Complexity theory and retail location strategy

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative approach to the exploration and explanation of retail location strategy formulation based on the premises of complexity theory. A chaos-theoretic approach was employed to encapsulate the complex environmental context of retail organisations, and the findings of the research are discussed in the terms and language of chaos literature. It is argued that managers understand complexity in an individual way, and therefore they deal with complexity based on their own unique understanding of it. We also argue that there are complexity absorbing and complexity adapting retail organisations that follow different approaches to their retail location strategy formulation.