The internationalisation of supermarkets and the nature of competitive rivalry in retailing in southern Africa

Reena Das Nair

Development Southern Africa, 2018, vol. 35, issue 3, 315-333

Abstract: In the past two decades, southern African countries have experienced rapid growth and spread of supermarket chains. This paper assesses the internationalisation of supermarkets and potential reasons for the uneven outcomes seen in different countries in the region. Several factors account for the spread, including rising urbanisation, increasing per capita income, greater economies of scale and scope, and more efficient procurement and distribution systems. However, the current literature does not adequately consider the importance of culture, proximity to suppliers and impact of policy objectives of national governments on the success of supermarkets in host countries, especially in developing countries. It also does not consider the nature of competitive rivalry between supermarkets and how this affects internationalisation. This paper highlights the importance of these factors in understanding the outcomes in selected southern African countries.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0376835X.2017.1390440 (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:deveza:v:35:y:2018:i:3:p:315-333

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2017.1390440

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().