The Paradox of Wholesalers’s Survival: an Analysis Through Role and Legitimacy in the Context of Fruit and Vegetables distribution Networks

Résumé En

Role and position are key concepts in explaining both stability and change in distribution networks.Developing a shared understanding of roles with other actorshasbeen identified asa prerequisite for an actor thatwants to change theirposition in a network. Our research aims at understanding how such a shared perception of role develops through actors’ actions and interactions in networks. We explore the extent to which the concept of legitimacy helps in understanding the favourable conditions to develop a shared interpretation of role. The empirical setting of this research is the Frenchfreshfruit and vegetables (FFV) distribution that has been characterised by an important movement of disintermediation as large-scale retailers started to centralise their purchasing and marketing functions and to concentrate their supplies.Contrary to other product categories, wholesalers still keep on acting in such networks. Findings rely on a two-stepqualitative approach:a qualitative study based on interviews at three wholesalers and a multiple cases study of four FFV departments linked to a same regional divisional officebut contrasted on the way they interact with wholesalers. We thus aim at understanding wholesalers’new roles and positions in large-scale retailing distribution networksand at explainingwhy they still exist but, on the other hand, why they also encounterdifficulties to gain a more stable and lasting position.