IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v52y2009i6p583-593.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When strategy pales: Lessons from the department store industry

Author

Listed:
  • Johnson, Homer H.
  • Kim, Sung Min

Abstract

The traditional department store was clearly the center of retail activity in cities and small towns in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. However, by the late 1970s and beyond, the department store industry began experiencing financial problems, and serious questions were being raised as to whether their demise was eminent. This article traces the evolution of the industry, and explores some of the underlying dynamics for the changes in the retail trade sector, including the emergence of new alternative retail formats, such as discount stores and category killers. This study further explores the major strategies used by the leading traditional stores with reference to new industry life cycle models and a strategic positioning framework. Of particular interest is the discussion regarding: Were the traditional department stores "locked in" to a declining trajectory? How effective were their strategies to counter the decline of the industry? And what were and are the repositioning options available to the traditional department stores?

Suggested Citation

  • Johnson, Homer H. & Kim, Sung Min, 2009. "When strategy pales: Lessons from the department store industry," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 583-593, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:52:y:2009:i:6:p:583-593
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007-6813(09)00091-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard A. Bettis & C. K. Prahalad, 1995. "The dominant logic: Retrospective and extension," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 5-14.
    2. Neumann, Todd C., 2008. "Automobiles, the Mass Market, and the Retail Revolution of the Early Twentieth Century: A Structural Analysis of Changes in American Retail Institutions, Market Power, and Labor Demand," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(02), pages 591-594, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mennecke, Brian E. & Peters, Anicia, 2013. "From avatars to mavatars: The role of marketing avatars and embodied representations in consumer profiling," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 387-397.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Müller-Stewens, Günter & Stonig, Joachim, 2023. "Auf dem Weg zum Stakeholder-Kapitalismus: Merkmale und Konsequenzen einer sich verändernden institutionellen Logik," Die Unternehmung - Swiss Journal of Business Research and Practice, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 77(4), pages 316-333.
    2. Malik, Omar R., 2008. "Adapting to market liberalization: The role of dynamic capabilities, initial resource conditions, and strategic path choices in determining evolutionary fitness of Less Developed Country (LDC) firms," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 217-231, September.
    3. Tongyu Meng & Jamie Newth & Christine Woods, 2022. "Ethical Sensemaking in Impact Investing: Reasons and Motives in the Chinese Renewable Energy Sector," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(4), pages 1091-1117, September.
    4. Williams, Christopher & van Triest, Sander, 2009. "The impact of corporate and national cultures on decentralization in multinational corporations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 156-167, April.
    5. Elitsa R. Banalieva & Ravi Sarathy, 2011. "A Contingency Theory of Internationalization," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 593-634, October.
    6. Flier, B. & van den Bosch, F.A.J. & Volberda, H.W. & Baden-Fuller, C.W.F., 2004. "Investigating Strategic Renewal of Five Large Dutch Financial Services Firms," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-032-STR, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    7. Alessandra Storlazzi, 2009. "Market-Driven Management and Global Economies of Scale," Symphonya. Emerging Issues in Management, University of Milano-Bicocca, issue 2 Market-.
    8. Serge Lenga, 2013. "Un effet modérateur des processus cognitifs de l'entrepreneur sur les opportunités d'affaires situées dans l'espace géographique," Working Papers hal-00832027, HAL.
    9. Pant, Laxmi Prasad, 2016. "Paradox of mainstreaming agroecology for regional and rural food security in developing countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 305-316.
    10. Filipe M. Santos & Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, 2005. "Organizational Boundaries and Theories of Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(5), pages 491-508, October.
    11. Ian Sanderson, 2009. "Intelligent Policy Making for a Complex World: Pragmatism, Evidence and Learning," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(4), pages 699-719, December.
    12. Washington, Marvin & Patterson, Karen D.W., 2011. "Hostile takeover or joint venture: Connections between institutional theory and sport management research," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, February.
    13. Pursey Heugens & Nikolay Dentchev, 2007. "Taming Trojan Horses: Identifying and Mitigating Corporate Social Responsibility Risks," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 151-170, October.
    14. Michel Barabel & Olivier Meier, 2002. "Biais cognitifs du dirigeant, conséquences et facteurs de renforcement lors de fusions-acquisitions:synthèse et illustrations," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 5(1), pages 5-42, March.
    15. M H Kunc & J D W Morecroft, 2009. "Resource-based strategies and problem structuring: using resource maps to manage resource systems," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(2), pages 191-199, February.
    16. Ko, Young Jin & O'Neill, Hugh & Xie, Xuanli, 2021. "Strategic intent as a contingency of the relationship between external knowledge and firm innovation," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    17. Henk W. Volberda & Nicolai J. Foss & Marjorie A. Lyles, 2010. "PERSPECTIVE---Absorbing the Concept of Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize Its Potential in the Organization Field," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(4), pages 931-951, August.
    18. Ganotakis, Panagiotis & Konara, Palitha & Kafouros, Mario & Love, James H., 2022. "Taking a time-out from exporting: Implications for the likelihood of export re-entry and re-entry export performance," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(5).
    19. Wensley, Anthony K.P. & Navarro, Juan Gabriel Cegarra, 2015. "Overcoming knowledge loss through the utilization of an unlearning context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1563-1569.
    20. Karl E. Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe & David Obstfeld, 2005. "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 409-421, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:52:y:2009:i:6:p:583-593. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.