Malling over Japan: Perspectives on Shopping Centre Development and Management

Only over the last decade has Japan seen a rapid increase in the number of large, centrally-managed shopping centres and they have become important places for retailers to operate stores and for people to shop and spend time.This makes Japan a latecomer in shopping centre development. In addition, this happened at a time when Japan's economy was stagnating and under the onset of an aging and shrinking population. Thus questions need to be asked about the motives and strategies of actors involved in this development. In this presentation, Dr. Hendrik Meyer-Ohle will use two shopping malls, one in Tokyo and one in peripheral Japan, to locate shopping centres within Japan's retail landscape. This examination will lead to a discussion of the organization of the shopping centre industry and will especially look at the relationship between developers, retail anchors and tenants. With this presentation Dr. Meyer-Ohle not only introduces shopping centres as important places where consumption and marketing takes place in Japan, but will also demonstrate how shopping malls can be used as a starting point to take up larger issues important to an understanding of Japan's economy and society of today.

Dr. Hendrik Meyer-Ohle teaches at the National University of Singapore and is a candidate for the Jarislowsky-CAPI (Japan) East Asia Chair.