Skip Navigation


Journal of Economic Geography Advance Access originally published online on May 14, 2007
Journal of Economic Geography 2007 7(4):451-469; doi:10.1093/jeg/lbm010
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
7/4/451    most recent
lbm010v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Christopherson, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Related Collections
Right arrow D80 - General
Right arrow P48 - Political Economy. Legal Institutions; Property [...]
Right arrow F23 - Multinational Firms; International Business
Right arrow L81 - Retail and Wholesale Trade; [...]
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Barriers to ‘US style’ lean retailing: the case of Wal-Mart's failure in Germany

Susan Christopherson*

*Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, U.S.A. email < smc23{at}cornell.edu>

JEL classifications:: D8, F23, L5, L81, P48

Wal-Mart's exit from the German market in 2006 after 10 years of attempting to achieve sustainable competitive advantage contributes an interesting case to the small but expanding literature on ‘failure’ in international investment. The work on the disinvest decision in all its forms has been critical to a re-conceptualization of the international investment process as dynamic rather than static, linear and inexorable. An important segment of the work on investment and disinvestment as dynamic processes focuses on the environment in which investment and disinvestment decisions evolve. While the environment of the host country market has begun to be examined, the market environment of the country in which the retail transnational corporation (TNC) originates also affects the international disinvestment process. To explore this ‘home country effect’, I examine the resources Wal-Mart brought into the German market and their ability to use those resources in the German context. Wal-Mart's resources were shaped by the market governance regime in which the firm evolved, and not insignificantly, over which it had and has influence. Within this theoretical frame, Wal-Mart's reliance on the resources of network dominance and autonomous action that made for its success in the USA contributed to unsuccessful strategies in the German retailing market.

Keywords: lean retailing, Wal-Mart, Germany, corporate governance, globalization
Date submitted: 3 December 2006     Date accepted: 3 March 2007


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J ECON GEOGRHome page
J. R. Faulconbridge
Negotiating cultures of work in transnational law firms
J. Econ. Geogr., July 1, 2008; 8(4): 497 - 517.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J ECON GEOGRHome page
N. M. Coe and N. Wrigley
Host economy impacts of transnational retail: the research agenda
J. Econ. Geogr., July 1, 2007; 7(4): 341 - 371.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.