This book concludes a decade of research on Japanese retailing, incorporating
research for my PhD thesis that focused on the emergence of
modern Japanese retail institutions and later research that discussed
the development of Japanese retailing in the 1990s. In the course of
my research results were presented at various conferences such as the
Association of Japanese Business Studies, Euro Asia Management Association
and the European Association of Education and Research in
Commercial Distribution. I would like to thank all reviewers and participants
for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank all the
people I interviewed in the course of my research and who provided me
with valuable background information.