ABSTRACT
As the concept of a global market has gradually evolved, retailers' interest in crossing borders has been greatly enhanced. However, international operations are not new to many Japanese retailers. Their first move to overseas markets began in the latter half of the 1950s, and they now seem to be successfully transplanted in various regions of the Far East. This study has two major purposes. One is to explore the present conditions of Japanese retailers' operations in the international markets, the other is to identify differences between the Japanese retailers who seek international expansions and those who do not, with an emphasis on their financial performance. The first part of this paper, therefore, will use a descriptive analysis coupled with supportive literature to examine the methods of operation used by the Japanese retail companies that expanded
internationally as well as their reasons for expansion. The second part will use an empirical application technique to discover the determinants that can be used to discriminate among Japanese retailers' international expansions.
