Urban Place Marketing and Retail Agglomeration Customers

Through identifying the attributes of a place that have an influence on the patronage behaviour of urban retail customers, this paper presents a conceptual model that proposes direct and indirect antecedents regarding the different retail-related dimensions associated with urban place attractiveness. An empirical study was conducted whereby the model was tested by surveying approximately five hundred actual consumers at the time they visited a particular town centre for the purposes of shopping. The results showed that the retail tenant mix, the merchandise value and the atmosphere had a direct impact and the product range and the sales personnel an indirect impact upon the evaluation of attractiveness. Furthermore, a number of additional effects towards these antecedents were identified with respect to parking conditions, the non retail tenant mix, manoeuvrability and orientation. This revealed that retailing activities were a major driver of attractiveness for an urban place. The practical implication of these findings suggests that place marketing activities should be proactive in supporting and enabling retailers in fulfilling their roles

Place Marketing and Urban Retail Agglomerations: An examination of shoppers' place attractiveness perceptions

This article approaches the perceptions of shoppers towards urban retail agglomerations from the perspective of place marketing. Acknowledging that place marketers need to be mindful of how place users can be best fulfilled, this research conceptualises the agglomeration as a place marketing site. The literature reveals the role of place users, in particular the retail customers, in the place formation process. As such, an evaluation framework proposes antecedents of (retail-related) place attractiveness in order to understand what the key drivers of this behaviour are. An empirical study is presented involving almost 500 face-to-face interviews of shoppers at the time they visit a town centre. The results show that the retail tenant mix and the atmosphere influence attractiveness most significantly. Critical reflection of the literature, with respect to the empirical findings, reveals the crucial necessity to understand and integrate the place user’ s point of view into the concept of place marketing. This research addresses a gap in the literature on place marketing, focusing on place users ’ perceptions as opposed to the dominant theme of place actor’ s strategic needs

Role and Modulation of TRPV1 in Mammalian Spermatozoa: An Updated Review

Based on the abundance of scientific publications, the polymodal sensor TRPV1 is known as one of the most studied proteins within the TRP channel family. This receptor has been found in numerous cell types from different species as well as in spermatozoa. The present review is focused on analyzing the role played by this important channel in the post-ejaculatory life of spermatozoa, where it has been described to be involved in events such as capacitation, acrosome reaction, calcium trafficking, sperm migration, and fertilization. By performing an exhaustive bibliographic search, this review gathers, for the first time, all the modulators of the TRPV1 function that, to our knowledge, were described to date in different species and cell types. Moreover, all those modulators with a relationship with the reproductive process, either found in the female tract, seminal plasma, or spermatozoa, are presented here. Since the sperm migration through the female reproductive tract is one of the most intriguing and less understood events of the fertilization process, in the present work, chemotaxis, thermotaxis, and rheotaxis guiding mechanisms and their relationship with TRPV1 receptor are deeply analyzed, hypothesizing its (in)direct participation during the sperm migration. Last, TRPV1 is presented as a pharmacological target, with a special focus on humans and some pathologies in mammals strictly related to the male reproductive system

Macroeconomic implications of downward wage rigidities

Growth of wages, unemployment, employment and vacancies exhibit strong asymmetries between expansionary and contractionary phases. In this paper we analyze to what degree downward wage rigidities in the bargaining process affect other variables of the economy. We introduce asymmetric wage adjustment costs in a New-Keynesian DSGE model with search and matching frictions in the labor market. We find that the presence of downward wage rigidities strongly improves the fit of the model to the skewness of variables and the relative length of expansionary and contractionary phases even when detrending the data. Due to the asymmetry, wages increase more easily in expansions, which limits vacancy posting and employment creation, similar to the flexible wage case. During contractions nominal wages decrease slowly, shifting the main burden of adjustment to employment and hours worked. The asymmetry also explains the differing transmission of positive and negative demand shocks from wages to inflation. Downward wage rigidities help explaining the asymmetric business cycle of many OECD countries where long and smooth expansions with low growth rates are followed by sharp but short recessions with large negative growth rates. JEL Classification: E31, E52, C61asymmetric adjustment costs, downward wage rigidity, Labor market, non—linear dynamics, Unemployment

The Influence of Environmental Knowledge, Green Product Knowledge, Green Word of Mouth, Greenwashing, and Green Confusion as Mediator of Green Purchase Intention

Global warming is a major concern throughout the world. In this context, the role of consumers in preserving the environment is increasingly under the spotlight. Consumer purchasing decisions can have a significant impact on business practices. This research aims to explore the relationship between environmental knowledge, green product knowledge, green word of mouth, and greenwashing practices which often become challenges in the business environment. Apart from that, the research explains the role of green confusion as a mediator of greenwashing on green purchase intention. This research provides insight for business practitioners in their efforts to support consumers in making environmentally friendly purchasing decisions. The research methodology adopted a quantitative survey approach, with a research population of consumers who were aware of single-use gallon products. In this study, 150 samples were used. The analytical tool used in the research is SMART PLS 4. The research results found that environmental knowledge has a positive and significant effect on green purchase intention. Apart from that, green word of mouth also has a positive but not significant effect on green purchase intention. However, the most interesting result is the relationship between greenwashing and green confusion. Greenwashing was found to have a positive and significant effect on green confusion. Interestingly, when greenwashing is mediated by green confusion, the results have a negative but not significant effect on green purchase intention. The limitation of this research is the sample size. In future research, it is hoped that the research subjects and sample size will be expanded so that better results can be obtained