BackgroundCommunity advisory boards (CAB) are proposed as one mechanism to carry out successful community based participatory research (CBPR), but the presence of CABs may be insufficient to optimize academic-community partnerships.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with minority members of a CAB partnered with a HIV/AIDS research center and identified three themes.ResultsFirst, lack of trust in researchers included two subthemes: researchers’ lacked respect for community-based organizations’ (CBO’s) interests and paid inadequate attention to building trust. Second, power imbalance included three subthemes: CAB members felt like inferior “token” members, felt that a lack of communication led to disempowerment, and held preconceived beliefs of researchers that led to perceived power imbalance. Third, CAB members suggested best practices, including using collaborations to build trust, actively allocating power, and sharing tangible research benefits with CBOs.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that CABs must be founded on trust and instilled with power to meet the tenets of CBPR.

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PurposeThe study aims to explore how concept stores (theoretically) differ from other experience-based retail formats, and hence, how they (practically) contribute to a diversified retail store portfolio.Design/methodology/approachCase study based on semi-structured, qualitative interviews with seven IKEA retail managers, three industry experts and 26 customers of IKEA concept stores in London and Stockholm.FindingsThe concept store represents a conceptual departure from other experiential store formats. It is neither fully experiential in the sense that it is not only about marketing communications nor is it sales or profit-focused. Its aim is to be an accessible touchpoint that reduces friction on a diversified customer journey with its value to the retail portfolio being that it attracts new and latent customers, mitigates existing inhibiting factors and drives them to other touchpoints.Research limitations/implicationsIdeas about the different characteristics of new store formats and their potential to shape the customer experience are extended. New formats reflect innovation in retailing and are part of a retail portfolio which generates different customer expectations and determinants from traditional store formats which provide the customers' existing reference point.Practical implicationsThe contributions of new formats should be evaluated in light of other existing formats in the portfolio and not isolated. This is particularly true when considering format cannibalisation and the potentially extended customer journey that arises when customers use traditional format stores and new concept format stores simultaneously.Originality/valuePrevious research, using sales metrics and market-based results as performance determinants, suggests negative outcomes for format diversification. Our study suggests that the contributions of the concept store format should be viewed from an overall customer journey perspective and the “performance” of different format based touchpoints are not best captured through traditional sales evaluation methods.