This paper seeks to bridge the existing knowledge gap between workplace learning and life course studies by investigating how young adults in the retail industry identify, pursue, and actualise learning opportunities in their workplaces. It considers the elements from their life course that either facilitate or impede these learning opportunities.…

Background: Tobacco retailers have an important role to play in reducing access to tobacco among youth, but in the USA, their role has become more complicated because of recent developments in policies and industry, such as the Indiana Tobacco-21 law and the rising popularity of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products. This study…

With the growing entrepreneurial spirit and ease of selling items online, many people are turning to virtual marketplaces to earn extra income or, in some instances, build a career. This case focuses upon the development of a database to assist in inventory management for an online reselling business that has grown from an occasional hobby to a…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how instructional videos produced by retail employers and tech companies have modelled cashier roles and skills in service encounters over time, providing insights into cashier training and job responsibility evolution across different retail eras. Design/methodology/approach: Online video research is used, with…

The objectives of the study are to develop a curriculum for an English training for counter clerks in convenience stores in Chiang Mai, Thailand and to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed curriculum. A mixed-method research design was employed. In the curriculum development phase, participants were 20 counter clerks and 10 administrators…

The present paper is a case study of how the commodification of the Russian language has transformed a market in New Delhi, India, inaugurated in 1969 and known as Yashwant Place. Over the years, the market slowly assumed a new identity, referred to as Yashka not only by Russian visitors but also tourists from countries of the former Soviet Union,…

This article calls attention to the difficulty of institutionalising vocational education and training (VET) in the service sector in Norway, despite the growing importance of this sector for national economic performance. Drawing on interviews with apprentices, employers, stakeholders, representatives of trade unions and employer organisations,…

The Capstone Sales course is the final in a sequence of five required courses in a 15 credit Professional Selling program housed in the Marketing Department at St. Cloud State University. The course is heavily focused on experiential learning activities for senior-level sales students. In this paper details of the course design, instructor and…

The paper investigates how learning and processes of becoming are shaped and enacted in retail apprenticeship in Norway. The analysis draws upon a qualitative study of managers and apprentices in different retail sub-sectors. The empirical point of departure is managers who, more or less deliberately, throw apprentices into tasks from day one.…

Online user-generated content has been ubiquitous. Consumers are eager to not only listen to the other consumers but provide opinion to the public. The former reduces the consumers' uncertainty about products and the latter reduces the firms' uncertainty about consumers. We examine the effect of online product reviews, a most common form of…

Spurred by recent writings regarding statistical pragmatism, we propose a simple, practical approach to introducing students to a new style of statistical thinking that models nature through the lens of data-generating processes, not populations. (Contains 5 figures.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use teaching and learning units specially devised for development of self-competencies and social competencies in the retail sector to explore how learners assess these units in relation to acceptance, quality and self-assessment of improvement in their own performance. Design/methodology/approach: The…

Mary Gay Shipley built a charming business in Blytheville, Arkansas. She and her bookstore have a national reputation in the book world. Can that Bookstore in Blytheville leverage its reputation and charm into real profit? (Contains 2 notes.)

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of presenting organizational information through implicit and explicit rules on sales-related target behaviors in a retail setting. Results indicated that when organizational information was presented in a specific form, productivity was increased and maintained longer than when presented in…

This paper reports on an ethnographically based study of entry level supermarket work. The study, carried out in a large suburban supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, focused on the literacy and numeracy practices of supermarket assistants, all who had English as an additional language. It found that skills such as oral communication, personal…