Performance in Food Retailing: A Cross‐national Consideration and Comparison of Retail Margins
分析了英国食品零售商利润和会计政策受关注的原因，提出影响绩效的四类因素（会计实务、成本结构、管理结构、环境背景），并用英法公司数据说明简单比较不可靠。
The leading United Kingdom food retailers have recently come under considerable scrutiny in respect of their reported profits, margins and accounting policies. Journalists and analysts as well as academics have focused on comparisons with continental European retailers. This paper argues that a number of factors are pertinent to the debate on performance in food retailing. The classification introduced (accountancy practices, cost structures, management structures and control and the environmental context), is illustrated using UK and French company data. The conclusion is drawn that it is not just simple differences but also the operational dimensions of company practices relating to these factors which are important determinants of performance. Simplistic headline comparisons are too inaccurate to be meaningful.