• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.188-198
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• 2015

Both employee satisfaction and loyalty play an important role in increasing the business performances of organizations in the service industry. However, the influence of TQM practices on employee satisfaction and employee loyalty has not been examined in the ICT service supply chain. This study aimed to investigate the impact of five total quality management (TQM) practices on employee satisfaction and employee loyalty in Korean ICT customer service and retail distribution organizations. Based on an empirical study of 578 respondents in a Korean ICT service company, the study examined the hypothesized relationships among TQM practices, employee satisfaction, and employee loyalty. Using structural equations modeling, it is found that TQM practices are significantly related to employee satisfaction, whereas the latter in turn influences employee loyalty. The results of analysis suggest that the ICT customer service and retail distribution organizations should concentrate on enhancing employee satisfaction of their TQM practices and creating a people-satisfied job environment.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.591-598
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• 2010

Customer misbehavior can affect dissatisfaction and negative behavioral responses of other customers at the service encounter. This study explored other customer and retail employee reponses to customer anger and aggressive behaviors at the service encounter by examining the perceived wrongness of such behaviors under different situations and comparing the two perspectives of retail employees and consumers. Three scenarios were developed representing different situations including firm's responsibility, both of customer and employee responsibilities, and uncontrollable one. Data were collected from individual interviews with 222 retail employees and 149 consumers. The results showed that the consumers' perceived wrongness of customer aggressions were higher comparing to that of employees. The reasons of perceived wrongness were different by three situations implying that responsibility and controllability affected the perceived wrongness. The study further discusses implications.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.83-91
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• 2023

Purpose: Increasing their motivation and job satisfaction, employees in the distribution channel may be better able to interact with consumers and provide a more satisfying experience. Thus, increasing employee engagement in the supply chain necessitates a complex strategy considering the distinctive features of wholesale and retail markets. This study investigates how to boost employees' motivation in the supply chain based on the difference between wholesale and retail market. Research design, data, and methodology: The prior study analysis is a useful tool to take a look at relevant previous works via a significant screening and selecting strategy. The Key words based on the topic of the research have used, such as 'Employee Motivation', 'Supply Chain', 'Wholesale' and 'Retail' worker. Results: The findings of this research strongly indicates that motivating employees is essential for the efficient operation of supply chain activities as they continue to expand and become more complicated. The supply chain's two main segments are the wholesale and retail markets, each with distinct characteristics. Conclusions: This research focused exclusively on the factors that motivate supply chain workers, ignoring job satisfaction, corporate culture, and managerial style, which may affect employee motivation. These factors also have the potential to impact employee motivation and should be considered in subsequent research.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.27-36
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• 2020

Purpose: The study examines how emotional leadership affects employee attitude towards work engagement. Leader legitimacy perception is chosen as the mediating variable to understand the effect of emotional leadership on employee work engagement. Research design, data and methodology: The research model is based on theory and empirical research findings in order to examine the mediating effect of leader legitimacy perception on the relationship between the manager's emotional leadership and employee work engagement. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 188 employees of domestic retail distributors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and survey data confirmed the construct, and the hypothesis was tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: a) Emotional leadership has positive influence on leader legitimacy; b) Leader legitimacy is positively related to work engagement; c) Leader legitimacy mediates a positive relationship between emotional leadership and work engagement. However, there is no direct effect on work engagement (of employees) from emotional leadership standpoint. Conclusion: Based on the empirical results, implications and future research directions are discussed.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.135-150
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• 2014

This paper analyzes the operational efficiency of 91 individual retail stores in Seoul by a two-step procedure. In the first step, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is used to identify the efficiency scores. Three inputs (store size, number of items, and number of employees) and two outputs (sales and number of customers) are used for the efficiency measurement. In the second step, a Tobit regression model is used to identify the drivers of efficiency. DEA efficiency scores are used to test hypotheses on the impact of five independent variables, namely store age, number of items per store size, number of items per employee, trade area index, and number of competitors. Results of the Tobit analysis show that number of items per store size, number of items per employee, and number of competitors play a significant role in influencing the operational efficiency of retail stores. Managerial implications of the study are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.1220-1231
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• 2010

This study examined customer misbehaviors in retail settings by identifying behavioral patterns and exploring behavioral backgrounds and consequences from the employee's perspectives. Qualitative data were collected from an individual interview method, and 222 interviews were analyzed. Customer misbehavior was categorized into unethical returns, problem behaviors in service encounters, unreasonable demands, shoplifting/fraud, ill-mannered behaviors, and selfish behaviors. Behavioral backgrounds included dissatisfaction, unreasonable expectations, actively benefiting of service failures, taking advantage of service standards, illegitimate complaints, monetary gains, transferring responsibility, and demanding special treatment. Employees experienced stress facing misbehaving customers with no other choice except to accept misbehaviors and learned misbehaviors as customers themselves. The study further discusses the implications.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.111-119
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• 2022

Purpose: This study seeks to address the omission through examining the manner in which demographic similarity affects the responses of employees in the retail sector towards horizontal pay dispersion. Through doing so the study will be effective in bolstering the recent efforts of more careful exploration of conditions. Research design, data, and methodology: Scant past studies are available to guide for practitioners in retail sector which compensation strategy might lead adequate job performance for retail sales workers. To suggest possible solution, the present authors used variables of pay dispersion and obtained 317 US retail sale workers in distribution channels to measure the association between pay dispersion and employee job performance. Results: The statistical findings indicated both first and second hypothesis could be acceptable with favorable Beta and T values, resulting high degree of pay dispersion leads a low level of job performance, while a low degree of pay dispersion can motivate retail sales workers to improve their performance. Conclusions: The findings of this study raises an argument that processes of social comparison work in a more vigorous manner. This is thus a representation of the propensity of a retail sales worker to voluntarily resign from an organization when dispersion rates are higher.

• 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 Distribution Science
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.67-76
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• 2019

Purpose - This research examined whether entrepreneurial proclivity of retail employees affects job engagement and satisfaction, which are job-related positive aspects; and whether job engagement affects job satisfaction. Research design, data, and methodology - To accomplish this purpose, data were collected for 224 retail employees working in the distribution industry in the Republic of Korea. Reliability, validity, and hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling, and mediating effects of job engagement between entrepreneurial proclivity and job satisfaction were verified through the bootstrap method by using the process model. Results - The results show that innovativeness and progressiveness in entrepreneurial proclivity positively affected job engagement and job satisfaction, but risk-taking did not affect either job engagement or job satisfaction. Also, this research confirmed that job engagement positively affects job satisfaction. Conclusions - This study contributes to the retail literature by applying the concept of entrepreneurial proclivity in the retail employee context. This study puts forward empirical evidence that identifies the effect of entrepreneurial proclivity as a job resource that influences job engagement and job satisfaction in the JD-R model. Thus, this study surmounts the limitation of prior studies by examining entrepreneurial proclivity from the aspect of retail employees.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1356-1365
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• 2008

As Korean retailers are expanding their return policies, customer abuse and fraud behaviors are increasing. This study attempts to understand customers' unethical return behaviors in the Korean retailing. As an exploratory approach, the study identifies behavioral patterns of unethical returns from retail employees' perspectives. A total of 168 cases collected from 112 individual interviews with retail employees are qualitatively analyzed. Unethical return behaviors are categorized into five groups: lenting/deshopping, product defects with customer faults, unreasonable compensation demands, selfish behaviors, and problem behaviors in the service encounter. The study indicates that a variety of unethical return behaviors are observed despite a short history of return policy in Korea, and renting/deshopping and product defects with customer faults are the most prevalent return abuse behaviors.