Search results

The purpose of this paper is to consider the development of research in international retailing over the last 20 years and propose a future research agenda within a conceptual framework.

The paper reviews the development of the retail internationalisation literature.

Explains how different research topics have emerged over the years and how researchers have responded methodologically to the different research challenges encountered.

The paper emphasises the importance of journals such as the International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management in the development of the international retailing research domain and discusses the challenge researchers currently have in developing the subject area.

Explores current understanding of the internationalisation process and through the consideration of different activities and processes within the international retail firm proposes a future research agenda.

The paper addresses the achievements of researchers in the area of international retailing over the last 20 years and, within a conceptual framework, explores those lacunae in the knowledge base that require further research.

Retailing has developed from independent merchants to multinational giants operating through global value chains, which has profoundly shaped consumption patterns in Western economies. This constant development currently consists of three global-scale change trajectories – climate change, online consumption, and technological development – that affect the retail industry. Based on this, this chapter concentrates on connecting the development paths of consumption and retailing and identifies various factors that affect the future of international retailing. The authors analyze the changes in institutional logics of international retailing by mapping the past, present, and future of the retail industry and consumption using content analysis of secondary data. The authors pay special attention to the effect of the current Covid-19 crisis on the future development of the retail industry. In the findings of this chapter, the authors recognize institutional logics changes in organizing the position of retailing as a connector of customers and producers, and the authors suggest blockchain to be an emerging new institutional order.

Research into firm internationalisation has identified psychic distance as a key factor in explaining variations in both expansion patterns and organisational performance. Despite the substantial growth in research on the internationalisation of retailing, most contributions have been highly descriptive and generally bereft of coherent theoretical frameworks. This paper postulates that the psychic distance concept may provide an appropriate theoretical framework to explain variations in the organisational performance of retailers operating in the international arena. It is recognised that psychic distance alone cannot explain variations between countries inretailers’ performance. Other factors, such as the strategic decision making process, entry strategy adopted, the nature of the retail offer and the extent of adaptation, and organisational and managerial characteristics also influence the organisational performance of international retailers.

In the stakeholder marketing literature, there have been calls by several researchers to expand the stakeholder domain to incorporate a broader array of stakeholders. In developing this argument in this paper the authors aim to explore a set of stakeholder relationships in an international retailing context, notably those which exist between retail firms and investment banks.

Theoretical ideas are subject to empirical scrutiny from 34 in‐depth interviews with investment banks and senior retail executives from two retail multinationals.

Exploratory findings suggest that US investment banks' ideals were at odds with European retail firms – and both occupied “different thought worlds”. It is concluded that the relationships between financial stakeholders and the retail firm cannot be explained simply by reference to stylised economic interactions, but must also be examined in the light of the cultural contexts and different forms of market system within which different firms emerge, operate and interact.

New strategies such as internationalisation stretch resources and capabilities to a point where retailers invariably will be exposed to different stakeholder issues and stresses. Towards this end, this paper contends that the significant international re‐orientation under way in retailing must be understood within the wider context of stakeholder theory. The paper argues that the full potential of applying stakeholder marketing theory to the internationalisation process of retailers has yet to be realised. From this exploratory research, five research propositions are put forward that might serve as a guide to future research in this area.

Retailer internationalisation (RI) is lacking in detailed empirical research. What is available ignores the critical factors important to the success of retailers operating internationally. Consequently, this exploratory study attempts to unearth various factors, labelled Differential Firm Advantages (DFA), vital to the smooth performance and competitive differentiation of international retail operations. The nature and attributes of DFAs, with specific reference to retailing, are reviewed and subsequent survey results reveal certain DFAs can be regarded as prerequisites for retailers operating in international markets. The underlying structure of differential advantages is also examined, giving the study a further unique dimension. Performance in international markets appears to depend upon the balanced integration of various compatible DFAs. Indeed past experiences show certain UK‐based international retailers have had problems in achieving this equilibrium.

The article attempts to synthesise major developments in global retailing and presents a scenario of important global trends since the 1960s. Implications are also offered for international retailers.

This empirical research, adopting an international retailing perspective, aims to examine the parenting advantages offered by emerging market multinationals (EMNCs) in luxury fashion retail sector.

The researchers adopted a qualitative case study, and the qualitative data were collected through ten semi-structured interviews with senior managers.

It is a win–win situation for the EMNCs as parent groups of Western luxury fashion brands, as the EMNCs can access critical assets including advanced brand management expertise, retailing know-how, and the services skills needed for higher income consumers. Meanwhile, the subsidiary brands benefit from a high degree of autonomy, intra-group resource utilisation, a competitive brand portfolio and most importantly economies of scales in the value chain, particularly in production. The perceived risks of EMNCs ownership include potentially restricted autonomy and the uncertainty over corporate development activities in the future, as well as the risks of diluting brand image caused by the inconsistency between country of origin and country of ownership.

Very few EMNCs have moved into luxury fashion retailing to date, which means that the sampling frame was small. The findings were generated from China, which is perceived to be of considerable psychic distance in terms of culture and policies compared to other emerging markets that have been heavily influenced by colonialism.

This paper suggests that practitioners, particularly EMNCs, support their subsidiary luxury fashion brands through parenting advantages and develop their own high-end fashion brands through internationalisation.

This empirical study contributes to the current international retailing literature by offering in depth insights of parenting advantages offered by EMNCs in luxury fashion retailing. It also enriches the EMNC literature, which has mainly adopted an international business scope, by extending this understanding into luxury fashion retailing.

The 1990s have seen a major expansion in both the interest in retailing as an academic research subject and in the availability of European retail academic journals. Using a bibliometric approach, this paper investigates the development of published academic retail research in these journals. It identifies different emphases within the retail journals and retail research. Overall, however, retailing is identified increasingly as a synthetic rather than an interdisciplinary subject. A gulf between the direction that European scholars and US scholars are following is considered.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the internationalisation process of small, specialist retailers with the aim of identifying the key characteristics that define this specific category of international retailer.

Qualitative case studies of nine UK‐based small international retailers, coupled with interviews with government and consultancy organisations, form the empirical basis of the work.

Findings highlight five characteristics of small specialist international retailers: possession of a strong company brand image/identity with luxury/middle market appeal; niche strategy; dual strategy of expansion; ownership characteristics defined either by the founder or parent company; and vertical integration from manufacturing to retailing.

With the increasing internationalisation of retail operations, the specialist sector comprises a significant number of retailers operating in international markets or contemplating the move into the international marketplace. The findings of the current work highlight the key factors that characterise those small specialist firms that operate outside their domestic market.

The paper identifies the key characteristics that define a significant category of international retailer, hitherto unexplored in the literature.