Motivations for Environmental Alliances: Generating and Internalizing Environmental and Knowledge Value

Environmental alliances are a common response to societal sustainability demands. In environmental alliances, firms collaboratively exploit and explore environmental technologies to address market opportunities while simultaneously generating positive environmental impacts. A striking idiosyncrasy is that in addition to economic value, environmental alliances generate two types of external value: environmental value from positive effects on air, water, land and biodiversity, and knowledge value from innovations in environmental technologies. Research on motivations for environmental alliances is dispersed and underdeveloped compared to the well‐established literature on motivations for strategic alliances that emphasize economic value. This study therefore develops a classification of motivations for environmental alliances by combining the literature on strategic alliances and that on environmental and knowledge value. The resulting classification includes motivations for environmental alliances to generate environmental and knowledge value as well as motivations to create economic value by internalizing environmental and knowledge value. A systematic review of 123 articles on environmental inter‐firm alliances identifies specific motivations to populate the new classification. We show that alliance partners are motivated to share sustainable resources, reduce sustainability risk, respond to stakeholders or invest in specific sustainable assets to generate external value. They collaborate to reduce costs or enhance competitive advantage, reputation or legitimacy to internalize external value. The resource‐based view, resource‐dependence view, institutional theory and transaction cost economics have not previously distinguished between motivations to generate and internalize external value. We extend their area of application from strategic alliances to environmental alliances, and thus beyond the exclusive pursuit of economic value.     

From Temporary Competitive Advantage to Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Both industrial organization theory (IO) and the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV) have advanced our understanding of the antecedents of competitive advantage but few have attempted to verify the outcome variables of competitive advantage and the persistence of such outcome variables. Here by integrating both IO and RBV perspectives in the analysis of competitive advantage at the firm level, our study clarifies a conceptual distinction between two types of competitive advantage ? temporary competitive advantage and sustainable competitive advantage ? and explores how firms transform temporary competitive advantage into sustainable competitive advantage. Testing of the developed hypotheses, based on a survey of 165 firms from Taiwan's information and communication technology industry, suggests that firms with a stronger market position can only attain a better outcome of temporary competitive advantage whereas firms possessing a superior position in technological resources or capabilities can attain a better outcome of sustainable competitive advantage. More importantly, firms can leverage a temporary competitive advantage as an outcome of market position to improving their technological resource and capability position, which in turn can enhance their sustainable competitive advantage.     

运筹活动对企业可持续竞争优势的影响

相关统计结果表明,运筹活动能帮助企业在激烈的竞争中持续成长并维持其优势地位,而要了解组织内运筹活动对可持续性竞争优势影响的机理,就应明确运筹活动对可持续竞争优势构成因素的影响。为此,以持续性因素为中介变量,研究了运筹活动对可持续竞争优势的影响,实证检验了相关研究变量之间的关系。结果显示,运筹活动对企业可持续竞争优势的形成有正效用。     

Integrating Behavioural and Economic Concepts of Risk into Strategic Management: the Twain Shall Meet

This paper develops an integrated framework of risk management and strategic competitive advantage that incorporates behavioural and economic notions of risk. The resulting model argues for the importance of risk-taking to sustainable competitive advantage and ultimately to firm performance. The model integrates framing effects of attainment discrepancy, transaction costs from implicit contracts theory and capital costs from finance theory. The proposed model suggests that continuous risk-taking by firms may help sustain competitive advantage and thus lower firm risk. This, in turn, effectively increases market returns to shareholders by ensuring earnings growth while simultaneously reducing the risk premium discount attached to a firm’s future income stream.     

制度环境、公司治理对企业竞争优势的影响研究——基于中国上市公司的经验证据

如何通过外部制度和内部制度的安排延续企业的竞争优势,是制度变迁背景下中国企业面临的核心问题.本文以2002年-2005年的中国上市公司为样本,基于国内地区差距,实证分析了制度环境和公司治理时企业竞争优势的影响.回归结果发现,政府支持市场化程度、经济法律环境水平、股权集中度、股权竞争度、董事会独立性、专业委员会设置程度以及股东参与决策程度与企业竞争优势显著正相关.研究结果表明,好的制度环境与有效的公司治理能提高企业的竞争优势;企业持续竞争优势的源泉应包含以政府为主体的宏观层次的制度竞争和以企业为主体的微观层次的公司治理竞争.     

Organisationale Einflussfaktoren des Allianzerfolgs – Eine empirische Analyse auf Basis des „resource-based view“

Strategic alliances have become an essential part of business strategy and a central source of competitive advantage for almost any firm. Existing research has mainly focused on the isolated analysis of single alliances. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by analyzing organizational-level determinants of alliances success. Based on survey data from 302 firms, four organizational success factors of alliance management are identified and integrated in a structural model.     

企业非市场战略理论体系及其内在主导机制研究

基于非市场环境界定了企业非市场战略的内涵;分析了企业政治战略、社会公众及媒体战略和企业社会责任战略等非市场战略类型,以期建立一个完整的非市场战略理论体系。最后,论述了市场与非市场战略内在主导机制的差异,即市场战略由“独特性机制”支配,而非市场战略则靠“合法性机制”来主导。要获得持续的竞争优势和卓越绩效,企业应对市场战略和非市场战略进行协同整合,构建起“市场-非市场”的一体化整合战略。     

基于合作溢出的战略联盟不稳定性研究

战略联盟的不稳定性与专有核心资源的共享及其溢出有关。在一个专业化理论模型中,专有核心资源共享和溢出能够带来专业化分工的经济性和成员核心竞争力的提升,这同时打破了事前的竞争力平衡状态,从而引发了成员间争夺和防护最大化溢出的合作冲突。在信息对称的情况下,战略联盟是一个“囚犯困境”,不稳定性由这一博弈的均衡结果来反映,而在信息不对称时,最优溢出量的相机决策建立在对对方溢出量的预期和事先竞争力对比的基础上,由于联盟成员之间的激励不相容,当合作变成不可置信承诺以及市场价格波动时,联盟也是不稳定的。     

Complementarity and Leverage as Drivers of the Stock Market Reaction to Global Alliance Formation

Companies are increasingly using global alliances to accelerate their international expansion. This paper identifies the critical factors that influence how the stock market will react to news of this type of alliance. We argue that abnormal returns on such news depend on the degree to which partners fill gaps in their international networks. We also argue that these alliances should be designed to take advantage of these complementarities in a well-defined geographical area. An empirical analysis of the stock market reaction to 72 global alliances by listed Spanish companies confirmed the importance of complementarity and leverage in explaining abnormal returns, and the irrelevance of the region of origin of the partner.     

基于供应链联盟的知识整合研究

核心能力理论的发展说明通过跨企业知识整合可以增强企业的竞争优势。本文对供应链联盟知识整合的结构框架和特征进行分析,阐述通过专业整合和系统整合把个人知识整合为跨企业结构化知识的过程,并进一步探讨了产品交易、资产属性和路径依赖性等对供应链联盟知识整合的影响。最后本文对丰田公司的供应链联盟———协丰会进行案例分析。     

隐含经验类知识:企业持续竞争优势的源泉

本文从隐含经验类知识的内涵和特性入手,将隐含经验类知识划分为技巧、心智模式、处理问题的方式以及组织惯例等四种类型。在此基础上分析了隐含经验类知识与持续竞争优势之间的关系,强调了隐含经验类知识由于其巨大的客户价值、稀缺性以及难以模仿性和复制性,成为了企业持续竞争优势的真正源泉。Nucor公司的成功进一步验证了企业持续竞争优势很大程度上取决于企业所掌握的隐含经验类知识以及公司开发利用隐含经验类知识的能力。     

市场竞争优势不对等下投资决策的期权博弈分析

可获得的竞争优势对不确定性和竞争性环境下的企业的投资决策有着重要影响.在引入市场份额因子后建立了体现这种竞争优势不对等情形下的双寡头期权博弈模型,并进行了数值分析,发现领先者拥有竞争优势能激励其更早进入,而追随者拥有竞争优势而不怕其它企业抢先进入的威胁.最后分析了模型对企业的投资策略选择和产业进入壁垒等实际应用中的意义.     

竞争性双寡头的联盟绩效研究

由竞争对手组建的竞争性战略联盟,正逐渐成为联盟理论研究的焦点。本文以同一区域内、不对称的竞争性双寡头为研究对象,针对新产品研发和销售两阶段,对比分析了不合作与结成竞争性联盟共同研发并在新市场中联合销售新产品这两种模式下的均衡研发投入和均衡利润,得出了竞争性双寡头组建联盟的共赢区间。研究结论有助于我国企业借助竞争合作关系进入国际市场,提高国际竞争力。     

Measuring the benefit of changing the value offering in grocery supply chains

New value-adding solutions are needed for grocery supply chains to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in a market environment characterised by increased competition. This paper discusses two case studies that identify how improvements to the value offering brought about enhancements to the performance of the total supply chain. The concept of ‘time benefit analysis’ is applied to measure the impact of the change. These approaches offer novel and unique techniques for performance measurement and value offering analysis in supply chain management.     

资源异质性如何影响企业绩效:资源管理能力调节效应的检验和分析

战略理论认为,资源与能力是引致企业竞争优势和绩效差异的重要因素,但鲜有实证研究探讨异质性资源与何种企业能力组合可提升企业绩效的问题。本文通过定量研究分析了资源异质性与资源管理能力不同维度组合对企业绩效影响的效果。数据分析结果表明,资源获取、整合与释放能力维度对资源异质性正向影响企业绩效的作用关系有调节作用,但对不同的资源特质—绩效关系影响程度不同。本研究揭示了资源异质性—企业绩效关系成立的边界条件和影响因素,对企业管理实践有重要意义。     

Competition network as a source of competitive advantage: The dynamic capability perspective and evidence from China

The search for competitive advantage is the defining inquiry of strategic management research. In this study, we draw on the dynamic capability lens to develop a counterintuitive view that positions competitors of a firm as an important source of competitive advantage. We argue that a firm's competitors form a competition network from which it can collect information about innovative ideas, product market, and related industries. Such information helps it calibrate market opportunities, update the resource base, and, eventually, strengthen its competitive advantage. This positive effect of competition network on competitive advantage will reasonably be contingent upon the proactive information search by the firm. The empirical results based on the survey data of 631 Chinese firms strongly support our theoretical model. This study identifies another distinctive source of competitive advantage than industry context or organizational resources as well as advancing our understanding of competition network.     

基于卓越伦理的竞争优势

本文提出了“卓越伦理”和“基于卓越伦理的竞争优势”概念,概括了拥有卓越伦理的企业具有超越自身利益的使命和目的、合乎伦理地对待利益相关者、实行伦理领导等三个基本特征。从“有价值”、“稀缺性”、“难以模仿性”三个方面,论证了卓越伦理已具备成为可持续竞争优势来源的条件,从而得出了卓越伦理是可持续竞争优势一个来源的结论。     

Leveraging tacit knowledge in alliances: The importance of using relational capabilities to build and leverage relational capital

Effectively managing existing tacit knowledge stocks and transferring knowledge between partners contributes to firm capabilities that allow them to differentiate their goods and services from those of their competitors. Because it also helps them to provide greater value to customers, it contributes to the development of a competitive advantage. In highly competitive industries, firms need to focus on proactively managing their knowledge resources to ensure survival. However, the knowledge management process is at times complex especially because of the difficulty involved in conveying tacit knowledge. Due to its latent potential for enabling firms to achieve potential competitive advantage, how firms utilize and transfer stocks of tacit knowledge requires enhanced understanding. In specific, we explain how firms use relational capabilities to build relational capital with partners. In turn, relational capital facilitates the transfer of tacit knowledge between collaborating partners. We develop several propositions regarding the factors likely to influence the transfer of a firm's tacit knowledge resources in strategic alliances. The importance of social capital's relational dimension, relational capital, in this process is highlighted.     

Competitive Dynamics between Multinational Enterprises and Local Internet Platform Companies in the Virtual Market in China

We adopt the dynamic capability perspective and the institutional view as the guiding theoretical lenses to explain the relative performance of foreign internet platform companies (IPCs) operating in China. Based on data obtained from 51 interviews a multiple‐case‐study approach is adopted, with representative matched cases between foreign IPCs, including Google, eBay, Amazon and Groupon, and local IPCs. The findings highlight the unique characteristics of the IPCs and the Chinese context that challenge assumptions prevailing in the literature of the applicability of firm‐specific advantages in determining a sustainable competitive advantage. We highlight the dynamic capabilities of the firm, such as flexibility and experimentation, in contributing to sustainable competitive advantage. Further, rather than focusing on firm‐specific resources, we find that the active agency of the firm can approach institutions as resources through external links with diversified institutional players, which is crucial for multinational enterprise IPCs to develop sustainable competitive advantage. Drawing on the findings we present a number of propositions and implications for theory and practice.