| dc.description.abstract | Food retail in Africa is undergoing a dramatic transformation, threatening the existence
of traditional retailing practices in urban metropoles. In particular, the issue of
supermarket (SM) development is important because it threatens the continuation of
the Mama Mboga (MM) retailing institution. Understanding the impacts of SM on MM
is important because MM has historically been integral to the provisioning of fresh
fruits and vegetables (FFV) to Kenya's urban population. The existing scholarship on
retail development in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) does not account for the persistence
of the MM retailing practice, especially in an economy where SMs are prioritised; nor
does it account for the various strategies employed by MM retailers to ensure their
continuity. It is these strategies which have allowed MM to successfully transition from
being an indigenous African trade to a commercially viable contemporary retailing
institution.
In this thesis, I study the impacts of the prioritisation of supermarketisation in Kenya's
national development agenda on MMs. Specifically, this thesis focuses on MMs
heterogeneous strategies and the factors that drive the re-configuration of their built
environment, their carefully curated procurement strategies that enable MM to
diversify their competitive positions, and their adoption of competition immiscible
characteristic of MM enterprise behaviour. This study focuses on the urban
marketplace of food in Nairobi, in particular, Hillview Estate in Kasarani. The analysis
is based on qualitative fieldwork undertaken over a total of nine months between 2016-
2017, during which time the dynamics of MM and SM networks, experiences,
behaviours, and changes were revealed by applying fourteen methodological
techniques. These techniques helped to identify behaviour, practices and decision
making that would have otherwise remained undiscovered.
This thesis shows that the continuity of MM in the marketplace of food involves the
adoption of strategies relating to their external and internal environments – the macro
environment, the microenvironment, and the internal environment. Within each of
these environments, MM have rebranded themselves as competitive and
commercially viable retailers operating on the margins of the urban retail marketplace.
This finding challenges retail market literature which assumes that the teleology of
retail development means that traditional retailers will become obsolete by usurpation
by SMs. | en |
