The impact of organization size upon business development in UK retailing 1980–7: a statistical analysis

Abstract

This paper uses comparable 1980–7 data relating to UK retail organizations defined in terms of size class by reference to the number of outlets per organization and broken down into a number of size categories to examine hypotheses relating to the impact of size of retail organization upon competitiveness. A number of statistical tests are used to isolate the impact of size of retail organization alone upon business performance and development. The results show that, while the largest size category of retail organizations has particularly prospered, this has not been at the uniform expense of smaller size classes of retailers but that the smallest (unit or independent) retailers have performed more strongly than intermediate size classes of business. This may be attributed either to the nature of the competitive environment in terms of the identity of those retail organizations most obviously exposed to competition from the largest (combined with the particular survival strategies adopted by smaller retailers) or to the relative efficiency of these smaller retailers.