Environmental dynamism,capital structure and performance: a theoretical integration and an empirical test

An ongoing argument in financial management has been how to craft a capital structure which maximizes shareholder wealth. This question has gained prominence within the strategic management field because of the apparent link between capital structure and the ability of firms to compete. By integrating models from organizational economics with the strategic management literature, we are able to theorize that a firm’s capital structure is influenced by environmental dynamism, and that the match between environmental dynamism and capital structure is associated with superior economic performance. Our large‐scale empirical analyses provide supportive evidence for the proposition that competitive environments moderate the relationship between capital structure and economic performance. From a theoretical standpoint, these findings provide another link between capital structure and corporate strategy. More importantly, we are able to move the discussion beyond the limitations of financial risk and incorporate the strategy concept of decision making under uncertainty. For practical application, these findings offer informed advice for managers on how to craft a capital structure. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Taking operations strategy into practice: Developing a process for defining priorities and performance measures

Enterprises’ operations systems and environments, characterized by their complexity and dynamics, are challenging operations strategic management models. The study presented in this paper develops a process to integrate operations strategy content to operations performance measurement system design. Essentially, the developed methodology is based on Process Approach (Cambridge Approach) technique that systematizes procedures for generating a performance measures set coherent to operations strategy objectives and also produces a consistent strategy implementation process. To illustrate the development and the application of the proposed design methodology, findings of two case studies related to telecom engineering services companies are used. Results are discussed focusing on testing the proposed methodology in terms of its feasibility, usability, and utility. A refined process, organized in phases, steps, and procedures, is the final result of the presented study.     

Making sense of a market information system for superior performance: The roles of organizational responsiveness and innovation strategy

This article conceptualizes the relationships among strategic resources, strategic actions, and consequent performance by incorporating the strategic sense-making perspective into the resource-based view. Specifically, the study suggests that the firm can use both market-driven strategic actions such as organizational responsiveness and market-driving strategic actions such as innovation strategy to make sense of strategic resources such as a market information system. The firm can then translate the strategic resources into a competitive marketing advantage, which leads in turn to superior financial performance. The study tests this framework by surveying 180 manufacturing firms in China. The empirical results support the theoretical framework.     

Strategic decision models: Integrating different perspectives

Different perspectives of strategic decision-making and outcomes have been advanced in the literature. Among those are the rational normative, external control, and strategic choice models. The current research examined hypothesized effects of factors associated with these three perspectives on strategic acquisition decisions. Strong support was found for the rational/analytical normative choice perspective with objective criteria explaining the greatest amount of total explained variance in evaluation of target firms. However, industry and executive characteristics also produced main effects on target firm evaluations. Furthermore, the strategic decision models were found to vary by industry and executive characteristics of age, educational degree type, amount and type of work experience, and level (CEO and below). The results suggest that strategic decision models are quite complex with significant implications for future research and for strategic decision-making.     

Knowledge management and innovation strategy: The challenge for latecomers in emerging economies

The success of latecomer firms from the emerging economies challenges the conventional wisdom on entry timing and resource-based competence. Building on research on institutions in emerging economies and the resource-based perspective in strategic management, we propose a model to explain how resource poor latecomer firms in emerging economies catch up with the multinational incumbents. We classify latecomers based on their strategic learning intent as either emulators or blind imitators. The strategic learning intent depends on a firm’s complementary assets and its absorptive capacity. Firms that choose emulation develop flexible routines, while firms that choose blind imitation end up with rigid routines. Over time, when there is a need for resource renewal, firms that have flexible routines are better positioned to respond. We take the Chinese mobile phone industry as an exemplar to illustrate the core issues in latecomer catching up of emerging economy firms.

交易特征、关系信任与农业企业契约选择

“公司＋农户”模式是当前我国农业产业化经营的主导模式,如何选择合适的契约是农业企业必须面对的一个重要问题。文章认为,农业企业契约选择不仅受交易特征的决定,同时也受双方关系信任程度的影响,是两种因素共同作用下的结果,并以南京市3家鸭制品加工企业为例,对影响农业企业契约选择的交易特征和关系信任等因素进行了案例分析,验证了这一研究假设。     

技术选择、低碳经济与可持续发展

结合我国低碳经济发展的外部压力和内在要求,从基于低碳经济发展的微观基础——企业行为逻辑入手．分析了我国低碳经济及转变发展方式的实现路径。指出,基于不同资源禀赋结构的技术选择是低碳经济发展的内在支撑,而制度的激励结构转变是低碳经济的可持续性来源。     

企业环境绩效与经济绩效的动态关系模型

企业环境绩效与经济绩效的关系是企业战略管理研究领域里一个比较新的研究对象。现有的研究除方法和数据方面的缺陷外,主要问题是理论模型的解释力不强。本文认为组织能力是企业环境绩效与经济绩效之间内在联系的纽带,一个基于企业组织能力的环境绩效评估体系能够对企业改善环境绩效产生持续的激励作用。据此提出“基于组织能力的企业环境绩效”的理论模型,旨在从环境管理能力建设的角度来讨论企业环境绩效评估的基础方法和原则。     

Pay dispersion and workforce performance: moderating effects of incentives and interdependence

The compensation literature is replete with arguments, but lacking in empirical tests, regarding the effects of pay dispersion on organizational outcomes. Pay dispersion may increase effort and provide incentives for high workforce performance levels, but may also inhibit cooperation and goal orientation among employees. Drawing on several theoretical perspectives (individual motivation, institutional theory, organizational justice, and neoclassical economics), this study predicts that pay dispersion will be associated with higher levels of workforce performance when accompanied by formal individual incentive systems and independent work, while pay compression is desirable in the absence of individual incentive systems and when work is interdependent. Survey research studies in two industrial sectors (the motor carrier and concrete pipe industries) were conducted to address these issues. Interactive regression results were generally supportive of the predictions across several measures of workforce performance (accident rates, safety violations, and productivity). Implications of these studies for strategy implementation in terms of compensation theory and practice are addressed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate distinctive competence,strategy, industry and performance

Corporate distinctive competencies may facilitate effective management of interdependencies among multiple units. Relationships between corporate distinctive competencies and firm performance were examined in 185 industrial firms. Results suggested that distinctive competencies associated with performance vary according to the grand strategy used and the firm's principal industry. Specific distinctive competencies were identified for each strategy and industry type.     

Environment,strategy, organization structure and performance: Patterns in one industry

This paper reports the findings of an empirical field study of savings and loan associations. The investigation centres upon whether combinations of environment, strategy, and organization structure of “high”-performance firms differ from combinations associated with “low”-performance firms. Results show that such combinations differ, both statistically and with respect to their basic character. There is also evidence that norms held by managers of competing institutions and the nature of relationships between organizations and populations served to influence the vigour and form of interfirm rivalries and, in turn, organizational performance.     

The contingent value of marketing strategy innovativeness for product development performance in Chinese new technology ventures

This study extends research on entrepreneurial behavior by investigating the relationship between the marketing strategy innovativeness (MSI) and new product performance in technology-based new ventures in China. Specifically, premised on contingent resource-based view we argue that MSI is a firm capability that must be bundled with external managerial relationships and be deployed in the appropriate environment to ensure its success. We found that the team's extra industry relationships and market dynamism enhanced the impact of MSI on new product performance. In contrast, top management team's intraindustry relationships, financial relationships, and technology dynamism hindered the impact of MSI on new product performance.     

Global strategy and population-level learning: the case of hard disk drives

Some scholars argue that firms within the same industry engage in similar foreign investment behavior irrespective of nationality because they face a common set of pressures and incentives. Others emphasize the persistent diversity in business practices and behavior of firms from different nations as they invest abroad. Using the hard disk drive industry as a case, this paper explores whether nationality or industry has the greater influence on global strategy and whether it affects industry performance. The findings suggest that firms from the same nation are likely to adopt similar global strategies initially, but that, over time, the industry as a whole converges on the same blueprint for action. At the same time, however, strategic focus and organizational characteristics moderate national influences: firms from the same nation are more likely to adopt the same global strategy if they compete in the same product segment and are of similar size and age. The evidence also indicates that the national industry that is first to select what becomes the dominant strategy acquires an advantage over competitors from other countries. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

我国应对气候变化面临的形势分析及战略选择建议

基于对我国应对气候变化面临形势和世界主要国家应对气候变化策略的分析,阐述了我国应当把低碳发展作为应对气候变化策略的原因,提出了我国促进低碳发展战略的指导思想、战略目标,以及建设节约型社会、构建低碳型国民经济体系、构建低碳型消费模式和构建符合低碳发展要求的政府宏观调控体系等战略重点,进一步分析提出了完善节能减排约束性指标体系、尽快攻克煤炭清洁发电关键技术、以发展循环经济为抓手促进绿色经济发展等战略措施选择。     

The impact of marketing capability, operations capability and diversification strategy on performance: A resource-based view

Using resource-based view (RBV) of the firm as a theoretical backdrop; we aim to find out the relative impact of a firm's functional capabilities (namely, marketing and operations) and diversification strategies (product/service and international diversification) on financial performance. We hypothesize that this linkage depends on the firm's relative efficiency to integrate its resource-capabilities-performance triad. Using archival data of 102 UK based logistics companies, we find marketing capability is the key determinant for superior financial performance. This study highlights that a market-driven firm is likely to have better business performance than a firm focusing solely on operational capabilities. Also, firms are better off when they focus on a narrow portfolio of products/services for the clients and concentrate on a diverse geographical market. Our findings provide a new perspective to model a firm's functional capabilities and diversification strategy on its financial performance and offer a benchmarking tool to improve resource allocation decisions.     

Diversification strategy,profit performance and the entropy measure

Several industrial organization studies, using diversification index measures, examined corporate diversification and economic performance and failed to find any significant relationship between them. Rumelt and other strategy researchers used a semisubjective classification scheme and uncovered a systematic relationship between diversification strategies and performance. This study combines the strengths of the index approach, namely, simplicity, objectivity and replicability, with the essential richness of Rumelt's methodology. Using the Jacquemin-Berry entropy measure of diversification and the line-of-business data, this study finds that firms with predominantly related diversification show significantly better profit growth than firms with predominantly unrelated diversification.     

采油厂流量仪表选型探讨

流量计的选型直接影响到流量计量的准确度。根据被测介质性质的不同、流量大小和具体的现场条件选择合适的计量仪表,既降低了计量误差,又做到经济耐用,满足了现场计量需要。     

New product strategy, structure, and performance in two environments

The relationships among environment, strategy, structure, and performance in the context of new product development are examined. The “fit” of strategy and structure to environment is found to be better modeled as a moderator of strength. Overall, the results support the importance of environment, strategy, and structure for the performance of new products. The basic conclusions are that the new product profile has a stronger positive effect on performance for nondominant competitors than for dominant competitors, whereas for dominant competitors, speed and first-to-market strategies are more important to long-term success.     

农村零售区域评价、商店态度与消费者购物地选择

以山东省农村居民为调查对象,探讨了零售区域评价、商店态度与消费者购物地选择之间的关系。通过问卷调查,利用因子分析及多元线性回归分析验证了研究假设。实证分析结果表明,零售区域评价对商店态度产生显著影响,而商店态度是影响农村居民购物地选择决策的关键因素。