Discuss about the Explaining and Testing Aboriginal Model.
About 24 shopping malls are opened each year in Australia. Existing shopping malls have also continued to grow and expand through redevelopments (Voyce 2017). Therefore, the relevance of the research problem is given by the rapid development and expansion of shopping malls in Australia. The best illustration of the success of shopping malls in Australia is Westfield Garden City mall. Since its opening in October 1971, Westfield Garden City mall has continued to grow and expand. It is therefore essential to look at the factors that influence the success of shopping malls in Australia (Voyce 2017).
While malls in countries like the United States are struggling, there has been continued development and expansion of shopping malls in Australia. For instance, no major shopping mall has been opened in the United States for the last three years (Voyce 2017). Some people are speculating that the last mall in the United States has been built. Therefore, it is essential to look at the factors that have led to the success of shopping malls in Australia in a way that other countries including the United States are envying.
Also, with the growth of the middle class, the relationship between pleasure and consumption has grown. Finally, digital transformations and e-commerce have reshaped the expectations of consumers. Consumers now expect shopping malls also to provide entertainment experiences. With these trends across the globe, there is need to rethink ways in which malls can be made successful. Looking at the factors influencing the success of malls in Australia is vital if the development and expansion of malls are to be sustained.
A shopping mall can be defined as a building or many buildings creating a complex of shops that represent merchandisers, with walkways that are interconnected enabling visitors to walk across units (Voyce 2017). Since its opening in 1971, Westfield Garden City mall has continued to expand and grow. For instance, the year 2014 saw the expansion of the mall when Myer department store, Target department store, and Aldi supermarket were added to the shopping mall. About 100 specialty stores and a market precinct were also added in the same year (Voyce 2017). The continued expansion of the Westfield Garden City mall creates the need to delve deeper into factors that influence the success of shopping malls in light of the changing global trends as discussed in the section above.
In addition, due to the increasing number of dead malls in the United States, this research study will provide a framework to avoid the emergence of dead malls phenomenon in Australia. Though Westfield Garden City mall high occupancy, the changing global trends present an opportunity for growth through innovation.
In this research proposal, management problems can be identified from the background of the research problem. Concerning the ‘dead malls’ phenomenon in the United States, Westfield Garden City mall should learn different factors that influence the success of malls, explore the factors, and determine how they will apply those factors to ensure continues success of the mall.
The background information provided earlier form basis management decision to deal with the problem of exploring different factors to find how they will be applied in the mall to enhance customer experience. In making sure that the Westfield Garden City mall remains successful and continues to expand, management of the mall needs to keep abreast with the changing trends and customer expectations. This research will help shed light on the new trends and customer expectations.
The purpose of this section is to review relevant existing research studies to have an in-depth knowledge of the management problem identified in the section above. The literature review seeks to provide insight into the factors that influence the success of shopping malls. It will also look into the reasons why shopping malls in other countries like the United States are dying. Additionally, the literature review will provide an understanding of the reasons why malls in Australia have been generally successful in comparison to other malls in other countries.
Failure or success of a shopping mall depends on various factors. For a shopping mall to be successful, the long and short-term strategic planning before opening a shopping mall. According to Joshi (2014), the factors that influence the success of malls are the strategic location, a wide range of tenant mix, ample parking space, and effective marketing and promotion strategy. Reikli (2013) adds that strategic location is one of the significant factors that can give a shopping mall competitive edge. Strategic location also implies that there is easy accessibility to the shopping mall.
Beyard (2015) defines tenant mix as the combination of measurement factors like retail space allocation, unit number occupied by each category of tenants, and the manner in which the tenants are placed in the shopping mall. Coughlin (2015) opined that an effective tenant mix is critical to both the management of the shopping mall and tenants and their customers. Angus (2014) asserts that successful tenant mix and location of stores in shopping malls result in higher profitability. She adds that a proper tenant mix attracts customers into shopping malls.
According to Wittig (2017), plan of marketing is a prerequisite to improving customer traffic and sales of a shopping mall. He adds that marketing plans should include activities such as live shows, competitions, exhibitions, charity campaigns, and community events. Mattessich (2014) also argued in support of marketing and promotion strategy. However, he added that the promotional activities should be carried out during seasonal periods like festive seasons to attract more customers into the shopping malls.
Covey (2012) asserted that crowd levels, physical design, accessibility, and tenant mix are essential variables to manage cognitive and effective responses from customers’ minds. He added that the environment of a shopping mall should be in such a way that it brings peacefulness and excitement, and prevent frustration and stress. On the other hand, (Weberman 2016) suggested that status of vacancy, location, and probabilities of income generation are the crucial factors that influence the success of shopping malls. These are important determinants of success because they are the critical performance indicators. On the contrary, (Glaser 2012) pointed out that poor management of malls is the leading cause of the collapse of shopping malls.
Ferreira and Paiva (2016) emphasized customer experience in the shopping malls. In their research study, they asserted that new elements of design must be incorporated in the common areas of the shopping malls. Also, digital technology should be used alongside visual merchandising to enhance customer experience. Entertainment categories like cinemas and food and beverage categories should be represented well to improve customer engagement. This is emphasized further by Batt (2016). According to Batt (2016), shopping malls should offer different engaging facilities to encourage customers to visit the malls. He adds that management of shopping malls need to focus on the convenience of customers and provide ample parking facilities to motivate customers to visit.
Beyard (2015) concluded that food facilities and entertainment incorporation, quality service, and socializing facilities are the factors that influence the success of shopping malls. Weberman (2016) added that apart from the facilities in the malls, development scale is essential because it incorporates effective planning of the layout of design with broad areas of circulation hence creating ease of shopping. Furthermore, it helps fulfill the shopping needs of the whole family in one place. The study by Ferreira and Paiva (2016) also pointed out that the development scale of a shopping mall helps in diversifying tenant mix. Covey (2012) suggested that shopping mall developers should endeavor to make spaces in malls vibrant by incorporating leisure in the shopping experience, create many quality spaces because brands prefer optimal designs. Therefore, there it is necessary to develop major differentiators on a mall (Ferreira and Paiva 2016).
Creswell (2014) defines research design as a roadmap for carrying out a research study while having maximum control of factors that may affect the validity of the research findings. However, Abbott and McKinney (2013) describe research design as a plan that indicates how, where, and when data are to be collected and analyzed. Yin (2013) indicates that a research designs is how a researcher answers the research question or hypothesis testing. Since this research is a case study, it is non-experimental, exploratory, contextual and descriptive.
This research is a case study. Case studies are specifically used when a researcher is concerned that quantitative data will not be able to give a holistic and in-depth explanation of behavioral and social issues (Abbott and McKinney 2013). Because this research will be a case study, it will go beyond quantitative and statistical research. Therefore, the researcher will be able to have a clear understanding through the perspectives of the respondents. Case study makes it easy to achieve the goals of this research as the research seeks to investigate a real-life phenomenon (Creswell 2014). Case studies help in capturing situations that are complex, and may not be obtained by experimental or survey research (Creswell 2014).
Also, case studies are suitable for research studies that are exploratory because they help researchers gain an in-depth understanding of research contexts and the processes that are being presented. Boix and Stokes (2007) opine that case studies are suitable where there are no generalizable theories. They add that case studies are appropriate where previous research has been biased, subjective, and cannot be replicated. Thus, although case studies have been criticized for lack of external validity and reliability, they still help in gaining insight into research problems that few researchers have previously taken into consideration (Yin 2013).
Since this is a case study, interviews will be appropriate. Interviews are useful where a researcher is carrying out a research study on real-life issues. Interviews will also help the researcher to ask interviewees follow up questions that make it easy to understand clearly the research problem.
In this research study, both primary and secondary data will be used. Primary data from tenants and customers of Westfield Garden City mall will be collected through interviews. On the other hand, secondary data will be collected from records of sales of different businesses in the Westfield Garden City mall. The data of past sales in the mall will also be collected. The reason for collecting both primary and secondary data will be to cover all aspects of the research study (Bernard et al. 2016). Primary data also helps when a researcher seeks to study behavioral phenomena (Abbott and McKinney 2013).
Since this is a qualitative research, there are research questions that the researcher will seek to provide answers for. The research questions are;
Since this research will make use qualitative data, the data will be collected through open-ended interviews. It is important to note that qualitative data will be used in this research because human behavior is best captured by use of qualitative data (Ibrahim 2012). Therefore, qualitative data will be used in order to evaluate the factors that influence the success of shopping malls.
The data that will be used in this research will be collected mainly through interviews. However, secondary data will also be used as stated above. Gill, et al. (2008) asserted that interviews offer qualitative methods of data collection as information is not always in terms of numbers. In relation to this research, it will be vital to use semi-structured interviews. In semi-structured interviews, the researcher may have a list of questions and topics to be covered (Bernard et al. 2016). However, the questions and topics may vary from interview to interview, and the researcher will ask additional questions where appropriate (Saunders et al. 2015).
Qualitative data collection is usually dependent on interpretation, implying that the data requires several explanations (Ibrahim 2012). This is because qualitative data is usually collected in huge amounts. Braun and Clarke (2006) assert that thematic analysis is always appropriate in the analysis of qualitative data. They noted that thematic analysis and grounded theory are similar with regards to themes or coding procedures. However, some differences exist despite the mentioned similarities. If the used sample is defined and determined, thematic analysis becomes suitable. Ibrahim (2012) argue that thematic analysis is appropriate in analyzing classifications, and presenting themes and patterns that relate to the data collected.
Thematic analysis helps in illustrating qualitative data in detail and deals with subjects that are varied through interpretations (Bernard et al. 2016). Therefore, thematic analysis is considered to be suitable for research studies that aim to make discoveries by data interpretation and offers a systematic element of data analysis (Auerbach and Silverstein 2003). Thematic analysis enables a researcher to theme frequency analysis with the entire content (Bernard et al. 2016). This leads to quality and accuracy and enhances the researcher’s whole meaning. A researcher is also able to understand issues clearly and comprehensively through thematic analysis (Saunders et al. 2015).
In this context, the research will make use of thematic analysis. According to Braun and Clarke (2006), thematic analysis provides researchers with a theoretically accessible and flexible approach to the qualitative data analysis. It is important to note that thematic analysis enables a researcher to identify, analyze, and report themes or patterns within data (Auerbach and Silverstein 2003). Since this will be qualitative research, a thematic analysis will be an ideal method of data analysis.
The intimacy and relationship between participants and a researcher in qualitative research can raise some ethical concerns (Miller 2015). Researchers in qualitative studies are faced with dilemmas like privacy respect, the establishment of open and genuine interactions, and preventing misrepresentations (Miller 2015). Ethical issues may come up if a researcher has to deal with issues that are contradicting. Some of the critical ethical issues that should be considered in a qualitative research study are confidentiality, anonymity, and informed consent (Hammersley and Traianou 2013).
Interviews in qualitative research have various advantages. Interviews help in building a snapshot that is holistic, analyzes words, reports views of interviewees in detail. Interviews also allow interviewees to speak freely in their own voice and express their feelings and thoughts in their own words (Abbott and McKinney 2013). However, there are certain limitations of using interviews as a method of data collection. Interviews are time-consuming, there is a high probability of bias and inconsistencies. Interviews also cannot guarantee interviewees 100 percent anonymity. For this reason, interviewees may not be able to speak freely (Auerbach and Silverstein 2003).
There are expenses that will be possible incurred in conducting this research. For instance, printing research questions for interview purposes will cost about 30 dollars. In total, the budget for this proposal will be about 150 dollars.
References
Abbott, M. L. & McKinney, J., 2013. Understanding and Applying Research Design. 2nd ed. London: Wiley.
Angus, M., 2014. Tenant mix structure in shopping centers: some empirical analyses from Poland. Journal of Business Management, II(3), pp. 78-112.
Auerbach, C. & Silverstein, L., 2003. Qualitative Data: An Introduction to Coding and Analysis. 2nd ed. New York: NYU Press.
Batt, P. J., 2016. Factors influencing the consumer’s choice of retail store. Journal of Consumer Research, IX(13), pp. 7-85.
Bernard, R. H., Wutich, A. & Ryan, G. W., 2016. Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches. 2nd ed. New York: SAGE Publications.
Beyard, M. D., 2015. Analysis of Tenant mix in shopping malls. Journal of Business Management, IV(4), pp. 7-34.
Boix, C. & Stokes, S. C., 2007. The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Braun, V. & Clarke, V., 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, III(2), pp. 77-101.
Coughlin, J., 2015. Tenant Mix Variety in Regional Shopping Centers. Journal of Real Estate and Planning, II(1), pp. 57-68.
Covey, S. R., 2012. Successful Shopping Centers. Journal of Retail Business, I(4), pp. 17-28.
Creswell, J. W., 2014. Research Design. 4th ed. Washington DC: SAGE Publications.
Ferreira, D. & Paiva, D., 2016. The death and life of shopping malls: an empirical investigation on the dead malls in Greater Lisbon. The International Review of Retail, Distributiong, and Consumer Research, VII(10), pp. 53-98.
Gill, P., Stewart, W. K., Blue, T. E. & Chadwick, F. B., 2008. Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups. British Dental Journal , III(5), pp. 1-3.
Glaser, M., 2012. The Relationship between Shopping Mall Attributes, Customer. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, I(2), pp. 67-107.
Hammersley, M. & Traianou, A., 2013. Ethics in Qualitative Research: Controversies and Contexts. 2nd ed. New York: SAGE Publications.
Ibrahim, A. M., 2012. Thematic Analysis: A Critical Review of its Process and Evaluation. West East Journal of Social Sciences, 1(I), pp. 1-9.
Joshi, K. K., 2014. Factors Affecting the Perfomance of Shopping Malls. Journal of Business and Management, II(3), pp. 78-102.
Mattessich, P. W., 2014. Determining Factors in Enhancing a Shopping Center’s Value Upon. Journal of Business Management, V(1), pp. 45-97.
Miller, T., 2015. Ethics in Qualitative Research. 3rd ed. London: Oxford University Press.
Reikli, M., 2013. The key of Success in Shopping Malls. Journal of Business Management and Strategy, III(1), pp. 98-102.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A., 2015. Research Methods for Business Students. 7th ed. New York: Pearson Education Limited.
Voyce, M., 2017. Shopping malls in Australia. Journal of Real Estate and Business Management, I(3), pp. 15-88.
Weberman, D., 2016. Explaining and Testing the Aboriginal Model of Shopping Malls. Journal of Management Studies, V(2), pp. 19-43.
Wittig, S. B., 2017. Modeling the tenant mix of a shopping center. Journal of International Real Estate, IV(5), pp. 89-95.
Yin, R. K., 2013. Case study Research Design and Methods. 5th ed. London: Oxford University Press.
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