Retailer internationalisation

• Main Author: Williams, David E.
• Published: Cardiff University 1991
• Subjects: 658; Management & business studies
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.293385

This research examines, at the corporate level, the strategic behaviour of retailer internationalisation. The primary purpose is to increase our knowledge as empirical research has not kept pace with the growth of retailer internationalisation. In fact it has not really started. The previous documentary research has been fragmented and descriptive rather than analytical. This has created an urgent need for an exploratory, yet analytical empirical investigation into retailer internationalisation. Consequently, this study attempts to answer the following questions: Vhat is (a) the extent and characteristics of U.K. retailers with international retail interests, (b) the major motives for retailer internationalisation, (c) obstacles to retailer internationalisation, (d) the factors important when operating in international retail markets, (e) the organisational and decision maker characteristics associated with retailer internationalisation, (f) the relationship of the preceding constructs with the extent of retailer internationalisation and (g) the interrelationships between the predictive constructs and their impact on retailer internationalisation. These questions, by drawing on the literature of other disciplines, were summarised into an exploratory conceptualisation. This was made operative by interviewing senior representatives from 42 U.K. retailers with international interests. The study revealed: the heterogeneous nature of U.K retailers with international retail interests, evidence that retailers internationalised in response to growth orientated and proactive motives and motives stemming from the international appeal and innovativeness of their retail formula, the diminishing and increasing permeabilty of obstacles to retailer internationalisation and a reliance upon various factors to aid competitive differentiation and the performance of retail operations in international markets. Support was also found for elements of an international orientation amongst retail decision makers, an incremental approach to decision making in retailer internationalisation, a large degree of claimed marketing orientation, the presence of certain characteristics associated with corporate entrepreneurship, the possession of accumulated learning experience, the absence of an international orientation at the corporate level and retailer internationalisation being a strategic option for retailers of all sizes. Additionally, the predictors of retailer internationalisation were factored and it was possible to identify various underlying dimensions. These were used to predict the extent of retailer internationalisation. Provisional support was also found for four pioneering models of the interrelationships among the predictors and their impact upon retailer internationalisation.Overall the study represented a ground clearing exercise by developing initial but tentative theorising into retailer internationalisation. The research has numerous implications for future research directions and management practice. It should be welcomed by practitioners and academics alike, given the growth and increasing importance of this strategic behaviour and the embryonic nature of theorising into the subject.