Total quality management as competitive advantage: A review and empirical study

Total Quality Management (TQM) has become, according to one source, ‘as pervasive a part of business thinking as quarterly financial results,’ and yet TQM's role as a strategic resource remains virtually unexamined in strategic management research. Drawing on the resource approach and other theoretical perspectives, this article examines TQM as a potential source of sustainable competitive advantage, reviews existing empirical evidence, and reports findings from a new empirical study of TQM's performance consequences. The findings suggest that most features generally associated with TQM—such as quality training, process improvement, and benchmarking—do not generally produce advantage, but that certain tacit, behavioral, imperfectly imitable features—such as open culture, employee empowerment, and executive commitment—can produce advantage. The author concludes that these tacit resources, and not TQM tools and techniques, drive TQM success, and that organizations that acquire them can outperform competitors with or without the accompanying TQM ideology.     

Research notes and communications strategic planning as competitive advantage

Since 1970, over forty empirical studies have examined the performance consequences of formal strategic planning. This line of research has drawn heavy criticism from reviewers on methodological grounds, and has produced confusing, apparently contradictory results. This article reevaluates the planning-performance relationship from a resource perspective, arguing that strategic planning does not satisfy the criteria for sustainable competitive advantage– although it may produce economic value, it is easily imitated and may be substitutable. The article suggests that previous studies produced inconsistent results because they did not account for the dissemination of strategic planning over time, or for industry differences in strategic planning factor markets. An empirical test in two industries finds that formal strategic planning and financial performance are unrelated in a ‘planning equilibrium’ industry, but positively related in an industry with strategic planning factor market imperfections.     

企业的竞争优势来源及其战略选择

本文在综合产业分析理论与核心能力理论的基础上,提出了一个分析企业竞争优势来源的动态架构,即“产业景气-战略群组-核心能力”这样一个一般分析范式。同时刻画了企业所处的“竞争优势空间”,分析了在位企业和潜在进入者如何根据这一范式制定有效的竞争战略。     

东北老工业基地产业自生竞争力研究

本文在将比较优势理论和竞争优势理论结合的基础上,提出了产业自生竞争力的概念,并通过对产业自生竞争力的进一步理论分析,应用于对东北三省老工业基地的实证研究,得出东北老工业基地的整体工业基础和若干制造业具备自生竞争力的相关结论。同时,本文认为,将培育具备自生竞争力的产业作为核心,以此促进老工业基地优势的充分发挥,在新的国际和国内环境下获得新生,进而对国家经济社会的发展做出更大的贡献。     

中国劳动密集型产业竞争力提升出路何在——新《劳动合同法》实施后的调研

本文在企业调研的基础上对新《劳动合同法》实施后劳动密集型产业竞争力的提升问题进行了研究。调研中我们发现新《劳动合同法》并没有增加守法企业的用工成本;工资上涨不是《劳动合同法》实施的结果;《劳动合同法》有助于维护正常的用工秩序;《劳动合同法》实施也没有减少劳动力市场需求。在调研的基础上,我们认为劳动密集型企业升级的路径应是主动将价格优势升级为品牌与渠道优势;注重研发,提升产品档次;注重人才培养,把以人为本的理念落到实处。在经济快速增长的时期,多数企业在快速增长中较少关注创新、品牌与人才;而当经济形势不好时,多数企业就会快速从繁荣到破产。但少数企业家在企业快速增长时期就比较注重自身竞争力的提升,在繁荣时不断提升企业能力,因而在危机时不仅可以渡过难关,甚至可以在危机中发现机遇,在危机中相对提升自身竞争力,在危机过后迎接新一轮增长期。以下两个因素已成为制约劳动密集型产业竞争力提升的障碍:一是中国软实力的不足;二是高水平产业技术工人的匮乏。中国的劳动密集型产业需要发展,更需要升级。可以说,中国的产业将与劳动力素质一起升级;甚至可以说没有劳动力素质的升级,中国的产业升级将仅是镜中花,水中月。在可以预计的时期内,中国劳动密...     

Can first-mover and early-mover advantages be sustained in an industry with low barriers to entry/imitation?

This study examines whether first-mover and early-mover advantages can be sustained in an industry where the barriers to entry are generally low and new product innovations can be easily imitated—namely, the money market mutual fund industry. Using a simultaneous-equation supply-and-demand model of panel data from a variety of money market fund product categories, the study finds that first-movers and early-movers enjoy both a highly sustainable pricing advantage and a moderately sustainable market share advantage. These counterintuitive results are interpreted in terms of the structural characteristics of demand in the industry. Implications of these results for the ongoing debate between the ‘sustainability’ and ‘hypercompetition’ perspectives are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

价值链分析方法在医药行业研究中的应用

价值链（value chain）的名称是由美国哈佛大学商学院教授迈克尔·波特于1985年在其《竞争优势》一书中提出来的。作为一种强有力的战略分析框架,它已被许多领域广泛融入和吸收。本文简要介绍了价值链理论,并结合医药行业的实际情况,对价值链在行业研究中的应用进行阐述,包括行业价值链分析的主要思路、过程和方法,以及如何在价值链分析的基础上为医药企业确定能够争取竞争优势的竞争战略。     

How long must a firm be great to rule out chance? Benchmarking sustained superior performance without being fooled by randomness

Although sustained superior firm performance may arise from skillful management or other valuable, rare, and inimitable resources, it can also result from randomness. Studying U.S. companies from 1965–2008, we benchmark how long a firm must perform at a high level to be confident that it is something other than the outcome of a time‐homogeneous stationary Markov chain defined on the state space of percentiles. We find (a) the number of sustained superior performers in Compustat, measured by ROA and Tobin's q, exceeds the number of false positives we would expect to be generated by such a process; yet (b) the occurrence of false positives is often enough to fool many observers, so (c) the identification of sustained superior performers requires particularly stringent benchmarks to enable valid study. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

China’s Textile Industry International Competitive Advantage and Policy Suggestion

Textile industry has long been a pillar to China’s economy thanks to its advantage in factor endowment and market scale. Trade volume of textile sector has increased by 27.11 times during the past 25 years (from the Reform and Opening). In 2005, textile export took up 15.4% of China’s total export and 24.4% of the world’s total export in textile, and the production and export of Chinese textile products are both the largest in the world. Nonetheless, China’s textile industry is facing va…     

青岛服装产业竞争优势的GEM模型分析

经过多年的积累和发展,青岛已经成为中国服装的重要出口城市和世界男装的重要生产基地,青岛服装产业现处于“多元化整合期”向“量——值转变期”转型过程中。因此很有必要站在产业可持续发展的高度上,结合山东半岛地区服装产业的具体情况,对青岛服装产业的竞争力做系统的研究。本文用一种新的研究方法来对青岛服装产业的竞争力现状进行一个定量的研究,以使人们看清现在、找出差距,谋求青岛服装产业的更大发展。