• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.865-880
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to examine job competencies for sales training program development to maximize profits in fashion retailing. An empirical online survey was conducted from September to December 2019, and data was collected from 200 salespeople and store managers working in fashion stores. Results were analyzed using frequency analysis, factor analysis, variance analysis, and regression analysis with SPSS 25.0. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, the most important job competencies identified by fashion store managers were: sales sense know-how, customer service skills, and sales person's fashion style sense, product knowledge, fashion marketing and customer management. The job competency factors for sales training programs included empathy with the customer, product knowledge, communications and networking, basic job requirement, and sales skills. These five factors positively influenced the employment intentions and expectations of work performance of graduates. These factors also had a positive influence on the need of sales training program and intention to participate in retraining. Store managers in fashion retail thought the most appropriate period for on-the-job training was either 2-4 days or more than 1 week. The results of this study can be used as a base to develop training programs for job efficiency for salespeople in fashion retailing.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.69-79
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• 2022

The purpose of the study is to look into the likelihood of private sector enterprises going bankrupt due to COVID-19 pandemic-related issues. The data for this study was taken from the World Bank's Enterprise Survey, which was intended to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business sector. This study uses the Ordinal Logit Method to analyze the model with dependent variables having ordinal values. The determinants reflect business performance, innovation, business relationships, and government support. According to the estimation results, a lower probability of business closures, illiquidity, and payment delays are found in businesses that maintain sales growth, operating hours, temporary workers, product portfolio, consumer demand, and input supply. Meanwhile, the increase in online business activities and receiving support from financial institutions and the government do not help businesses reduce the risk. Moreover, higher survival is found in manufacturing and developing countries. This implies the fragility of businesses in the retail and service sectors, especially for mega-enterprises in developed countries. In addition, the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses in Europe and West Asia is less severe than in other regions. The results imply policies to support the private sector during the pandemic, such as increasing labor market flexibility or rapidly implementing supportive policies.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.15-26
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• 2022

Purpose: There has been a consistent failure of businesses that are run by a single person. Most of these collapse at infancy prematurely and those that survive continue to operate at minimal capacity. The study thus sought to enhance growth of sole proprietors from being small entities to large corporates. Financial determinants of business growth were earmarked for research as they were amongst the grey areas of business growth research. Research design, data and methodology: The target population of the study was made up of groceries retail sole proprietors operating in Epworth, Zimbabwe. Questionnaires were used in a once-off cross-sectional survey using stratified random sampling. Through a deductive research approach, four financial determinants of business growth were established namely financial availability, financial management, financial evaluation and financial investment (AMEI). These constructs formulated the basis for the development of the model which linked financial factors to business growth. Results: The study found out that all four financial determinants were statistically significant (P < 0.05) in predicting business growth. Conclusions: The study concludes that the model tested was useful in explaining sole proprietor's business growth. Sole proprietors should have access to funding, manage received funds in an appropriate manner, invest into the business and evaluate their business processes.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.21-28
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• 2021

Purpose: Facing numerous challenges, organizational management is one of the most important research areas for organizations which handles workers' behaviors when they are within their workplace and organization to make more profits. The current research aims to analyze the effect of organizational management factors on direct employee consultation in distribution channels. Research design, data, and methodology: To achieve the purpose of the study and provide adequate empirical results, the current authors conducted the structural equation analysis using IBM AMOS 24.0 and collected 387 U.S employees in distribution channels (Wholesale and Retail shops). Results: Investigating the relationships between three organizational management factors and direct employee consultation, we found out that organizational practitioners in distribution channels face numerous challenges that must be resolved to ensure effective direct employee consultation to benefit employees. Empirical findings suggest that practitioners and leaders in distribution channels should focus on developing employee psychological management and utilizing direct employee consultation. Conclusions: In sum, the present research concludes that it must ensure that the employee in distribution channels should be a comfortable environment to appropriately respond to consultations. An approachable management team is ideal for employee consultations to find the right ways to keep employees at par with the consultation issues.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.53-72
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• 2022

As a trend of modern service industry, self-service has been widely concerned by all walks of life, but there is a lack of literature on systematic management of the overall research in this field. Recently, people's lifestyle has been forced to change due to the influence of COVID-19, while there have been some changes in the field of self-service research. Based on the Web of Science data source, this study takes the literature of self-service field before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 as the research object, and summarizes the development process, research status and future research trend of self-service field through the Citespace visualization tool. The research shows that firstly, academic circles continue to be enthusiastic about self-service field research, cooperation between countries is becoming more and more diversified. Secondly, the communication between researchers is becoming more and more intensive, and the cooperation between different disciplines gradually becomes the mainstream. Third, related research gradually shifted to the practical application of technology, the research perspective gradually shifted from the initial traditional retail perspective industries such as tourism services. Finally, the role of customer experience and participation behavior in self-service process is gradually emphasized.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.69-79
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• 2022

Purpose: In the context of the emergence of industry 4.0, using mobile phones as a modern distribution channel to execute financial services is a significant solution for commercial banks' retail services and a gateway to promote financial inclusion and market development. Despite that service quality and customer satisfaction are two diverse notions and closely related to each other in the service sector, there is hardly a research which empirically examines the impacts of each dimensions of mobile banking service quality and customer satisfaction. Research design, data and methodology: This study first employs in-depth interview to explore various aspects of mobile banking service quality dimensions, including empathy, responsiveness, tangibility, assurance, and reliability that serves to develop measurement scales and hypothesis development. A quantitative survey is followed to collect data from 265 Vietnamese bank customers to empirically test the conceptual model. Resutls: Our findings indicate that more human-related factors including empathy, assurance, and responsiveness show the strongest impacts on customer satisfaction with mobile banking service while tangibility and reliability, as technical aspects, are less influential factors. Conclusions: Finally, some crucial implications are drawn for the banks to manage consumer behavior in mobile banking.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.51-61
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• 2022

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to establish the government's logistics policy by calculating the logistics cost of the company and grasping the management status, to reduce the logistics cost of the related companies and to provide basic statistical data necessary for the management strategy. This work examines some associations between reasons for reducing corporate logistics costs (RCLC) and corporate classification such as industry and sales size. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey was conducted in 2018 for 2,000 companies based on the business of mining, manufacturing and wholesale and retail industries since 2010. The survey population is 94,976, of which 92,708 are small and medium enterprises and 2,268 are large corporations. The association among factors may be statistically and visually explored by using chi-squared test and correspondence analysis. Result - This study reveals the association between reasons for RCLC and corporate classification and properties and closeness that exist between the categories of each factor can be mined. Conclusion - As a task to reduce logistics costs of industrial products, expansion and operation of joint logistics business, establishment of cooperative logistics network, and establishment of ordinance on support for smart distribution logistics can be proposed.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.137-145
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• 2023

E-Commerce is a buzzword well known for electronic commerce activities including but not limited to the online shopping, digital payment transactions, and B2B online trading. In today's digital age, e-commerce has been playing a very important and vital role in areas such as retail shopping, sales automation, supply chain management, marketing and advertisement, and payment services. With a huge amount of data been collected from various e-commerce services available, there are multiple opportunities to use that data to analyze graphs and trends. Strategize profitable activities, and forecast future trade. This paper explains a contemporary approach for collecting key data metrics and implementing cost-effective automation that will support in improving conversion rates and sales performance of the e-commerce websites resulting in increased profitability.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.65 no.2
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• pp.427-440
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• 2023

The current study evaluated carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from beef and pork production and distribution chains in the South Korean meat industry. Data from industrial example farms and slaughterhouses were assessed on the basis of both the guidelines from the United Kingdom's Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050:2011 and the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute carbon footprint calculation. The main factors for our estimations were animal feeds, manure waste, transportation, energy and water, refrigerants, and package data. Our analyses show that 16.55 kg CO₂ equivalent (eq) was emitted during the production of 1 kg of live cattle. When retail yields and packing processes were considered, the CO₂-eq of 1 kg of packaged Hanwoo beef was 27.86 kg. As for pigs, emissions from 1 kg of live pigs and packaged pork meat were 2.62 and 12.75 kg CO₂-eq, respectively. While we gathered data from only two farms and slaughterhouses and our findings can therefore not be extrapolated to all meats produced in the South Korean meat industry, they indicate that manure waste is the greatest factor affecting ultimate CO₂ emissions of packaged meats.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2024

Purpose: Rapid technological advancements and information dissemination have catalyzed a steep upsurge in the distribution of ornamental flower arrangement products, effectively meeting the burgeoning demands of customers. This research endeavours to elucidate the relationship between market orientation (MO) and competitive advantage (CA), with the intermediary role of marketing performance (MP) within Denpasar's flower arrangement retail sector. Research Methods: Conducted within a Denpasar-based flower shop, the study engaged 94 respondents through a questionnaire-based data collection methodology. Utilizing a saturated sampling approach, the sample size equated to the population size. The analysis employed SmartPLS, a robust statistical tool. Results: The study findings reveal that MO does not exert a statistically significant direct impact on CA. Nevertheless, MO exhibits a substantively positive and statistically significant influence on MP, which, in turn, substantially and significantly contributes to CA. For flower arrangement business owners, it is imperative to orchestrate effective control over their marketing performance. Conclusion: This involves nurturing enduring customer and employee relationships by steadily implementing market-oriented distribution strategies. By doing so, customer satisfaction and growth, pivotal in bolstering marketing performance, can be adeptly sustained, ultimately culminating in attaining competitive advantage.