International retailers' strategic responses to institutional environment of emerging market

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment in emerging markets.Design methodology approach - Based on in-depth interviews with top managers from a grounded-theory perspective, the research provides a compre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of retail & distribution management Vol. 41; no. 4; pp. 289 - 310
Main Authors Cao, Lanlan, Pederzoli, Daniele
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bradford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.04.2013
Subjects
Consumers
Developing countries
Emerging markets
Host country
LDCs
Legitimacy
Market entry
Organization theory
R&D
Research & development
Retail stores
Studies
China
Strategic management
Institutional environment
China
Retail management
Emerging markets
Retailing
Internationalization
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Summary:Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment in emerging markets.Design methodology approach - Based on in-depth interviews with top managers from a grounded-theory perspective, the research provides a comprehensive analysis of the implications of the institutional environment for the strategic choices of international retailers in an emerging market, especially in China.Findings - The international retailer's strategic choices are often identified as pragmatism, dynamism, public policy-orientation, seeking lead position in the market and decentralization if the institutional distance between the home country and host country is high. Moreover, when international retailers can commit to cultivating local markets and creating shared added value, they are better able to respond proactively to an institutional environment that is geared to a collective social network and still in a phase of transition.Research limitations implications - This paper focuses on only one country, China.Originality value - The major value of this paper is to highlight the specificities of international retailers' strategic responses to the institutional environment of an emerging market. Attention to these specificities would enable researchers to analyze better the reality of retail internationalization process in an emerging market.
ISSN:0959-0552
1758-6690
DOI:10.1108/09590551311330555