ASDA: Organic Growth of a Retailer in the United Kingdom?

This article analyzes the role of glocalization in Wal-Mart's venture in the United Kingdom. In 1999, Wal-Mart acquired ASDA, a British food retailer. Glocalization refers to strategies adopted by multinational corporations to cater to local tastes and differences after entering a foreign market. The authors' main argument is the following: after Wal-Mart acquired ASDA, it did not manage to successfully impose its Wal-Martization strategies because they consisted mainly of “organic growth” strategies. Organic growth is a practice whereby a corporation overpoweringly imposes its home-based blueprint of product consumption and corporate culture on foreign cultures. As demonstrated in this analysis, Wal-Mart had to drop its Bentonville-based shopping and corporate formula and, instead, adopt the principles of glocalization.     

Local perception of a regulatory order Closing down an abstraction point as a crisis indicator?

The closure of a drinking water catchment and deterioration of water quality raise questions about concepts such as water quality and territory. This prompts us to consider the interactions between resource and environmental policy, insofar as sensitivity to the standard of water used for human consumption is high and where its operation involves a large number of actors: state departments, public managers and private firms, land and water users and their representatives. Investigations by semi-directive interviews and surveys were conducted with users and water managers at three sites in Brittany (Finistère and in Ille-et-Vilaine) affected directly or indirectly by the Grenelle 1 bill. The results of the survey suggest that the crisis, if it exists, is attributed by the actors to the quantitative evolution of the resource and to regulations perceived as arbitrary in a context of poorly-controlled environmental dynamics. The socio-economic obstacles to quality improvement are frequently advanced in discussions, but management policies capable of removing these obstacles are very rarely mentioned. Instead, the stakeholders place their trust in technological solutions and work towards the political construction of functional solidarities.     

Revisiting Aggregate U.S. Meat Demand with a Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates Approach: Do We Need a More General Theory?

Although meat demand is one of the most studied issues in agricultural economics, our understanding of this phenomenon has been hampered by valid concerns about model specification uncertainty. This article revisits the need for more general theories of aggregate U.S. meat demand. Using a Bayesian averaging of classical estimates approach, we draw comprehensive inferences over 1,048,576 demand systems. We find very little evidence supporting the need for more general theories that include demand determinants beyond prices and expenditures. We find strong evidence in support of symmetry and negativity, but strong evidence against homogeneity, which is consistent with other research.