This book argues that we need to focus attention on the ways that workers themselves have invested subjectively in what it means to be a worker. By doing so, we gain an explanation that moves us beyond the economic decisions made by actors, the institutional constraints faced by trade unions, or the power of the state to interpellate subjects. These more common explanations make workers and their politics visible only as a symptom of external conditions, a response to deregulated markets or a product of state recognition. Instead - through a history of retailing as a site of nation and belonging, changing legal regimes, and articulations of race, class and gender in the constitution of political subjects from the 1930s to present-day Wal-Mart - this book presents the experiences and subjectivities of workers themselves to show that the collective political subject 'workers' (abasebenzi) is both a durable and malleable political category. From white to black women's labour, the forms of precariousness have changed within retailing in South Africa. Workers' struggles in different times have in turn resolved some dilemmas and by other turn generated new categories and conditions of precariousness, all the while explaining enduring attachments to labour politics.

Lukas Morbe sheds light on important antecedents of international retailers' local performance including international strategies and their local implementation, local consumers' perceptions as well as the wider country- and format-specific environment. This topic is of exceptional relevance due to the specific challenges that retail companies face with their increasing internationalization. Retailers transfer their formats across the globe while their business is local in nature and requires attention to the performance in each individual host country. The results of the presented analyses aim to inform retail managers' decisions in international expansion and operation, but also allow for theoretical implications for future research in the fields of retail management and international business.About the Author Dr. Lukas Morbe worked as research assistant at the Chair for Marketing and Retailing at Trier University, where he received his doctoral degree.

Modern-day markets do not arise spontaneously or evolve naturally. Rather they are crafted by individuals, firms, and most of all, by governments. Like statecraft, "marketcraft" represents a core function of government, and it requires considerable artistry to govern markets effectively. In Marketcraft, Steven K. Vogel builds his argument upon the recognition that all markets are crafted and then systematically explores the implications for analysis and policy. Vogel marshals a wide range of policy examples to support this concept, focusing in particular on the U.S. and Japan. He examines how the U.S., the "freest" market economy, is actually among the most heavily regulated advanced economies, while Japan's effort to liberalize its economy in the 1990s counterintuitively expanded the government's role in practice. In our era-and despite what anti-government ideologues contend-government officials, regardless of party affiliation, should be trained in marketcraft just as much as in statecraft.

This SpringerBrief offers an academic perspective on the trend of 'pop-up' retailing. It analyzes this temporary retail-oriented setting designed to foster a direct customer-brand interaction for a limited period, often with an explicitly promotional or communicative purpose. Adopting a managerial approach, it explores the use of pop-up retailing as a means of facilitating strategic growth by retail brands. In addition, it draws on theory from retail store environments and atmospherics, customer experience management and event management to provide an in-depth academic analysis of the planning and implementation issues arising from the inherent ephemerality of pop-up activities to achieve the strategic objectives of retail brands. The authors provide an overview of the entire pop-up lifecycle using an organizational schema that is split into four sequential stages: strategic objectives, pre-pop-up, actual pop-up experience, and the post pop-up stage. The key decision areas and activities incorporated in each of these stages are also outlined.

As the largest private employer in the world, Walmart dominates media and academic debate about the global expansion of transnational retail corporations and the working conditions in retail operations and across the supply chain. Yet far from being a monolithic force conquering the world, Walmart must confront and adapt to diverse policies and practices pertaining to regulation, economy, history, union organization, preexisting labor cultures, and civil society in every country into which it enters. This transnational aspect of the Walmart story, including the diversity and flexibility of its strategies and practices outside the United States, is mostly unreported. Walmart in the Global South presents empirical case studies of Walmart's labor practices and supply chain operations in a number of countries, including Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand. It assesses the similarities and differences in Walmart's acceptance into varying national contexts, which reveals when and how state regulation and politics have served to redirect company practice and to what effect. Regulatory context, state politics, trade unions, local cultures, and global labor solidarity emerge as vectors with very different force around the world. The volume's contributors show how and why foreign workers have successfully, though not uniformly, driven changes in Walmart's corporate culture. This makes Walmart in the Global South a practical guide for organizations that promote social justice and engage in worker struggles, including unions, worker centers, and other nonprofit entities.

Hungry for change? Put the power of food co-ops on your plate and grow your local food economy. Food has become ground-zero in our efforts to increase awareness of how our choices impact the world. Yet while we have begun to transform our communities and dinner plates, the most authoritative strand of the food web has received surprisingly little attention: the grocery store-the epicenter of our food-gathering ritual. Through penetrating analysis and inspiring stories and examples of American and Canadian food co-ops, Grocery Story makes a compelling case for the transformation of the grocery store aisles as the emerging frontier in the local and good food movements. Author Jon Steinman: Deconstructs the food retail sector and the shadows cast by corporate giants Makes the case for food co-ops as an alternative Shows how co-ops spur the creation of local food-based economies and enhance low-income food access. Grocery Story is for everyone who eats. Whether you strive to eat more local and sustainable food, or are in support of community economic development, Grocery Story will leave you hungry to join the food co-op movement in your own community.