• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.2 no.1_2
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• pp.183-194
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• 1999

This paper examines the relationship between the locational patterns of global and domestic stores. Objective corporation for this research is the Daiei Inc., which is multinational retail corporation of general merchandise store industry. Used data are For the Customers and 1997 Annual Report published by the Daiei Inc. in 1997, and Worldwide Branch Location of Multinational Companies published by the Gale Researchy Inc. As a result it is recognized that the headquarters of supermarket companies are not necessarily established in the largest city of the store networks. In addition, the chani o stores does not always correspond to the economic territory area of a city or a regional urban system. Usually, supermarkets are established first one after another around the headquarter, so that the store network becomes intensive. Moreover, supermarket companies exhibit a tendence of expanding after having increased density of their stores in their indigenous regions. It seems that supermarket companies try to lay the foundation of their operation firmly on their indigenous regions, while they expand the store network into neighboring regions in order to enlarge their profits. This phenomenon appears more and less partly in the location of oversea purchasing offices. First oversea office location appears in neighboring countries whose headquarter is located in Japan. Another oversea office location is established in higher order city of another continent. Usally after the number of oversea offices increases in their headquarter's neighboring region, the oversea office network exhibits a tendency of expanding in another continents. in addition, network of oversea offices does not always correspond with world urban system. The location of oversea offices is formed, after internalization of supermarket stores was established in Japan. And when increasing rates of supermarket stores was low in Japan, number of oversea offices increased.