Size (and competition) among organizations: modeling scale‐based selection among automobile producers in four major countries, 1885–1981

Based on previous empirical research, size is perhaps the most powerful explanatory organizational covariate in strategic analysis. We suggest that theoretical arguments about size be examined carefully to specify models with explicit comparison sets and with mechanisms linking size and underlying processes to outcomes. We illustrate the approach here by advancing arguments about scale competition within an organizational population. In this effort, we feature a theoretical model of scale‐based selection, which posits that a firm's chances of survival decrease with its aggregate distance from larger competitors on a transformed size gradient. The model assumes that the appropriate comparison set consists of all contemporaneous similar organizations competing on the basis of scale and operating in a localized geographic setting. We argue that aggregate distance of a focal firm from larger other firms (a specific form of relative position in the size distribution) reflects the extent to which it can capitalize on potential competitive advantages of scale emanating from economic, political, and social processes. Analyzing the mortality rates of large organizations across the entire histories of automobile industries in four major countries provides support for the theory. We discuss the general implications of our findings for strategic and organizational analysis. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

汽车产业全球化趋势及其对中国汽车产业发展的影响

在汽车产业全球化加速的背景下，在一个国家框架内，已经越来越难以建立起完整的有竞争力的汽车产业体系，这个结论对发达国家，对包括中国在内的发展中国家，都是适用的。     

Inter-firm Collaboration and Learning: The Case of the Japanese Automobile Industry

This paper investigates the effect of intra-firm Research and Development expenditure and inter-firm collaboration on firm performance. It is proposed that R&D expenditures enable a company to improve knowledge and assimilate the exchange of information within non-routine collaboration activities. The hypotheses are tested by an empirical study on inter-firm technical collaboration in Japanese Automobile firms during the years 1975–1995, using the method of first-order auto-regression on a panel data set. The findings indicate that R&D expenditure increases performance, but do not allow clear conclusions on the effects of collaborations.     

中国汽车工业的发展趋势及对策

2002年中国汽车工业面对加入WTO后的冲击，发展迅速。但是，中国汽车工业从整体上看，仍然是一个国际竞争力较弱的产业。在加入W凹后更加开放的市场环境中，中国汽车工业逐步从制造、研究开发、销售服务、汽车信贷等方面全面融入世界汽车工业体系。通过使自身全面融入世界汽车工业体系，中国汽车工业将获得更加迅速的发展，并且逐步成为世界汽车工业的主要制造基地之一。就长远来看，中国汽车工业也必将获得自主开发的能力，并且逐步提高其在世界汽车工业体系中的地位。     

模块化时代的汽车产业变革

当前汽车产业成为继信息技术产业之后受到模块化深刻影响的产业部门，本文从三个层面界定了汽车产业模块化的内涵，分析了汽车产品模块的种类，以此为基础，研究得出模块化推动汽车生产组织方式变革的根本表现是促使零部件企业分层．而且模块集成供应商作为与组装企业进行直接交易的少数零部件企业，面临整合生产、系统开发模块产品、控制零部件企业及开拓市场等能力要求，并将由此改变汽车零部件产业的市场结构与竞争状态。汽车产业的模块化发展没有产生绝对的受益者或受损者，本文围绕三个主体从六个方面探讨了模块化的实施效果。     

AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE ON DIVERSIFICATION AND CORPORATE RESTRUCTURING: ENTRY,EXIT, AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE DURING 1981–89

This study proposes a theoretical perspective that firms engage in continuous search and selection activities in order to improve their knowledge base and thereby improve their performance. This general framework is applied to the context of corporate evolution. Entry and exit activities are understood as search and selection undertaken by the firm to improve their performance. One of the compelling features of this framework is that firms learn from their past entry experience and approach the next entry in a more focused and directed manner over time. Also, firms acquire additional knowledge from each entry event while applying their existing knowledge base. With a longitudinal (1981–89) data base on entry and exit activities of all publicly traded manufacturing firms in the United States, this study shows that applicability of the firm's knowledge base plays an important role in predicting which businesses a firm enters or exits. Firms sequentially enter businesses of similar human resource profiles and firms are more likely to divest lines of business of different profiles. Corporate-level analysis shows that such well-directed entry and exit contribute to the improvement of a firm's profitability.     

A contextual theory of organizational learning from failures and successes: A study of acquisition completion in the global newspaper industry, 1981–2008

This study develops and tests theory about the context‐specificity and outcome‐dependence of experiential learning in acquisition processes. First, we investigate whether learning from experience gained in different acquisition contexts is limited to influencing subsequent outcomes of same‐context transactions. Second, we analyze whether learning patterns in response to prior successes and failures differ across acquisition contexts, depending on two properties of these contexts—the degree of structural variance and the level of stimulation of deliberate learning. Learning is assessed with respect to an underexplored organizational goal variable in acquisitions: completion of a publicly announced transaction. An analysis of 4,973 acquisition attempts in the newspaper industry in 1981–2008 largely supports our theory. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relevance of organizational capabilities and its dynamics: what to learn from entrants' product portfolios about the determinants of entry timing

The resource‐based view of the firm suggests that the timing of market entry by a firm depends on its resources and capabilities, but several important questions remain. First, in a high‐velocity market where capabilities change quickly, how does entry timing depend on the capabilities at varying points in time? Second, how much flexibility does a firm have in altering its capabilities to achieve desirable entry timing? To answer these questions, this study sets out to develop a dynamic, refined version of the resource‐based view that parameterizes a firm by its time‐varying capability relevance with respect to a focal market, and makes predictions on entry timing and future growth of capability relevance. The study develops a novel approach that uses the entrants' product portfolios to infer a potential entrant's capability relevance. The results based on a panel of potential entrants show that the initial and current capability relevance each affect entry timing alone, revealing the persistent effect of the initial condition. However, given the knowledge of the current capability relevance, the initial relevance has no effect on entry timing, suggesting that the initial relevance affects entry timing through its influence on the current relevance. Firms that are in an initially unfavorable position can still achieve early entry, provided that they improve their capability relevance over time. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中国汽车产业市场结构与市场绩效研究

本文利用中国汽车工业1998—2008年的数据,通过多元回归分析方法,对中国汽车产业市场结构和市场绩效进行实证研究。实证表明,中国汽车产业市场已从竞争型转向了中下集中寡占型,市场集中度对汽车产业的市场绩效为正效应,但对内资企业、外商投资企业、港澳台投资企业的影响程度不同。本文剖析了中国汽车企业通过市场集中度提高提升市场绩效的主要影响因素及市场集中度对内外资企业市场绩效影响程度差异的原因,并探讨相关政策建议,以期对中国汽车产业发展提供有益的思路。     

Complementarities and competition: Unpacking the drivers of entrants' technology choices in the solar photovoltaic industry

Entrants in new industries pursue distinct technologies in hopes of winning the technology competition and achieving sustainable competitive advantage. We draw on the complementary assets framework to predict entrants' technology choices in an emerging industry. Evidence from the global solar photovoltaic industry supports our arguments that entrants are more likely to choose technologies with higher technical performance and for which key complementary assets are available in the ecosystem. However, diversifying entrants are more likely to trade off superior performance for complementary asset availability whereas start‐up entrants are more likely to trade off complementary asset availability for superior performance. This difference is largely due to diversifying entrants with pre‐entry capabilities related to the industry. The study offers a novel illustration of how complementarities and competition shape entry strategies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于SWOT分析法的逆向物流发展战略研究——以我国汽车行业为例

资源短缺已成为人类社会可持续发展的瓶颈环节。逆向物流通过对资源的再利用,有效的避免了资源浪费,加强了对环境的管理,实现资源的循环再生,而汽车逆向物流是逆向物流领域的重要分支。通过运用SWOT分析方法,对我国汽车行业逆向物流决策和实施的战略选择进行了分析,旨在为我国汽车制造企业是否实施逆向物流,以及怎样进行逆向物流的战略选择提供参考意见。     

Capabilities,technologies, and firm exit during industry shakeout: Evidence from the global solar photovoltaic industry

Research Summary: Explanations of entrants’ survival in an emerging industry are premised on pre‐entry capabilities or technology entry choices prior to the emergence of the dominant design. We consider how these drivers interact to strengthen or nullify firms’ pre‐entry advantage, and facilitate adaptation as the industry evolves. We also expand the treatment of exit by separating dissolution from acquisition, in which firms’ capabilities continue to be utilized in the industry. Studying a recent shakeout in the global solar photovoltaic industry, we find that pre‐entry capabilities and technology choices act in a complementary manner for some firms, thereby enhancing survival, and as buffers against exit for others. Nearly half of exits were via acquisitions, and technology choice at entry played an important role in determining how firms exited. Managerial Summary: New industries are often characterized by intense technology competition that culminates in a dominant technology followed by industry shakeout. Although prior research underscores the central role of technology choice and firm capabilities to survival, we do not actually know how firms with different capabilities and who have made competing technology choices survive an industry shakeout. In this article, we show how entrants’ capabilities and technology choices can act in a complementary manner for some firms, enhancing their chance of survival, and as buffers against failure for others. Moreover, we explain why some firms that do exit are acquired, when others are dissolved.     

信息技术产业与汽车工业耦合发展评价研究

汽车产业是一个传统行业。以互联网为代表的信息技术产业的发展,以及谷歌、苹果等科技巨头开始对汽车产业的涉足,为汽车产业的发展提供了全新的机会,这使得信息技术产业与汽车产业呈现了耦合的态势。尽管在制造、售后等环节我国汽车制造企业与国外汽车制造企业的差距正在逐年缩小,但是在产品开发、智能制造等环节,依然是目前我国汽车企业最为薄弱的环节。按照产业耦合理论,我们将两个产业的耦合程度,按照由弱到强的关系,分为无耦合、低度耦合、中度耦合、高度耦合四个阶段,本文将通过信息技术产业与汽车产业的数据,对二者的耦合程度、可持续发展性进行全面研究,以便达到为我国汽车产业与信息技术产业的耦合找到可行路径的目标。     

Unpacking Firm Exit at the Firm and Industry Levels: The Adaptation and Selection of Firm Capabilities

Evolutionary theory of business activity studies how firms are selected out of environments in which they do not fit, but most existing work underemphasizes the distinction between acquisition and dissolution as selection processes. We address this gap with a multilevel analysis that investigates how managerial and functional organizational capabilities affect whether struggling firms exit by acquisition or dissolution. We demonstrate that managerial and functional capabilities have heterogeneous effects on selection processes, with managerial capabilities having particularly strong influence on acquisition exits by struggling firms. The work provides a bridge between adaptation and selection views on organizational change; exit by dissolution represents selection of both firms and capabilities, while exit by acquisition represents firm selection but capability adaptation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

劳动力流动与产业组织变化的互动关系研究——以中国汽车产业为例

国内外理论界对劳动力流动和产业组织变化的研究，长期以来主要是沿单一线路推进——要么主要研究劳动力流动问题、要么主要研究产业组织变化问题。而很少有学者对两者之间的互动关系进行深入研究。本文以中国汽车产业为分析对象．运用实证方法对劳动力流动与产业组织变化的互动关系进行了研究．分析了两者之间的互相影响效应．提炼、归纳出了一些具有规律性的新结论。论文最后从新的角度分析了中国汽车产业组织结构欠优化、劳动力配置不合理的成因．并提出了解决问题的对策建议。     

高科技产业群落化发展模式

高科技产业的发展正面临着机遇和挑战,本文主要从群落化的角度分析高科技产业发展模式。阐述了高科技产业发展群落化的基本内涵和主要特征;分析了高科技产业群落化发展的必要性,以期更好地发展高科技产业。     

The continuing validity of the strategy‐structure nexus: new findings, 1993–2003

This study analyzes whether a diversification strategy facilitates subsequent divisionalization (and hence that ‘structure follows strategy’), and/or whether the multidivisional structure leads to a diversification strategy (and hence that ‘strategy follows structure’). In theoretical terms, this study is original in that it institutes a debate between the Chandler thesis and other perspectives that challenge the generalizability of the strategy‐structure nexus. Interestingly, this new study with contemporaneous data for the period 1993–2003 sheds light on this contested issue and postulates that despite the criticism of Chandler's contribution, it still works. Our results show that strategic diversification affects structural divisionalization, and in turn, structural divisionalization affects strategic diversification. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The ‘close but adversarial’ model of supplier relations in the U.S. auto industry

While cooperative buyer–supplier relations are an important source of sustainable competitive advantage, noncooperative behavior persists widely. This paper tests a model incorporating noncooperative behavior within a context of formal commitment, using data from the U.S. auto industry. This ‘close, but adversarial’ model appears to be reasonably well supported by the data, suggesting that even within professed cooperative buyer–supplier relationships adversarial behavior persists. In contrast, a small but significant minority of the relationships were found to be characterized by high levels of trust as well as informal commitment. The results suggest specific strategies for developing cooperative supplier relations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reducing slack: the performance consequences of downsizing by large industrial firms, 1977–93

We conceptualize downsizing as an attempt to reduce organizational slack. We suggest that the degree to which downsizing will improve firm performance will be contingent on conditions under which the downsizing occurs. We emphasize the level of organizational slack as an important contingency, and also examine two other contingencies: (1) whether the scope of the downsizing is narrow (restricted to personnel reductions) or broad (involves organizational redesign); and (2) if the downsizing is conducted proactively (when performance is stable or improving) or reactively (when performance is declining). By analyzing a panel dataset of downsizings conducted by the 100 largest American industrial firms from 1977 to 1993, we find broad support for our hypotheses that downsizings are more likely to lead to improved performance when firms have high slack, when their scope of the downsizing is broad, and when the downsizing is done proactively. We also explore and find evidence for interactions among these contingencies. We discuss the implications of our findings for the literatures on downsizing and organizational slack. In doing so, we bring together two literatures that have an obvious affinity but have been only loosely coupled in the past. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of strategic and market complementarity on acquisition performance: evidence from the U.S. commercial banking industry, 1989–2001

Most traditional research on mergers and acquisitions tends to focus on the role of similarity in explaining acquisition performance. While scholars have recently begun to examine acquisition complementarity, there is still little evidence concerning how complementarity influences acquisition performance. Further, previous research has not drawn the connections between related contexts and the potential benefits from complementarity. In this article, we move the study of acquisition complementarity forward by investigating the effects of strategic and market complementarity on acquisition performance in the context of related horizontal acquisitions. We also propose that two key attributes of acquirers—strategic focus and out‐of‐market acquisition experience—will moderate this relationship. We investigate our research questions in the context of all 2,204 acquisitions made by publicly traded U.S. commercial banks during the 12‐year period from 1989 to 2001. Our findings are generally supportive, suggesting complementarity is an important antecedent of acquisition performance, and raising important issues on the nature of acquisition research in general. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.