GeoJournal45: 245–254, 1998.© 1998Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Methodological problems of intercultural comparisons of retail environments

Jonathan ReynoldsOxford Institute of Retail Management, Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK

Received 28 May 1998; accepted in revised form 28 August 1998

Key words:cultural zones, culture, geodeomographics, retail, internationalisation, lifestyle, strategy

Abstract

The internationalising activities of retailers have tended to precede the theoretical contributions of academics. This isparticularly the case for the cultural context within which retail internationalisation takes place. Following an examinationof the growth of international retailing activity, the article reviews generic difficulties in studying inter-cultural differencesbefore considering the specific steps which retail practitioners have taken to understand the comparative characteristicsof retail and consumer markets through the growth of geodemographic and lifestyle analysis. Finally, we relate one ofthe most significant integrative intercultural theoretical instruments to the case of retail internationalisation within WesternEurope. We find that significant insights into retailer behaviour and strategy can be gained from an understanding of theculturally-specific characteristics of the activity.

Introduction

There are comparatively few truly global retailers. The BodyShop, the UK niche retailer, Ito Yokado, the Japanese ownerof the 7–11 brand, Benetton, the Italian speciality clothingbrand and Toys ‘R’ Us the dynamic US ‘category killer’, areoften cited as examples (Alexander, 1997; McGoldrick andDavies, 1995). The great majority of retail companies thathave internationalised operate in just one or two continentsrather than more widely. Service-based retailers, like thefood service companies and oil companies with their down-stream forecourt retailing operations, have become moreglobal, but this may be because their product ranges arelimited and have more universal appeal. The rhetoric sug-gests that most conventional retailers sell a broad range ofgoods, which are strongly influenced by the cultural con-ditions of those countries in which the companies werefounded, and this has acted as a constraint upon their actionson the global stage. Understanding of the cultural environ-ment would therefore seem to be critical to the success of aninternationalising business:

“The Body Shop encountered some difficulty in findingAmerican franchisees who would wholeheartedly em-brace the company’s zeal and world views. Americancompanies setting up in western Europe are bewilderedat what they see as their new employees’ lack of workethic. A retailer going international has to prove its abil-ity to conquer such problems.”(Helfferich et al., 1997,p. 299)

Indeed, some would go further:

“the business of international business is culture”(Hof-stede, 1995, p. 150)

Of course, the problem is more complex than this forretailers. In addition to theorganisationaldimension of cul-ture with which all internationalising businesses must cometo terms, retailers need to take particular account of the dif-ferent cultural characteristics of themarketswithin whichthey seek to trade because of their very closeness to the con-sumer. Finally, in reconciling one with another, they mustdeal with the challenge of an emerginginternational envi-ronment, within which cultural norms and values may beconverging.

How companies, and retailers in particular, should goabout this and what conceptual models, statistical sources,research methods and techniques are available to assist them,forms the subject of this paper. It should be said at the out-set that the prognosis is not good. Redding, alluding to aresearch area which, he claims,“has suffered from the exces-sive repetition of sterile reporting, from theoretical povertyand from a lack of clear direction,”suggests that lack ofacademic progress is in practice set against:

“a background of proliferating interaction and interde-pendence between cultures and nations as globalisationtakes hold. In such a world, the businessman has in-creasingly urgent needs for assistance from theory. Inpractice, he is forced to run on ahead and let theorisingcatch up later if it can.”(Redding, 1994, p. 324)

The growth of international retailing activity

Genuine cross-border retail activity within Europe began inthe late 1800s, although much of the historic growth tookplace in the 1920s and 1930s across the Continent. The

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growth of French mail order company Trois Suisses into Bel-gium (from 1934), C&A from the Netherlands into Germany(from 1920) and Woolworth from the US into the UK (from1909) indicates that this is not a contemporary phenomenon.However, over the last thirty years in particular, the pace ofinternational development has increased.

OXIRM (1997) reports a series of ‘waves’ of interna-tional expansion during this period. During the late 1970sand early 1980s, retailers’ moves consisted chiefly of ex-pansion into adjacent markets with similar market charac-teristics – so-called ‘border-hopping’. Carrefour, the Frenchhypermarket operator, was typical of this phase: settingup operations in Spain and the UK. Similarly, Tengel-mann (Austria and the Netherlands) and Aldi (Belgium,the Netherlands and Austria) undertook similarly modestexpansion.

During the mid-1980s, retailers’ expansion followed adifferent pattern as many sought to form joint working part-nerships and move beyond established trading areas. Thefirst alliances between major European retailers marked thebeginning of this wider continental expansion. Amongstprominent actors within this phase were IKEA and The BodyShop.

OXIRM notes that there has been a marked accelerationin the rate of cross-border activity during the 1990s. Thenumber of moves made by retailers between 1990 and 1997is almost twice the number made during the whole of the1980s. We can discern four broad features to this third phaseof development:• Established NW European retailers have moved signifi-

cantly but selectively into central and E European mar-kets (Figure 1). Between January 1995 and June 1997,over 30% of all cross-border activity has taken place inthe Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

• The 1990s has also witnessed substantial interest in AsiaPacific markets, led by French, Dutch, Belgian and UKretailers, following the lead set by IKEA over the pasttwenty years.

• Other world regions have begun to receive increased at-tention, with Carrefour, Wal-Mart and Auchan in Centraland South America, and opportunities within the MiddleEast and South Africa being actively explored by compa-nies like The Body Shop, Marks and Spencer and ToysR Us.

• At the same time, non-European retailers – predomi-nantly US – have expressed greater than ever interest indeveloping a European presence – often initially withinthe UK. Indeed, of the 94 overseas entrants movinginto the UK during the 1990s, 42 originate from outsideEurope, 34 of which are from the US (Figure 2).In this descriptive analysis of cross-border moves over

the past thirty years, we can see clear suggestions of intercul-tural issues playing a part in the locational decision-makingof the companies concerned. (For example, it is under-stood that US retailers generally choose the UK as theirfirst European destination as a result of familiarity withculture and language.) But apart from these apparently ob-vious examples, we have little basis in fact or evidence

for the speculation we might seek to make. Yet in lookingforward, it is clearly a perception of growing cultural conver-gence which is driving retailers, amongst others, to pursueinternationalisation strategies:

“The growth of a world order, driven by informationtechnology and the media, is leading to a conver-gence of consumer tastes and aspirations, particularlyamongst the middle classes and the young, which is fu-elling a rapid escalation of the retail internationalisationprocess. The retail industry, itself, has become increas-ingly more sophisticated, with greater skills, proceduresand resources to make it easier to expand abroad. Barri-ers to entry in many markets of the world have recentlycome down. Partnerships are being formed between bigcompanies from the West and small companies in thedeveloping Eastern countries. Retailers as brands aresupplanting many of the traditional manufacturer brandson the new world stage.”(Davies and Finney, 1996)

For example, cultural convergence is often advancedin respect of European consumers. Three key trends areemployed to support the claim:• the increasingly cross-border nature of European pros-

perity (no longer bound within the nation state);• convergence in consumers’ attitudes and values (espe-

cially amongst the young); and• the growth of pan-European promotional capability

(through the growth, in particular, of satellite broadcast-ing).However, it might be argued that suppliers and retailers

would benefit as much if not more from the local tailoringof products and services, segmenting the market along ge-ographical, ethnic and other lines. Whatever the prevailingview on convergence, such disagreement firmly legitimisesthe need for retailers to more critically understand the effectsof cultural influences and differences. How, for example,might retailers based within one culture seek to understandand conform to the environments of other cultures?

Methodological concerns over intercultural comparisons

Academic considerations

The study of intercultural differences and the methods as-sociated with such studies have proved complex and in-tractable. In part, this derives from the inherently difficultnature of culture itself, in part the difficulty of reconcilingthe often very different contributions and perspectives of-fered by the academic disciplines most closely involved andin part – as a consequence – the lack of ‘interdisciplinarytheorizing’ (Bhatt and Miller, 1983):

“. . . thirty years’ work has madelittle impression on theimmensely complex problem of cultures and organiza-tional behaviour. We cannot yet clearly separate (a) thepsychological from the cultural, (b) the universal fromthe culture-specific, (c) the single case specific from thegeneral pattern.”(Redding, 1994, p. 331)

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Figure 1. Entry of new retail fascias by country, 1995-1997. Source: OXIRM, 1997.

Figure 2. US Retailers entering Europe – 1980s vs. 1990s. Source: OXIRM, 1997.

Bhatt and Miller provide a helpful categorisation of typesof research undertaken in the area of intercultural com-parison (Figure 3). What has become clear is that eachcontributory field of research is dominated by a different mixof academic disciplines, whilst each holds to its own a set ofaccepted methodologies and research agendas.

Furthermore, as geographers, we have naturally tendedto be most interested in location-specific and, to a lesserextent, international environment-related research studies.Much of the intercultural comparative work done withinmanagement or business studies, on the other hand, hastended to be enterprise-specific (for example, Van Dijk,1995; Jackson, 1995; Bartlett and Ghoshal, 1989; Adler,1983). There are relatively few attempts at integration whichhave direct relevance to retailers or geographers (Mårtenson,1988; Usunier, 1993; Helfferich et al., 1997). However,there is one area of integration of thinking on interculturalcomparisons which is of significant interest to all parties.

Values are central to intercultural studies, of whatevercategory. There has been substantial growth in research ex-

ercises and theorising that seek to examine value orientationsin different national cultures. One of the key integratorsin the methodological debate over intercultural compar-isons has been Hofstede (1983, 1991, 1995). In the courseof several helpful contributions to the literature, Hofstedeuses data derived from IBM employees to generate fivecomponent value dimensions of national culture capable ofdifferentiation:1. Power distance– PDI (the extent to which people accept

and expect that power is distributed unequally).2. Individualism vs. collectivism– IDV (the extent to which

there is a preference for membership of tightly-knit col-lectivities with strong bonds of loyalty and mutual careand support, or a preference for a more loosely-knit so-ciety in which individuals and their immediate familiesare far more independent).

3. Masculinity vs. femininity- MAS (expressing a prefer-ence for achievement and assertiveness rather than formodesty and caring relationships).

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Figure 3. The different kinds of intercultural research Bhatt and Miller, 1983. Source: Bhatt and Miller, 1983.

4. Uncertainty avoidance- UAI (the extent to which peoplefeel uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity, andso seek to develop ways of working which limit theirexposure).

5. Long term vs. short term orientation(values associatedwith long term orientation are thrift and perseverance;values associated with short term orientation are respectfor tradition, the fulfilment of social obligations andavoiding loss of ‘face’).These unifying concepts seek to tackle the core of cul-

tural difference between countries and attempt to providebroad classifications of value orientations. Hofstede takeseach of the five dimensions and calculates an index based onthe results of factor analysis conducted upon the componentquestions. The index provides values for 50 countries and 3regions and permits the positioning of individual countries or

regions in a multi-dimensional way. Such cross-tabulationsprovide genuine insight into sometimes profound culturalcontradictions: for example, whilst large power distancecountries tend to be more collectivist (such as Guatemala,Panama and Malaysia), in some Western European countries(notably France and Belgium) the strongest individualism isnevertheless associated with medium power distances. Indi-vidualistic employees within organisations in these countriescan feel oppressed by highly dependent, absolutist relation-ships and therefore use bureaucratic means to depersonalisethose relationships. More relevantly for retailing, withinstrongly feminine, strongly individualist countries (such asScandinavia and the Netherlands) the woman’s role withinthe buying centre is likely to be more significant and thereare likely to be higher levels of concern expressed over theenvironment.

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Intercultural research into values is comparatively rareon a widespread scale: that is, to be of much benefit to in-ternationalising retailers (Gunter and Furnham, 1992; Deniset al., 1997). Mitchell (1983) used the US derived ValuesAttitudes and Lifestyles (VALS) system in an attempt to de-scribe how its nine psychological types varied across fiveEuropean countries and the US. The psychographic typesremained constant, according to Mitchell. No doubt, muchof this constancy was the result of the choice of similarlyindustrialised countries. The VALS typology has been fur-ther developed by its US originators, SRI, as VALS2, butthis is a purely domestic survey instrument and not yet usedinternationally.

The German market research agency GfK developed anintercultural instrument for measuring values in the 1980s inthe form of its LebensstilforschungEuro-Stylessegmenta-tion. This, based upon a detailed ‘My Life’ questionnaireconducted across a small number of European countries,was used to derive 16 value sets positioned in relation totwo axes:Valuables-ValuesandMovement-Settlement.How-ever, it proved difficult to persuade European retailers of themerits of this somewhat abstract categorisation.

Practitioner considerations

To a large extent, however, practice is outpacing theorisingthrough the attempts by businesses and analysts to develop aseries of practical tools which can assist with decisions aboutinternationalisation. These are not explicitly cultural tools,but provide insights into the comparative characteristics ofretail and consumer markets in a number of countries andare increasingly used by retailers seeking compatible datasources and analyses.

Much of the momentum has been in the hands of thecommercial data analysis companies, previously responsi-ble for developing geodemographic or spatial marketing datawithin domestic markets. Until relatively recently, this activ-ity had been somewhat piecemeal. Whilst limited initially tothe most ’data rich’ economies of western and northern Eu-rope, specific market analysis products are now increasinglyavailable elsewhere in the world: most notably southern Eu-rope, Australia and South Africa. How has this growth beenpossible given the constraints outlined above? For manyof the largest geodemographic companies, early market ex-pansion has been achieved through strategic alliances withlocal partners with tailored research databases, or throughthe establishment of subsidiary operations in target countrieswhich undertake their own analyses. Most recently, how-ever, the market has witnessed substantial consolidation ofinternational geodemographic company presence (Figure 4).

In November 1996, Great Universal Stores, the ownersof the CCN Group, purchased US-based TRW InformationSystems and Services and merged CCN into TRW as there-badged Experian Group. The combined companies haveannual sales in excess of £500mn worldwide. Experian’sCEO confirmed the importance of a perceived global orien-tation. “This move underlines the fact that Experian is oneglobal organisation, operating to the same standards across

everything we do, able to deliver consistency in the systemsand services we provide. . . ”(John Pearce).1

The Spring of 1997 witnessed a major re-orientation ofthe geomarketing activities of VNU (Dutch owners of Clar-itas) and Equifax, the US-based $1.9bn consumer creditinformation and risk analysis business. Equifax sold its USNational Decision Systems business to VNU and signed a10-year partnership arrangement. VNU announced the cre-ation of the VNU Precision Marketing Group in July 1997.According to Equifax, the two companies will broaden therelationship by expanding cross-licensing activities outsidethe US to the development of products in markets aroundthe world. CACI, one of the leading two commercial datacompanies, derives only a small proportion of its revenuefrom its marketing services division.

The Geographical Information System software providershave also been active in promoting a global image, butrely upon resellers to add value to the off-the-shelf prod-uct by packaging compatible lifestyle, demographic andcommercial datasets. US-based Geoscope, for example, hasdeveloped a small but respectable business in South Americain this way. ESRI’s software is used by more than 150,000clients worldwide and commanded an estimated 50% mar-ket share of the GIS end-user market in 1996 ($207mn ofa market worth $591mn in 1996, according to US ana-lysts Daratech). Mapinfo is available in 58 countries andin 20 languages. For example, the product has been sup-ported in Australia since 1987 and over 50 resellers supportthe software in South East Asia and Australasia. The com-pany uses the expertise of local partners to develop tailoredproducts, which may develop more global potential. A newproduct, NetMapper, was recently announced in the Aus-tralian market in association with web programming groupMultinet Interactive. As part of the development of this In-ternet mapping server, MNI geocoded all Australian storeaddresses.

Experian’s Global MOSAIC product is presently theonly geodemographic system to cover consistently a widerange of consumer markets. According to Experian esti-mates, over 750mn individuals fall within countries coveredby the product. Using a common iterative relocation proce-dure, national MOSAIC types are calculated. These nationalMOSAIC types are then allocated to the Global MOSAICgroups on the basis of four key attributes:• Age structure.• Family status.• Degree of urbanisation.• Range of income.

The allocation will be a function of the particular geo-demographic characteristics of the particular country. How-ever, as is apparent from the four key attributes outlinedabove, cultural values are somewhat remote from the analy-sis, because of the sheer difficulty of assembling even themost simple of comparable data sets.

The European Commission’s Statistics division Euro-stat’s recent experience is ample demonstration of the dif-

1Quoted in Experian, (1997), Press Release,Experian – the new name forinformation systems, 2 June 1997.

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Company Product Country availabilityExperian Micromarketer

Global MosaicAustraliaBelgiumDenmarkFinlandFranceGermanyIrelandItalyJapanNetherlandsNorwaySpainSwedenUSA

CACI ACORNInSite97

UKUSA

Claritas PRIZMDimensionsInfomark (NDS)

UKUSACanadaMexico

Equifax MicroVision PC USACanadaUK(Spain)(Portugal)

Geoscope (one of a number of GIS softwareresellers with international data setavailability)

ARC/View, AtlasReseller

USMexicoBrazilColombiaArgentinaChile

Source: OXIRM, 1997

Figure 4. Selected geodemographic company international product availability.

ficulty of assembling supra-national spatial data of any kind,let alone culturally specific. Within Europe, there have beensome significant advances at the pan-European level sincethe European Commission’s concerns over differential re-gional development became increasingly apparent. Eurostatcreated a task force for Spatial Statistics in 1990 which pro-duced the Geographical Information System for the Com-mission (GISCO) in 1992. GISCO provides a spatial dimen-sion for the European Statistical System, based upon Na-tional Territorial Statistical Units (NUTS) which presentlyare available to commune level (NUTS5).“I am now firmlyconvinced that we can no longer return to ignoring the geo-graphical component in our statistical information”(RogerCubitt, Eurostat, 1997) However, the co-ordination of thenational mapping agencies, the release dates for key data andthe choice of thematic priorities has proved a constant frus-tration. Further, GISCO and its associated data collectionsfocus upon the needs of the Commission for policy-making(in the areas of regional development, transport and the en-vironment) and are not designed for commercial needs. Atpresent, the agency’s spatial data REGIO down to regionallevel (standard economic region in the UK) is marketedthrough European Data Shops and via a mapping prod-uct produced in association with Longman Geoinformation,REGIOMAP. In the UK, the r-CADE project (run jointlybetween the Universities of Durham and Essex) also seeksto provide a repository for pan-European data.

Intercultural comparisons of international retailingactivity

Incorporating thinking on intercultural differences, and par-ticularly those aspects to do with values, into the strategicplanning of retail businesses would seem to be a diffi-cult but not wholly unrewarding task. Bartlett and Ghoshal(1989) were amongst the first to develop a mechanism forincorporating the different cultural orientations of organisa-tions within a categorisation of the international business.However, this was very much an inward-looking, enterprise-focused endeavour. More recently, work by Usunier (1993)and Helfferich et al. (1997) has produced a more holisticcategorisation, within which cultural orientation (of the en-terprise) and cultural spread (of the target market) formedpart of a more comprehensive classification (Figure 5). How-ever, these authors are the first to point out that the culturalaspects of their analyses are less well developed than otheraspects:

“Delineating cultural zones is a matter that requirescareful further study, which may require finding addi-tional dimensions to the ones developed by Hofstede. Theimplications of a firm’s cultural orientation are anotherrelatively unexplored area.”(Helfferich et al., 1997,p. 304).

The authors also suggest caution in using such an instru-ment as representing natural ‘stages of development’ for an

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Internationalbeginners/slowdevelopers

Globalfast developers/inimitableniche

Transnationalaccumulators ofexperience

Multinationalportfoliomanagers

Geographicscope

1 continent 2+ continents 1+ continents 1+ continents

Cultural spread 1 cultural zone 2+ zones 2+ zones 2+ zones

Culturalorientation

Ethnocentric Mixed Geocentric Polycentric

Marketing Home formatexpansion oralliances

Minimaladaptation

Mediumadaptation

Major adaptation

Management Domestic HQ Centralisedcontrol

Integratednetwork

Independentunits

Examples Free Record ShopBlokkerHunkemollerHalfordsHennes & Mauritz

IKEAMcDonaldsBenettonToys R UsShellAldiLouis Vuitton

C&ABody ShopMarks & SpencerSparMakroCarrefourBATASchlecker

KBBVendexAholdTengelmannDelhaize le Lion

Source: Helfferich et al, 1997

Figure 5. Five parameters of international retailing.

internationalising business, which is of course free to moveto one or another positioning strategy without reference tosome kind of normative developmental route:

“Historically, the Body Shop sought to be consistentworldwide in design and product range to establish theconfidence of the consumer, resulting in all the greenboxes you see around the world today. However, thebrand is now strong enough for us to be more flexibleboth in layout and product, enabling us to reflect re-gional demands. The challenge is to ensure that we areresponsive to local retail dynamics without diluting thestrength of the brand.”(Peter Tyson, Regional BusinessManager, The Body Shop, quoted in OXIRM, 1997)

In an attempt to better understand the usefulness toretailers of intercultural comparative techniques involvingvalues, this paper finally seeks to relate one of the integrativeintercultural schema to the nature and extent of retail interna-tionalisation within Western Europe. The analysis employsthe themes introduced by Hofstede (1991), whilst bearingin mind the clear limitations which the author proposed for

their use. These are specificallyreplication (“the state ofthe art in cross-cultural research suffers from ill-advisedreplications” – Hofstede, 1991, p. 254) andstereotyping(“which occurs when assumptions about collective proper-ties of a group are applied to a particular individual fromthat group” (op cit. p. 253)). In addition, of course, theHofstede data excludes Eastern European countries (withthe exception of Yugoslavia) and, as we have seen, muchinternational retail activity has been focused within thesecountries during the 1990s.

The analysis below uses four out of the five themes de-veloped by Hofstede (the data fromlong term orientation(LTO) being excluded for reasons of less extensive cover-age.) A K-Means clustering algorithm was used on a subsetof the Hofstede data base, with the procedure attempting toidentify relatively homogeneous groups of cases. A 5-clustersolution provided the most statistically acceptable outcome.Figure 6 shows the distribution of European countries toclusters which results, with the five clusters characterised asfollows:

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Figure 6. Five suggested ‘cultural zones’ for Europe. Source: OXIRM, 1998; derived from data in Hoftstede (1991).

Cluster 1 (Austria, Germany, Switzerland)Characterised by strong performance societyideal, focus on economic growth (high MAS)and greater interdependance (low PDI)

Cluster 2 (Great Britain, Ireland)Characterised by highly individualistic, self-actualised persons (high IDV) and tolerance ofambiguity and of others (low UAI)

Cluster 3 (Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Swe-den)Characterised by individualistic, self-actualisedpersons (moderately high IDV) and more mod-est, compassionate values (low MAS)

Cluster 4 (Greece, Portugal, Turkey)Characterised by strong sense of family and col-lective loyalty (low IDV) and greater polarisationof authority within society (high PDI)

Cluster 5 (Belgium, France, Italy, Spain)Characterised by uncertainty avoidance throughthe creation of rules, risk of xenophobia (highUAI) and greater polarisation of authority withinsociety (high PDI).

The allocation of the Netherlands to the Scandinaviancluster is of note, as is the allocation of Portugal to cluster4. Many commentators and practitioners also make muchof the opportunities within ‘Southern Europe’ – by whichthey mean Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey. Whatbecomes clear from this clustering exercise is that ‘SouthernEurope’ appears to consist of two cultural zones.

Having established a stable and intuitively attractive setof cultural zones for seventeen European countries, we nowseek to understand the extent to which the internationali-sation of European retail activity bears any relationship tothe distribution of countries to zones and the relative attrac-tiveness of one cultural zone over another. This is achieved

by taking the international activity of the Top 100 Europeanretail groups2 and allocating the activity to countries and tocultural zones. Clearly, this is an exercise that has its limita-tions. It crudely ignores the scale or nature of the investmentin each case, but merely allocates a presence outside thehome country. Of course, it also ignores the many other moresignificant but less quantifiable reasons for international ex-pansion. Nevertheless, this may provide a helpful insightinto the value of the notion of cultural zones when used forintercultural comparisons.

Figure 7 summarises the results of the analysis. Thefour component charts provide data for companies origi-nating within clusters 1, 2, 3 and 5 (cluster 4 contains nointernationalising retailers). There are four considerations ofinterest:• The distribution of the top 100 retailers by cultural zone

or cluster.• The overall scale of international activity by cultural

zone or cluster.• The within-cluster extent of international activity (i.e.

‘border-hopping’).• The relative attraction of companies within one cultural

zone or cluster for other clusters.Initially, the distribution of top 100 companies appears

surprisingly even – between 20 and 30 of Europe’s top 100retail companies are to be found in each of the four culturalzones analysed. When one understands that the three largestphysical markets (Germany, France and the UK) are foundeach within one cultural zone, this finding becomes less sur-prising; but the extent of Scandinavian/Dutch share of theleague table is still worthy of note.

By far the most active cultural zone in terms of inter-national presence is that represented by the countries incluster 1. Nearly 150 extra-national moves are tallied in Fig-

2Europe’s top 100 retail groups ranked in terms of turnover.

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Figure 7. Cross-border and cross-cluster presence amongst Europe Top 100 Retailers, 1998. Source: OXIRM, 1998.

ure 7a, compared with only 85 by the countries in cluster5 (Figure 7d). Although cluster 2 only contains two coun-tries – the UK and Ireland – a relatively small proportion ofthe UK companies in the European Top 100 have engagedin any substantial internationalisation activity, despite therhetoric of commentators. Of course, this exercise excludesinternational presence outside Europe – particularly in theUS – where we might expect UK companies to be moreprominent.

Analysing the dominance of company activity withincultural zones, as against between zones, is one way ofidentifying those zones where retailers have found moreopportunities to develop using common cultural rules and,equally, where they have not generally sought to expandbeyond the boundaries of the cultural zone. Here, the coun-tries within cluster 3 stand out particularly strongly where,despite the addition of the Netherlands, the Nordic coun-tries demonstrate a high degree of cultural self-containment.More surprisingly, the retail companies within cluster 5countries also appear to exhibit a high degree of cultural ho-mogeneity: particularly so when one is encouraged to regardmany French and Belgian retailers as significant internation-alists. Much of this ‘domestic’ zonal growth takes the formof French expansion into Spain and Italy.

Finally, the most promiscuous of the cultural zones re-mains that characterised by the countries within cluster 1.In addition to developing extensive border-hopping presencewithin the cluster, these countries (notably Germany) have a

presence in every other cultural zone, including the largestrepresentation within the countries of clusters 3 and 5.

The nature of the data has meant that this analysis has hadto be conducted at a relatively superficial level. Nevertheless,it demonstrates the apparent coincidence of international re-tail presence with a small number of cultural zones derivedfrom a highly-regarded (if limited) survey instrument.

Conclusions

As retailers requiring culturally-specific geographic data be-come increasingly international in their scope, so academicsand commercial organizations have sought to match theseambitions with the theoretical insights they can provide andthe services they can make available. If Redding is right tosuggest that the theorists are forever ‘catching up’, then thefuture will be one increasingly dominated by a few, trulyglobal, geomarketing and spatial data analysis corporations.They will tend to neglect cultural and value-oriented surveyinstruments because of their inherent difficulty, in favourof what is more easily measurable. Routes to growth willvary from acquiring subsidiaries in large or complex mar-kets, to franchising through local partners in smaller, riskiermarkets with poorly developed data environments. However,our analysis has demonstrated that there is an attractive syn-ergy to be sought in cultural variety. Helpful, if preliminary,insights can also be gained by better understanding the dif-ferential distribution of cultural characteristics, which may

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provide significant competitive advantage for those retail-ers affected. At the very least such insights can provokegreater creativity, innovation and responsiveness to the localcultures within which they operate.

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