Purpose - The potential for small businesses in the distribution sector to contribute to socio-economic development remains largely inert due to a litany of challenges that they face. Incubators have emerged as the 'silver bullet' for most of the problems but the extent to which they are effectively helping small business overcome their challenges remains debatable. This study seeks to determine the core reasons why respondents enrolled in an incubator, the essence of the incubator and the extent to which the incubator performance is satisfactory. Research design, data, and methodology - A positivist philosophical approach was adopted for the study. This quantitative study used a survey method to collect data from incubatees in a cross-sectional manner. The data were subsequently analysed to generate necessary insights. Results - Results reveal that the gender composition of incubatees is severely skewed in favour of males. Also, most incubatees enrolled in the incubators with a hope that it would ease their pathway to big businesses, financiers and business registration institutions, and it is not. Conclusion - Incubators are mostly inward-looking and are adept at offering training interventions. To improve the effectiveness of incubators, it is necessary to invest efforts in attracting more females and building networks with key external stakeholders that could possibly assist the incubatees establish and grow their businesses.

Purpose - This study evaluates the effects of e-marketing communication on brand loyalty in the mobile communication market in Kosovo. given that no prior studies of this nature are found. It explores the relationships, between e-marketing communication, brand image and customer satisfaction, and their impact on the brand loyalty. Research design, data, and methodology - The research model of four constructs was developed. The data was collected via online surveys, 423 completed surveys from mobile subscribers were received. To test the relationship between the individual variables and multiple variables with the dependent variable several test were performed including data validity and reliability, bivariate correlation, simple linear and multiple regression analysis using stepwise method. Results - Positive significant effect of e-Marketing communication on brand loyalty, as well its significant effect on both brand image and customer satisfaction, which subsequently have significant impact on brand loyalty as it was confirmed by previous studies. Conclusions - The findings confirm that e-Marketing communication is key factor in building well perceived brand image, fostering customer satisfaction, and leading to customer commitment and loyalty towards brands of mobile operators in Kosovo.

Purpose - Pricing strategy is a very effective marketing activity and has a significant impact on consumer purchasing decisions. Numerous studies have investigated the effects of various pricing strategies. However, tensile price claims have received little attention in the literature. It is thus necessary to investigate how different forms of tensile price claims affect consumer response. This study uses the consumer self-confidence level as a moderator of consumer behavior. Research Research design, data, and methodology - This study investigates the effect of four different tensile price claims (i.e., maximum discount, minimum discount, average discount, and range discount advertisements) on consumers' perceived savings. A survey was conducted to collect data for testing hypotheses. Results - The results show that consumers with high levels of self-confidence perceive more savings for maximum discount advertisements than minimum discount advertisements, for range discount advertisements than average discount advertisements. On the other hand, consumers with low self-confidence feel more perceived savings for average discount advertisements than range discount advertisement. Conclusions - The results of this study provide a new insight into the effectiveness of tensile pricing based on consumer self-confidence levels, which may provide valuable theoretical and practical applications.

Purpose - We investigate whether a firm's engagement in socially responsible activity affects the quality of financial reporting within the retail industry of Korean market. Recent studies argue that more socially responsible firms tend to show a better quality of financial reporting. Research design, data, and methodology - We use a variety of proxy variables related to the use of discretionary accruals and real activity manipulation to measure the quality of financial reporting. The total of environmental, social and governance score is used to represent the degree of socially responsible activity in the retail industry. We use regression models to examine whether more socially responsible firms show a higher quality of financial reporting. The sample of publicly traded Korea retail firms is analyzed from 2011 to 2016. Results - Our analysis finds supporting evidence for limited earning management via the use of discretionary accruals. We find, however, no significant relationship between the degree of social responsibility and the quality of financial reporting within chaebol affiliates unlike non-chaebol affiliates. Conclusions - Our results weakly support a better quality of financial reporting for more socially responsible firms. The results highlight the importance of firm characteristics in deciding the effect of socially responsible activity on corporate policies.

Purpose - With the increasing number of small business owners who reports the cessation of their businesses, the rate of closing the business within the year is increasing as well. The efforts have been made continuously to revitalize the business through the inflow of government or private capital. Maintaining the fast-changing commercial districts with the existing support is difficult, so it is urgent state that needs for commercial district reorganization. The differentiate aspect is that this new measures for small-block-unit commercial modeling can be introduced to promote these aging/deposit private-owned shops politically. Research design, data, and methodology - This study is to develop a sustainable theme shopping rehabilitation method which considers the characteristics of local cities based on the case studies of developed countries' commercial areas to revitalize the central urban areas of local cities. Results - The purpose of this study as stated above is to manage the local commercial area through the program that purchases the empty stores, and the measure to secure the autonomy among stores. Conclusions - The government should concentrate on projects such as vacant store purchase programs, which are omitted from past achievements, and maximize the effect of the project through inter-departmental project packages.

Purpose - This research is to review the state of standard labeling compliance and identify the factors that are conducive to compliance with the Labeling Standards of the Health Functional Foods Act in internet distribution. Research design, data, and methodology - We checked 9 labels including product name, expiration date, manufacturing date, raw material, ingredient, operative dose, nutritional information, daily intake, and functional effect which are based on Labeling Standards of the Act from 100 health functional foods in the internet shopping malls. These 9 structure & function claims were compared using a Chi-square test. Results - There was a statistically significant difference in the use of standard labeling between domestic product and imported products (p<.001). The related strength between these two variables showed a moderate effect size. Also, there was a statistically significant difference between accredited advertising/unaccredited advertising distinction and use of standard labeling (p<.001). The related strength between these two variables showed a moderate effect size. Conclusions - The Labeling Standards of the Act were not followed and found to be related to imports or unauthorized advertising in internet distribution. The information displayed according to the Labeling Standards was only about 2 on the average, so many labels have been posted unreadably without arrangement.

Purpose - Vietnamese customers have a crowd psychology when choosing and buying cars, they believe the advice and comments of those who have used the product. This paper aims to explore how factors in the relation between employees and customers affect to the customer's positive word of mouth (WOM) through customer satisfaction. Research design, data, and methodology - A survey was conducted with 250 customers. This research focus on six factors: (1) familiarity, (2) care, (3) personal connection, (4) employee competence, (5) customer satisfaction, (6) positive WOM. By using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Model (SEM), this research determined the impact of relation between eployees and customers to the customer satisfaction in order to have the positive WOM to another customers. Results - This result shows that 3 factors: care, personal connection and service quality, have positive effects to customer satisfaction. Moreover, the similar relationship is found between customer satisfaction and positive WOM. The familiarity is not significant in this research. Conclusions - The research results indicate that positive WOM has an important impact of market development for automobile business enterprises in Vietnam. Therefore, administrators should have appropriate strategies to encourage positive WOM to customers.

Purpose - Although an extensive body of research in psychology and marketing focuses on perceived waiting time, no research has examined the effect of the location of the waiting place on perceived waiting time. In particular, this study suggests that customers who are waiting in a restaurant may have different perceived waiting time depending on whether they are in close proximity to the service area (e.g., dining area) or farther from it. In particular, the author examines how and why the location of the waiting place affects the perceived waiting time of the consumer and reveals the mental simulation as its psychological mechanism. Research design, data, and methodology - This study conducted field surveys with customers waiting in real restaurants. Eighty-eight people participated under two conditions: a restaurant with a waiting place near the dining area and a restaurant with a waiting place far from the dining area. Participants responded to questions about perceived waiting time (the dependent variable), mental simulation (the mediator), and demographic variables. To verify the hypothesis, ANOVA and bootstrapping analysis were performed. Results - The major results from the field study are as follows. First, participants perceived wait time differently depending on the location of the restaurant's waiting place: participants in the restaurant with a waiting place close to the dining area perceived significantly shorter waiting times. Second, the effect of the location of the waiting place on the perceived waiting time was mediated by mental simulation: the closer the wait location is to the dining area, the more imagination the customer exercises about the meal, which in turn distracts attention from time flow and shortens the perceived wait time. Conclusion - This study has a theoretical implication in that it extends research on perceived waiting time as the first study of how and why the location of a waiting place affects a customer's perceived waiting time. It has a practical implication that can be used as a marketing tactics to improve the image of the service provider by changing the location of the waiting place.

Purpose - In China, electric vehicle industry has been increased attention as a environmental friendly transportation to solve pollution problems, and still growing to solve a technological gap issues in automobile industry. Although the interest of electric vehicle is getting bigger, there are not many studies that showing consumers' intention to purchase an electric vehicle. Because of this phenomenon, this study tried to find the factors which can affect the purchase intention of electric vehicle. Research design, data, and methodology - Drawing on the Planned Behavior Theory(TPB), this study examined attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm of environmental protection, and the influence of economic benefits on purchase intention through survey. we measure 233 Chinese samples. Results - The results showed that attitude toward electric vehicles, subjective norms of environmental protection, and economic benefits had a significant effect on purchase intention. To be specific, the consciousness of environmental protection, economic considerations, product image and its characteristic are all considerable aspects from the standpoint of Chinese consumers. In addition, we found that the higher the age group, the weaker relationship between attitude toward electric vehicle and purchase intention. Conclusion - This study suggests that diverse factors related to the purchase intention of electric car in China market and Chinese consumers. Especially, economic benefit factors, which have a statistically significant and significant influence on the purchase intention of electric vehicles, are not significant variables in the existing electric vehicle research. This result is considered to be the result of the fact that the electric vehicle is not only an automobile having an environmentally friendly factor but also a product which makes it consider the economic situation. Put together, the results of this paper give us the theoretical basis for establishing an electric vehicle marketing strategy in the rapidly changing Chinese market. Also, this paper will provide new ventures for marketing and distribution strategies for Korean companies that are looking to expand into China.