Uncertainty,Generic Strategy,Strategic Clarity,and Performance of Retail SMEs in Peru,Argentina, and the United States

This study examines the links among perceived environmental uncertainty, generic strategy, strategic clarity, and performance in small and medium‐sized enterprises in the retail industry in Argentina, Peru, and the United States. Moderate support was found for links between the defender strategy and competitive uncertainty, the prospector strategy and technology uncertainty, and the analyzer strategy and market uncertainty. In all three nations, businesses with high and low strategic clarity—the extent to which a single generic strategy reflects the organization's strategic intent—outperformed those with moderate strategic clarity. Differences across nations are addressed, and future research opportunities are elaborated.     

战略性粮食产品的界定及其流通控制力

提高我国战略性粮食产品流通控制力,要完善战略性粮食产品的流通支持政策,加强对战略性粮食产品的质量监控和品牌培育,加大对各地区粮油龙头企业的支持力度;完善战略性粮食产品流通市场准入政策,进一步明确粮食收购、粮食和植物油等产品的批发、零售、配送等限制类产业的具体实施细节;加强对战略性粮食产品中薄弱品种和薄弱环节的监管;大力培育有国际竞争力的粮食流通企业,支持国有粮食流通企业"走出去",在全球市场配置资源,实现国内、国际市场互动。     

Information Technology Support for Corporate Bank Lending

Decision-making in corporate bank lending occurs at both strategic and individual proposition levels. In principle, these levels will require a different type of IT support for the decisions taken therein. This article discusses the concepts of decision support systems and management information systems, in the light of recent developments in information technology, particularly those in the field of expert systems. The conclusions drawn are that a decision support system will be needed at the strategic level, while an augmented management information system will be required for dealing with individual propositions. This augmentation is seen to come from an expert system front-end’ to the information system, providing an expert management information system.     

How professional service firms compete in the market: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study investigates how professional service firms (PSFs) compete in the market. Drawing on strategic marketing literature, a managerial rather than customer perspective is adopted. The study investigates the competitive positions sought by professional service providers and the specific marketing activities actually undertaken to achieve these positions. Thirty-seven depth interviews with senior management from a range of PSFs indicate that firms seek to differentiate themselves by developing long-term relationships, providing better service quality and greater value, and developing brands with strong reputations. Organisations typically seek such interrelated competitive positions simultaneously. A list of marketing activities used by the PSFs to achieve these competitive positions offers practical insights into the specific activities needed to achieve the various competitive positions sought.     

Advertising as an Entry Deterrent: Evidence from UK firms

Advertising is widely considered to be an important isolating mechanism through which firms may defend an established competitive advantage. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the extent of the strategic use of advertising either to deter or in response to entry. In this paper, I report on a study of the advertising practices of 843 medium‐sized and large UK‐based firms. Nearly one‐quarter of all the advertisers surveyed state that they attribute importance to entry deterrence as an aim of their advertising. Further, one in five managers of advertising firms state that they would increase advertising expenditure if a new rival company appeared in their market. It is also apparent that there is a strong correlation between the perceived importance of advertising as an entry‐deterring tool and the intensity of advertising spending. Multivariate modelling provides confirmation that the existence of a sheltered market position, and the profitability that typically accompanies this, provides a statistically significant determinant of the decision to use advertising as a strategic entry‐deterring weapon.     

辽宁上市公司融资能力与价值提升

随着资本市场的发展,辽宁上市公司在数量及融资规模上却呈现弱势。这是由于辽宁上市公司资产管理效率低,持续盈利能力和成长性不足;公司治理水平与效率低,缺乏价值创造的内生动力;投资者关系管理表面化,保护投资者利益的积极性和主动性不够。要提高辽宁上市公司融资能力和公司价值,就应改善公司持续盈利能力,提高资产管理效率;完善公司治理结构,提高公司治理水平和效率;加强投资者关系管理,注重投资者利益保护。     

An Empirical Investigation of Relational Conflicts in Co-Marketing Alliances

Purpose: The focus of the present research is to ascertain reasons for potential conflict between co-marketing alliance partners and means of managing the relationship more effectively. Specifically, the investigation seeks to identify antecedents of conflict in co-marketing alliances from a strategic perspective.

Methodology/Approach: To test the study hypotheses, the authors surveyed 178 executives in the credit card industry in South Korea. The Korean market was used because of the extreme popularity of credit card usage in that country.

Findings: The empirical findings provide some support for the idea that strategic management of conflict should be of importance to co-marketing alliance partners.

Originality/Value/Contribution: As industries experience declines in profitability, co-marketing alliances have become a popular means for firms in efforts to increase sales and profitability in maturing industries. Because these alliances are interdependent and the goals or interests of both partners can differ, conflict is likely to be experienced between the alliance members. Notwithstanding this likelihood, there are still very few studies that provide comprehensive examination regarding which cognitive factors are associated with conflict in co-marketing alliances. This investigation adds to that growing body of knowledge.     

How Knowledge Management Capabilities Help Leverage Knowledge Resources and Strategic Orientation for New Product Advantages in B-to-B High-Technology Firms

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Current understanding of how new product development (NPD) teams use knowledge management capabilities to acquire, disseminate, and apply knowledge resources to achieve competitive advantages is limited by a lack of compelling theory supported by empirical evidence. This study provides a theoretical framework and empirical validation for how an NPD team manages knowledge resources and strategic orientation to enhance its knowledge management capabilities, which, in turn, lead to business-to-busienss (B-to-B) new product advantages.

Methodology/approach: A total of 100 sets of data was collected from B-to-B firms in U.S. high-tech industries. In order to validate the proposed hypotheses, we estimated the main effects using path analysis in AMOS, and tested for interaction effects using interaction term regressions.

Findings: Our findings show that the two dimensions of NPD knowledge management capabilities—acquisition and application—are important but differential drivers of product quality superiority and product differentiation. In testing whether NPD management capabilities matter for two product advantage constructs, we confirmed that product quality superiority can be enhanced by both NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities, whereas product differentiation can be increased strongly by NPD knowledge acquisition capabilities.

Research implications: Our research confirms the importance of strategic orientation as a driver of NPD knowledge management capabilities, which enhances understanding of how strategic factors operate under a resource-based view. Our results further provide direct empirical support for the knowledge-based view of firms, in that an NPD team’s abilities to manage and deploy knowledge-based resources by acquiring and applying NPD knowledge lead to competitive advantages, for outcomes of quality superiority and differentiation.

Practical implications: Our findings have relevance for managers in three ways. First, NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities have differential impacts on product quality superiority and differentiation. Second, in exploring NPD resource factors as antecedents, managers should manage levels of NPD market intelligence, resource tacitness, and NPD resource deployment differentially to directly improve NPD teams’ acquisition and application capabilities. Third, managers should not underestimate the importance of market and technological orientations in enhancing NPD knowledge management capabilities. Market orientation drives both NPD knowledge acquisition and application capabilities; technological orientation drives NPD knowledge application capabilities. Originality/value/contribution of the paper: An NPD team’s knowledge management capabilities generally, but differentially, mediate the relationships of knowledge resources and strategic orientation factors with new product competitive advantage. However, simply enhancing NPD knowledge management capabilities is not a panacea for developing product competitive advantage in B-to-B settings, because of their differential effects.     

Achieving Managerial Synergism: Balancing Strategic Business Units and Profit Centers

Much of the marketing and management literature emphasizes the importance of Strategic Business Units (SBUs) as an organizational unit in developing market power or competitive advantage. On the other hand, the accounting literature puts special emphasis on Profit Centers (PCs) as an organizational unit. Are these two organizational units related? If so, how? This article makes a critical distinction between the two concepts. In this analysis, SBUs are based on a long-term, outward-looking market orientation for achieving profitability, whereas PCs focus on a short-term, inward-looking cost reduction approach to achieve profits. It is posited that distinguishing between the two and managing SBUs and PC strategically is likely to generate a synergistic impact for the firm. This impact will both enhance its competitive position in the market and its profit picture.     

The effectiveness of strategic planning: competitiveness in the Brazilian supermarket sector

This paper considers the relative impact of management strategic planning practices and economic changes on company performance. The paper focuses on the Brazilian supermarket sector during the period 1988–1999. This was a period marked by significant changes in economic and competitive conditions. Using sales figures as indicators of company performance, ANOVA tests were applied. The results derived suggest that variables representing changes in economic conditions and strategic planning were both statistically significant when they were used to explain performance differences among Brazilian supermarket operations. Differences in company management practices were found to play a more important role than changes in the environment. However, the results clearly suggest that management by itself was unable to take advantage of the upward and downward movements in the economy to modify the relative competitive positions of companies operating within the market. This finding challenges the existing literature on strategic planning.     

中国政策性银行股份制改革战略选择——基于业务模式视角

2008年12月,国家开发银行股份有限公司正式挂牌成立,标志着其产权制度、组织模式成功转变。然而,股份制改革给政策性银行的筹资成本及业务开展等众多方面带来了较大影响。中国政策性银行作为金融资源配置体系重要的组成部分,股份制改革后其作为政策性银行的比较优势将逐步削弱,政府支持力度与竞争优势的减弱将对其筹资成本、业务开展乃至自身可持续发展造成深远影响。为更好地推动我国政策性银行股份制改革,应渐进式过渡,向低政策多元业务模式发展;完善公司治理结构,实现政府目标与市场业绩的统一,体现政府意志、国家利益、公众利益;兼顾政策性业务与商业性业务,实行分账经营。     

我国私营企业激励导向的薪酬体系构建——基于员工激励“四力模型”的思考

私营企业在市场竞争中一直都处于弱势,如何利用薪酬的激励作用提升自身的竞争力是私营企业必须关注的课题。借助员工激励“四力模型”,分析了私营企业在薪酬体系激励方面存在的薪酬与绩效挂钩不明显、薪酬管理不到位、绩效考核体系缺乏客观性等缺陷,提出了私营企业建立激励导向的薪酬体系应保证薪酬与绩效明确挂钩;重视培育团队精神和企业文化;科学进行岗位设计;增加绩效管理的透明度和公平性等措施。     

黑龙江省银行理财产品发展问题研究

近年来,银行理财产品已成为推动理财市场发展的主要力量。金融危机的到来,暴露了理财市场中的诸多问题：主要体现理财业务发展空间有限、理财咨询师专业素质低、投资者理财知识水平不高、理财环境差距大。黑龙江省发展银行理财产品,应巩固银行理财产品在市场中的地位,拓展业务空间,实施产品多元化和服务全面化战略,以发展和培育一个层次清晰、形式多样、服务高效和竞争有序的理财市场。     

论战略性人力资源管理的作用和途径

随着企业竞争的日益激烈,人力资源真正成为企业的战略性资源,企业开始从战略的角度考虑人力资源管理问题。战略性人力资源管理的实施有利于促进企业经营效益的提高、推动企业人力资本扩展、指导人力资源管理实践,并使企业获取持续竞争优势。实施战略性人力资源管理必须进行企业战略的匹配与整合以及企业文化的整合,同时也要坚持双层双元原则。     

Management framework guiding strategic thinking in rapidly changing markets

Developing a management framework to guide strategic thinking in changing markets is increasingly critical for researchers and executives in coping with the complex and rapidly changing global business environment. Conventional training and practices have too often led strategy researchers and executives to assume a stable competitive box around existing businesses, not recognising the effects of radical and increasingly disruptive change on markets and competitive space. New strategic thinking logic and initiatives require a conceptual framework to guide obtaining information, perceptive interpretation of strategic issues and trends, and choice of the right strategic initiatives. The conceptualisation begins by determining the market-based strategic capabilities needed to identify the nature and scope of determinants of market changes. These changes must be identified, driven by new competition, new business models, and creativity and innovation. Understanding fast changing markets requires identifying new market space, conducting strategic segmentation analysis, and determining customer value requirements. Finally, this knowledge guides strategic vision and formulation and implementation of market-driven strategies for changing markets. The framework is based on conceptual logic and empirical findings from multiple disciplines including marketing strategy and strategic management     

External environment and the moderating role of export market orientation

This research has two main objectives. The first is to fill the knowledge gap on the role which the external environment plays in the strategic behavior of exporting companies, taking into account the psychological distances between the domestic and foreign markets. The second aim is to clarify the role that market orientation plays in export activity, since the literature review shows conflicting results. The study provides insight into these issues through hypothesis testing of a conceptual model using a sample of 212 Spanish exporting companies. The results lead to two major conclusions: (a) in turbulent environments, exporting firms adapting the marketing mix program to the needs of foreign markets obtain a better export performance in highly competitive and psychologically distant markets; (b) although market orientation has a direct and positive effect on export performance, its main role is to support strategic decision making in exporting companies. In addition, market orientation moderates the relationship between marketing mix adaptation and export performance.     

Enriching strategic variety in new ventures through external knowledge

To build profitable market positions, new ventures have to address multiple challenges on several fronts. These ventures can compete by being simple (focused) or applying varied ways to compete. The likelihood of these ventures remaining competitive depends on their ability to build novelty into their products and operations, an activity that requires infusing knowledge into their operations. Most ventures, however, have limited knowledge bases and the reach (scope) of their external connections is limited, a factor that prompts them to tap into different external sources in their local areas. This article reports an empirical study of 140 new ventures located in seven regional clusters in Spain. The results show that new ventures can enrich the variety of their strategic repertoire by accessing diverse sources of external knowledge and being exposed to external novel knowledge, while absorptive capacity moderates this relationship. The degree of social development of these clusters also has a positive impact on the strategic variety of new ventures, exhibiting an inverted U-shape curve.     

Decision Support in Virtual Organizations: The Case for Multi-Agent Support

The new economy, which is being formed by the Internet-based e-commerce and the now emerging mobile commerce, may become what Martin calls a cyber economy. This will combine traditional business with the new e- and mobile business, and will be driven by a new breed of online customers, who operate both wired and wireless networks, who will expect fast delivery, easier transactions and more fact-based information. The cyber economy requires that business is operated with virtual organisations and that decision making in this context – virtual organisations and the cyber economy – will require new and advanced forms of decision support. We have found that a useful decision platform can be built around hyperknowledge and the use of multiple software agents, if the core of these agents is built on fuzzy logic and approximate reasoning.     

Reversing the Logic: The Path to Profitability through Relationship Marketing

Many firms have experienced greater success through implementing relationship marketing strategies. This is achieved by gaining knowledge about their own customers through database marketing and about the general marketplace through marketing research. Over time, this has led firms to adopt a general framework which we call the conventional path to profitability. This conventional framework suggests that new product innovation leads to acquisition, acquisition combined with a rich experience leads to satisfaction, satisfaction leads to loyalty and customer retention, and loyalty/retention leads to profitability. However, we show that some of the links in the framework are weak based on both academic research and marketplace realities. Consequently, we reverse the logic of the conventional path to profitability. We introduce a new approach that starts the customer relationship management strategy with customer profitability and the notion that different customers should be rewarded and satisfied differently. In addition, we outline a strategy that relationship marketing firms can implement, leading to higher levels of customer profitability and offer directions for future research.