In today''s vibrant, competitive and globalized market place, increasing customer devotion arises as the utmost significant challenge faced by marketers.The customers are more educated and have access to several varieties which they take little time to exercise.The connection between business fims and their customers has become more challenging over the previous few years, as advanced technologies continue to redefine the customer understandings. The retail industry, more than any other, recognizes how these changes have made business connection more challenging in the new age. In every country, from the least to the most economically developed, consumers rely on retailers to buy the products they need for daily survival and to satisfy their most specific needs and wants.The retail industry is a division of the economy that include individuals and businesses, busy in the selling finished goods to consumers. It adds more than 12% to the worldwide economy and occupies more than 14% of the World labour. Asian markets including Pakistan are providing chances for retailers to penetrate into the market along with the challenging atmosphere in terms of more demanding consumers. Pakistan is presently at the point where customers need diversity in merchandise and retail layouts. Formation of association of retailers with customers will boost the equity of retailers and there is a need to evaluate the impact of customer-retailer relationship in the form of their emotional attachment on retail equity in the retail store setting. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of different retail store attributes on employee-customer-retailer relationship,customers-retailer emotional attachment and xii retail equity on the basis of relationship theory, social identity theory and attachment theory collectively. A non-experimental quantitative research design was used in this study. The study employed a cross-sectional research design in which the participants completed a questionnaire in field survey. Primary data was collected through structured self administered questionnaires from retail store customers and retail store employees in Pakistan. The population of this research consisted of retail store customers who had experience with retail store services and the employees working at the retail store.The sampling frame comprised customers and employees of specialty retail stores operating in Pakistan. For analysis of the data, structural equation modeling was used. The research findings indicate that retail store attributes have a significant positive relationship with employee-retailer relationship, customer-employee relationship and customer-retailer relationship.The results further show that the employee-retailer relationship, customer-employee relationship and customer-retailer relationship have a significant positive impact on components of customer-retailer emotional attachment. The components of customer retailer emotional attachment in this study included customer involvement with store, place involvement of customer with store, customer likability of store and customer commitment with the store. Place involvement factor was the only proposed determinant of customer retailer emotional attachment which was found to have insignificant relationship with retail equity.Finally, the results of the study demonstrate that there is a significant positive relationship among the components of customer-retailer emotional attachment and retail equity. The retail store attributes, employee-customer-retailer relations, customer-retailer emotional attachment and their collective impact on retail equity has not yet been investigated in retail store settings. Therefore, studying relationships on the basis of xiii different theories in such a context would extend the applicability of the concept of customer-retailer emotional attachment and retail equity in an emerging retail industry. This study makes contributions to both industrial and academic fields.It provides a theoretical contribution by filling the gap in the literature by proposing the model on the basis of signaling theory, relationship theory, social identity theory and attachment theory collectively, in which retail store attributes serve as the base for creating and maintaining customer-retailer emotional relationship, leading to the retail equity. This study could further help the retail practitioners to improve their relations with employees and customers thus resulting in their emotional attachment and enhancing their equity and profitability.
Sayyid Muḥammad Moḥsin was Lucknow based poet. The biographers, though, seem unaware of his life and poetic profile. He did interpretative translation of the Holy Qurʼān in Urdu in Mathnavī form with the title of ‘Manẓūm Urdu Tarjama’. This translation was published from Lucknow in 1986. The translation in poetic form asks for technicalities which this work lacked perhaps. This article surfaces errors which were identified in areas of poetic exposition, concept formation and stylistic coherence in the translation work.
Mango is one of the highly perishable fruit that ripe quickly after harvest. Rapid fruit softening, reduced shelf and storage life limits its distribution to distant markets. The aims of current study were to a) optimize storage temperature in relation to fruit softening; b) physiological management of postharvest fruit softening and c) quality of mango cv. Samar Bahisht Chaunsa with exogenous application of various anti-ripening agents. In various independent experiments, postharvest applications of putrescine (PUT; 0.0, 0.1, 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 mM), salicylic acid (SA; 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 or 4.0 mM), oxalic acid (OA; 0.0, 1.0, 3.0 or 2.0 mM) or calcium chloride (CaCl2; 0.0, 1.0, 3.0 or 5.0%) were applied on mango after harvest to assess their impact on delayed fruit ripening, storage life extension, fruit quality, activities of fruit softening and antioxidative enzymes in the pulp tissues throughout the ripening (7-9 days) and cold storage (28 days) periods. In first experiment, during ripening at ambient conditions (25 ± 1°C; 60-65% RH), a gradual rise was noticed in fruit biochemical attributes such as SSC, SSA:TA ratio, total sugars, reducing and non-reducing sugars; however, ascorbic acid contents and TA showed a declining trend. Furthermore, a progressive increase was observed in the activities of fruit softening enzymes including exo- PG, endo-PG and EGase; whilst, PE activity decreased throughout the ripening period. The activities of CAT and POX enzymes along with total antioxidants were noticed at their peaks two days prior to full fruit ripening. In second experiment, among different cold storage temperatures, 12°C was found to be optimum to maintain best fruit quality characters. The activities of fruit softening enzymes were significantly suppressed at 10°C, as compared to 12°C and 14°C. Total phenolic and antioxidant contents and the activities of CAT, POX and SOD enzymes were reported higher at 14°C than 10°C and 12°C during cold storage. In third experiment, exogenous application of PUT (2 mM) treatments inhibited the ethylene production, respiration rate and maintained higher fruit firmness during ripening as well as cold storage. Fruit treated with 2 mM PUT exhibited a significant reduction in the activities of fruit softening enzymes i.e. exo-PG, endo-PG and EGase; however, maintained higher PE activity in pulp tissues during ripening and cold storage period. Total phenolic and antioxidants contents were significantly higher in 2 mM PUT-treated fruit during the entire ripening and cold storage period than control. The activities of antioxidative enzymes (CAT, POX and SOD) were significantly higher in 2 mM PUT-treated fruit during ripening and cold Abstract xxv storage periods. The SSC contents and SSC:TA ratio were lower in PUT-treated fruit; while, TA and ascorbic acid contents showed a reverse trend. In fourth experiment, the higher concentration of SA (4 mM) inhibited the ethylene production, respiration rate and suppressed the activities of fruit softening enzymes (exo-, endo-PG) with higher activities of PE and antioxidative (SOD, POX and CAT) enzymes, TA, ascorbic acid, total phenolic and antioxidant contents during ripening and cold storage period. During fifth experiment, exogenous application of OA (5 mM) reduced the ethylene production, respiration rate and delayed softening of mango fruit. The reduction and delay in fruit softening during ripening and cold storage was associated with higher PE activity or suppressed activity of exo-PG enzyme in pulp tissues of 5 mM OA-treated fruit. The OA-treated fruit (5 mM) showed increased activities of CAT, POX and SOD enzymes with higher levels of total phenolic and antioxidant contents during ripening and cold storage. The OA-treated fruit exhibited lower SSC contents and SSC:TA ratio; while, TA and ascorbic acid contents were higher throughout the ripening as well as cold storage periods. In the sixth experiment, delay in ripening of ‘Samar Bahisht Chaunsa’ mango fruit was associated with CaCl2 treatment mainly due to inhibition of respiration rate and ethylene production. The exo-PG, endo-PG, PE and EGase activities were significantly suppressed in 5% CaCl2-treated fruit, as compared to control throughout the ripening and cold storage periods. The 5% CaCl2 application showed a reduction in oxidative injury caused by reactive oxygen species through increased activities of antioxidative enzymes i.e. CAT, POX and SOD. During the seventh confirmatory trail, postharvest application of various anti-ripening compounds (2 mM PUT, 4 mM SA, 5 mM OA and 5% CaCl2) delayed the ethylene production and maintained an acceptable fruit quality during the course of study. The activities of fruit softening enzymes such as exo-PG, endo-PG, PE and EGase were significantly suppressed by the application of different anti-ripening chemicals throughout the trials. The use of various chemicals demonstrated elevated activities of antioxidative enzymes (CAT, POX and SOD) than control. In nutshell, the exogenous treatment of PUT (2 mM), SA (4 mM), OA (5 mM) or CaCl2 (5%) may extends the postharvest shelf and storage life of ‘Samar Bahisht Chaunsa’ mango fruit. Moreover, fruit treated with 2 mM PUT and 5% CaCl2 suppressed the activities of fruit softening enzymes; while, 2 mM OA and 4 mM SA exhibited higher activities of antioxidative enzymes with better quality of mango fruit.