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Kmart recently ended a nearly three‐and‐one‐halfyear long retailing venture in Eastern Europe where they were able to successfully transform existing ailing retailing enterprises into thriving examples of Western retailing. Even though Kmart's entrance into the former Communist Bloc was cut short, the endeavor adeptly illustrates a number of lessons of value to retailers involved in global activities. Specifically, this paper traces the entrance of Kmart into Eastern Europe, reviews the changes implemented by Kmart to adapt to this new environment, and identifies the lessons which can be learned.

Within 18 months of exiting bankruptcy, Kmart's position was sufficiently strong to launch an acquisition of Sears, once the nation's largest retailer and also a core holding of ESL. Looks at a number of compelling issues related to Kmart's bankruptcy, restructuring, and rebirth under the control of ESL, a large hedge fund. Presents some of the key metrics that Eddie Lampert, head of ESL, had available to him as he made two decisions: first, in 2002, to amass a controlling stake in Kmart's defaulted debt during the restructuring; and second, in 2004, to launch a takeover of Sears. The first deal illustrates the decision-making process for a financial buyer, including the downside protection of Kmart's real estate holdings, whereas the second deal represents a traditional strategic acquisition. Illustrates the innovative use of real estate as a “hedge” for ESL in the event that the retail combination does not produce the required financial results. Also focuses on the role of investment bankers and the increasingly important position that hedge funds and LBO funds have carved out in the M&A market.

To outline the explosive growth in assets and influence of alternative investment managers, particularly LBO funds and hedge funds, and the transition of some larger hedge funds from shorter term trading strategies to longer term plays on distressed debt, restructurings, and turnarounds.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how a major retailer like Kmart lost its dominant position in the American retail industry.

This paper contains a decomposition of profit change into meaningful economic drivers using a methodology that combines frontier analysis with index number theory. The empirical analysis is complemented with a description of Kmart’s business model produced from corporate documents and other sources.

A quantification of Kmart’s business model performance expressed in monetary terms. This assessment is presented by CEO tenures showing the contribution of different economic drivers to the evolution of profits.

The study’s empirical results highlight the importance of the correct implementation of all aspects of the business model in order to achieve success.

This paper presents a new empirical framework to assess business model performance. Despite Kmart’s important role in American discount retailing history there have been very few studies that have analyzed its downfall. This paper contributes by filling that gap.

This study focuses on the marketing strategies of the two most successful discount department store chains in Australia between 1969 and the late 1980s when consumer acceptance of both brand and format were being determined. It examines how they approached marketing a new-format national retail chain to the Big Middle of the market and the ways in which brands were differentiated.

Archival sources and oral histories provide evidence about the marketing strategies of each firm. These are integrated with press coverage, advertising and promotional activity to analyze marketing programs. Consumer research from the time offers insights into the effectiveness of campaigns.

The Coles and Myer retailing firms pursued similar marketing strategies to encourage adoption of their Kmart and Target discount department store chains, educating consumers about the links between their operational efficiencies and lower prices. Both firms not only formulated national standardized marketing strategies but also differentiated their positioning to maximize their appeal to consumers.

This article expands understandings of the ways in which new national retail chains are developed and marketed. It explores the intersection between public relations material and media coverage and the ways in which existing brands can be leveraged to legitimize new formats and encourage adoption. More broadly, it contributes to a literature on the “Big Middle”, a space occupied by dominant, volume-oriented retailers. In doing so, it demonstrates that foreign adopters can draw on Big Middle retail formats to quickly gain access to large population segments in their home markets.

Focuses on the impact of supercenters on traditional food retailers in four markets, including two small cities (Victoria, Texas; Gainesville, Georgia) and two large cities (Columbus, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska). Consumer surveys were conducted in order to assess the effects of the entry of Meijer, Wal‐Mart, Kmart, and Target supercenters. The results show supercenters can gain from 15 to 20 percent of primary shoppers and an even greater proportion of secondary shoppers. Furthermore, the supercenter primary shoppers, and especially those of Wal‐Mart and Meijer, identified low price and assortment more often as the reason for store choice. In comparison, traditional supermarket primary shoppers were less willing to trade off locational convenience or, in some cases, quality and assortment. Wal‐Mart is predicted to continue to rapidly gain share at the expense of competitors who do not differentiate themselves in some significant way.

Storytelling helps clarify the concealed or less visible elements of reality in its authentic context. Story analysis read between the lines of written or oral narratives to obtain richer understanding of an event. However, storytelling practice is a double-edge sword. Skilled storytellers may employ the power of storytelling to reframe an event in a favorable or undesirable way.

In contemporary business world, corporations broadly employ expert authors who proficiently apply storytelling practices in corporate public documents. Accordingly, corporate public documents declare desirable corporate image and promising reflection of business activities hence the corporate attracts more stockholders and obtains extra resources.

In current business world, corporates that do not appropriately employ storytelling would fail to take the opportunity to brainwash stockholders, hence suffer from competitive disadvantage.

This case study analyses Sears Holdings Corporation public report to explore how its business activities are revealed to public stakeholders. This study also proposes hypotheses of the consequences of ineffective storytelling.

Sam Walton opened his first Wal‐Mart discount store in 1962. Today, Wal‐Mart is not only the world’s largest corporation but also the world’s most admired company, according to a 2003 Fortune magazine poll. Wal‐Mart is competitive and successful because it has been doing many things right. This article helps shed light on the rise of Wal‐Mart and the roots of its competitiveness. Business practitioners aspiring to succeed can learn a great deal from studying the Wal‐Mart way of doing business.

Examines the cross‐shopping patterns of 300 US consumers for five different grocery formats including conventional supermarkets, supercentres, warehouse clubs, convenience stores and limited line discount stores. The extent to which each channel extracts customers from every other channel is assessed and analysed in light of continuing structural change in grocery retailing. As a fairly new retail format in the US market, supercentres have moved quickly in attracting customers from each of the other formats. Discusses major players in the supercentre phenomenon in light of these changing market conditions.

THE PROPOSED AMERICA ONLINE‐TIME WARNER MERGER—AT $165 BILLION, the largest in U.S. history, so far—may create the biggest media giant the world has ever seen, but that's not the real story. Forget the fact that pundits see the merger as a harbinger of increasing consolidation of media companies. Forget that the geeky new kid, AOL, grabbed a huge chunk of a relatively venerable firm, not the other way around. In fact, forget all the headlines you've read.

This chapter aims to advance economic development theory through the concept of jurisdictional advantage; demonstrating how places might strategically position themselves to gain economic advantage; then considering how this place-specific advantage might be constructed. We choose the term “jurisdiction” to define the set of actors that have a common interest in a spatially bound community. Jurisdictions are entities with a legitimate political ability to influence social and economic outcomes within their boundaries. Borrowing from the literature on corporate strategy, the uniqueness of local capabilities becomes a source of advantage for jurisdictions. We consider how to measure and construct jurisdictional advantage.