Sources of Competitive Advantage and Firm Performance: The Case of Sri Lankan Value-Added Tea Producers

Given the greater importance of firm-effects as opposed to industry-effects in explaining firm performance, this study incorporated the resource and strategy-based views of the competitive advantage paradigm in explaining the performance of value-added tea producers in Sri Lanka. The study revealed the existence of three significantly different strategic groups and justified the assertion that there is significant intra-industry heterogeneity. Only one strategic group, which comprised four dominant firms, revealed strong mobility barriers and higher performance differences. However, no performance differences were evident between the other two strategic groups.     

State Ownership, Privatization and Performance in Singapore: An Exploratory Study from a Strategic Management Perspective

This paper considers the ownership debate with regard to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) performance, that is, whether superior performance of SOEs can be achieved under state ownership. While the traditional belief has been, supported by empirical work, that private ownership is generally associated with superior performance, the experience of Singapore is a clear example to the contrary. We outline global privatization trends and discuss the impact of privatization programs. We then discuss Singapore Telecom as a case where state ownership combined with several contextual and firm-related factors, especially firm strategy, has led to sustained world-class performance. We develop a theoretical framework for this analysis based on the strategic management field. We lastly outline some theoretical and practical implications of the analysis.     

Competitive Advantages of the Latecomer Firm: A Resource-Based Account of Industrial Catch-Up Strategies

The resource-based view of the firm provides a satisfactory account of how firms go about sustaining their existing competitive advantages, but it is less successful in accounting for how firms create such advantages in the first place, or overcome incumbent advantages, when the firms start with few resources. The paper utilizes the case of latecomer firms from the Asia-Pacific region breaking into knowledge-intensive industries such as semiconductors, to illustrate the issues involved and the resource-targeting strategies utilized. This results in a strategic theory of the overcoming of competitive disadvantages through linkage, resource leverage, and learning. The dynamic capabilities of such firms are enhanced through repeated applications of linkage and leverage. The resources strategically targeted are characterized as being those most amenable to such linkage and leverage, namely those that are least rare and most imitable and transferable, i.e. as positive versions of the criteria utilized in the conventional resource-based view of the firm. It is argued that this adaptation of the RBV is potentially of wide applicability, and is the needed amendment that makes it of prime significance in accounting for latecomer success within the conceptual framework of strategic management.     

Network resource stocks and flows: how do alliance portfolios affect the value of new alliance formations?

We examine how new network resources accessed through alliance formations interact with network resources present in a firm's alliance portfolio. We test our theoretical model using event study methodology and data from the global air transportation industry. We find that the market rewards firms forming alliances that contribute resources that can be synergistically combined with firms' own resources as well as with network resources accessed through their alliance portfolios. Our results also indicate that the market penalizes firms entering into alliances that create resource combinations that are substitutes to resource combinations deployed by existing alliance partners. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

对"十一五"时期我国工业发展若干问题的探讨

“十一五”时期,我国经济的潜在增长率为9%-9.5%,实际增长率应保持在8%左右。为了实现经济的协调发展,必须降低投资率,提高消费率。提高消费率的重点是调节国民收入的初次分配关系,提高进城务工农民的工资待遇。资源短缺仍然是制约我国经济发展的突出矛盾,在增加资源供给的同时,必须继续严格控制人口增长。结构调整的重点是提高资源配置效率。推进产业升级,必须加快发展战略性产业。战略性产业选择的目标是培育资本和技术密集型产业的竞争优势,促进国民经济的物质技术装备转移到现代化的基础上来。发展高新技术武器装备制造业是一项不可懈怠的战略性任务。要防止高新技术产业的技术来源的“空心化”。由于市场竞争,生产集中化是一个必然趋势,生产要素不仅向优势企业集中,也同时向优势地区集中。     

人力资本密集型企业研究:一个挑战传统理论的话题

世界经济步入知识经济时代以来,人力资本的重要性已不彰自显。伴随经济形态的变迁,企业形态也发生了巨变,人力资本密集型企业已成为重要的新兴企业形态。本文通过比较人力资本密集型企业与物质资本密集型企业的差异,指出传统企业理论在解释这类新型企业性质时的不足,因此,我们无法站在以往视角上来理解这类新型企业的边界和一体化问题,需要用全新的理论重新审视。此外,人力资本密集型企业的治理问题也具有其独特之处,企业治理目标的重心从解决专用性资产的敲竹杠问题转变为协调企业的各类互补性资源,同时古老的合伙制治理模式在人力资本密集型行业中优势显著。文章最后给出一个简短小结和研究展望。