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If one looks at the United States over the past sixty years, it becomes clear that religious and spiritual practices have proliferated in unexpected places and spaces. They have become thoroughly ensconced in the boardrooms, offices, shop floors, and retail spaces of business establishments. From there, they have seeped into just about every imaginable area of American life, turning schools, parks, shopping malls, sports stadiums, hospitals, gyms, health food restaurants, spas, and the very apps on our computers and cell phones into corporate spaces promising new and enticing forms of spiritual enchantment. The purpose of this essay is to document the way new forms of spirituality have become part of a much longer history of the entanglement of business and religion, a history that began in monasteries, formed the bedrock of the Puritan work ethic, and is now an established aspect of the neoliberal ideal of the privatization and corporatization of all aspects of human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family businesses are the cornerstone of the majority of the economies worldwide. They constitute one of the oldest historical forms of business organization and account for a significant percentage of all businesses around the world. The aim of the paper is to analyse the evolution of the world’s largest family businesses by their total revenues in the period 2013-2017. The research was based on a quantitative method. The paper demonstrates that the world’s largest family businesses obtained impressive revenues in the period 2013-2017. They represent huge multinational and transnational corporations with a global presence. Also, the paper illustrates the clear domination of the largest American and European family businesses at the global level.

In nowadays society, entrepreneurs play an essential role in thinking about new visionary businesses and in their long-term development. Presenting successful business models is essential to understanding the sustainable businesses, as well as to inspire new entrepreneurs. The goals of the paper are to define the concept of visionary entrepreneur and to present the case of Sam Walton, one of the famous American entrepreneurs. The methodology was based on a quantitative research method and a case study. The paper underlines the mentality and the spirit of the successful entrepreneur and his vision about business, in general, and, especially, about retailing. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the concept of “visionary entrepreneur”. Also, it shows that Sam Walton was one of the most important entrepreneurs worldwide.

In the age of globalization, corporations around the world are competing at a global scale. This is why they have fully understood the need to design and develop competitive global business strategies in an incessant changing business environment. As a hypercompetitive sector, retailing provides numerous examples of corporations that have implemented successful business strategies such as Wal-Mart. The paper aims to briefly define the concept of business strategy and to exemplify it in the case of Wal-Mart. There is a plethora of theoretical approaches related to the concept of business strategy in the literature. It addresses the operating unit of a corporation and is strongly linked with the issue of creating a competitive advantage The research methodology was based on a quantitative method. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the concept of business strategy. Also, it presents the case of Wal-Mart and analyzes some of the main elements of its business strategy that have allowed the American colossus to succeed in the retail industry at a global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the Second World War, retail has undergone a profound and long-term transformation all over the world. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a structural shift from small and independent single-establishment retailers towards big discount chains operating larger that distribute a multitude of goods to multiple markets. Foreign retailer investments around the world have intensified since the end of the last century as the large international retailers transformed themselves into global business organizations. The paper aims to present and analyze the evolution of global retailing in recent years. In order to achieve the objectives of the paper the authors used a quantitative research method. The results demonstrated that the world’s largest retailers by their retail revenues are from North America and Europe, with a clear majority of the American corporations. Wal-Mart has been by far the largest global retailer in the period 2016-2019.

Si bien antes de los años 1990 ya había participación de grandes empresas minoristas en México, la llegada de empresas transnacionales, como Wal-Mart, generó una reconfiguración en la distribución de alimentos y, con ello, una expectativa del impacto directo sobre algunas variables del sector. Nuestro objetivo es determinar si la presencia de Wal-Mart implica cambios en el rendimiento total de los factores de producción. Para ello se construyó un modelo de regresión de corte transversal, cuyos resultados a escala municipal muestran nulo impacto sobre las unidades económicas pertenecientes a los abarrotes y restaurantes, en tanto que para autoservicios y farmacias se estima una reducción de los rendimientos de los factores de producción dada la presencia de dicha empresa.

Multinational and transnational corporations represent key actors in the globalization process and highly influence the way the world economy evolves. The aim of the paper is to briefly analyse the evolution of the world’s ten largest corporations by their total revenues, profits and number of employees in the period 2017-2018. The research is based on a quantitative method. The paper shows that these corporations have become huge business organizations and achieved impressive performances. Also, it reveals that the world’s largest corporations belong to several important domains, such as the petroleum refining industry or the banking and financial sector, and most of them are American and Chinese corporations.

Si bien antes de los años 1990 ya había participación de grandes empresas minoristas en México, la llegada de empresas transnacionales, como Wal-Mart, generó una reconfiguración en la distribución de alimentos y, con ello, una expectativa del impacto directo sobre algunas variables del sector. Nuestro objetivo es determinar si la presencia de Wal-Mart implica una mayor productividad por trabajador. Para ello se construyó un modelo de probabilidad logística ordinal cuyos resultados a nivel municipal muestran una relación positiva y estadísticamente significativa, es decir, la probabilidad de encontrar un mayor nivel de productividad aumenta con una mayor presencia de dicha empresa.

La expansión de los supermercados en México, favorecida por la llegada de Wal-Mart en los 1990s y su competencia con cadenas nacionales, ha impulsado su penetración tanto en localidades cada vez más pequeñas como en espacios de reciente urbanización, siguiendo así el proceso de desconcentración de la población; pero sobre todo los supermercados se han expandido al interior de las grandes ciudades. La proliferación de formatos más pequeños dirigidos a segmentos de menores ingresos ha permitido aumentar su cobertura poblacional, aunque siguen mostrando una clara preferencia por espacios de baja marginación y por tanto altos ingresos, así como por áreas densamente pobladas. Aunado a este proceso se ha asistido a una creciente concentración de estos establecimientos en unas pocas grandes empresas, ejerciendo Wal-Mart un claro dominio en México.

I study competition between big box retailers, K-Mart and Wal-Mart, and toy retailers, KB Toys and Toys R Us with the aim of estimating Wal-Mart's effect on the profits of toy retailers. Using recent techniques for the moment inequality models, I estimate chains' exit decisions in each market as arising from a Nash equilibrium of a static game of entry and exit. My results show that Wal-Mart has a significantly negative effect on the profits of KB Toys and Toys R Us, while the effects of KB Toys and Toys R Us are mostly positive on each other's profits. I run a series of counterfactual simulations to study the effect of a merger between KB Toys and Toys R Us on post-merger market shares and concentration. Upon merging, the rate of exit drops from 52.3% to 48.6% for KB Toys and from 32.1% to 11.7% for Toys R Us. If the merging parties share distribution centres, the rate of exit drops even further to 31.1% for KB Toys or remains about the same at 12.2% for Toys R Us. Surprisingly, the merger lowers market concentration, as measured by the Herfindal–Hirschman Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family businesses are the cornerstone of the majority of the economies worldwide. They constitute one of the oldest historical forms of business organization and account for a significant percentage of all businesses around the world. The aim of the paper is to analyse the evolution of the world's largest family businesses by their total revenues in the period 2013-2017. The research was based on a quantitative method. The paper demonstrates that the world's largest family businesses obtained impressive revenues in the period 2013-2017. They represent huge multinational and transnational corporations with a global presence. Also, the paper illustrates the clear domination of the largest American and European family businesses at the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors measure the revenue and cost implications to supermarkets of changing their price positioning strategy in oligopolistic downstream retail markets. Their approach formally incorporates the dynamics induced by the repositioning in a model with strategic interaction. They exploit a unique data set containing the price format decisions of all U.S. supermarkets in the 1990s. The data contain the format change decisions of supermarkets in response to a large shock to their local market positions: the entry of Wal-Mart. The authors exploit the responses of retailers to Wal-Mart entry to infer the cost of changing pricing formats using a revealed-preference argument. The interaction between retailers and Wal-Mart in each market is modeled as a dynamic game. The authors find evidence that entry by Wal-Mart had a significant impact on the costs and incidence of switching pricing strategy. Their results add to the marketing literature on the organization of retail markets and have implications for long-term market structure in the supermarket industry. Their approach, which incorporates long-term dynamic consequences, strategic interaction, and sunk investment costs, may be used to empirically model firms' positioning decisions in marketing more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous academic research on the expansion of dominant retailers such as Wal-Mart has examined implications for incumbent retailers, consumers, and the local community. Little is known, however, about Wal-Mart's influence on suppliers' performance. Manufacturers suggest that Wal-Mart uses its power to squeeze their profits. In this article, the authors study the validity of this claim. They investigate the underlying mechanisms that may cause changes in manufacturer profits following Wal-Mart market entry. The data contain information on supplier interactions with retail stores, including Wal-Mart, for a period of five years. They find that postentry supplier profits increased by 18%% on average, whereas profits derived from incumbent retailers decreased only marginally. Their results show that wholesale prices are not the main driver of postentry supplier profit changes; market expansion is. They observe a significant increase in shipments to 50%% of markets studied. Furthermore, their analyses demonstrate that supplier shipment and profit increases are highest for markets in which incumbents offer a wide variety of products and carry items that Wal-Mart does not sell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines competition among Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target using two distinct but related approaches. The authors first develop and estimate a discrete game in which each chain's store presence and format decisions in local markets depend on the decisions of its competitors and market characteristics. This analysis is extended to evaluate the determinants of store revenues for each chain in local markets as a function of market characteristics, including the presence of competing firms. These regressions use the results of the initial model to correct for the endogeneity of observed market structures. The results from both exercises illustrate several important asymmetries across the firms. Kmart and Wal-Mart prefer similar markets, but Wal-Mart's competitive position is dominant enough to prevent Kmart's operation in otherwise attractive markets. In contrast, Target prefers substantially different market characteristics. In total, the results support a view of the industry as one in which Wal-Mart is dominant, Target serves more of a niche role, and Kmart struggles to find its footing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine the value-destroying and value-enhancing effects of a giant player's foreign entry on incumbents operating in that region. They use Wal-Mart's entry into the United Kingdom, through its acquisition of Asda, as the empirical context. Drawing on the marketing, strategy, and finance literature streams, the authors develop hypotheses as to why some incumbents are negatively affected whereas others actually may benefit from the entry of a giant competitor. Their measure of performance impact is the change in shareholder value around the announcement date, which has recently been recognized as an important metric to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing actions. The authors find strong support for the conceptual model, which distinguishes between the seriousness of the threat to the incumbents and their capacity to withstand the threat. The authors validate their findings using three alternative measures of company performance: percentage growth in the incumbent retailer's sales, earnings before interest and taxes, and return on assets between 1998 (the year before the Asda takeover) and 2002 (three years after the takeover). The authors discuss various managerial implications of their results. By acting proactively, incumbents can mitigate the negative performance consequences, while maximally benefiting from the positive implications of a giant competitor's entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the effect of Wal-Mart's entry into the grocery market using a unique stor-level price panel data set. We use OLS and two IV specifications to estimate the effect of Wal-Mart's entry on competitors' prices of 24 grocery items across several categories. Wal-Mart's price advantage over competitors for these products averages approximately 10%. On average, competitors' response to Wal-Mart's entry is a price reduction of 1-1.2%, mostly due to smaller-scale competitors: the response of the "big three" supermarket chains (Alberson's, Safeway, and Kroger) is less than half that size. We confirm our results using a falsification exercises, in which we test for Wal-Mart's effect on prices of services that it does not provide, such as movie tickets and dry cleaning services.

Since the end of the Second World War, retail has undergone a profound and long-term transformation all over the world. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a structural shift from small and independent single-establishment retailers towards big discount chains operating larger that distribute a multitude of goods to multiple markets. Foreign retailer investments around the world have intensified since the end of the last century as the large international retailers transformed themselves into global business organizations. The paper aims to present and analyze the evolution of global retailing in recent years. In order to achieve the objectives of the paper the authors used a quantitative research method. The results demonstrated that the world's largest retailers by their retail revenues are from North America and Europe, with a clear majority of the American corporations. Wal-Mart has been by far the largest global retailer in the period 2016-2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the effect that Walmart Supercenters, which lower food prices and expand food availability, have on food insecurity. Data come from the 2001–2012 Current Population Survey Food Security Supplements matched to Walmart Supercenter entry dates and locations. Using instrumental variables models that leverage Walmart's predictable expansion pattern outward from corporate headquarters, we find that closer proximity to a Walmart Supercenter improves household and child food security, as measured by affirmative responses to a food insecurity questionnaire and an indicator for food insecurity. The effects are largest among low-income households and children but are also sizeable for middle-income children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply chain is the backbone of retail business. Adoption of an efficient supply chain between producers and consumers by modern large retailers could reduce average transaction and information costs of market exchange; generate surplus for stakeholders such as producers, farmers, and consumers; expand output; and could thereby contribute to economic growth and net employment gains. Foreign players can introduce a highly advanced supply chain and develop local producers and generate externalities. This paper develops a simple theory of supply chain and economic growth. It shows the implications of adaptation of the Wal-Mart model of retailing on India's retail business.

Wal-Mart's failed entry into the German retail market represents a puzzle for theories of globalization, which assert that more efficient producers will drive out poorly performing competitors, producing profits for themselves and gains for consumers. Wal-Mart's ability to dominate its input network and to provide low-cost leadership through lean production has often been seen as the global example of creating efficiencies in the retail sector. In 2006, however Wal-Mart abandoned an eight-year effort to become a dominant player in Germany's retail market. I argue that efficiency is not absolute, but rather context-specific and socially constructed. Domestic culture and institutions interact to constrain convergence towards a single business model in the retail sector. In the end, it was not the rigidity of German market conditions--such as high labor costs or union power--that led to failure, but rather the inflexibility of Wal-Mart's strategy in coping with complex local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wal-Mart, the world�s largest retailer, failed to capture the hearts of South Korean consumers, ultimately withdrawing in 2006 after eight years in the market. Although, it had achieved stunning successes in the U.S. and overseas, Wal-Mart was unable to apply its proven U.S. business model in South Korea. Wal-Mart is only one among several retailers that have underestimated the role of conducting cultural due diligence prior to entry into a foreign country. This paper analyzes the causes and antecedents of Wal-Mart�s failure in South Korea with the discussion centering on Wal-Mart�s inability to understand and respond to South Korean consumers. Wal-Mart�s failure demonstrates how firms fail to alter their business practices to the idiosyncrasies of a foreign culture. The primary managerial implication is that the local culture determines the business model.

This research aims to provide insight regarding Wal-Mart's retail development strategy in its expansion across the continental United States. The study examines store location patterns and relationships between Wal-Mart's store and distribution center locations and markets. The study shows that, although radial expansion is broadly characteristic of the dense store patterns that have been well established for Wal-Mart at the national level, expansion patterns at the regional level are consistent with a selective process based on factors other than store density. These results provide a new perspective on Wal-Mart's expansion, providing insights of value to retail practitioners and local government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bailey's Fudge and Fine Gifts is a small entrepreneurial firm located in Quincy, Illinois and has been in operation since 2003. Ruth and her daughters Melissa and Rebecca, who are the owners of Bailey's, have recently entered into a contract to offer four flavors of fudge in eleven Wal-Mart stores located within a 150 mile region within Central Illinois. Some of the major challenges facing the owners are limited production capacity, the lack of an efficient means to distribute the product on a broader geographic scale, and other personal obligations and challenges of family owned businesses, which are having a limiting effect on their ability to devote more time to the business. As a result, they are considering a number of different strategic options for the business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation means huge quantities of goods and money moving all over the world without borders. Global markets exists because trade does, because multinationals, trading companies, national and international retailers exist. Faced by the quantity of goods flowing and the mass of money moved from one side of the globe to the other every day, countries are not able to modify the state of things in any way. Wal-Mart: 300 billion dollars in sales signifies 10% of US Chinese imports. China is behind it all. Right now, the Chinese have no brands or commercial framework, but what about tomorrow?

Despite a large body of literature on the food environment, little is known about the role of supercenters in human nutrition and health. The objectives of this review are to examine what is currently known about the association between supercenters, nutrition, and obesity, to identify how supercenters may affect disparities in food access and nutritional quality of food purchases, and to document the rapid rise of supercenters as a source of food purchases in the United States. A case study of Wal-Mart, the largest food retailer in the United States, is presented that demonstrates the major and increasing role of supercenters as a source of packaged food purchases in the United States, particularly among low-income households, as well as the role of supercenters in supplying key nutrients. Taken together, this review and case study highlight the dominant role of supercenters in the US diet and the need to better understand how supercenters can be leveraged to improve the nutritional quality of what consumers buy and eat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the alternative food movement is predicated on a prefigurative politics of building alternatives to the conventional agrifood system, with only a smaller segment invested in a politics of confrontation with that very same system. In the context of actually existing agrifood relations, this raises a number of concerns. First, the movement often ignores challenging race and class inequality within the agrifood system in favor of realizing environmental sustainability and supporting small farmers. Second, corporate agribusinesses often co-opt the movement’s consumer-centric and health-centric framings to legitimate low-wage big-box retail development in low-income urban communities. Third, the movement does not always recognize how low-income urban communities are developing language and tactics to shape local economic development. In this article, we investigate new alliances between alternative food organizations and labor organizations that use confrontational politics to demand greater food justice and economic justice in the conventional agrifood system. Specifically, we focus on struggles against Wal-Mart in New York City and Los Angeles and the discourse of “Good Food, Good Jobs,” which is used to build alliances between alternative food activists and labor activists working to address the root causes of food insecurity and food deserts. We find that at the core of the Good Food, Good Jobs discourse is a politics committed to increasing the power and health of food chain workers, and more broadly, the communities within which they live, by rejecting the tradeoff between food and jobs, which empowers working class people to shape the development of their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for viewing debates about consumption – here specifically focused on retail spaces – as attachments to fantasies about participation. It uses the figure of the service worker as index, tracking how she appears and disappears at different historical moments in South African public discussions on consumption. Discussing four moments of debate where the service worker is represented in relation to commitments to consumption, the article argues that the figure stands in (variously) for what is at stake in claims to service and retail spaces. Paying attention to the shifting and sometimes shadowy figure of this worker in public debate, we can begin to comment on the longer history of ambivalence toward consumption, linked to labour, as well as recent triumphant claims to access to the market as sphere of democracy, for instance, in Wal-Mart's entry to South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]