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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2010‒07‒03
fourteen papers chosen by Joao Jose de Matos Ferreira University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Frankort, Johannes Theresia Wilhelmus (Maastricht University) |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:maastr:urn:nbn:nl:ui:27-23463&r=cse |
| By: | Szanyi, Miklós; Iwasaki, Ichiro; Csizmadia, Péter; Illéssy, Miklós; Makó, Csaba |
| Abstract: | In the epoch of globalization, small or medium-sized national companies have great difficulties in finding an appropriate place for themselves in global labor division systems. They most frequently apply either strategies that help them becoming part of global value chains as regular suppliers, or they try to locate in which they might cooperate with other small companies in industrial clusters to compete with larger multinational companies. In both cases, communication, knowledge transfer, and cooperative actions among companies are essential for improving competitive capacities. Since this type of cooperation relies heavily on close, regular contact and face-to-face interaction, the spatial concentration of actors can improve the chances for success. Literature on the topic of supplier networks and spillover effects, as well as that on industrial clusters, emphasizes the importance of a "critical mass" of companies and other organizations and institutions. The authors first define and describe the types of synergies that stem from co-location of cooperating market actors. In addition the potential linkages among the two types of networks, supplier chains and clusters are explained. After a brief overview of the related literature, the authors introduce a new, refined measurement method of spatial concentration with empirical survey results from Hungary. |
| Keywords: | industry cluster, supplier network, foreign direct investment, Hungary |
| JEL: | D24 F23 L14 L16 P23 R12 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:hituec:a539&r=cse |
| By: | Maria Chiarvesio (Università di Udine); Eleonora Di Maria (Università di Padova); Stefano Micelli (Università di Venezia) |
| Abstract: | The paper is oriented at improving the understanding of internationalization strategies of firms by applying the global value chain studies at the firm level, in the context of SMEs. An original contribution of our paper is to apply such theoretical approach to the Italian model of economic organization mainly characterized by local manufacturing systems. Our hypothesis is that SMEs select the mechanism of governance for supplier selection and management in their international value chains consistently with their business models and the level of suppliers’ competences. The paper discusses how SMEs develop a mix of mechanisms of governance of their supply chains depending on the firm strategy and the specificities of the countries of destination of SMEs’ outsourcing strategies. By exploiting an original dataset of over 1,000 Italian firms, the paper shows that SMEs manage internationalization processes with different patterns across countries. |
| Keywords: | Global Value Chain, Internationalization, SMEs, Industrial Districts, Supply Chain Management |
| JEL: | F23 L10 |
| Date: | 2010–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pad:wpaper:0118&r=cse |
| By: | Filippo Randelli (Diparimento di Scienze Economiche, Università degli Studi di Firenze) |
| Abstract: | The paper explores the use of open source geographic information system (GIS) applied to firms. Most data available in a company have a spatial dimension and even decisions in marketing and management often have a spatial dimension. The paper is focus on illustrating the variegated opportunities for an open source GIS based strategy for firms. We argue that open source GIS are today as good as its proprietary competitors, and under certain circumstances, they are a superior alternative to their proprietary counterparts. A GIS based strategy for firms, as any other new application of geographical knowledge, it is a prospect of a new area for geography studies. This paper can be considered an initial essay on the role that geographers can play in spatial analysis applied to business strategy. The application is an example of applied geography supporting firm strategies and it has the purpose to identify spatial customer potentials for a specific infrastructure, the inland terminal of Guasticce (Italy). |
| Keywords: | spatial analysis, open source, Geographic Information System (GIS), geography, inland port |
| JEL: | R00 R40 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2010_08.rdf&r=cse |
| By: | Biju Paul Abraham |
| Abstract: | Patents and patent applications are important indicators of innovative activity in industrial R & D, especially in areas such as Information Technology (IT), where technology growth is rapid. Within the IT sector this is especially true of patents for Internet-related technologies where patenting is often the only way by which entry-barriers can be erected against competitors. This paper presents the analysis of Internet-related patent applications that have been filed under the Paris Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by fourteen major international firms.[Working Paper No. 532] |
| Keywords: | Patents, Information Technology, Internet-related technologies, Paris Cooperation Treaty (PCT), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), international firms |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2600&r=cse |
| By: | Tomohiro MACHIKITA (Inter-disciplinary Studies Center, Japan External Trade Organization); Yasushi UEKI (Bangkok Research Centre- Japan External Trade Organization, Thailand) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new mechanism linking innovation and networks in developing economies to detect explicit production and information linkages. It investigates the testable implications of these linkages using survey data gathered from manufacturing firms in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. In-house R&D activities, internal resources, and linkages with local and foreign firms play a role in reducing the costs of product-and process innovation, and the search costs of finding new suppliers and customers. We found that firms with more variety of information linkages achieve more types of innovation. Complementarities between internal and external sources of knowledge are also found. |
| Date: | 2010–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:era:wpaper:dp-2010-03&r=cse |
| By: | Pilar Beneito López (Universitat de València); Amparo Sanchis Llopis (Universitat de València); María Engracia Rochina Barrachina (Universitat de València) |
| Abstract: | En este trabajo se analiza el papel del aprendizaje en el éxito innovador de las empresas, tomando en consideración la naturaleza heterogénea de las actividades innovadoras, y en particular, distinguiendo entre el aprendizaje que proviene de la realización interna de actividades de I+D y el aprendizaje que proviene de la contratación externa de estas actividades. Para este trabajo se utiliza una muestra representativa de empresas manufactureras en España durante el período 1990-2006, y dentro del marco de una función de producción de innovaciones, se estiman modelos ¿count¿ con el fin de investigar la influencia que tiene en la obtención de resultados innovadores la experiencia que proviene de la I+D realizada dentro de la empresa y de la contratada externamente. Nuestros resultados muestran que el aprendizaje tiene un papel importante en la obtención de innovaciones de producto cuando las empresas organizan sus actividades de I+D internamente, y que la experiencia que proviene de la contratación externa de actividades de I+D no influye sobre el número de innovaciones de producto. This paper analyses the role of learning in firms¿ innovation success, taking into account the heterogeneous nature of innovation activities, and in particular, distinguishing between learning arising from the internal organization of R&D activities and learning from externally contracting these activities. We use a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 1990-2006, and within an innovation production function approach, we estimate count data models to investigate the influence of firms¿ in-house and externally contracted R&D experience in the achievement of innovative results. Our results show that learning is important in the achievement of product innovations when the firms organize R&D activities internally, and that experience from externally contracted R&D activities does not influence the number of product innovations. |
| Keywords: | innovation, accumulation of knowledge, in-house R&D experience, externally contracted R&D experience, count data models. innovación, acumulación de conocimiento, experiencia en I+D interna, experiencia en I+D contratada externamente, modelos para datos ¿count¿. |
| JEL: | O30 O34 C23 C10 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasec:2009-11&r=cse |
| By: | Satyaki, Roy |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Garment industry worldwide is undergoing significant restructuring since the final phaseout of the Multi‐fibre Arrangement. The changes are taking place in terms of relocating production sites on the one hand and coping with the new competition on the other. In this context the paper tries to look into the status of garment industries in India and see how the assumed release of constraints in demand both through liberalization in domestic trade policies and by phasing out of multi‐fibre agreement has impacted upon the growth and size distribution of firms in the sector. The paper focuses on how the responses of individual firms are embedded in the evolving patterns of production organization, labour processes and institutional arrangements related to respective industrial sites. |
| Keywords: | size distribution; clusters; institutions; agglomeration |
| JEL: | L67 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23469&r=cse |
| By: | Wandel, Jürgen |
| Abstract: | This paper challenges the uselfullness of the cluster-based development strategy to diversify and increase the competitiveness of Kazakhstan's economy, regarding the case of the country's agro-food sector. For this it refers to insights of the Austrian Market Process Theory. It is argued that already the theoretical foundations of the cluster concept suffer from severe difficiencies, because it widely neglects the function of competition as a discovery procedure with alert entrepreuneurs as the driving force. Moreover, it ignores the knowledge requirements and limitations in a modern market economy for any outside third party to identify and promote successful industry structures. The closer examination of the implementation of the cluster development program in Kazakhstan's agro-food sectors shows that cluster facilitation in practice turned out to be another form of social engineering and picking winners. In the light of the Austrian understanding of the market system as an entrepreneurial discovery process the paper suggestes as alternative policy option to concentrate on the establishment of a stable institutional framework for the whole economy that stimulates the entrepreneurial discoveries of profitable businesses. Yet, such an Austrian approach is politically less appealing, for it might bring no quick results due to the prevalence of conflicting informal institutions which in the short run might be difficult to change. -- Der Beitrag diskutiert die Eignung der Clusterförderungspolitik zur Diversifizierung und Verbesserung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der Volkswirtschaft Kasachstans am Beispiel der Agrar- und Ernährungswirtschaft des Landes. Dazu wird auf Erkenntnisse der Marktprozeßtheorie der Österreichischen Schule zurückgegriffen. Es wird argumentiert, daß allein schon die theoretische Fundierung der Clusterförderungspolitik fraglich ist, weil sie die Funktion des Wettbewerbs als eines Entdeckungsverfahrens mit findigen Unternehmern als treibende Kraft vernachlässigt. Darüber hinaus unterschätzt sie die Anforderungen an das Wissen, das staatliche Akteure und beratende Ökonomen haben müßten, um erfolgversprechende Industrie- und Unternehmensstrukturen identifizieren und fördern zu können. Die Analyse der Umsetzung der Clusterförderungspolitik in Kasachstans Agrar-und Ernährungswirtschaft zeigt, daß sie praktisch nichts anderes ist als eine weitere Form von staatlichem Konstruktivismus und einer Politik der picking winners. Ausgehend vom Verständnis der Österreichischen Schule des Marktsystems als eines von findigen Unternehmern getragenen Entdeckungsverfahrens schlägt der Beitrag als alternative Strategie vor, sich auf den Aufbau von verlässlichen institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen zu konzentrieren, die für alle Sektoren der kasachstanischen Volkswirtschaft gleichermaßen gelten und die geeignet sind, den unternehmerischen Entdeckungsprozeß zu fördern. Aus politischen Gründen dürfte jedoch diese österreichische Politikoption wenig attraktiv sein, da sie langfristig angelegt ist und kurzfristig nicht zuletzt aufgrund des Konflikts zwischen formalen und informalen Institutionen keine sichtbaren Resultate erwarten lässt. |
| Keywords: | Cluster,Kazakhstan,industrial policy,institutional change,Cluster,Kasachstan,Industriepolitik,institutioneller Wandel |
| JEL: | B53 Q13 L22 L52 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iamodp:128&r=cse |
| By: | Martin Woerter (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland); Christian Rammer (Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Department of Industrial Economics and International Management, Mannheim); Spyros Arvanitis (KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between past innovation output, competition, and future innovation input in a dynamic econometric setting. We distinguish two dimensions of competition that correspond to the concepts of product substitutability and entry barriers due to fixed costs. Based on firm-level panel data for Germany and Switzerland we obtain consistent results for both countries. Innovation output in t-1 as measured by the sales share of innovative products is positively related to the degree of product obsolescence in t, and negatively to the degree of substitutability in t in both countries. Further, we find that rapid product obsolescence provides positive incentives for higher – primarily product-oriented – R&D investments in t+1, while high substitutability exerts negative incentives for future R&D investment. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, R&D, Competition |
| JEL: | O3 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kof:wpskof:10-259&r=cse |
| By: | Alcina Nunes (ESTG, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança and GEMF/Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal); Elsa Sarmento (Departamento de Economia e Gestão da Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal) |
| Abstract: | We address the post-entry performance of new Portuguese firms by investigating the structural characteristics of the hazard and survival functions, using semi-parametric survival analysis for the total economy and its broad sectors. In order to approach the prevalence of some stylized facts and determinants of new firm survival, a new entrepreneurship database was produced, using the administrative data of Quadros de Pessoal, following the Eurostat/OECD´s internationally comparable business demography methodology. In line with the literature, we find that firms that start small and experience faster post-entry growth, face a higher probability of survival. Firm’s current size dimension matters particularly for the Services sector probability of survival. In industries characterized by high entry rates, post-entry survival is more difficult. This happens mostly in Agriculture and the Construction sectors in Portugal. We find a different result from the literature, for the effect of industry growth in survival rates. Firms operating in industries which are growing faster, seem to suffer from a higher probability of failure. The combined effect of turbulence and entry and growth variables help explaining this unexpected effect of industry growth on survival probabilities. By correcting heterogeneity, we obtain stronger magnitudes of the hazard ratios found previously. |
| JEL: | M13 M20 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2010-10&r=cse |
| By: | Roy, Satyaki |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Studies in industrial clusters largely identify the institutional failures and imperfections that prevail in the supply of indivisible inputs and collective action. This paper critically reviews a typical ‘low‐road’ cluster in Kolkata and argues that market failures due to existence of information imperfections, externalities and public good and the institutional failure to resolve those imperfections only partially explain the depressed status in these clusters. The explanation, however, critically rests on the fact of asymmetric power relations and conflicts arising between the trader and the small producer reproducing a production relation that thwarts the high road growth path. The spawning of small enterprises in such clusters, as the argument goes, is a result of self‐exploitative fragmentation that does not flow from entrepreneurship but is a result of survival strategy of labour in the context of depressed wages. |
| Keywords: | contested exchange; self-exploitative fragmentation; |
| JEL: | D23 |
| Date: | 2009–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:23468&r=cse |
| By: | Alcina Nunes (ESTG, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança and GEMF/Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal); Elsa Sarmento (Departamento de Economia e Gestão da Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal) |
| Abstract: | We address the post-entry performance of new Portuguese firms by investigating the structural characteristics of the hazard and survival functions, using non-parametric survival analysis. In order to approach prevalence of some stylized facts and determinants of new firm survival, we produced a new entrepreneurship database, using the administrative data of Quadros de Pessoal, following the Eurostat/OECD´s internationally comparable business demography methodology. This allowed the computation of a comprehensive array of entrepreneurship indicators on employer enterprise and survival dynamics in Portugal, over a period of 18 years, disaggregated in dimensions such as sectors, regions and size classes. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Business Demography, Business Survival, Performance Determinants, Micro-data. |
| JEL: | M13 M20 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gmf:wpaper:2010-09&r=cse |
| By: | Kathrin Armbruster; Michael Beckmann (University of Basel) |
| Abstract: | The allocation of decision-making authorities may be seen as the last link in a causal<br />relationship starting from changes in environment and continuing to business strategy.<br />Changes in task complexity, which can be measured by the introduction of a diversica-<br />tion or an outsourcing strategy, are expected to result in a shift towards a more centralized<br />or decentralized allocation of decision-making authorities. Using nationally representative<br />Swiss rm data, OLS, Propensity Score Matching as well as a combined matching and<br />dierence-in-dierences approach in order to account for endogeneity and unobserved het-<br />erogeneity are applied. Estimates using all three approaches show a highly signicant<br />positive impact of outsourcing on a decentralized decision rights assignment, whereas a<br />diversication strategy yields no in<br />uence. The conclusion therefore is that a lower delega-<br />tion risk due to a decline in complexity results in decentralized decision-making authorities<br />in Swiss rms. |
| Keywords: | Allocation of decision-making authorities - Diversication - Outsourcing - Average treatment eect - Propensity score matching estimators - Combined matching dierence-in-dierences estimator |
| JEL: | C21 D21 L22 M50 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bsl:wpaper:1427&r=cse |