Globalising retail : geographies of organisational learning and innovation

Abstract

The globalisation of retailing remains a profoundly neglected topic in the mainstream debates of economic geography and the social sciences more broadly. In this thesis, I begin to redress this imbalance by conceptualising the geographies of organisational learning and innovation within a newly emerging breed of retail transnational corporations (TNCs). This approach is aligned with the 'new economic geography', in which there is a greater cognisance of the role of culture, knowledge and learning in the regulation of firms, and in turn, the importance of these 'soft assets' to the realisation of competitive advantage. I argue that the ability to learn and innovate is now the principal determinant of success in the globalising retail industry. The thesis critically analyses and theoretically contextualises the 'soft architecture' to globalising retail, while also identifying important lines of future enquiry. As such, I do not provide a detailed ground-level investigation of the retail TNCs. However, case-study evidence is incorporated into the thesis to enrich and thicken the conceptual observations. This evidence has been drawn from an extensive period of fieldwork, which involved a combination of interview- and conference-based research. In chapter 2,1 discuss the methodological issues involved in researching the retail TNCs. In particular, I emphasise the critical importance of the equity analyst as a 'gatekeeper' to wider networks of knowledge exchange about the retail TNCs. The remainder of the thesis is organised in four sections. Chapter 3 conceptualises the distribution-based TNC and shows that a defining characteristic of the retail TNCs is that they are embedded, to an unusual extent relative to production-based TNCs, in local cultures and geographies of consumption. This has important implications for our understanding of the geography of innovation within the retail TNCs, which, I suggest, remains inherently store-based. Chapter 4 continues this line of enquiry by exploring the nature of 'knowledge management' inside the retail TNCs. Here, I consider the mechanisms that are being used to extract, blend and transfer tacit knowledge across the transnational space of the firm to develop an adaptive and innovative portfolio of retail formats and merchandising strategies. The focus of the thesis then switches to a new technological innovation, revolving around e-commerce and and Internet-based distribution. managerial challenges that this innovation poses to the retail TNCs. Chapter 6 summarises the key findings of each chapter and highlights the contribution of the thesis to contemporary academic debates. 5 considers the organisational Chapter

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