IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v48y2016i9p1848-1863.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regulation in practice: Power, resources and context at the local scale in UK food retailing

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Wood
  • Andrew Alexander

Abstract

This article uses a relational lens to explore the conflict between the regulatory state and a leading food retailer seeking store expansion within one catchment in south-east England over an eight-year period. The research highlights the relational power geometries which play out in context between regulators and a regulated corporate firm to emphasise the role of power, resources, and scale. The research teases out how the power of the state to uphold an interpretation of market rules is compromised by a lack of responsiveness compared to both the proactive and reactive tactics of the well-resourced corporate retailer. It recognises how multiple regulatory agents of the state with divergent goals, sometimes situated across different spatial scales of governance, can produce markedly different judgements resulting in outcomes that are not in the public interest. Such situations require swift and coherent regulatory responses and can reveal the need for changes to the organisation of the regulatory infrastructure itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Wood & Andrew Alexander, 2016. "Regulation in practice: Power, resources and context at the local scale in UK food retailing," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(9), pages 1848-1863, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:9:p:1848-1863
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X16650676
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X16650676
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X16650676?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leigh Sparks, 2008. "When Tony Met Bobby," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(12), pages 2793-2799, December.
    2. Rebecca Hughes & Alan George Hallsworth & Graham Clarke, 2009. "Testing the effectiveness of the proposed UK ‘competition test’," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5), pages 569-590, January.
    3. Steve Wood, 2013. "Revisiting the US food retail consolidation wave: regulation, market power and spatial outcomes," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 299-326, March.
    4. Paul C. Cheshire & Christian A. L. Hilber & Ioannis Kaplanis, 2015. "Land use regulation and productivity—land matters: evidence from a UK supermarket chain," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 43-73.
    5. N Wrigley, 1998. "Understanding Store Development Programmes in Post-Property-Crisis UK Food Retailing," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 30(1), pages 15-35, January.
    6. Coe, Neil M. & Yeung, Henry Wai-chung, 2015. "Global Production Networks: Theorizing Economic Development in an Interconnected World," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198703914.
    7. Harald Bathelt & Johannes Glückler, 2005. "Resources in Economic Geography: From Substantive Concepts towards a Relational Perspective," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(9), pages 1545-1563, September.
    8. G L Clark, 1992. "‘Real’ Regulation: The Administrative State," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 24(5), pages 615-627, May.
    9. John Pal, 2008. "Working the System," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(4), pages 761-765, April.
    10. Paul W. Dobson & Michael Waterson, 2005. "Chain‐Store Pricing Across Local Markets," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 93-119, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Paul Cheshire & Christian Hilber & Piero Montebruno & Rosa Sanchis-Guarner, 2018. "Take Me to the Centre of Your Town! Using Micro-geographical Data to Identify Town Centres," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 64(2), pages 255-291.
    2. Shuai Shi & Kathy Pain, 2020. "Investigating China’s Mid-Yangtze River economic growth region using a spatial network growth model," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(14), pages 2973-2993, November.
    3. Miguel Atienza & Guillermo Armando Ronda-Pupo & Nicholas Phelps, 2019. "Bridges over troubled water? Journals, geographers and economists in the field of economy and space 1980–2017," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(8), pages 1800-1823, November.
    4. Margareet Visser & Matthew Alford, 2024. "Governance and Power Across Intersecting Value Chains: The Case of South African Apples," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 69-86, January.
    5. Nicholas A. Phelps & Andrew Wood, 2018. "Promoting the global economy: The uneven development of the location consulting industry," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1336-1354, September.
    6. Stefan Pahl & Marcel P. Timmer, 2020. "Do Global Value Chains Enhance Economic Upgrading? A Long View," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(9), pages 1683-1705, July.
    7. Sanchez-Vidal, Maria, 2019. "Retail shocks and city structure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103394, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. John R. Bryson & Vida Vanchan, 2020. "COVID‐19 and Alternative Conceptualisations of Value and Risk in GPN Research," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 111(3), pages 530-542, July.
    9. Morten Hviid & Greg Shaffer, 2012. "Optimal low-price guarantees with anchoring," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 393-417, December.
    10. Jana M. Kleibert & Laura Mann, 2020. "Capturing Value amidst Constant Global Restructuring? Information-Technology-Enabled Services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 1057-1079, September.
    11. Dudek-Mańkowska Sylwia & Križan Frantisek, 2010. "Shopping Centres in Warsaw and Bratislava: A Comparative Analysis," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 14(1), pages 229-239, December.
    12. Gong, Qiang & Wang, Kun & Fan, Xingli & Fu, Xiaowen & Xiao, Yi-bin, 2018. "International trade drivers and freight network analysis - The case of the Chinese air cargo sector," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 253-262.
    13. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Cervone, Roberto & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia, 2021. "The effect of mergers on variety in grocery retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    14. Paolo Veneri, 2018. "Urban spatial structure in OECD cities: Is urban population decentralising or clustering?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 1355-1374, November.
    15. Marie-Laure Allain & Claire Chambolle & Stéphane Turolla & Sofia Villas-Boas, 2013. "The Impact of Retail Mergers on Food Prices: Evidence from France," Working Papers hal-00920460, HAL.
    16. Sören Scholvin & Moritz Breul & Javier Revilla Diez & Andrés Rodríguez Pose, 2021. "Introduction: Nodes in global networks," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 4-11, March.
    17. Gavin Bridge & Alexander Dodge, 2022. "Regional assets and network switching: shifting geographies of ownership, control and capital in UK offshore oil [Temporality and the evolution of GPNs: remaking BHP’s Pilbara iron ore network]," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 15(2), pages 367-388.
    18. Bhushan Praveen Jangam & Badri Narayan Rath, 2021. "Do global value chains enhance or slog economic growth?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(36), pages 4148-4165, August.
    19. Ding Nan & Pomi Shahbaz & Shamsheer ul Haq & Muhammad Nadeem & Muhammad Imran, 2023. "The Economies’ Ability to Produce Diversified and Complex Goods to Meet the Global Competition: Role of Gross Value Chain, Institutional Quality, and Human Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-17, April.
    20. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1734 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Xiaofei Chen & Enru Wang & Jianfeng Guo & Changhong Miao, 2021. "Location choice and spatial distribution of the electronic information manufacturing industry in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 1410-1439, September.

    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:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:9:p:1848-1863. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.