Retailing has developed from independent merchants from the pre-industrial times to multinational giants operating through global value chains, and it has been one of the cornerstones of the consumption driven Western economies. However, a number of different global scale change trajectories are challenging the retail industry; e.g. climate change, online consumption demands, widened supply chain ecosystems, increasing needs of the new growing markets of emerging economies, technological development with AI, as well as the current Covid-19 pandemic create new challenges and opportunities to retail sector. In this study, we concentrate on connecting the development paths of consumption and retailing. The purpose of the study is to identify various factors - and contradictions among them - that affect the future of global retailing. By juxtaposing the paradoxes in the explanations of retailing, we aim to create paradigms for the future of the industry.
We employ institutional logics perspective as theoretical framework, and qualitative content analysis and Delphi method as methodological approaches. Hence, we combine secondary data with insights and projections obtained from structured expert interviews to study the dynamics of global retailing and consumption development, and the complexity of industry change across national borders.