Hybridisation practices as organisational responses to institutional demands: the development of retail TNCs in China

This longitudinal case study evaluates the strategic responses of Western retail transnational corporations (TNCs) to China’s business environment. It explicates how hybridization helps adapt and ultimately alter local institutional settings. Two-fold findings are discussed: the hybrid practices impacting on host market institutions, This longitudinal case study evaluates the strategic responses of Western retail transnational corporations (TNCs) to China’s business environment. It explicates how hybridization helps adapt and ultimately alter local institutional settings. Two-fold findings are discussed: the hybrid practices impacting on host market institutions, involving laws and regulations, fair competition, business networks, empowerment, corporate social responsibility, employee retention and quality control; and those impacting on consumption patterns, involving tailored offerings, targeting, new market ideology, store location, price and cost leadership. By doing so, the TNCs create new competitive pressures on China’s retail market. The findings show the transfer of management practices that do not align with a host market may subtly alter its norms and practices. To sustain competitive advantage and enhance territorial embeddedness, the TNCs switch their key stakeholders from the governments to their businesses, the society and the consumers over time. However, their long-term legitimacy remains uncertain in China

Retail positioning through customer satisfaction: an alternative explanation to the resource-based view

Through exploring factors influencing effective retail positioning strategies in an emerging market environment, this paper challenges the role of isolation mechanism and heterogeneous idiosyncrasy argued by the resource-based view theory. By drawing on a sample of 11,577 customers from hypermarkets, electronic appliance specialty stores and department stores in major Chinese cities, we set up ten hypotheses and confirm a nine-item model for customeroriented retail positioning (perceived price, store image, product, shopping environment, customer service, payment process, after-sales service, store policies, and shopping convenience). Our results show that different retail formats achieve success through the implementation of similar positioning strategies, in which case, it is not heterogeneity but homogeneity that contributes to retailers' success greatly at the development stage of retail expansion. Our results challenge previously proved effectiveness of inimitability to success by the resource-based view, and support homogenous idiosyncrasy of retailers in the implementation of customer-oriented positioning strategies in an emerging market

Opportunities and challenges of international retailing in China

The performance of foreign retailers in China has shown a reversed U shape since their market entry in the 1990s. By the destruction of digitalisation, large retail giants continue to reduce both the number and the size of their stores, protecting bigger loss but worsening their sales too. They launched omnichannel retail after China’s online sales had started to soar in 2010 and introduced the experience-based retail ecosystem mostly in collaboration with local companies. However, their long-term performance will largely rely on the local consumption demands and institutional environment