What happened with the grandiose plans? Strategic plans and network realities in B2B interaction

Research concerned with business relationships and organizational levels, respectively, has addressed companies' difficulties in realizing their strategies. Studies of business relationships explain this through actions and reactions among business partners. Organizational studies note gaps between strategic and operational organizational levels in perceptions and goals. This paper combines these perspectives to obtain new insights into why company strategies may not materialize. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss how actor bonds on various organizational levels in business relationships affect strategy realization. The paper shows that actors on similar organizational levels representing different companies may actually share more understandings and activities than actors within the same company. The paper contributes to research on dyadic business relationships by highlighting differences in perspectives on various organizational levels, adds insights into research studying organizations by including a business-relationship aspect, and increases understanding of why strategic plans sometimes fail to succeed.     

Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability in the globalization of the multinational business enterprise (MBE): Case studies of AB Volvo and IKEA

Most current research argues that globalization of companies is a myth. In spite of this Swedish firms have managed to globalize successfully according to a study by Vahlne and Ivarsson (2014). On a general level this is because they managed to build strong advantages and learned to overcome barriers constituted by cultural, institutional and geographic distance. We elaborate on the expectation that organizational ambidexterity has explanatory power for profitable globalization. We perform case studies of IKEA and AB Volvo to motivate our expectation and illustrate how these firms have been able, or not able, to balance and manage the simultaneous processes of exploration and exploitation. Ambidexterity is included in the package of dynamic capabilities affecting the globalization process positively. We find that being proactive in exploration and improving on the effectiveness in exploitation may lead to successful globalization performance.     

The Internationalization of Chinese Firms and Negative Media Coverage: The Case of Geely's Acquisition of Volvo Cars

Chinese firms are internationalizing at an unprecedented speed. One profound phenomenon linked to this active Chinese firms internationalization process is that the process tends to be confronted with negative media coverage of China and Chinese firms in Western countries. How to understand and cope with the negative image of China and Chinese firms, as they are often seen in the Western media, emerges as a relevant and timely research topic in the study of the internationalization of Chinese firms. The purpose of this article is to stimulate ideas for further research on the relations between the internationalization of Chinese firms and the media coverage. We use the case of Geely's acquisition of Volvo Cars, which was to a large extent negatively reported in the Swedish media during 2008–2013, as inspiration to identify the interesting research themes and questions. Given the increasing anti‐globalization trend, we hypothesize that Chinese firms will have to face up to the reality of negative media coverage in many Western countries for the foreseeable future, at least in the firms’ initial establishment phases. We end our paper with the managerial implications. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The dynamics of business orientation: the case of the Volvo Car Corporation

The traditional marketing literature generally sees the adoption of business orientation either from a static, cross-sectional viewpoint or as a one-way evolutionary or catastrophic process from production to sales to marketing. An examination of the changes in business orientation in the Volvo Car Corporation suggests that the pattern has been rather more cyclical than linear: market-production-market. The rationales of this pattern are analyzed in the context of both the nature of the particular market context and the evidence available. Both the managerial and academic implications are discussed.     

我国企业海外并购提升了公司价值吗——以吉利并购沃尔沃为例

汽车企业海外并购有利于谋求市场和技术,实现全球资源配置和新的利润增长点。以吉利汽车并购沃尔沃汽车这一特有的"蛇吞象"式海外并购事件为例,从市场反应和财务绩效两方面来研究吉利并购沃尔沃能否提升公司价值:从市场反应发现其累积超常收益率并没有跑赢市场;从财务指标变动趋势发现,盈利能力并不稳健,成长能力逐年减弱,风险水平比较高,长期来看将会使股东的财富受到损失。最后从微观和宏观层面上对我国海外并购提出几点建议。     

吉利并购沃尔沃的风险与并购后整合战略分析

文中分析了吉利并购沃尔沃后所面临的风险,提出了并购后的整合战略:在巩固沃尔沃欧美市场的同时,积极开拓中国市场,尽可能释放沃尔沃的产能;发挥沃尔沃的品牌溢出效应,提升吉利品牌价值;保持现有沃尔沃团队的稳定,维护沃尔沃品牌形象;通过交互安排吉利和沃尔沃的管理人员到对方组织中,逐步实现组织结构的调整和文化融合;将技术战略重点放在对沃尔沃的专利和特长技术的消化吸收上;在中国联合组建研发中心,降低吉利的研发成本。     

小鱼吃大鱼——浅析吉利收购沃尔沃

通过笔者对吉利收购沃尔沃案例的思考,提出了几点关于跨国并购问题的思考.     

企业跨国并购中的技术整合策略研究——以吉利并购沃尔沃为例

技术获取型跨国并购正成为我国企业转型升级的一个重要选项,吉利并购沃尔沃为我国企业跨国并购的技术整合提供了宝贵的经验,吉利并购沃尔沃的技术整合策略主要有:在技术评价阶段,分别从技术需求和市场需求角度对目标企业的技术进行评估;在技术导入与内化阶段,初期采取技术共存的整合模式,后期采取技术融合的整合模式;对技术人员的整合主要采取沟通为导向的策略;从财务、技术和管理三个维度对技术整合绩效进行综合评价。     

Societal effects meet sectoral effects: work organization,competencies and payment systems in the Volvo Commercial Vehicle Division

By comparing the development of competence payment systems in Volvo's Commercial Vehicle plants in Sweden, Belgium, and the UK, the paper seeks to explain some of the reasons why the UK is lagging behind in the development of innovative pay systems. In the Commercial Vehicle sector the reticence of UK-based assemblers such as Volvo and Leyland Trucks to introduce new forms of payment systems can be only partially explained with reference to societal factors. One has to look further, to the historical development of the UK automotive sector and the perception of management that the introduction of a payment system based upon individual effort would lead back to the restrictive practices and demarcation disputes which exemplified the employment relationship in the 1960s and 1970s.