The Recession, Customer’s Attitudes and Management Responses in the Retail Industry: A Case Study of as Watsons

The recession, customer’s attitudes and management responses in the retail industry: A case study of As Watsons (Savers).

A Masters of Business Administration thesis submitted to

Roehampton University

&

City Banking College

By

Kwabena Sekyere Kwaa Owusu – Adansi

November 2011

DECLARATION

I, Kwabena Sekyere Kwaa Owusu – Adansi, hereby declare that this piece of complies with the Roehampton University faculty of Business regulations on plagiarism issues. As best academic practice requires, credits have been given to all supporting views, ideas, citations and arguments of Authors from other published work. These acknowledged works have been properly referenced using the Harvard referencing system and this piece of work has not been entirely or partially submitted to any university for academic purposes.  

Signed ________________________________ Date________________________________  

ABSTRACT

The talk of today’s business world is how businesses can survive and gain competitive advantage in the recession. This research investigates the numerous solutions that have been put across by several writers on the solutions to the recession.  The research goes beyond a merely descriptive approach by investigation and finding out the experiences of customers and making recommendations on how to survive the recession and gain competitive advantage as a business, based on these findings.  

Many organisations are folding up due to lack of knowledge on what has to be done in order to survive and gain competitive advantage in the recession. This lead to the aim of this research which is to provide solutions that work out of the numerous solutions proposed by several writers on how to survive a recession.

The objectives of the research are one, to analyse and assess the literature on customer behaviour and the recession. Two, to assess the views of customers of the retail industry. Three, to assess the responses of management in the retail industry. The literature that was reviewed also presented contradicting views which has been addressed by the research.

The research makes use of a quantitative research methodology as the guide to the research. An open and closed ended questionnaire was used to collect data from participants of the research. SPSS 17 was used to analyses the data collected.

The results of the tests show that most of the solutions put forward by most theorist and academics work but not for the retail industry.         

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The successful completion of this research is a result of the unconditional help and support that was given in several ways by stakeholders of this research. I feel highly indebted to these fellows as this thesis would not have been possible without their intervention.

First and foremost, I thank God for seeing me through this milestone in my life. I want to show my gratitude to my Supervisor Hamid Khan amid Khan for supervising my research although I have not been the best of students. His guidance and encouragements was my motivation whenever I wanted to give it all up. I also owe my deepest gratitude to Professor Michael Dawson for his support during the early stages of the project.

I will like the thank my colleagues Akwasi Mensah Agyei and Elena Nabokova for giving their views, advise and  time out of their busy schedule. I am grateful to all City Banking College staff. It is a pleasure thanking you all on behaves of my colleagues.    

Table of Contents

DECLARATION        2

ABSTRACT        3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT        4

CHAPTER: 1. INTODUCTION AND CONTEXT        6

1.1        Background of research        6

1.2        Research aims        9

1.3        Significance of the study        9

1.4        Research organisation        11

1.5        Research objectives        11

1.6        Methodology in brief        12

1.7        Structure of the dissertation        12

CHAPTER: 2. LITERATURE REVIEW        13

2.1 Introduction.        13

2.2 Definition        14

2.3 Causes        15

2.4.1 Effects        15

2.4.2 Impact on customers        16

2.4.3 Impact on businesses        17

2.5 Possible solutions        19

2.6 Conclusions        24

CHAPTER: 3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY        26

3.1.1 Research Philosophy        26

3.1.2 Research approach        27

3.1.3 Research strategy        28

3.1.4 Time horizons        29

3.1.5 Sampling        29

3.2. Ethical Issues        31

3.3. Data sources for the investigation        31

3.4. Research instrument        32

3.4.1. Instrument Justification        32

3.4.2. Instrument design        33

3.4.3 The “Pilot” run.        34

3.5. Data analysis methods employed        35

3.6. Reliability and validity        35

3.6.1 Reliability        36

3.6.2 Validity        36

3.6.3 Summary of the chapter.        37

CHAPTER: 4 ANALYSES AND EVALUATION OF DATA.        38

4.1 Introduction        38

4.2 Presentation of data.        38

4.3 Evaluation and analysis of SPSS summary.        58

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION.        68

5.0 Introduction.        68