Promoting retail innovation: knowledge flows during the emergence of self-service and supermarket retailing in Britain

The notion of innovation underpins many studies of change within the literatures of retail management and the new retail geography. However, conceptualisation of the innovation process within retailing has remained surprisingly partial, with insufficient attention being given to the processes of knowledge management and learning within the firm. The authors illustrate the importance of such themes by reference to the key organisational and technological changes surrounding the development of self-service and supermarket retailing in Britain during the postwar years 1945-65. A conceptual framework derived from a reading of the business-management and economic geography literatures is employed to analyse the innovation transfer and related knowledge-management processes that influenced retail change during this critical period.