Strategic Managerial Shift at Retail Stores to Boost Positivity Among Employees in Post-Pandemic Scenario

Abstract

Retail is one of the most severely impacted sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic. The end of a pandemic is no relief for managers as the recovery phase is all the more challenging. In the 'new normal,' consumers' reluctance to visit stores adds to retail store managers' global challenges. Store managers had to rethink their business plans to innovate for sustenance. The article demonstrates a novel approach to discovering the strategic shift of the managers of the retail stores for apparel to boost positivity from the employees' subjective perspective in the post-pandemic era. Dynamic, ingenious, and morally stable leadership styles help to draw insights for exploring the mechanism with which the managers of the retail stores of apparel brands induce positive organizational behavior—the links of the constructs of a theoretical model frame into hypotheses. The sample is of 300 employees in apparel retail stores. Structural equation modeling empirically validated the approaches. The findings revealed that only an ingenious leadership style could induce positivity among the current employees in apparel retail stores. The study will give valuable insights into the applications of store managers to implement novel strategic decisions in their leadership styles.