Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on business performance among small retailers. In particular, the goal is to understand and determine to what extent MO and EO influence firm performance directly, and to what extent MO and EO are connected to performance via marketing capabilities. Design/methodology/approach – The developed conceptual model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) using a sample of 202 small retailers. Findings – The result of the SEM model shows that both MO and EO act as a basis for improved business performance among small retailers. However, the performance impact of MO and EO is not that straightforward. Based on the research findings, it can be argued that both MO and EO require marketing capabilities to more fully unlock their value-creating potential among small retail firms. Originality/value – This study has provided new insights regarding the impact of MO and EO on business performance in the context of small retail firms. In particular, the study has contributed to the literature by demonstrating the routes through which MO and EO impact on performance.

Our study aims to bring new critical knowledge on the two kinds of antecedents of collaborative consumption, namely materialism and price consciousness. We are especially interested in studying how materialism and price consciousness are related first, to consumers' attitudes towards collaborative consumption, and second, to their intentions to engage in such behavior. Furthermore, we approach This is the post print version of the article, which has been published in

PurposeThis article aims to contribute to the study of knowledge creation and management in business format franchising by focusing on the question of how franchisors can convert the tacit knowledge held by franchisees (such as insights, ideas, and hunches) to explicit knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe article is conceptual and is largely anchored on the assumptions of the knowledge management, theories of organisational learning and organisational knowledge creation theory.FindingsThe findings emphasise that the conversion of franchisees' tacit knowledge to new explicit knowledge is one of the key knowledge management practices required for successful business format franchising. Proposes that the concept of ba has much to offer in considering knowledge management in a business format franchise system.Research limitations/implicationsWith regard to future research avenues, conceptual and empirical studies are both needed to obtain a clearer understanding of the dynamic process of knowledge creation under business format franchising.Practical implicationsThe article sensitises franchisors to think how knowledge is created under business format franchising, and in particular how the tacit knowledge that franchisees provide can be converted into the form of explicit knowledge. Underlines that franchisors can never control and direct dynamic process of knowledge creation among franchisees, but a franchisor can provide certain conditions that lead franchisees and other members of franchise system to create and disseminate knowledge.Originality/valueThe article proposes that both tacit and explicit knowledge under business format franchising are created in formal or informal groups encompassing bas that may span both horizontally and vertically throughout the business format franchise system.

This study aims to shed light on the market-sensing capabilities of retail entrepreneurs and the effect of these capabilities on their business performance. A conceptual model based on a literature review is presented, followed by an Internet survey of 226 K-retailers from the Finnish K-alliance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the conceptual model and to investigate the effect of market-sensing capability on growth and profitability. The study reveals that most of the studied retail entrepreneurs have relatively well-developed market-sensing capabilities. A weak positive relationship is found to exist between market-sensing capability and company growth. However, no positive relationship is found between market-sensing capability and profitability. Factors other than market-sensing capability were not considered in the present study. However, other factors that might affect business performance in the Contemporary Management Research 220 present research context are identified and discussed. The article sensitizes practitioners to think how entrepreneurs' market-sensing capabilities should be conceptualized and developed in the retail chain context. The paper presents a novel and distinctive empirical investigation of the relationship between entrepreneurs' market-sensing capability and firm performance in the retailing context.

In this article we aim to increase understanding of which social factors are central when looking at de‐ownership orientation (DOO), collaborative consumption attitudes (CCA) and collaborative consumption intentions (CCI). In addition, we analyze how DOO, CCA and CCI are linked to each other. We scrutinize DOO, CCA and CCI in Finland during a period of economic crisis. Our results show that DOO is rather evenly spread across the socio‐demographic groups, and that CCA is at a much higher level than CCI among the respondents. CCA is less impacted by factors that originate from a consumer's social and economic conditions. The studied concepts are found to be closely associated: with the increase in DOO, the propensity for CCI and CCA to increase also grows. However, DOO has a stronger effect on CCA than on CCI. Of studied socio‐economic features, age clearly has the strongest effects on each studied factor. The younger age cohorts have more positive attitudes towards collaborative consumption than others. In terms of employment status the groups that are the most positive towards collaborative consumption are those staying at home on parental leave, whereas the retired, entrepreneurs (for CCI) and unemployed (for CCA) have the least inclination towards collaborative consumption. Thus, economic crisis can be seen as working against the development of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption, or at least it could create social divisions between groups who take part in it.

Purpose – In the increasingly competitive retail environment, retailers’ ability to elevate frontline employees’ customer orientation (CO) can make the difference between the success and failure of their stores. However, the question of how to enhance employee CO is a tricky one. It has been stated that employee CO is a stable work value or disposition that is consistent over time, and therefore, difficult to manage. However, one factor that might be an important driver of employee CO is the retailers’ ethical leadership behaviour. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring the links between retailers’ ethical leadership, frontline employee CO and frontline employee job satisfaction, job-related stress and turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach – For the purpose of this study, the authors develop five hypotheses about the retailers’ ethical leadership, frontline employee CO and frontline employee job satisfaction, job-related stress and turnover intentions. Using structural equation modelling, the authors test the hypotheses using a sample of 208 respondents from the Finnish retail industry. Findings – As a first important contribution, the findings of the present study indicate that frontline employee perceptions of their retailer’s ethical leadership are strongly linked to employee CO. As a second contribution, our results suggest that employee CO is positively related to job satisfaction. As a third contribution, this study shows that frontline employee job satisfaction is negatively related to their turnover intentions. Originality/value – This study contributes to service management and retail marketing literature by broadening the current understanding of the links between the ethical leadership of retailers, frontline employee CO and frontline employee job satisfaction, job-related stress and turnover intentions.

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This study explores how individuals' cognitive and affective country images influence destination beliefs, and how these beliefs are associated with individuals' travel intentions. With the product country image and tourism destination image literature, we develop four hypotheses that are tested using structural equation modeling. We use a sample of 605 Japanese respondents. Our results indicate that the cognitive country image is positively associated with the affective country image. The findings suggest that both the affective and cognitive country images are positively related to the destination beliefs, and the destination beliefs are positively associated with the travel intentions.