The objective of this article is to reconceptualize understanding of the economic and spatial processes of corporate restructuring and market exit. We ask what economic logic explains plant closure and firms’ exit from industries, and develop a comprehensive perspective on the nature of the...

In this article we contribute to a growing body of literature concerned with the socio-cultural dynamics of learning and adaptation inside firms. Specifically, we apply a ‘competence-based’ view of the firm to a newly emerging breed of retail-industry transnational corporations (TNCs). We...

Ethical trade, involving corporate codes of conduct for sites of production, has become a key means through which labour in retailers’ global supply chains is regulated. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that retail corporations vary markedly in their approaches to ethical trade and that such...

The last decade has witnessed an acceleration of retail foreign direct investment into a range of emerging markets across East Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, led by a small cohort of food and general merchandise retailers from Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, North...

This paper examines the market entry of the UK’s largest retailer (Tesco) into the USA. Tesco’s launch of a new brand – Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets – in virgin territory is a bold move, notwithstanding the firm’s considerable success with its overseas investment strategy (which...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was noted that retailers in Britain had started providing increased variety and fashionability to their customers, had added mid-season purchasing to their previous two-season calendars, and that a high fashion and low price ‘throwaway market’ had...

This article presents a theoretically informed consideration of the role of ethical campaigning in shaping organizational practices of power and authority in global production networks (GPNs). It does so through a focus on responsibility, and the ways in which ethical consumption is challenging...

Written prior to the financial crisis of the world’s third largest retailer following its announcement of accounting irregularities on February 24 2003, this paper uses a case study of Ahold’s struggles to manage significant investment in the unpredictable business environments of Latin...

In the context of a market characterized by the enduring legacy of socialism through governmental ownership of retail businesses, the continued presence of domestic retailers, and increasing levels of competition, this article examines the organizational challenges faced by, and the strategic...

A dramatic wave of consolidation swept through the US food retail industry during the late 1990s, transforming its corporate geography. This paper considers the causes of that consolidation wave, placing emphasis on the regulatory history of the industry, the holding back of consolidation by...