High Street research agenda: identifying High Street research priorities

Abstract

2015),"Place branding: are we wasting our time? Report of an AMA special session", Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:573577 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this short article is to outline a research agenda to further our understanding of how retail areas are influenced by, and adapt to, change. This is part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project High Street UK 2020. Design/methodology/approach -We outline a research agenda -containing factors which High Street stakeholders in Alsager, Altrincham, Ballymena, Barnsley, Bristol, Congleton, Holmfirth, Market Rasen, Morley and Wrexham have identified as influencing the vitality and viability of their retail areas. Currently, there is little or no academic evidence available to support these factors; therefore, they are worthy of further research. Findings -The towns assert that the following factors influence High Street performance (either positively or negatively) and need further research: business support; engagement and engaged businesses; fragmentation; information; Internet connectivity; local knowledge; measuring economic impact/value; media coverage; networking; public sector dependency and risk aversion. Research limitations/implications -Only 10 towns have taken part in the research. Nevertheless, they are representative of the research-user community for retail centre research. Practical implications -This research agenda will enable researchers to respond to a clear gap in our knowledge about High Street performance, as identified by towns themselves. Social implications -By undertaking the research that people that manage retail areas need, it will enable practitioners to make better informed decisions and manage these important areas more effectively to the benefit of their local communities. Originality/value -By allowing town centre managers, traders, council members/officials and "concerned citizens" to set the agenda for research production in the area of retail centre change, we anticipate forthcoming research in this area will be more highly valued by practitioners and have more impact in "the real world". Paper type ViewpointWhe...

The Usage and Perception of Pedestrian Zones in Lithuanian Cities: Multiple Criteria and Comparative Analysis

“…This can also be influenced by improvements in technology and tools that enable communication and online shopping which reduce the need for shopping in brick-and-mortar stores and being in a space. This influences the processes of suburbanisation in cities and is likely causing the crisis related to public spaces in cities [62]. However, Rudokas (2013) believes that shopping centres, in shaping a new leisure culture, have caused the public space crisis in Lithuania [63].…”

“…In order to revive pedestrian streets in major Lithuanian cities and attract more visitors, it is essential to incite businesspeople to develop business on pedestrian streets because there are too few opportunities to shop in major Lithuanian cities; with the exception of cafés, there are very few stores. In other countries, shopping opportunities attract more visitors to pedestrian streets [19,62,65]. Regardless of Lithuanian economic development strategies claiming that the state must engage in entrepreneurship policy and create a business-friendly environment by focusing on job creation in new companies as well as developing the service sector, in Lithuania it is especially important to support and facilitate as well as offer exemptions for businesses on streets [62] because of very high rental prices on pedestrian streets [3].…”

Improving the vitality and viability of the UK High Street by 2020

“…The findings from the systematic literature review were then reviewed by the partner towns during a full day workshop, with the people present contributing 50 additional factors that they felt, from their practical experience, were missing from our literature review (Parker et al, 2014). This then resulted in a final list of 201 factors that influence the vitality and viability of retail centres.…”

Engaged scholarship on the High Street: the case of HSUK2020

“…retailing, marketing, geography, planning and public administration), a degree of similarity is evident. High Street performance and development, which, in the UK, is often investigated under the labels of "town centre management" and "place management" has long been associated with different types of engagement which are integral in place decision-making, such as business engagement Engaged scholarship on the High Street (Coca-Stefaniak et al, 2005;Dawkins and Grail, 2007;Parker et al, 2014;Wrigley and Dolega, 2011), multiple stakeholder engagement (De Nisco et al, 2008;Omholt, 2013;Warnaby et al, 2005) and community engagement (Coca-Stefaniak and Carroll, 2015;Woolrych and Sixsmith, 2013). Engagement between established town partnerships (e.g.…”

“…Participants were asked to comment on the factors and to identify additional performance factors that were not initially ascertained. Partner towns identified 50 additional factors (Parker et al, 2014) that influence the High Street, which led to the review of 33 additional studies. For 12 of those factors that we could find no evidence of their effect on High Street performance, we outlined a research agenda to engage academics on furthering the research on retail change (ibid).…”