the company, particularly the introduction of a digital marketing initiative and a corporate innovation hub. Data collection was based on nine semi-structured interviews and participant observations and unstructured interviews from 13 meetings and workshops. An abductive approach to data analysis was followed, iteratively comparing theoretical concepts and empirical data using open, axial and selective coding to distil findings into aggregated themes.

Given the inherently limited formalisation of innovation processes in most retail organisations, structural ambidexterity appears to be necessary when the aim is radical, strategic retail innovation. Structural mechanisms are able to safeguard the space and resources to focus on long-term research and projects with higher risk and uncertainty; however, integration of innovation activities to the mainstream organisation is critical. Pursuing contextual ambidexterity, wherein instead of structural solutions, employees are empowered to divide employees' time between innovation-related and efficiency-related tasks, is more likely related to retail innovations that are incremental and operational.

The paper contributes to the emerging topic of strategic management of innovation in retailing, by explicating how incumbent retailers can organise for innovation depending on the type of innovation that is aimed for, using organisational ambidexterity as a novel perspective.

The TARGET approach aims at establishing a reflexive gender equality policy in research performing and research funding organisations. Monitoring has enormous potential to support reflexivity at both the institutional and the individual levels in the gender equality plan (GEP) development and implementation context. To exploit this potential, the monitoring system has to consist of meaningful indicators, which adequately represent the complex construct of gender equality and refer to the concrete objectives and policies of the GEP. To achieve this, we propose an approach to indicator development that refers to a theory of change for the GEP and its policies. Indicator development thus becomes a reflexive endeavour and monitoring a living tool. This requires constant reflection on data gaps, validity of indicators and the further development of indicators. Furthermore, we recommend the creation of space for reflexivity to discuss monitoring results with the community of practice.