Interinstitutional shaping of retail innovation: The nineteenth century retail arcade

Nicholas Alexander and Anne Marie Doherty

Business History, 2024, vol. 66, issue 6, 1313-1344

Abstract: The retail arcade was an innovative format that proliferated across the urban landscape in the late nineteenth century. However, it has attracted limited research attention from business historians. This article addresses this research gap by identifying the reasons for arcade development and the business relationships that enabled their widespread commercialisation. The retail arcade provided a thoroughfare between two centres of urban activity. The realisation of this transitional retail space required civic support and a commercial framework that facilitated the reification of experiential retailing. It provided financial rewards to multiple business interests whose complex relationships underpinned its operational characteristics. Britain provides the research context. Adopting an institutional logics theoretical perspective, this paper considers the interinstitutional shaping of this hybrid organisational form over more than half a century. A rare and rich source of archival material facilitates the study of quotidian activity within this innovative retail format.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2022.2117299 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:66:y:2024:i:6:p:1313-1344

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2022.2117299

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().