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PurposeThis article aims to explore the effects of the massive arrival of foreign distribution concepts in emerging countries on the evolution of the local buyers' shopping practices. The confrontation of the latter, long accustomed to the traditional network, with the new retail outlets gives rise to the emergence of new modes of shopping and purchasing.Design/methodology/approachThe use of a qualitative approach, combining in‐store observations of behaviours and in‐depth interviews, highlighted rich and complex trends in consumption in an emerging country; Morocco for instance.FindingsThe content analysis of collected data shows that the differences in social classes give place to varied shopping strategies and generate singular symbolic representations of shopping experiences. The research reveals also a hybridization of shopping practices where the consumers transpose some values and shopping behaviors inherited from the traditional trade into the modern distribution stores. Finally, the research also shows differences between global and local retail banners laying on their perceived images, store attendance and shopping practices which reflect their contrasted positioning strategies.Practical implicationsThe findings enable the retailers to adapt/shape their location strategy, assortment policy and positioning strategy to improve their store image and attractiveness and gain market power. The results have also implications on the public policy to manage the balance and the future of local traditional shops and modern retail stores.Originality/valueThis paper points out the role of cultural anchorage in producing hybridized shopping practices that allows the domestic buyers to cope with the uncongruency between their inherited traditional values and those associated to the modern distribution. It also shows how these local customers use the modern retail stores as a scene of symbolic exhibition for their social status and invent hybrid shopping practices to cope with this incongruency.

This research shows that to reach their prime goal of building an efficient assortment, retailers need, beside increasing the outlet’s cost‐efficiency, to evaluate shoppers’ assortment perceptions so that what the store actually offers can be tailored to meet customers’ needs and expectations. Our findings reveal that consumers’ perceptions of the assortment range stems from the combination of few indicators, mainly the number of stock‐keeping units proposed and the availability of the favorite brands. Also demonstrates that consumers evaluation of the overall store assortment draws on the perceived choice within the product categories where they are highly sensitive to the assortment range.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address an under‐researched issue in marketing, atypical consumption behaviours. More particularly it focuses on the deviant behaviours of consumers in a commercial or consumption situation and on their reactions in regard to the market system.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on multidisciplinary literature, this work articulates the concepts of deviance, resistance and anti‐consumption. It looks at the interactions between these concepts and positions deviant, resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours in relation to the norm.FindingsThrough the notion of deviance, the research provides a new framework clearly differentiating and articulating the concepts of resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours. This integrative framework is sufficiently flexible and broad to cover and position the various behaviours and practices involving consumption rejection, opposition and avoidance.Originality/valueThis contribution answers a need for theoretical clarification of consumers' behaviours that challenge and oppose the market system and culture of consumption. By mobilising the concept of deviance, this research provides an original topological model that increases understanding and positions the concepts of resistant and anti‐consumption behaviours around the notion of social norm.

PurposeThis study seeks to explore the issue of individual opposition to the organized retailing system in an emerging country. It aims to identify the motivations for rejecting such retail outlets as well as how the resistance that is generated expresses itself and to point out the amazing precocity of the emergence of this resistance in these developing countries.Design/methodology/approachIn‐depth interviews using the critical incident technique were conducted to explore the reasons for consumers' partial or total defection from mass retailing. Respondents were selected through snowball sampling to identify information‐rich cases using personal and professional social networks.FindingsThe study's results highlight non‐organized individual initiatives of avoidance and defection from hypermarkets in the emerging country under study as opposed to the structured protest movements in developed countries. In addition, the findings show a two‐fold orientation of this resistance: on the one hand towards the hypermarket format as a whole, and on the other towards foreign (as opposed to local) retailers, indicating an incongruency between some Western values associated with the foreign retailers, or even linked to globalization, and the values of the Arab‐Muslim local culture.Research limitations/implicationsOnly individual resistance motivations were explored, although their interactions with more collective shared motives for resisting would lead to a fuller understanding of the rejection of hypermarkets. The reason for this choice was mainly because organized movements are still embryonic in emerging countries or at best not sufficiently structured.Originality/valueThis paper extends and enriches knowledge on consumer resistance by showing that even in an immature retail market, consumers are able to reject and oppose the introduction of retail formats that are deemed not to be congruent with local cultural values. It underlines in particular some unusual motives for rejection of imported hypermarkets due to consumers' dislike of, and non‐adherence to, the way modern food stores put forward consumption as a spectacle resulting in voyeuristic behaviour and social marking, and their religiously inspired culture and education that limits consumption and emphasizes the fairness, human and ethical dimensions of commerce.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how temporarily vulnerable customers and their bank advisors cope with incidents that occur over the course of their service relationships. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative design based on ten case studies, involving interviews with both sides of the dyad (client–bank advisor) and internal secondary data from the bank, was conducted. Findings The findings show that the two sides of the dyad span a gradation of coping strategies that are enacted to solve the incidents encountered. Thus, temporarily vulnerable consumers turn out to be non-passive in their asymmetrical relationship with advisors and deploy residual resources to co-create solutions. Research limitations/implications The results enrich the knowledge of consumers’ vulnerability insofar as the authors extend the transformative service literature to temporarily vulnerable clients who project themselves beyond the crisis period and consider ensuring satisfactory levels of their well-being. Practical implications The findings suggest that banks can refine their categorization of vulnerable clients by identifying those that remain profitable and for which an effort is worth making, and those in whom it is appropriate to disinvest. They also prompt banks to design supports for the advisors in managing increased stressful interactions with precarious customers. Social implications To prevent the risk of slippage by or exclusion of, vulnerable customers who experience serious banking incidents, the paper points out the necessity to mobilize alternative levers from the public and associative spheres to allow these customers access to a minimum of banking services. Originality/value As an early exploration of transient vulnerable clients, this research fuels the understanding of their capacity to consider co-creating, alongside bank advisors, solutions to the incidents encountered with a view to preserving their well-being and ensuring their social and economic inclusion.

Cet article vise à mettre en lumière la pertinence du concept d’ethnicité comme levier du management interculturel des ressources humaines. Il part d’un ancrage du concept d’ethnicité dans le champ du management interculturel et mobilise les travaux en management de la diversité pour saisir les enjeux liés à l’ethnicité dans la gestion des ressources humaines. L’étude empirique, fondée sur une étude de cas de trois FMN françaises implantées au Cameroun, montre que l’ethnicité, qui reste largement occultée dans les dispositifs de GRH, gagnerait à être mobilisée de manière plus formalisée et contrôlable comme outil du management interculturel des hommes en vue de générer une meilleure implication des acteurs dans l’organisation.

Cet article retrace la procédure adoptée pour la création d'une échelle multi-items destinée à mesurer l'activité de recherche d'information engagée par le consommateur préalablement à l'achat. Dans un premier temps, les difficultés relatives à la mesure de l'activité de recherche d'information, et en particulier de sa composante interne, sont présentées et discutées. La multidimensionalité de la recherche d'information est ensuite démontrée à travers l'évaluation de la structure factorielle, de la fiabilité et de la validité de l'échelle proposée. L'article conclut sur l'opportunité de cerner la recherche d'information du consommateur à travers ses facettes sous-jacentes, ce qui présente des avantages, tant au niveau théorique que pratique, par rapport aux approches globales proposées dans la littérature.