Editorial

About the EditorNigel Farmer is Acting Head at the Department of Food and Consumer Technology,Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK.

How often has one heard (or even joined in!) a debate on the relative merits of case studies against theoretical research?

The case study is held up as an example of real world research, describing and offering insight into reality, albeit with a superficial and partial perspective. By contrast, theoretical research has its foundations set rigorously in robust (hopefully!) theory but is always open to the criticism that it represents a too simplified view of the world.

This edition of the journal provides a solution to the dilemma. Here we have gathered together some excellent examples of empirical research that offer the benefits of the case study but ensure that the theoretical constructs can be anchored within a validated foundation that can be built on with some confidence.

The process of consolidation between the grocery retailers in the UK has become a well established fact over the past 40 years. This pattern of shrinkage and the consequential changes in strategy is reviewed in the Newman and Cullen paper from UMIST.

In a joint paper from Cheltenham College and the Universities of Glamorgan and Plymouth, Jones et al. describe the impact that the aggressive pricing and marketing of alcohol by supermarkets has had on consumers' drinking habits and the shift to home-based consumption from pubs and clubs.

The remaining papers are much more international; the Vignalis et al. paper from MMU offers a wide ranging review of the growth in retail supermarkets in Spain and considers how the different socio-economic group's segmentation and targeting affects consumer behaviour and the resulting impact on the growth of the sector.

Much has been made recently about the move of UK retailers into the Southeast Asia markets. They are, though, by no means the first, and Kamath and Godin from the Nangang Business School, Singapore, report on how the French hypermarket chain, Carrefour, has already established a success story in the region.

Finally, a fascinating paper from Rudawska of Scezin University, where the situation in Poland is considered; here there is effectively no marketing and people are more influenced by an interest in good healthy eating rather than branding, and companies are still behind Western competitors in the marketing of their goods.

Nigel Farmer