Information strategies : A Qualitative study in the retail sector

Abstract: Purpose The goal of this research is to define top-down and bottom-up approaches as well as the communication processes and the information flow to see how it is used and matched with day-to-day activities in several retail stores. To meet this goal, the following research questions have been formulated: ● How do organizations use information strategies such as top-down and bottom-up management? ● What are the means to be used in information strategies so that the envisaged objectives can be achieved?  Method To meet that objective, a study has been performed on seven store managers from seven different retail shops through interviews from which the empirical data has been gathered. The latter has been combined with a theoretical framework to achieve the purpose. Findings Based on the empirical results taken from the seven store managers, the authors were able to see and understand how each of them was using information strategies and what were the challenges and improvements related to it. Limitations The authors chose to limit their research to the retail industry in Sweden, therefore the outcome of this study cannot be applied to other industries or countries. Moreover, the interviews have been only given to store managers, which implies that the employees’ perspective on the subject is not analyzed here.