Overview of retailers' merchandising and innovation strategy

Abstract

Boundary spanning involves linking internal networks with external sources of information. Professor Changju Kim, College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, is among researchers investigating the role of boundary spanners and is doing so within a new field of retail company research. He and his team are conducting various strands of research focused on continuous improvement theory in the field of management. This concerns management issues, such as employee motivation and training, and how these improvements interact with organisational design inside and outside of the company. The studies can then be linked to the qualitative and quantitative results of the company. Kim's research applies the theory of continuous improvement and research results in the field of organisation to retail company research, with a view to solving the problem of buyer management in innovative purchasing activities. Important to this research is associating buyers' purchasing behaviour, inter-firm relationships and internal organisations in issues of purchasing strategies in retail companies in recent years. Kim hopes the work will contribute to the theoretical development of conventional retail company research and channel research. In recent work, the team has been exploring how marketing enables firms to continually create innovative customer value, which includes looking at how creative marketing accelerates a company's growth engine.