Peter Scott is Professor of International Business History at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School. His research interests include the history of retailing, consumer durables, household consumption, inequality, living standards, the house-building sector, working hours, and path dependence. Patrick Fridenson is Professor of International Business History at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His research interests include the strategies, innovations, performances, and ethics of business enterprises in relation to consumers and to the regulatory and social environment in international perspective (comparisons between France, Germany, the US and Japan). He has worked on several industries: coal, automobile, aircraft, electronics and on working hours.

• Introduction: New perspectives on 20th-century European retailingPeter Scott and Patrick Fridenson1. Managing business performance: The contrasting cases of two multiple retailers 1920 to 1939Andrew Hull2. More than window dressing: visual merchandising and austerity in London’s West End, 1945–50Bethan Bide3. Turning regulation into business opportunities: A brief history of French food mass retailing (1949–2015)Adam Dewitte, Sebastian Billows and Xavier Lecocq4. The state, small shops and hypermarkets: A public policy for retail, France, 1945–1973Tristan Jacques5. Unlocking the padlock: Retail and public policy in Belgium (1930–1961)Peter Heyrman6. Resistance to Inequality as a Competitive Strategy? – The Cases of the Finnish consumer Co-ops Elanto and HOK 1905–2015Anitra Komulainen and Sakari Siltala

Peter Scott is Professor of International Business History at the University of Reading’s Henley Business School. His research interests include the history of retailing, consumer durables, household consumption, inequality, living standards, the house-building sector, working hours, and path dependence. Patrick Fridenson is Professor of International Business History at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His research interests include the strategies, innovations, performances, and ethics of business enterprises in relation to consumers and to the regulatory and social environment in international perspective (comparisons between France, Germany, the US and Japan). He has worked on several industries: coal, automobile, aircraft, electronics and on working hours.

• Introduction: New perspectives on 20th-century European retailingPeter Scott and Patrick Fridenson1. Managing business performance: The contrasting cases of two multiple retailers 1920 to 1939Andrew Hull2. More than window dressing: visual merchandising and austerity in London’s West End, 1945–50Bethan Bide3. Turning regulation into business opportunities: A brief history of French food mass retailing (1949–2015)Adam Dewitte, Sebastian Billows and Xavier Lecocq4. The state, small shops and hypermarkets: A public policy for retail, France, 1945–1973Tristan Jacques5. Unlocking the padlock: Retail and public policy in Belgium (1930–1961)Peter Heyrman6. Resistance to Inequality as a Competitive Strategy? – The Cases of the Finnish consumer Co-ops Elanto and HOK 1905–2015Anitra Komulainen and Sakari Siltala