Trading in a Competitive Environment: South‐Asian Restaurants in the UK

• Author: Shiv Chaudhry,Dave Crick,James M. Crick
• Date: 01 July 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2069
• Published date: 01 July 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Strat. Change 25: 371–382 (2016)

Published online in Wiley Online Library

(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2069

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic Change: Briengs in Entrepreneurial Finance

Strategic Change

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2069

Trading in a Competitive Environment: South-Asian

Restaurants in the UK1

Dave Crick

University of Ottawa, Canada

Shiv Chaudhry

Birmingham City University, UK

James M. Crick

Loughborough University, UK

South-Asian restaurant owners in the UK need to avoid employing a business model

that operates on threshold capabilities, but rather need to learn from the more

dynamic capabilities of rivals in the sector in order to help sustainability.

South-Asian food has become part of the multicultural British diet. Buettner

(2008, p. 865) highlights that ‘going for an Indian – or out for a curry – has

become an increasingly prominent aspect of British social, economic, and cultural

life since the 1960s.’ Seaman et al. (2005, p. 193) suggest that ‘curry has been

acclaimed as a British National Dish’ – a move in cultural attitudes over recent

generations, e.g. away from stereotypical food such as sh and chips.

e objective of this study is to investigate restaurant owners’ business strate-

gies in a competitive environment with a view to considering their potential

sustainability. is is within the context of South-Asian restaurants in the Mid-

lands region of the UK. e sector was chosen to represent products that have

become assimilated into the UK’s culture (Ram et al., 2000a,b, 2002a; Seaman

et al., 2005). is area exhibits a multicultural base of customers that contains a

variety of restaurants, with culturally based cuisines and most noticeably of a

South-Asian origin (Ram et al., 2000a,b, 2002a). Given the propensity of

Bangladeshi entrepreneurs to operate in this sector vis-à-vis other ethnic groups

(Ram et al., 2002a), it was decided to concentrate on this single South-Asian

ethnic subgroup.

Many small businesses fail for various reasons after the start-up phase, and not

least due to their limited resources in the face of competition (Storey, 1994). e

importance of this study from an owner and business advisory perspective is that,

1 JEL classication codes: D22, L21, L25, L26. e authors gratefully acknowledge the

research assistance of Abdullah Al Mamun.

Utilizing ethnic community

networks and co-creating with

customers will only assist business

sustainability up to a point.

More effective business planning

and information gathering will

help owners learn from the

dynamic capabilities of proactive

rivals in developing their business

models.

Opportunities for large-scale

innovation in business models

may be limited due to lack of

resources, but incremental

changes can be made.