A study of the development of the Asian department store, this book examines various aspects of retailing, business organization, networking and consumerism in the expanding economies of Asia.

In this pioneering study of the development of the Asian department store, economists, sociologists, anthropologists and historians examine various aspects of retailing, business organization, networking and consumerism in the expanding economies of Asia. While focusing on the cultural histories of China, Japan, Hong Kong, and the overseas Chinese in Australia in the formation and shaping of Asia's 'universal providers', this book presents a unique perspective on the way in which department stores such as Wing On, Sincere, Seibu and Yao-han were gradually transformed into multinational enterprises during the 20th century. This intriguing volume shows convincingly why the department store, originally a Western form of enterprise, became a predominately and distinctively Asian institution in the decades after World War Two. This interesting study explains why the great department stores of Japan and China are unsurpassed in world retailing today as arbiters of taste and fashion. Tom Havens, Prof. of History, University of California, Berkeley

Introduction - Asia's universal providers
Sun Yatsen and the department store - an aspect of national reconstruction
Wing On and the Kwok brothers - a case study of pre-war Chinese entrepreneurs
personal styles, cultural values and management - the Sincere and Wing On companies in Shanghai and Hong Kong 1900-1941
Chinese stores in rural Australia
New China's flagship emporium - the Beijing Wangfujing department store
the birth of the Japanese department store
Seibu department store and image marketing - Japanese consumerism in the post-war period
something more - Japanese department stores' marketing of "a meaningful human life"
the Yaohan Group - model or maverick among Japanese retailers in China?
from Japanese supermarket to Hong Kong department store.