Pieter van Schalkwyk

Shoplifting in supermarkets results in substantial economic, social, and psychological losses. The prevalence of ongoing shoplifting incidents suggests that existing measures of retail crime prevention are inadequate and that alternative shoplifting prevention methods must be explored in the supermarket context. In this study, the role of frontline service employees (FLEs) in crime prevention is explored through the lens of guardianship behaviour and the moral beliefs of employees. A cross-sectional online survey was developed to explore the relationship between moral beliefs and guardianship, and usable responses were collected from a total of 507 supermarket FLEs in New Zealand. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was applied to predict the proclivity of FLE guardianship behaviour, and the findings suggest that employee moral beliefs positively influence the guardianship behaviour of FLEs. This study offers three significant contributions: conceptually, the findings identify and establish a causal relationship between FLE moral beliefs and their guardianship behaviour; secondly, from a managerial perspective, the findings suggest strategies for recruitment and further nurturing of FLEs aiming toward better shoplifting prevention; finally, from a contextual viewpoint, this research provides empirical evidence on FLE guardianship for effective deterrence of shoplifting.

There are over 170 smartphone manufacturers globally (GNW, 2021), of which five manufacturers (Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo) make up 70 per cent of the market (Counterpoint, 2022). Despite the difficulty in becoming a successful smartphone manufacturer, many incentivising factors exist for brands who want to enter the market. The bill of materials for creating a phone has dropped drastically over the past few years, there is a focused and successful supply chain in Shenzhen, China,

and a brand does not necessarily need to be in the top five to turn a profit (Keegan, 2021; Yan et al. 2022). However, there is also a reason for scepticism as even more prominent manufacturers can struggle with the extensive competition in the smartphone industry. LG has stopped creating smartphones, Sony now only focus on one phone, BlackBerry barely has a footprint anymore, and Nokia is not remotely close to being the behemoth it used to be (Porter, 2021; Swingle, 2020; Brand Minds, 2018; Savov, 2016). Thus, this should act as a warning that despite the supply chain and availability of resources, entering the smartphone market does not equate to success. With brand trust declining globally, more people rely on trustworthy sources, such as friends, family, and online communities (KPMG, 2022; Marketing Charts, 2020). Therefore, a marketing strategy that might be most viable in this highly competitive market is seeking to make advocates of users. Social media can be a strong marketing strategy as an increasing number of people spend much time on social media (Chaffey, 2022).

Australia and South Africa, like many other countries, are battling unsustainably high levels of consumer debt made even worse by increasing interest rates (O’Brien, 2021). There are various reasons for this. Though many consumers were forced deeper into debt by Covid 19 global consumer credit has steadily been rising for several decades now (Stock, 2021). This started with society gradually shifting from savings and shunning debt to normalizing and actively embracing debt. This shift has several external causes, among them modern advertising and marketing (Czarnecka & Mogagi, 2020) and financial literacy in an ever more complex financial environment (Kurowski, 2021). There are however also several internal factors contributing to a consumer’s propensity for taking on debt and becoming overindebted. This study will examine the internal factors most often identified from previous studies and combine those factors into one model to show how they impact a consumer’s attitude towards debt.

This paper examines the relationship between materialism and status consumption tendencies, and Generation Y students’ attitude towards money. A convenience sample of 630 students was drawn from four campuses of registered South African public higher education institutions. The results show that a statistically significant positive association exists between all three of the factors. The strongest relationship is between materialistic tendencies and both status consumption and attitude towards money, while there is a marginally weaker relationship between status consumption and attitude towards money. This implies that Generation Y students’ attitude towards money is associated with both their materialistic and status consumption tendencies.

This goal of this study was to assess attitude towards store brands, trust in store brands, and brand loyalty among Generation Y individuals towards store brands, focussing on supermarket store food brands. A total of 489 usable questionnaires were analysed to study this relationship. The variables attitude and trust showed significance, which meant that both influenced the variable loyalty. No significant difference between the data from female and male Generation Y individuals was found. As such, it was concluded that female and male Generation Y individuals held the same beliefs regarding store brands. It is recommended that store brands focus on improving their image in order to promote a positive attitude and trust to garner a higher degree of loyalty. Moreover, for stores who do not simply want to market their products as ‘cheaper’, can make use of this study to build brand loyalty.