| 1. |
- Hyder, Akmal S., et al.
(författare)
-
Institutional factors and strategic alliances in eastern and central Europe
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Baltic Journal of Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1746-5265 .- 1746-5273. ; 3:3, s. 289-308
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose - The study deals with institutional factors that have impact on the operation of east-west alliances. Applying Kostova and Roth's terminology of institutional and relational contexts, this paper aims to address how alliance relationship based on resources, learning and performance organizes and functions, and how institutional factors influence the alliance relationship. Design/methodology/approach - To properly highlight the role of institutional factors, eastern and central Europe (ECE) is divided into four categories, namely fast adapters, high and low medium adapters and slow adapters. A total of 20 alliances operating in different country categories have been selected for the study. In all alliances, foreign partners are Swedish firms and engaged in the manufacturing industry, Semi-structured interviews containing both a fixed set of questions and a set of open-ended questions have been used for data collection. Findings - The impact of institutional factors on firms in slow-adapting countries was uniformly high, the initiatives taken were usually fruitless and ineffective. In the case of medium-adapters, the impact was largely mitigated over time as alliances passed through the different stages. The least impact was, as expected, observed among the alliances in fast-adapting countries. However, the result needs to be taken with some caution as the data include alliances where partners come from a single western country. Practical implications - For direct investment, managers need to take the institutional factors seriously as ECE countries undergo a transition period and the economical situations of these countries shows a wide variation. For example, if need of return is quick, the managers should invest in a fast-adapting country or in a medium-adapting country but not at all in a slow-adapting country. Originality/value - This paper makes a unique contribution by focusing institutional factors which affect strategic alliances in ECE. One future study can concern cultural impact on business environment and new business development in ECE. Another interesting area of research could deal with medium-adapting countries because the members of this group show different level of adaptation and performance.
|
|
| 2. |
- Awuah, Gabriel Baffour, et al.
(författare)
-
Networked (interactive) position : a new view of developing and sustaining competitive advantage
- 2008
-
Ingår i: Competitiveness Review. - Bingley : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1059-5422 .- 2051-3143. ; 18:4, s. 333-350
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – In the extant literature a firm's development of its competitive advantage is seen to be the task of the firm alone. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new and a broader approach of how competitive advantage can be developed and maintained in today's highly competitive and dynamic markets. To this end, how a firm handles its relationships with significant actors in its network becomes very decisive for the development of its competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on a network approach, case studies have been used to shed lights on the extent to which the development of competitive advantage of firms affect and are affected by their interaction with some actors in a network of exchange relationships.Findings – An important conclusion of this study is that a firm's highly valued performance, an indication of its strong position or competitive strength, has its roots in its regular and intensive interaction with some significant actors in its network.Research limitations/implications – All firms in this study have demonstrated that competitive advantage can be achieved by building up a strong position through interaction, learning and adaptation with some significant actors in the marketplace. Since the study is based on one setting, extending a similar study to several settings will be very useful.Originality/value – The paper provides insights into how a firm, in the effort to build its competitive advantage, draws on its own capabilities and complementary capabilities of its partners in a network.
|
|
| 3. |
- Hilmola, Olli-Pekka, et al.
(författare)
-
Export based strategy or manufacturing establishment? : Speculating with Russian market
- 2008
-
Ingår i: International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management. - : InderScience Publishers. - 1742-7967 .- 1742-7975. ; 4:2, s. 155-183
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Among China and India, former Eastern European countries, and especially Russia has been identified as one of the most lucrative market, e.g. in retail sector. However, this market has experienced quite enormous changes during the last two decades, and manufacturing establishment is considered to contain numerous risks, especially functionality of supply chains (incoming flows and distribution) is one of the main reasons. Our longitudinal case study research confirms this, and shows how difficult it is to achieve comparable cost efficiency in Russia as compared to other factories inside of the same company, but operating in well-developed high-cost country. Due to this, and by the fact that foreign companies still favour export based strategies, we develop mathematical models to evaluate which foreign transit harbours would provide lowest distribution costs. Our research results show that only small number of seaports needs to be considered, if distribution costs are the only issue to be concerned.
|
|
