مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

 مجله تحقیقات بازاریابی – Journal of Business Research

Retailing is a complex and multifaceted cultural activity that includes not only experiential (Mathwick, Malhotra, & Rigdon, 2001), ludic (Kozinets et al., 2004), or esthetic (Joy, Wang, Chan, Sherry, & Cui, 2014) dimensions but also social dimensions (Ellen, Mohr, & Webb, 2000; Handelman & Arnold, 1999). In a customer-oriented industry such as retailing, consumers pay strong attention to how retailers observe some moral and societal obligations (Brown & Dacin, 1997). In a context where firms have to behave in a socially appropriate way (Humphreys & Latour, 2013) and comply with obligations to society that go beyond profit-making activities (Maignan & Ferrell, 2004) to be perceived as legitimate, adopting such social actions may help retailers to increase their legitimacy and reach social acceptance by the constituents of their environment (Chaney & Marshall, 2013; Suchman, 1995). Such legitimacy gained by retailers is emphasized as a necessary condition for success: organizations that implement legitimation strategies receive more support from their stakeholders (Handelman & Arnold, 1999), which makes success easier to achieve (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Yang, Su, & Fam, 2012).

Although the endorsement of different social roles – among which social supportive roles (Rosenbaum, 2006), coordinators of community (Kim, Ha, & Fong, 2014a), and second home (Debenedetti, Oppewal, & Arsel, 2014) – has been highlighted as a source of social acceptance for retailers, the effects of the educational role remain largely underinvestigated. The literature studies the educational role of retailers only in the case of flagship stores and brand museums where consumers can learn about the history of the brand (Hollenbeck, Peters, & Zinkhan, 2008). Yet, retailers can also implement more pedagogical in-store additional services and turn their stores into places where people can engage in and learn from different activities (Sands, Oppewal, & Beverland, 2015), such as painting, scrapbooking, playing music, or even exercising. For instance, in the United States, retailers such as Lowe’s, Michael’s Craft, Lakeshore, A.C. Moore, Pottery Barn, and Home Depot offer free classes for kids where they learn to build wooden toys, birdhouses, picture frames, and treasure boxes (http://freebies.about.com/od/ freestuffforkids/tp/classes-for-kids.htm). In Europe, the French retailer Cultura has implemented a similar added service whereby shoppers can learn painting, sculpturing, or scrapbooking in-store (http://www. cultura.com/ateliers-43.html). The implementation of this specific kind of social action suggests that stores should not be considered only as marketplaces (Bloch, Ridgway, & Dawson, 1994) but also as places of learning where consumers go to discover, practice, and increase their knowledge through courses provided by the retailers.

However, although the effect of different social actions of retailers on their legitimacy and consumers has been studied in the literature (Arnold, Handelman, & Tigert, 1996; Arnold, Kozinets, & Handelman, 2001; Handelman & Arnold, 1999; Kim et al., 2014a), the way these in-store educational activities affect consumer perceptions and subsequent behavior remains unknown. Yet, education refers to universal values (Mason, 2001) and leads to positive social and ethical perceptions (Waples, Antes, Murphy, Connelly, & Mumford, 2009). Because the implementation of such activities might lead consumers to consider retailers to be knowledge providers, consumers might see retailers as extending their social roles to that of educators that are beneficial to the whole society (Handelman & Arnold, 1999). In-store educational activities developed by retailers may thus increase their social acceptance and legitimacy (Carroll, 1991; McGuire, 1963; Suchman, 1995). Therefore, this study proposes and tests a framework whereby the implementation of in-store educational activities increases retailer legitimacy and in turn shopping intentions. Notably, this research also investigates the conditions under which in-store educational activities are beneficial for retailer legitimacy. Specifically, this research examines the crucial role played by corporate attributions, that is, the motives inferred by consumers about the implementation of these activities (Cotte, Coulter, & Moore, 2005; Coulter & Pinto, 1995). When consumers believe the activities are implemented by retailers more in a profitable view (that is, to make money) rather than for their well-being, the value consumers derive from their participation in the activity has a negative effect on legitimacy and subsequent shopping intentions.