This research began with the question: why is the retailer brand market share of Tesco Korea higher than that of local Korean retailers? Of the foreign grocery retailers who have expanded into Korea, Tesco has achieved the most outstanding performance, with the highest retailer brand share in the market. After the withdrawal of Wal-Mart and Carrefour from Korea in 2006, Tesco Korea has been positioned as the successful foreign retailer. Accordingly, how the retail operation of Tesco Korea differs from that of the local Korean retailers attracted the author’s interest, specifically in terms of the development and handling processes of the retailer brand. Rather than examining the customer perceptions of both Tesco Korea and the domestic Korean retailers, the researcher concentrated on identifying the differences between both parties from the point of view of their retailer brand program operations. Based on in-depth interviews with retailers and suppliers, store observations, the author’s own experience in retailer brand development, and company documentation, this research explored the differences between Tesco Korea and domestic Korean retailers in how they develop and handle their own brands. Tesco Korea has taken advantage of retailing know-how, that is, retailer brand development skills created by Tesco UK. With the help of Tesco UK, the retailer brand development process of Tesco Korea is differentiated in a number of areas from that of the local Korean retailers. The flows of retailing know-how from Tesco UK to Tesco Korea has also influenced the whole retailer brand market in Korea, as well as stimulated the local Korean retailers to improve their retailer brand development skills. The entry of retailers with advanced retailer brand development knowledge into markets where retailer brands are less well developed is a catalyst in promoting retailer brand markets, and in intensifying retail competition. Also, the retailer brand development know-how of domestic retailers is enhanced by imitating or benchmarking foreign retailers. This research suggests that retailer brand share is related to the degree to which retailers are proactively involved in the development and handling processes for retailer brand product ranges, as well as to how sophisticated or advanced their knowledge of the retailer brand development process is. Advanced development and handling skills make a considerable contribution to increasing retailer brand share in markets with a lower share or no presence of retailer brands.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in food retailing has generated a considerable amount of attention in both the media and the business world throughout the 199Os, with a strong focus on Asian and Central and Eastern European countries. Among these countries, China is a key player and a nation that no international retailers can afford to ignore due to its population size of 1.2 billion and its rapid economic development. Food retailers from different parts of the world have been keen to use their modern retail concepts and technology to seek expansion opportunities in China. Consequently, two important questions emerge: What does the process of FDI in food retailing entail? Is the retail and distribution market in China easily entered? Regarding the first question, substantial research effort has been vested in this topic. However, a conceptual framework that incorporates the whole scope and complexity of the process is still lacking. For the second question, a prudent scrutiny reveals that foreign food retailers are confronted with a lot of complications due to the legacy of the previous command economy and the unique Chinese social and business structure. The thesis develops an analytical model in which critical variables, and their logical relationships, are used to analyse and explain the process of FDI of food retailers in the contemporary era, using China as the domain for the empirical work. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative approach using case studies with thirteen foreign food retailers in China. The research focuses on three main areas: long-term strategic objectives behind retail international expansion, market entry issues, and retail operational issues. Firstly, the long-term strategic objectives that underlie retailers’ undertaking of foreign direct investment are investigated. Evidence shows that the prevailing concept of reactive retail internationalisation and the tenet of psychic distance do not fully reflect the reality of retail internationalisation. Secondly, three issues related to market entry are explored. The first issue is the legal and regulatory infrastructures that foreign retailers face when entering China. The second issue is the selection of Chinese partners, managing partner relationships and the share of managerial control. The third issue is the technical and political procedures of site selection and store development. The empirical work reveals that the lack of a systematic and well-developed legal system complicates the process of foreign direct investment and having a Chinese partner who possesses the appropriate guanxi network alleviates the problem. Furthermore, the exercise of dominant control over operational and managerial issues is practised by the foreign retailers in their joint ventures. Significant conflicts between partners appear not to exist under such an arrangement. On the other hand, political procedures of site selection and store development are found to be onerous. In terms of technical procedures, respondents reported that the methods that are being used in developed countries are not entirely applicable in China. The third area on which the research focuses is operational issues that foreign food retailers confront in the host countries. These include supply chain management; adjustment and adaptation; and development of human resources. Findings suggest that there are two types of retail know-how: core and peripheral. No changes to core elements should be made in the overseas operation so that the uniqueness of the individual retailer is preserved. Adjustments, however, have to be made to peripheral elements in order to match particularities of local consumer demand. A learningoriented culture within a retail organisation is found to be an important underlying element that contributes significantly towards successful retail internationalisation. Taking a holistic perspective, the foreign direct investment behaviour in the retailing sector and the manufacturing sector, from which the prevailing foreign direct investment theories were developed, appear to be very different. The foreign direct investment behaviour of retailers seems to be better explained and understood within a framework that emphasises market power seeking, stresses the dynamics of different elements that constitute retail know-how, and underscores the notion of knowledge accumulation and utilisation.

Over the past decades, globalisation dynamics have experienced a shift in regard to their driving economic sectors. At the beginning of the 21st century, the global economy will no longer be primarily driven by manufacturing companies but by companies in the service sector. Among them are large retail companies that, with their demand-driven supply chains, organise the global economy to a significant degree. The retail sector represents a particular case within internationalisation dynamics. With its special characteristics and logics it poses special challenges to internationally expanding companies. This is reflected in the facts that the intensive expansion phase of retail trade began relatively late compared to other sectors and that the sector’s level of internationalisation is still comparatively low. This paper focuses on two aspects of retail internationalisation that are underrepre-sented in research. (1) International expansion is by no means the final stage of international economic integration. Coe and Wrigley (2017) speak of a new era of globalised distribution, characterised by, among other things, the concentration of leading retailers on their strong foreign markets and the withdrawal of their operations from other countries. However, our understanding of these dynamics, their drivers, and their effects is inconsistent. This dissertation contributes to closing this gap and brings a new empirical perspective into the research literature by discussing the perspective of the market of inward for-eign direct investment (FDI). This is novel as, until now, research in this area has largely been based on the view of internationalizing companies’ Western home markets. In addition, this dissertation adds a new level of investigation through the exhaustive examination of a market (for the sub-sector of grocery retailing). (2) Beyond the import of financial capital, potential knowledge transfers into the local economy are an important argument for opening up to FDI. The extent to which the knowledge base of an economy is actually improved and upgrading processes of local companies are driven by the entry of a transnational company (TNC), seems to depend strongly on the degree of a TNC’s local embeddedness. This varies according to the sector and the corporate strategy. We know very little about knowledge transfer and up-grading in the context of internationalisation processes in the retail sector, as the discussion on cross-border knowledge transfer through FDI and the discussion on the internationalisation of the retail sector have so far largely been conducted separately. This dissertation contributes to the connection of these research strands. In this respect, it helps to correct the ‘production bias’, the strong orientation of the scientific discourse on knowledge transfer and upgrading towards the manufacturing, technology-intensive industry. The overall goal of the dissertation is to make an empirically derived contribution to research on retail internationalisation and its local effects in emerging markets from the perspective of relational economic geography. The dissertation addresses the dynamics, drivers, decision-making processes, and traces of FDI in the retail sector. In addition, it examines horizontal and vertical knowledge transfers and the upgrading processes of local suppliers of fresh food triggered by FDI. The study is based on the global production network-approach (Henderson et al. 2002), which conceptualises TNCs as networks whose subsidiaries are embedded in a particular context. The global value chain-approach (Gereffi et al. 2005) and the concept of up-grading, which is discussed in its context, are used as a framework for analysis. This approach is helpful to analyse the mobility of actors within a value chain toward a more advantageous position and the role of buyer companies in these developments. The dissertation combines the GVC research with the literature on (local) knowledge transfer. It uses the distinction between explicit and implicit knowledge developed by Polanyi (1958) to analyze the extent to which knowledge is transferred by FDI across national borders. Thus, the dissertation contributes to the link between GVC/GPN research and research on international knowledge transfer/the local acquisition of skills, which has been largely lacking. The dissertation uses the regional example of Turkey. The country stands as an example for the group of emerging countries. Due to dynamic economic development and significant FDI inflows, it represents a suitable and interesting case in the context of this thesis’s research interest. To gain a deeper understanding of the internationalisation dynamics of the retail sector, including their drivers and effects on local economic development, the study follows a qualitative research approach. The analyses are based on data collected in guideline-based, qualitative interviews. A total of 71 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Turkey between summer 2015 and spring 2016. Among the interviewees are 32 managers of transnational and local food retailers, 28 managers of supplier companies of fresh fruit and vegetables, and 10 experts of the retail and agricultural sector in Turkey. The study shows current dynamics and drivers of the retail sector’s internationalisation processes. At the beginning of the new millennium, the investment trend in Turkey reversed and foreign divestments (FD) started to dominate the sector. In the meantime, all transnational food retailers have divested from the market. This development illus-trates the dynamics of the new era of retail distribution to an extent not previously described. The actors in the (former) host market emphasise the defensive character of this FD. They see the operational challenges and the inability or unwillingness of the TNC to adjust to the market as reasons for the failures in the foreign market. This assessment contradicts the statements of the management in the TNC's home markets and partly also the scientific literature, which is mainly based on interviews with these actors. They emphasise the offensive character of FD. By bringing together the perspec-tives of the host- and the home market a holistic picture of the decision-making process behind FD emerges. It shows that the divestment decision is not only the reversal of an expansion decision, but follows its own logic (see Figure 8 on page 72). The dissertation demonstrates that foreign retailers import company-specific re-sources from their corporate networks into the host market and thus influence the development of the local retail sector. Comparing the results of this work on the channels of horizontal knowledge transfer with the results of the literature subject to a produc-tion bias, it becomes clear that demonstration and imitation effects are of particular importance due to the high visibility of retail practices. However, despite the compara-tively low-tech nature of retail, transfer processes go far beyond demonstration and imitation. All transfer channels discussed in the literature on the manufacturing sector are relevant to retail. The transfer of implicit knowledge takes place in particular through joint ventures/acquisitions and the fluctuation of personnel. The study further reveals vertical knowledge transfers from foreign retailers to local suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables and shows that TNCs proactively shape the de-velopment of their suppliers in the host market. Motivated by an initial lack of adequate suppliers, transnational retailers are proving to be an important driver for the moderni-sation of this supplying industry. The deep (purchasing) network embeddedness of re-tail favours knowledge transfer through backward integration. In order to remain a permanent part of the modernizing supplier network, suppliers must vertically inte-grate functions up and down the value chain, including agricultural production. This is driven forward by retailers through direct involvement and through the targeted selection of suppliers. After TNCs withdraw their capital from the host market, the knowledge of the subsidiaries, in former employees and incorporated in established practices, remains in the host market. The dissertation shows that local companies that take over the TNCs’ subsidiaries use this knowledge in different ways. The successful among them develop hybrid business strategies. They use the TNCs' company-specific knowledge, in particular purchasing practices. But they also bring their local resources into the company which is particularly expressed in a deep sales-side network embeddedness and speed in decision-making processes. The dissertation makes conceptual contributions at various levels. First, it illustrates the broad spectrum from localisation to internationalisation within which the processes summarised under the term globalisation are classified. Localisation processes seem to overlap with internationalisation processes, especially when internationalisation is driven by market seeking motives, which are often central in the service sector. The dis-sertation further expands the research literature by linking the literature on retail internationalisation with the literature on local knowledge transfer in the context of FDI. It thereby contributes to a better understanding of the role of TNCs in the dissemination of knowledge in global networks or chains and the formation of local capabilities. Detached from the transnational and sectoral context, the study establishes causal links between FDI and local effects by providing insights into mechanisms of knowledge transfer that remain hidden in quantitative research. The work moreover contributes to the literature on upgrading in GVCs by refining the upgrading concept for the specific context of the agri-food sector. The results of the dissertation are of applied relevance for both actors from emerging countries receiving FDI and for managers of transnational retail companies. One of the most important findings for actors from FDI-receiving economies is that FDI in the re-tail sector can also be a constructive force. A certain degree of target compatibility can create advantages for all parties involved. Local retailers can acquire knowledge from international retailers operating in the country. The dissertation shows retail managers how they can make use of this possibility. It also shows managers of local suppliers of fresh food how they can take advantage of upgrading opportunities through cooperation with foreign retailers and how they can secure themselves a place in the supply network in the long term. The dissertation further provides orientation for managers of transnational retailers in their entry into foreign markets. It gives insights into how to actively embed in the host country in the context of cross-border expansion and which factors should be taken into account when deciding on a FD.

By the later decades of the twentieth century, retail internationalization was no longer the activity of a few multi-national retailers; revising the traditional view of retailing as a national business and the need to understand the process of internationalization. Academic research enriched the understanding of this activity, moving away from the early use of surveys to delve into the specific processes of the retailers in order to properly analyze foreign expansion activity. Initial research focused on the perspective of the firm, contributing to knowledge of the why, where, and how of the internationalization process. As this research expanded its scope, it became necessary for researchers to explore when internationalization occurs and to document what was the impact of internationalization on the host country. This call for research was made by Dawson (2003), who proposed a framework for the study of foreign impact on the domestic retailers of a host country. This study utilizes the Dawson model to measure, analyze, and explain the when and what of the retail internationalization process. In recognition of the complexity of the retail internationalization process, it was determined that the study would focus on one type of impact: changes in sectoral competitiveness. It was also determined that this study should be undertaken in a market and retail sector where substantial foreign entry had occurred and could potentially be measured, analyzed and explained. Therefore, the study is undertaken in the Canadian apparel sector between 1989 and 2007. The study was conducted as a mixed method research in two stages: an empirical study of market data and an interview study of industry experts. Since retail functions at the local level, the shopping centre was used as a microcosm of the market and provided empirical evidence to measure impacts in a temporal sense and by intensity. The interviews with industry experts were used to collaborate and explain the mall data, providing important first-hand context to explain the retail internationalization process. This study contributes to the validation of the Dawson model as a tool to measure and explain the impacts of foreign entry on a host country’s sectoral competitiveness, and through its methodology will provide the necessary modifications to the model for continued study of the retail internationalization process.

The standardisations/adaptation theme is amongst the most debated within International Retailing. Much research has attended to the question of whether an MNC should adapt to local market needs or, if instead, it should emphasise the upholding of global standards to reap efficiencies. Within this debate there is much focus on resonating to market needs but less on the inheritance, history and structure of the MNC and how this affects the ability to adapt or standardise, or indeed to do both by applying the glocalisation theme. Existing research has placed less emphasis on how the MNC might be biased towards either standardising or adapting regardless of market conditions. Central to this debate is the transfer of a retail formula. It is commonly understood that the faithful replication of a retail formula means that each element of the marketing mix is copied ‘as is’ from home to host country. This can at best be a benchmark as no MNC would be able to completely copy a home-derived standard to the host market, however, some retail concepts are generically better able to perform this ideal act than others. They would attempt to standardise as much as possible, adopting a strategy that maximises replication as it seeks not to duplicate resources across borders. The key point in this attempt is whether it does so out of recognising that differences are insignificant, or if it does so because it is unable to see that the differences do matter. Seen from an institutionalisation perspective and, initially looking at the home-derived context only, one recognises the well-defined relationship and interaction between MNC and consumer culture and the position the MNC has obtained in terms of brand strength and success. It is easy to see that context will be different in the host market, but difficult to take this into account when transferring the retail formula out of the home context. More recent literature on embeddedness has addressed some of these linkages and influences which affect the way MNCs transfer their retail concepts, but the literature fails to recognise the full impact. The structural paradox embodies some of the dilemma in this discussion as it addresses the conflict between transferred operational structure and the need to adapt locally to market needs. The glocalisation theme approaches the same dilemma from a competency perspective but does not embrace what stops the MNC from being more adaptive. This research develops a model that aims to combine these perspectives. This model is deployed to three cases, all detailing the transfer of a highly standardised retail concept, hard discounting, which is an ideal platform to explore how home-derived structure is transferred and how it deals with trans-contextual dimensions across borders. The research looks critically and in-depth at how the standards applied impact on the levels of awareness paid towards the need to adapt to trans-contextual dimensions and seeks evidence that demonstrate how attention to the differences become vital to success. At the same time, the cases illustrate that the differences may alter, but the approach taken towards them remain the same. The model defines this approach as a strategic trajectory called ‘MaxRep’, which is developed out of the home context and remains aligned to this particular foreign context when transferred in on the host settings. The benchmarking of this approach against the glocalisation theme leads to the identification of gaps and definition of action to be taken to overcome these barriers to applying effective glocalisation.