Showing papers on "Competitive advantage published in 1989"

Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage

Abstract: Given incomplete factor markets, appropriate time paths of flow variables must be chosen to build required stocks of assets. That is, critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired in "strategic factor markets" Barney [Barney, J. 1986. Strategic factor markets: Expectations, luck, and business strategy. Management Sci. October 1231-1241.]. Sustainability of a firm's asset position hinges on how easily assets can be substituted or imitated. Imitability is linked to the characteristics of the asset accumulation process: time compression diseconomies, asset mass efficiencies, inter-connectedness, asset erosion and causal ambiguity.

From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy

Abstract: Corporate strategy, the overall plan for a diversified company, is both the darling and the stepchild of contemporary management practice — the darling because CEOs have been obsessed with diversification since the early 1960s, the stepchild because almost no consensus exists about what corporate strategy is, much less about how a company should formulate it.

Competitive groups as cognitive communities: the case of scottish knitwear manufacturers*

Abstract: This article explores how the mental models of organizational strategists determine perceptions of competing organizations and responses to competitive conditions. We first outline a cognitive perspective for discussing competitive strategy, and then use this framework to analyse the particular case of the Scottish knitwear industry. We show how the structure of that industry both determines and is determined by managerial perceptions of the environment. We conclude by drawing out a few general implications of our framework for research and theory on competitive strategy.

Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach

Abstract: Part I: INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT. 1. Strategic Leadership: Managing the Strategy-Making Process for Competitive Analysis. 2. External Analysis: The Identification of Opportunities and Threats. Part II: THE NATURE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. 3. Internal Analysis: Distinctive Competencies, Competitive Advantage, and Profitability. 4. Building Competitive Advantage Through Functional-Level Strategy. Part III: STRATEGIES. 5. Building Competitive Advantage Through Business-Level Strategy. 6. Business-Level Strategy and the Industry Environment. 7. Strategy and Technology. 8. Strategy in the Global Environment. 9. Corporate-Level Strategy: Horizontal Integration, Vertical Integration, and Strategic Outsourcing. 10. Corporate-Level Strategy: Related and Unrelated Diversification. Part IV: IMPLEMENTING STRATEGY. 11. Corporate Performance, Governance, and Business Ethics. 12. Implementing Strategy in Companies that Compete in a Single Industry. 13. Implementing Strategy in Companies that Compete Across Industries and Countries. Part V: CASES IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT.

Juran on leadership for quality : an executive handbook

Abstract: The subject of management for quality has undergone rapid and drastic change as a result of competition in the marketplace and the vulnerability of industrialized societies that depend heavily on the quality of goods and services. In this companion volume to his acclaimed 'Juran on Planning for Quality,' J.M. Juran provides top-level managers with the specific, field-tested methods they need to successfully lead their companies on the quest for superior quality. Managers have long recognized that the most sound response to a competitive challenge is to become more competitive. Today, informed managers also realize that quality improvement is the best source of competitive advantage. They know that return on investment in quality improvement projects is among the highest available. Yet, the means by which management can supply the leadership necessary to attain quality goals remains elusive. J.M. Juran has drawn on the experiences of thousands of chief executives in companies around the world to create a clear plan of action applicable to any industry, whether service or manufacturing. The famous "Juran Trilogy," clearly presented step-by-step, shows how to apply the familiar business concepts of planning, control, and improvement to quality leadership. For each concept, Dr. Juran provides a succinct and proven series of actions. He gives criteria for selecting project-by-project improvements and mobilizing a team to carry them out. He also describes a realistic timetable of implementation and directs the formation of an ongoing quality council whose job is to launch, coordinate, and "institutionalize" annual quality improvement. The membership of this council, as Dr. Juran insists, must come from the ranks of senior managersthe stakes are too high for upper managers not to personally become the leaders and members of this vital council. Using real-world case examples of highly profitable quality improvements in such companies as Bethlehem Steel and Florida Power

Managing Assets and Skills: The Key To a Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Abstract: Long-term success involves creating, managing, and exploiting assets and skills that competitors find difficult to match or counter. This involves a three-step process. The first step is to identify relevant skills and assets by observing successful and unsuccessful firms, key customer motivations, large value-added items, and mobility barriers. The second step is to select those skills and assets that will provide an advantage over competitors, will be relevant to the market, and will be feasible, sustainable, and appropriate for the furture. The third step is to develop and maintain those assets and skills and to neutralize those of competitors.

Asset Stock Accumulation and the Sustainability of Competitive Advantage: Reply

Abstract: Authors' reply to comments regarding their paper Dierickx, I., K. Cool. 1989. Asset stock accumulation and the sustainability of competitive advantage. Management Sci..

Management Women and the New Facts of Life

Abstract: The recognition that an increasing proportion of the workforce over the next decade will be women has important implications for corporate employers, not least in the area of leadership positions. Two types of women in organisations are defined – career‐primary and career‐and‐family – and it is asserted that if organisations are to retain their competitive advantage they must recognise the value of both types and provide a more flexible work environment. This will benefit both the individual and the employer. The individual will have freedom of choice between career or family, or a combination of both; and the employer will be able to retain a valuable resource – the talented women executives.

Global corporate competition: Who's winning, who's losing, and the R&D factor as one reason why

Abstract: This study summarizes the major changes over the period 1960–86 in the shares of world markets of the world'S leading American, European and Asian corporations based in 15 major industries. It relates the differential sales growth rates of the gaining and losing firms to national trends in industrial competitiveness, to employment change and to long-term returns to shareholders. One principal determinant of firms' global growth rates, and thence gains and losses in ‘world market share’, corporate research and development (R&D) intensity, is examined and tested on an 83-firm, six-industry subset of the overall data base. The proportion of corporate sales revenues allocated to commercially oriented R&D emerges as a, perhaps the, principal indicator of subsequent sales growth performance relative to competition over 5–10-year periods. Insofar as many U.S. and U.K. firms have lost global market share relative to Asian and European competitors over the past two decades, a significant contributory factor would appear to have been negligence on the part of many U.S. and U.K. firms of investment in technology as a factor determining strategic, competitive advantage.

Implementing competitive strategies at the business unit level: Implications of matching managers to strategies

Abstract: This paper argues that, for superior performance, it is necessary to attune the choice of the general manager to the strategy of the business unit (SBU). Data from 121 SBUs indicate that SBU competitive strategy interacts with several managerial orientations (functional background, locus of control, and problem-solving style) to influence SBU effectiveness. The theoretical and practical relevance of these findings are discussed, as are directions for future research.

Linking the information technology structure with organizational competitive strategy: a survey

Abstract: In a study involving 52 large organizations in the computer components industry, the relationship between information technology structure and organizational competitive strategy was examined. The results indicate that the information technology structure, as measured by the locus of responsibilities for information systems, is strongly related to competitive strategy. For example, an organization with a conservative competitive strategy possesses a more centralized information systems function than an organization with an aggressive competitive strategy. This means that user departments in a conservative organization have less control over their information technology function than user departments in a aggressive organization. These findings provide additional support for the organizational fit concept - that the conformity between information technology structure and overall organizational context variables, including competitive strategy, is instrumental to the successful implementation of information technology systems.

Strategic Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations

Abstract: It has recently been suggested that the potentially dynamic and proactive role of employers in industrial relations be recognized (Kochan, McKersie, & Cappelli, 1984). Because incorporating the notion of strategic human resource management appears consistent with that suggestion, it is done here integrating frameworks of competitive strategy and human resource management practices using the rationale of needed employee role behaviors and cost and market conditions. This is then merged with business life-cycles stages creating a contingency framework for understanding the impact of strategic human resource management on industrial relations. This is done also using the rationale of cost and market conditions and needed employee role behaviors. The integrated competitive strategy-human resource management model is extended by inclusion of strategic targets and industry chain. The implications for industrial relations are laced throughout the discussion along with three sets of propositions. Implications for...

Asset Stock Accumulation and Sustainability of Competitive Advantage

Abstract: Examines the concept "strategic factor markets"--a market where the resources necessary to implement a strategy are acquired. A framework based on the notion of asset stock accumulation is established and guidelines for assessing the sustainability of a firm's competitive advantage are developed. The limitations of the strategic factor markets concept are particularly visible in incomplete factor markets, where critical resources are accumulated rather than acquired and some factors are not traded in open markets. The framework gauges the sustainability of the income stream generated through the deployment of non-tradable assets. It is shown that the sustainability of a firm's asset position is directly influenced by the ease with which these assets can be substituted or imitated. The imitation of these assets is linked to five characteristics of the asset accumulation process: (1) time compression diseconomies--if a firm develops a resource quickly the result is usually a lower quality resource and a higher development cost; (2) asset mass efficiencies--sustainability of a resource is enhanced to the extent that adding increments to an existing asset stock is facilitated by owning high levels of that stock; (3) interconnectedness of asset stocks--accumulating increments in an existing stock may depend not just on the level of that stock, but also on the level of other stocks; (4) asset erosion--all asset stocks decay in the absence of adequate maintenance expenditures; (5) causal ambiguity--the levels of a firm's stocks will determine each firm's probability of success. (SFL)

Multinational Enterprises and the Growth of Services: Some Conceptual and Theoretical Issues

Abstract: This article sets out to identify first, the main competitive advantages of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in providing services; second, the way in which these advantages are used to best advance the strategic goals of MNEs and the reasons why the value added activities which these advantages generate are undertaken outside the home country of the M NE. The article also identifies some of the reasons for the growth of MNE involvement in the service sector over the lasttwo decades and, in particular, why foreign direct investment (FDI) has been the preferred route for organising cross-border activities involving services.

Accounting data for value chain analysis

Abstract: Strategic planning frameworks provide a means of combining internal data about the firm's capabilities with external information about the competitive environment in a manner designed to guide resource allocation. The value chain approach to strategic planning, as described by Michael Porter in his book Competitive Advantage (1985), is a recent addition to this family of planning frameworks. In this article, we address some of the difficulties in using accounting data for value chain analysis. These difficulties are divided into those that are inherent, because of differences in methods of data accumulation, and those that are avoidable.

The study of international business: a plea for a more interdisciplinary approach

Abstract: scholastic efforts to study and teach international business is entirely dependent on our capability to marshal and organise the necessary human and other assets so as to supply a range of end products which are acceptable to the academic community of which we are part, our paymasters and the main purchasers of our products, viz, the business community. Of course, the determinants of success of the practice and study of IB are interrelated; and, in our particular pursuit for excellence, there is no unique or sure-fire recipe for success. But, I observe, that in an ever increasingly complex world of international business, which is dominated by rapid and far-reaching changes in technology and by environmental turbulence, this is no less true of successful practitioners. Rarely, in seeking to identify the reasons for business achievement, is one able to find a single common denominator. Sometimes excellence is primarily based on innovatory ingenuity; sometimes on the access to or control of key inputs or markets; sometimes on aggressive or novel methods of advertising and marketing; sometimes on super-efficient capital budgeting; sometimes on dynamic and imaginative entrepreneurship; sometimes on the diversity of operational experiences and capabilities; and sometimes on an unusual aptitude to manage human relationships. But in most cases, success is founded on some amalgam of these, and it is the way in which these discrete-though increasingly interdependent-advantages are &ombined with each other and with complementary assets in different countries and cultures, which contemporary research suggests is the key competitive advantages of international firms. Call it what you will-e.g.,

Asset stocks and sustained competitive advantage: a comment

Abstract: In their paper, Dierickx and Cool suggest that the strategic factor markets model developed in Barney Barney, J. B. 1986a. Strategic factor markets: Expectations, luck, and business strategy. Management Sci. October 1231-1241. cannot be applied in the analysis of sustained competitive advantages due to asset stocks accumulated over time. In this comment, it is shown that the discussion of asset stocks extends and complements, rather than limits, the strategic factor markets model. This is done by analyzing how the strategic factor markets model can be used to examine the cost of accumulating asset stocks over long periods of time, and how these costs will compare to the value of strategies that are implemented exploiting these asset stocks.

Portfolio Planning: uses and limits

Abstract: The diversity of large industrial — and mostly multinational — corporations can be at once their greatest source of competitive advantage and the wellspring of their most fundamental difficulties. Diversity provides an opportunity for these companies to use cash flow generated by their mature basic businesses to gain new leadership positions. Internally, however, this same diversity also creates a managerial gap between the corporate level, which has the power to commit resources but often only a superficial knowledge of each business, and the business level, where managers have the substantive knowledge required to make resource allocation decisions but lack the ‘big corporate picture’.

EDI: The Competitive Edge

Abstract: The business advantages of EDI are enormous--if the advance work is done correctly. This text guides the manager through a comprehensive assessment of EDI as a strategic business decision. Uses "on'site", industry-specific case study examples.

Strategic Use of Technology

Abstract: Within any given industry, some firms build competitive advantage on the basis of technology, others do not; some recognize and seize upon the strategic implications of new technology developments, others do not. Why do some firms make better strategic use of technology than others? The answer may have less to do with the management of technology than with the extent to which technological considerations play a role in the way business strategies are formulated. This article proposes a decision-making perspective that views technology as one of a number of competing options facing the corporate strategist, each ambiguous in definition and uncertain in outlook. Using this perspective, the article offers a set of propositions or tentative answers to these questions.

Breeding Hybrid Strategies: Optimal Behavior for Oligopolists

Abstract: Oligopolistic pricing decisions-in which the choice variable is not dichotomous as in the simple prisoner's dilemma but continuous-have been modeled as a generalized prisoner's dilemma (GPD) by Fader and Hauser, who sought, in the two MIT Computer Strategy Tournaments, to obtain an effective generalization of Rapoport's Tit for Tat for the three-person repeated game. Holland's genetic algorithm and Axelrod's representation of contingent strategies provide a means of generating new strategies in the computer, through machine learning, without outside submissions. The paper discusses how findings from two-person tournaments can be extended to the GPD, in particular how the author's winning strategy in the Second MIT Competitive Strategy Tournament could be bettered. The paper provides insight into how oligopolistic pricing competitors can successfully compete, and underlines the importance of “niche” strategies, successful against a particular environment of competitors. Bootstrapping, or breeding strategies against their peers, provides a means of examining whether “repetition leads to cooperation”: we show that it can, under certain conditions, for simple and extended two- and three-person GPD repeated games. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relationship between Selten's trembling-hand perfect equilibrium and Maynard Smith's evolutionarily stable strategies, with practical simulations of successful and unsuccessful “invasions” by new strategies.

An Introduction to Information Engineering: From Strategic Planning to Information Systems

Abstract: From the Publisher: Strategic business planning and strategic information systems planning are merging. The time when one could be accomplished independently of the other is gone, and the importance of both to any organizations's economic future cannot be overstated. Today, information systems must contribute to the overall competitive advantage of the organization.

Examining Generic Competitive Strategy Types in U.S. and European Markets

Abstract: Identification of generic competitive strategy types has recently attracted considerable attention. Most of this research has, however, focused on competitive strategy of U.S. businesses in their domestic market. The present study extends these findings to markets outside the United States, and more specifically Europe, based on a sample of industrial businesses drawn from the PIMS database. Similar dimensions underlying competitive strategy, and similar generic types are found among business in the U.S. and in Europe. Some differences in the performance and business characteristics of certain strategy types were, however, observed between U.S. and European markets. Rate of market growth also appeared to have more significant relation to performance of businesses in Europe than in the U.S.

The Integration of Marketing Flows in Channels of Distribution

Abstract: A long‐standing and important concept in marketing is the existence of flows in the channel of distribution. Various channel strategies related to flow separation, postponement, and acceleration have been described separately in different parts of the marketing literature. This article attempts to integrate and relate these concepts in both a managerial and theoretical manner. Building on order penetration points and a network paradigm, the concepts are systematically integrated. Specific managerial tools such as a network planning matrix and mathematical network analysis are also presented. The need to integrate marketing flows for achieving customer satisfaction is highlighted. By linking separate flow strategies, channel performance can be leveraged for competitive advantage.

Going to Market: Distribution Systems for Industrial Products

Abstract: Peter Drucker once referred to the distribution infrastructure of business as "the economy's dark continent." Going to Market maps this territory for managers and scholars. The study approaches channel management as a marketing system and a key dimension of corporate strategy. Based on extensive field research on more than 50 companies, including IBM, GE, Control Data Corporation, and U.S. Steel, it considers channel issues related to sales organization, pricing, salesforce/reseller relationships, inter- and intrachannel rivalry, and gray markets. The book also discusses the historical and legal contexts for channel policies in the United States. Going to Market offers managers valuable guidance in this increasingly important aspect of competitive strategy.