Healthcare and hospitality: intangible dynamics for evaluating industry sectors

In order to assess potentially profitable exchanges across the healthcare and hospitality industries, this paper reviews intangibles theory, ranging from big data through knowledge assets (explicit and tacit) to intelligence, establishing the potential value from each and best practices for managing. Metrics are offered for the assessment of firms and industries according to these intangibles. Based on the metrics, intangible practices can be identified in all the industry sectors across healthcare as well as from hospitality sectors. Similarities are identified between hospitality and specific healthcare sectors (retail pharmacies have most in common with hospitality firms, both possessing strong data and explicit knowledge capabilities). Implications for strategy, competition, and intangibles management systems can also be drawn (chiefly process and customer relationship data and knowledge leading to operational and marketing excellence).     

Realising competitive advantage through HRM in New Zealand service industries

An emerging source of competitive advantage for service industries is the knowledge, skills and attitudes of their employees. Indeed, achievement of a ‘service quality’ culture, considered imperative for competitive advantage in service organisations, supposedly results from the use of best practice human resource management (HRM), and from a strategic approach to their implementation. This paper empirically explores the use of these dimensions of HRM as a source of competitive advantage. It finds high-performing service organisations actively engage best practices across the areas of recruitment and selection, training and development, communication and team working. Evidence of a strategic approach to the implementation of these practices is also found.     

Exploring reverse knowledge transfer and asset augmentation strategy by developed country MNEs: Case study evidence from the Indian pharmaceutical industry

Using an in-depth qualitative longitudinal case study approach, we examine strategic asset and knowledge augmentation strategies of an advanced economy multinational enterprise (MNE). Our study is unique as it is contextualized in the knowledge-intensive pharmaceutical industry within the changing institutional landscape in India. And, in contrast to previous studies, it focuses on RKT from a newly acquired subsidiary where the protocol for knowledge transfer and relationship between MNE headquarters (HQ) and subsidiary does not exist. We contribute to the evolving literature on reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) which assumes that MNEs extract knowledge from their existing subsidiaries to strengthen their competitive advantages. We also reveal that MNEs design an architecture, that is reflected in the mechanism, governance structure, and timing, for efficient transfer and effective absorption of the knowledge and assets acquired. We introduce a novel concept of ‘reverse asset augmentation’ (RAA) to capture the MNE’s behavior of strategic asset seeking from emerging economies. RAA is parallel to and entwined with RKT conceptualization as knowledge is embedded within certain physical assets, other assets, such as brand name/image, may not embody knowledge. Thematic and processual analysis of interview data, collected in three phases, suggests that RAA complements RKT and that both concepts together capture the unconventional strategies of advanced economy MNEs acquiring emerging economy MNEs in search of strategic assets and 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.     

再造我国家电企业的战略管理

家电业要走出“价格战”的怪圈,必须解决好“战略管理缺失”的问题。在此基础上再造我国家电企业的战略管理,需要认识战略决策的层次性,形成全方位的有效衔接;认识战略决策的适应性,善于应对变革和协调、平衡;依据战略要求及时调整组织结构,以战略和竞争优势为导向营造、调适企业文化。     

高技术产业保持竞争优势的战略研究

高技术产业是知识密集型和资本密集型产业。在经济全球化的环境条件下和日趋激烈的行业竞争中,高技术企业必须把研发活动作为竞争战略的关键环节,不断推进企业技术升级、改造和创新,从而保持产业的竞争优势。     

The impact of knowledge management on innovation and entrepreneurship in the biotechnology and telecommunications industries

In the resource-based view approach, the knowledge frontier rests on the understanding of the process of creating and recreating distinctive competences. Moreover, in spite of the importance of knowledge assets, how innovation distinctive competences are generated in organizations is still an unknown factor. This research studies the effect of introducing knowledge management programs in the development of innovation distinctive competences, using two knowledge intensive industries. We establish a conceptual delimitation of knowledge management as a directive system through a set of principles and practices. The theoretical relationships we propose are tested in an empirical study carried out in 222 firms from the Spanish biotechnology and telecommunications industries.      

Linking two dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation to firm performance: The moderating role of environment and industry life cycle

The term “entrepreneurial orientation” has been used to refer to the strategy-making processes and styles of firms that engage in entrepreneurial activities. A popular model of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) suggests that there are five dimensions of EO—autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness (Lumpkin and Dess 1996). This paper reports on two of those dimensions—proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness. Proactiveness refers to how firms relate to market opportunities by seizing initiative in the marketplace; competitive aggressiveness refers to how firms react to competitive trends and demands that already exist in the marketplace. Despite these distinctions, prior research has tended to equate these two concepts and argued that they have a similar effect on firm performance. This paper investigates how these two approaches are related to each other, how they are related to performance, and how their function differs in the environments in which firms exhibit these approaches to strategy making. These distinctions are important because proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness represent distinctly different avenues to entrepreneurial success.A field study was conducted in which 124 executives from 94 firms were surveyed. These were executives from non-affiliated, non-diversified firms who were actively involved in strategic decision making at the top level of the firm. All firms reporting had at least one respondent who was an owner. Analysis of the data was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, factor analysis was used to examine the distinctions between different dimensions of EO. Proactiveness and competitive aggressiveness emerged as two separate factors indicating that these two strategy-making modes were perceived differently by the executives in the study. In the second phase, the relationship of these two dimensions to performance was analyzed in various contexts. Initial tests found that proactiveness was positively related to performance but competitive aggressiveness tended to be poorly associated with performance.Subsequent tests of the EO-performance relationship indicated that the stage of industry life cycle tended to favor one entrepreneurial orientation over another. The performance of firms in the early stages of industry development was stronger when their strategy making was proactively oriented. In contrast, a competitively aggressive frame of mind was helpful to firms in more mature stages of industry development. These findings were supported by other tests of the business environment. In dynamic environments, characterized by rapid change and uncertainty, proactive firms had higher performance relative to competitively aggressive firms. In hostile environments, where competition is intense and resources are constrained, competitively aggressive firms had stronger performance.The findings suggest that these two different approaches to entrepreneurial decision making may have different effects on firm performance. The differences were particularly apparent in the way firms relate to their external environment. Proactiveness—a response to opportunities—is an appropriate mode for firms in dynamic environments or in growth stage industries where conditions are rapidly changing and opportunities for advancement are numerous. But such environments may not favor the kind of combative posturing typical of competitive aggressiveness. Firms in hostile environments, or in mature industries where competition for customers and resources is intense, are more likely to benefit from competitive aggressiveness—a response to threats. A further implication of this research is that the dimensions of an entrepreneurial orientation, often considered to be positively related to performance under all conditions, may not always be associated with successful outcomes. This study indicates that the dimensions of EO often vary independently rather than covary, suggesting that the extent to which an entrepreneurial approach to strategy making is useful will frequently depend on the organizational or environmental conditions under which such decisions are made.     

THE ROLE OF LOGISTICS IN MARKET ORIENTATION

In today's increasingly competitive environment, survival depends on two key aspects of being market‐oriented ‐ understanding the external environment and executing decisions based on that understanding. Logistics personnel are uniquely positioned to play a key role in creating and maintaining a market‐oriented organization as they are progressively gaining more responsibilities in integrating cross‐functional processes and implementing supply chain strategies. This paper explores how logisticians participate in market orientation behaviors and how a market‐oriented logistics function impacts logistics and business performance. Based on a qualitative field research study involving in‐depth interviews with seventeen logistics personnel that draws and builds upon the logistics, market orientation, knowledge management, organizational behavior, information processing, and strategic management literatures, a theoretical model of logistics market orientation and its effect on logistics and business performance is developed and propositions are presented. Findings highlight logistics' central role in generating, disseminating, reaching a shared interpretation of, and responding to market intelligence.     

What determines performance of cross‐border M&As by Chinese companies? An absorptive capacity perspective

Chinese companies are increasingly using cross‐border merger and acquisitions (M&As) as a vehicle to source knowledge or strategic assets, so as to enhance their competitive advantage. However, a critical question is: Can strategic assets be effectively acquired by Chinese firms, thereby leading to superior firm performance? This article addresses this fundamental question from an absorptive capacity perspective. This approach concentrates on how an acquiring firm's absorptive capacity influences its ability to identify, assimilate, integrate, and apply external new knowledge into commercial use. By comparatively examining two high‐profile international M&A deals completed by leading Chinese firms Lenovo and TCL, we argue that the performance of Chinese companies' overseas acquisitions is substantially affected by the acquiring firm's absorptive capacity at multiple dimensions, thus drawing strategic implications for multinationals in other emerging markets. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effects of industry cluster knowledge management on innovation performance

Research on industrial clusters mostly focuses on the effects of the competitive advantage they generate. This study takes a different approach, conducting empirical research on three types of Taiwanese parks (export processing zones, industrial zones, and science parks), in which economic development is particularly prominent, and which have industry cluster characteristics. The study explores the effects of special resources and relationships among cluster firms on innovation performance, and focuses on knowledge management as the mediator for investigation. A survey, regression analysis, and correlation analysis probe into the effects of the special resources and relationships among industrial clusters on corporate knowledge management and innovation performance. Knowledge management emerges as the mediator of industry clusters in terms of corporate innovation performance, thus providing support for the research hypotheses. The findings of this study are valuable for further research and strategic thinking on the sustainability of corporate operations.     

Competitive intelligence and strategic group decisions: A new diagnostic tool

The use of competitive intelligence (information on competitors, technology, market developments, etc.) in strategic group decision making is of great interest to practitioners and strategy researchers alike, yet relatively little is known about the availability of competitive intelligence and the actual need for intelligence by decision makers. This article develops a decision-dependent input/participants matrix which is the basis for the derivation of seven intelligence availability and demand indices. The indices are diagnostic tools to help companies design and monitor strategic competitive intelligence gathering and distribution. They constitute part of an organizational intelligence support system designed to strengthen group decisions such as launching a new product. Practitioners can use the indices to diagnose problems countered by groups of decision makers in the intelligence gathering and distribution activities of organizations, and researchers can use them in the systematic study of this new field. An application of the tool to a pharmaceutical company is described.     

Assessing business value of Big Data Analytics in European firms

In the strategic management field, dynamic capabilities (DC) such as organizational agility are considered to be paramount in the search for competitive advantage. Recent research claims that IT business value research needs a more dynamic perspective. In particular, the Big Data Analytics (BDA) value chain remains unexplored. To assess BDA value, a conceptual model is proposed based on a knowledge-based view and DC theories. To empirically test this model, the study addresses a survey to a wide range of 500 European firms and their IT and business executives. Results show that BDA can provide business value to several stages of the value chain. BDA can create organizational agility through knowledge management and its impact on process and competitive advantage. Also, this paper demonstrates that agility can partially mediate the effect between knowledge assets and performance (process level and competitive advantage). The model explains 77.8% of the variation in competitive advantage. The current paper also presents theoretical and practical implications of this study, and the study's limitations.     

The Globalization of Furniture Industries/Markets

The globalization of industries and markets represents a key trend of the last decade. This evolutionary process, anticipated to become more prevalent in the future, requires long-term strategies whereby firms, industries and nations utilize competitive advantage to expand beyond domestic borders. In order to remain competitive, manufacturers of industrial and consumer goods must address the threats of both domestic and foreign origin and, increasingly utilize a global context for strategic planning, operations and marketing. Global communications and transportation technologies for electronic data interchange, materials resource planning, international finance, management and marketing have enhanced the ability of firms to operate internationally and offer true world brands. Furniture is an example of a product that naturally lends itself to internationalization in that if performs the same basic function across geographic areas and cultures such as seating, bedding, dining, storage and display. Moreover, the use of international furniture and woodworking machinery shows rapidly diffuses new technologies and designs through the global marketplace. Wood furniture represents a prime example of a U.S. industry that has felt the competitive pressures of market globalization. In 1978, imports claimed only 6.6% of the U.S. consumption of wood household furniture. By 1990, they had reached nearly 25% of consumption. The secondary wood manufacturing industries in the United States, including wooden furniture, have been largely insulated from foreign competition due to their established position within the domestic market, abundant and high quality materials with high consumer acceptance and appeal and certain transportation barriers as associated with relatively high volume to value items. However, as the international competitive arena changes, manufacturers, industries and nations must reevaluate their future strategies in terms of the forces shaping competition. This paper presents a framework based upon a multitude of factors affecting competitive advantage in the global context using a furniture industry example. These considerations may be categorized into six domains: (1)raw material supply; (2) production/technology; (3) design and marketing; (4) related/supplying industries; (5) home country demand; and (6) government influence on trade. Global strategic options are then briefly addressed as they pertain to the wood furniture industry. The synthesis of key strategic inputs combined with a global involvement strategy may provide insight not only to wood furniture, but to many other industries attempting to cope with similar changes as evolutionary momentum builds toward global markets, consumers and competition.     

Towards ��An Intellectual Capital-Based View of the Firm��: Origins and Nature

Economic and social activities are undergoing radical changes, which can be labelled as ??knowledge economy and/or society??. In this sense, intellectual capital (IC), or knowledge assets, as the fourth factor of production, is replacing the other ones ?C job, land and capital. This article tries to offer the origins and nature of the firm??s IC that can be labelled as ??An Intellectual Capital-Based View of the Firm Competition??. This framework tries to highlight the strategic role of different intangible assets like talented and committed workers, cultural values, or long-term relationships among the firm and its stakeholders ?C customers, allies, suppliers and society in general ?C in gaining and sustaining competitive advantages, being the management of IC a key issue in the management agenda.     

江苏沿海地区产业同构测度与产业协同发展

江苏沿海地区三次产业严重趋同,部分制造业存在产业同构,其中尤以南通和盐城两市较为明显。究其原因,主要缘于地区资源差异、比较优势和制度因素。江苏沿海地区应错位发展其优势产业,创新产业合作发展机制,平衡各方利益关系,以区域战略联盟延长产业链,提升区域产业技术水平,推进江苏沿海地区产业协同发展。     

区域战略性新兴产业发展的政府作用机制研究

发展战略性新兴产业需要政府准确定位,给予战略性新兴产业发展相应的制度和政策支持。本文依据产业发展模式、有选择地干预"市场失败"的政府职能理论、幼稚产业保护理论、新制度经济学理论和外部效应相关理论分析政府作用于战略性新兴产业发展的必要性,结合美国、新加坡、日本、印度的经验进一步阐述政府在战略性新兴产业发展中发挥作用的实践,基于"钻石理论"建立战略性新兴产业发展的政府作用机制模型,再从人力资源保障机制、公共服务平台支撑机制、市场环境规范机制、创新资源集聚机制4个方面探索相应的政策路径。     

基于企业战略环境分析的反竞争情报战略的制定

企业的竞争情报部门已逐步成为企业管理的决策者之一,而反竞争情报是指阻止或防碍竞争对手获得本企业竞争情报的信息研究。因此,反竞争情报工作尤为重要。文章以阐述反竞争情报的含义为出发点,结合企业战略环境的分析,研究反竞争情报战略的制定和实施方案。     

Knowledge sharing in China–UK higher education alliances

Knowledge sharing through cross-border strategic alliances has been seen by firms as one of the critical strategies to pursue sustainable competitive advantage. However, empirical investigations on how knowledge sharing occurs in strategic alliances are limited and are rarely concerned with strategic alliances in the higher education industry. Based on an empirical investigation of China–UK educational alliances, this research sheds light on this under explored area. Findings reveal that the scale of academic and organizational knowledge sharing is affected by knowledge attributes and partner characteristics. While knowledge sharing in China–UK higher education alliances displays numerous similarities with that occurring in other industries, this study reveals features that are distinct to this important and increasingly international sector. In so doing, this paper offers valuable insights for managers and policy makers concerned with the internationalization of higher education.