Competitive retail marketing

Book reviews anomolies p 394.). References were not always complete: for instance, some studies were discussed but full details were not provided, which would have allowed readers to follow up the material (eg Evans' study of Ford and Chevrolet owners (p 64)). There were a number of references to authors without specific details to follow up the literature (eg J V McConnell p 90; Janis p 218; Deutsch p 221; Bales pp 221 and 223; Wallen p 223; Davis and Rigaux p 235; Hollander p 287; Bakke p 323; Peter Martin and John Nicholls p 383). Also, in a text entitled Consumer Behaviour, more references might have been expected to studies published in the Journal o f Consumer Research and in the Advances in Consumer Research series over the past 25 years. Some of the key topics that have emerged in the debates about consumer behaviour in these publications were not developed to any extent: for example, experiential aspects of consumption (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982); symbolic consumer behaviour (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1980); McCracken's work on culture and consumption (1986); and the debate about ways of generating knowledge in consumer behaviour research (eg Hunt, 1991; Lutz, 1991). Another notable gap seemed to occur in the treatment of industrial or organizational buying behaviour (Chapter 12), where the network or interaction literature from the European (and particularly the Nordic) schools in the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group was missing (see for instance Ford, 1990). In one other respect the editorial team might be seen to have let the author down (although it might be unfair to try and attribute responsibility at this distance). The author acknowledged the change of roles and the impact of the feminist movement in the text; however, what would be regarded as a real faux pas by even the least radical of the sisterhood can be found in the description of the Hawthorne relay assembly room experiment (pp 208-209), where some sensitive editing would have eliminated the reference to 'girls' eight times in 20 lines. Presumably these 64

subjects were all past the age of puberty, and 'young women' would have been a more accurate, and certainly a more tactful, description of the subjects. The standard texts on consumer behaviour in use in European classrooms tend to be American, and it seemed as if this book might redress the balance by offering at least a view of consumer behaviour informed by experience of the British marketplace. There is no treatment of any specific European examples by the use of, for instance, mini case studies. However, this text does not fit into this set of American publications on consumer behaviour, and the gap for an up-todate text in the area of consumer behaviour that reflects current research in consumer behaviour across the scholarly fields of the Americas, Europe and Australasia and with a focus on European examples and material remains to be filled. This book faithfully meets its original stated purpose of catering for the needs of professional students by introducing them to the basic behavioural aspects of marketing. The contents more accurately reflect the paper for the professional examinations than an academic review of the field of consumer behaviour: hence the claim to meet the requirements of students following vocational diplomas and academic undergraduate courses, as well as those on the professional courses, is not entirely supported. This text would be useful as a revision source for first-year diploma and undergraduate students, complementing rather than replacing the American texts described above. The author, Chris Rice, is Senior Lecturer in the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University. He originally trained as an engineer and has managerial experience in the engineering and papermaking industries; he is an examiner for the Chartered Institute of Marketing Behavioural Aspects of Marketing course.

Margaret K Hogg Centre for Business, Management and Consumer Studies University College Salford, UK

References Engel, J F, Blackwell, R D and Miniard, P W (1993) Consumer Behavior 7th edn, Dryden Press, Fort Worth Ford, D (1990) Understanding Business Markets: Interaction, Relationships, Networks Academic Press, London Hirschman, E C and Holbrook, M B (1980) Symbolic Consumer Behavior: Proceedings of the Conference on Consumer Esthetics and Symbolic Consumption Association for Consumer Research, New York Holbrook, M B and Hirschman, E C (1982) 'The experiential aspects of consumption: consumer fantasies, feelings and fun' Journal of Consumer Research 9 (September) 132-140 Hunt, S D (1991) 'Positivism and paradigm dominance in consumer research: toward critical pluralism and rapprochement' Journal of Consumer Research 18 (June) 32-44 Loudon, D L and Della Bitta, A J (1993) Consumer Behavior: Concepts and Applications 4th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York Lutz, R J (1991) 'Editorial' Journal of Consumer Research 17 (March) McCracken, G (1986) 'Culture and consumption: a theoretical account of the structure and movement of the cultural meaning of consumer goods' Journal of Consumer Research 13 (June) 310-321 Mowen, D C (1993) Consumer Behavior 3rd edn, Macmillan, New York Solomon, M R (1994) Consumer Behavior. Buying, Having, Being 2nd edn, Allyn and Bacon, Boston

Competitive Retail Marketing Andrew Collins McGraw-Hill, London (1992) 229 pp £24.95 I S B N 0 07 707567 6 This book is directed at managers in retailing. It claims to be written in a highly readable style and to offer a valuable practitioner's perspective on a number of issues identified as key for retailing. The identified issues are adapting and being responsive to change, achieving customer orientation, quality and service, improving marketing management and customer research and retail location strategy. While the key issues have something of the feel of apple pie and motherhood, it is no doubt that they are important ones for retail management at this or any other time.

Book reviews The format of the book makes clear the orientation. First, key issues in marketing and strategy are discussed; second, the need to understand the environment in which the company operates is laid there; third, the notion of company fix to environment is explored; and finally, key issues in managing markets in retailing are identified and dealt with separately. The structure is interesting as, in the course of the book, Collins decries what may have been the formal planning school of approach to strategy development, and yet the structure itself shows that there is at least an element of intellectual indebtedness to that school here. There are a number of features that make the book stand out in ways both good and less attractive. Amongst the good, one can see clearly throughout the text a focus on the satisfaction of customers as being the key to longerterm retail success. The book also introduces key thoughts or concepts through highlighted boxes, and is replete with checklists and other devices to identify major elements of the text in a way that makes it easy for managers. What is less satisfactory from an academic perspective is that many of the ideas in the book have authorship that could be attributed, but no references are made to the originator. This is perhaps a weakness, as it means that the interested reader, unless he or she were to have some prior knowledge, would find it difficult to follow up after looking at this text. Ideas that would fall into this category, for example, would be Ansoff's matrix or Porter's notions of generic strategies. The book probably succeeds best as a collection of individual chapters that contain the grain of some good thinking. Many of these chapters, however, do not extend far enough to be of themselves sufficient to give all that the manager might need in the way of guidance. A good example of this would be the short chapter on managing change, which, in the ambit of only nine pages, deals with what is a particularly complex and demanding subject that has spawned a wide and inventive literature of its own. This kind of treatment is symptomatic of much of the material in the book,

though it has to be remembered that where the prime audience is one of executives then it may be reasonable to expect the matter to be much condensed. There are, however, a number of other issues that might impair the utility of the book even for the busy manager. First, there is little consideration of the supply side consequences of developing a marketing strategy for retailing. This is one area that has been shown to be key in a number of marketplaces and in the development of a number of strategies. It may be that supply-side concerns are not seen as conventionally a part of marketing, but given the nature of the retailer's product - part service, part merchandise - it is inevitable that they have some bearing on the marketing attributes of a given retailer. Second, there is the issue of retail location, where the treatment focuses almost exclusively on the idea of matching the branch to its micro environment. While this is of course inevitable and desirable, there is an additional dimension about managing the branch network that is not addressed at all. If one assembles these two arguments together, then I think it is fair to say that the book does not take a supply chain management view of the retail process, but focuses very largely on what might be seen as a narrow marketing core dealing with the relationship of the retail firm to its existing and potential customers. Within these limitations the book provides a satisfactory introduction for executives but, as has been pointed out, does not provide them with the means of connecting the knowledge that they may identify through reading this text with a wider and more detailed discussion of those ideas elsewhere. The style throughout is lucid and easy to follow, and the book makes little demand intellectually other than in the need to flesh out the consequences, which are sometimes alluded to, but never addressed in depth.

Barry Davies Department of Retailing and Marketing Manchester Metropolitan University UK

Managing Salespeople Lawrence B Chonko, Ben M Enis and John F Tanner Jr

Allyn and Bacon, Needham, MA (1992) 734 pp $39.95 ISBN 205 13406 8 The authors have undertaken the difficult task of producing a comprehensive text on the subject of sales management. Although there is no background given about the authors' areas of expertise, Mr Chonko utilizes findings from many of his previous empirical studies involving salespeople and sales management, thus establishing his credentials and ability to write a text effectively on the subject. The secondary and tertiary authors are also cited several times in the book, having published studies involving sales and marketing subjects. The book is well organized, with each chapter beginning with the authors' suggestions of learning objectives. There is also an outline of the contents in the chapter. This is designed to help both the student and instructor to better comprehend what they are preparing to read. Instructors are provided with pedagogical tools such as the Sales Manager's Bulletin for teacher and students alike, sample tests, and software for one of the text's comprehensive cases. As previously stated, this book is designed to be a text for a course in sales management. Though it is not specifically mentioned, the text seems to be aimed at a graduate-level audience. This is assumed for several reasons. First, the book is quite long. Second, each chapter (18 in total) finishes with discussion questions, scenarios for discussion, and usually a case study. Finally, the content of the text is written in a manner that appears to assume an advanced understanding of marketing, management, accounting, and statistics. It would be difficult for most third- or fourth-year undergraduate students to get halfway through this book in a single semester, let alone all 18 chapters. The length of the book may be intimidating. This has more to do with the comprehensive nature of each chapter than with the number of total pages. The authors have done a thorough job of introducing as many 65