International value chain processes by retailers and wholesalers --A general approach

International audienceMany traditional behaviorist or marketing approaches and descriptive models have been developed in the past to explain<br />internationalization of retail firms. Only a few of these have a wider scope comparable to theories used today in international<br />management research. The international retailing research so far has barely touched upon the international management of value-added<br />activities and processes. This paper proposes and discusses a general value chain approach which opens up a promising perspective to<br />provide a new direction for research and a better understanding of management options for increasingly internationalized retail firms.<br />This appears to be all the more important because, in practice, more and more highly internationalized firms are structuring their valueadded<br />activities and processes on an increasingly international basis in order to gain competitive advantages or to increase their profits