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Despite the inclusive beneficiation inherent in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), emergent literature suggests that it has become a serendipitous differentiation strategy. However, scarce in pre-emerging economies are integrated and robustly tested models linking the CSR dimensions to consumer brand preference. Based on the sustain-centric model, this research examines the impact of perceived economic, social and environmental CSR on corporate brand credibility, consumer brand attitude and consumer brand preference. A causal research design enrolling a Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modelling (CB-SEM) methodology is employed to examine the proposed structural relationships in IBM SPSS AMOS (used under license). Using convenience sampling, customers in the telecommunications sector in Harare were sampled and 266 valid responses estimated model parameters. Positive and significant effects were observed between the dimensions of CSR (perceived economic, environmental and social CSR), corporate brand credibility and consumer brand attitude, save for environmental CSR and consumer brand attitude. Corporate brand credibility positively and significantly influenced both consumer brand attitude and consumer brand preference whilst the positive impact of consumer brand attitude on consumer brand preference was also evident. Our research also contributes that consumers in developing economies relatively score lower in the environmentalism orientation index as the causal link between environmental CSR and consumer brand attitudes did not confirm a positive and significant impact. This paper enlightens corporate managers on the influence of CSR on brand acceptance in consumer markets. Further, it also demonstrates the relative impacts of the CSR dimensions, providing a proxy for resource allocation on competing CSR projects.

Service encounter incivility is a common phenomenon across a broad spectrum of service industries globally. This paper examined the impact of service encounter incivility on employee job stress, turnover intentions and labor attrition in the fast food service industry in Zimbabwe. The Stressor-Stress-Outcome (SSO) framework and the Emotional labor theory underpinned this investigation. The study targeted frontline employees in the fast food service providers in Harare. An explanatory design and a quantitative approach were adopted. Using randomization and a structured hand administered questionnaire, 254 valid responses were obtained. Findings obtained through covariance based Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) confirmed the significant effect of customer incivility on employee incivility and employee job stress. The findings also revealed that employee incivility affects employee job stress. The positive influence of employee job stress on turnover intentions was also evident. The results were also confirmatory of positive effect of turnover intentions on labor attrition. The paper recommends that fast food service providers should foster contact employee training, better reward strategies, employee recovery and employee empowerment. Customer education on service site processes and procedures, standardisation of processes and technology were also urged to reduce incidences of service encounter incivility and labor turnover in the fast food industry in Zimbabwe.

AbstractSupplier development in the form of contract farming has become the main sourcing strategy in agro-processing industry. However, it is not yet clear from the extant literature how investments in contract farming contribute towards yield per yield. More specifically, this study sought to determine the effects of supplier development in contract farming investments on cotton yield in kilograms per hectare. It furthermore, seeks to unravel whether contract farming initiatives lead to the yield that exceeds 2000 kg/hectare as specified by the Zimbabwe regulatory authority’s target. The study uses secondary data obtained on average national cotton contact farming investments per hectare in monetary terms. The output yield per hectare is obtainable from several publications by the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA). The statistics cover the period between year 2011 and 2016. Statistical data analysis of the study is accessed through the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) using simple linear regression for the first hypothesis, and One-sample t-test for the second hypothesis. Supplier development initiatives’ impact on yield is found to be statistically significant indicating that for every one unit increase in dollar investments yield changes by 1.161 kg of harvested cotton seed. The results also show that the mean cotton yield in kg/hectare is by far below the national set target of two thousand (2000) kg/hactare. The study recommends that the levels of investments ought to be increased in order to impact positively on yield in order to attain the desired yield per hectare.

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to establish the extent to which brand consciousness and brand distinctiveness influence customer purchase decisions. The thrust was on interrogating whether there were any symbiotic relations between luxury beauty products’ brand consciousness, brand distinctiveness, and affluent consumers’ purchase decisions in terms of the need for simplification of cognitive tasks, in a turbulent pre-emerging market of Zimbabwe. Data was collected from five shopping malls situated in affluent suburbs by intercepting 200 consenting customers who would have bought a luxury beauty product to complete questionnaires. Analysis was done through structural equation modeling on SPSS AMOS. Results revealed that both brand consciousness and distinctiveness were closely related and also had a positive significant effect on customers’ purchase decisions. Managerial and intellectual implications were provided.

AbstractThe serendipitous emergence of social media at the turn of this century created new uncensored avenues for the advertising industry. This created conditions conducive to peddling controversial ads or shockvertising. Controversial ads came as a result of the need to breakthrough the advertising clutter. The pervasiveness of controversial ads created mixed feelings among the audience. In order to avoid offending some target markets, advertisers are now faced with a daunting task of channeling their controversial ads to the target market groups that are likely to respond favorably. This study therefore seeks to determine the differential effects of controversial advertisements across various demographic groups. A sample of 1200 respondents was surveyed from one of the leading fast-food restaurants that regularly flight controversial ads laced with sexual humor in Zimbabwe. The data were analyzed using factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study revealed that in general shockvertising was well appreciated across all demographic groups studied. There were some differential effects of age and marital status on the ad evaluation. However, there were no differential effects on gender, religion, and levels of education on ad evaluation. The study recommended the use of controversial ads as they can manage to cut through the information clutter. Advertisers, however, should emphasize more on the youth and the single consumers since they appreciate controversial ads more than other demographic groups.

AbstractThe study sought to determine the role of vendor-managed inventory and form postponement in mitigating against the bullwhip effect in the bakery industry. The bullwhip effect is referred to as demand distortions along the upstream supply chain that is caused by variances between supply and demand. The bullwhip effect was conceptualized by its indicators that are overstocking, obsolescence, and inventory holding costs. A survey of conveniently chosen 100 bakeries was conducted in the city of Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. The informants for individual bakeries were competent bookkeepers or qualified accountants. A factorial MANOVA and follow-up ANOVAs using the Bonferroni method were conducted. The study indicated statistically significant main effects and interaction effects for all the factors and concluded that all the indicators of the bullwhip effect can be mitigated if bakery businesses pursued either or both of the vendor-management inventory and the form postponement strategies. The managerial implications of this study were that bakery businesses can avoid the consequences of the bullwhip effect through investing in plant and equipment that enables form postponement, and strengthen the widely practiced vendor-management strategy.

Supplier development in the farming industry takes the form of contract farming. Contract farming was introduced to tobacco farming in 2004. Prior to that contract farming has been thriving in other crops such as cotton and sugarcane. Previous studies on tobacco farming had an unbalanced focus on the social aspects of contract farming thereby largely neglecting the economic benefits of the same phenomenon. This study therefore seeks to determine how supplier development in the form of contract farming impact on supplier performances. A survey of 20 tobacco firms who had to rate 400 farmers was conducted, and the findings indicated that contract farming leads to improved cost performance and quality performance. However, the study recorded no statistically significant effects of contract farming on delivery performance. It was therefore recommended that contract farming structures must be strengthened in order to reap on the achieved benefits in terms of improved cost performance and quality performance.

The study sought to determine the effects of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) on service quality of catering services in the tertiary education industry. Specifically, the outcome variables were food quality, service quality, and the quality of ambience. A statistically determined sample size of 200 was surveyed over a period of one month. The findings indicated that BPO has got statistical significance on all the hypothesised variables. Based on the results attained it was recommended that tertiary education institutions must outsource non-core functions like catering services and concentrate on the provision of education services which are inherently their core business.