Towards the Construction of a Global Retailer's Theory : A Consideration of Retailers' Global Paths

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  • グローバル小売企業の理論構築に向けて : 小売企業のグローバル・パスに関する考察

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Abstract

It had been thought for long time that retailers belong purely to their own domestic industries and that running shops abroad would, therefore, be very difficult. Since the latter half of 90s, however, large-scale retail representatives from Europe, the U. S. and Japan have been setting up operations in Asian countries where different languages, cultures and customs prevail; and they have been developing cutthroat competition against local retailers as well as foreign rivals. These occurrences can be explained by several "push" and "pull" factors. This paper seeks to demonstrate how retailers can be enabled to effectively build a path from being purely domestic retailers to becoming truly global ones who run shops in various countries around the world. The essence of effective retail globalization is being able to achieve the standardization of goods assortments yet at the same time retain adaptability to each local foreign market. This creates a difficult "global dilemma" which needs to be overcome. To demonstrate how domestic retailers can become global ones, Mukoyama (1995) developed a "global path mode." The two globalization axes of this model are: "goods procurement actions" and "adding shops actions." This model proposes a "self-development" or "self-procurement" type of global path. This paper proposes an "alliance" and an "M&A" type of global path in contrast to the Mukoyama model, focusing especially on Tesco's M&A as the model that Japanese retailers should follow. The author provides evidence that in Asian retail battlefields, the M&A type of global path will become the most effective long-term survival strategy.

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