Department Store Apparel Buyers: Relationships Among Environmental Characteristics, Environmental Uncertainty, Boundary Spanning Activities, Managerial Discretion and Power

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore the relationships among environmental characteristics, uncertainty, boundary spanning activities, managerial discretion, and power of the department store apparel buyer who assumes combination or independent buyer responsibilities. Almubarek's Model of Organizational Boundary Spanning and Duncan's (1972) Model of Environmental Uncertainty were used as conceptual frameworks. A questionnaire was mailed to buyers who purchased merchandise in the moderate-to-better sportswear areas in the top 10 department store groups in the United States.The results generated support for the nature of relationships found among the variables in Almubarek's Model: a complex, dynamic environment leads to environmental uncertainty and perceptions of uncertainty trigger the use of boundary spanning activities which enhances the power of the buyer. In addition, the placement of apparel retailers within Duncan's (1972) Model should be revised to reflect a highly uncertain environment.

Improving the crystal ball: harnessing consumer input to create retail prediction markets

“…In recent years, department store consumers have voiced dissatisfaction over poor style choices, inadequate sizes, and stockouts (Lazorchak and O'Neal, 2001). As a result, major retailers such as the Gap, Dillard's, Federated, and Saks have had to resort to significant discounting of their merchandise to unload products that could not be sold at or near full retail price due to a mismatch between forecasted and actual consumer demand for the items in the store (Derby and Zaczkiewicz, 2006;Young, 2006).…”