Multiple recipes for success – A configurational examination of business portfolio restructurings

This explorative empirical study investigates which sets of portfolio restructuring design characteristics, contingent on individual firm and industry characteristics, lead to successful business portfolio transformations. We draw on insights from the strategic change, strategic fit, and organizational turnaround literature and develop a contingency model for transformation success. To allow for complex configurations, we employ a set-theoretic approach based on fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings suggest that there is no single best strategy for restructuring a portfolio. Rather, there are multiple pathways to success in portfolio transformation, depending on a firm's competitive posture and industry environment. In particular, our results highlight the pivotal influence of prior firm performance and environmental jolts on the design of successful business portfolio restructuring (BPR) strategies.     

新兴国家企业选择专业化战略的情境识别及机制探讨--基于深圳企业的多案例研究

已有研究将发达国家高比例的企业专业化归因于其长期发展形成的强制度环境,那么,弱制度环境下的新兴国家如何推动企业采取专业化发展方式?现实中,中国一些地区(如深圳、广州)已表现出明显的专业化倾向,原因在哪?文章基于环境依赖视角探讨新兴国家的企业专业化问题,通过对深圳的三家专业化企业进行多案例研究,旨在识别该地区影响企业采取专业化发展方式的情境框架,并分析具体的影响机制。研究发现:(1)识别了支持型营商环境、高度市场化、敏捷供应链构成的企业战略选择情境框架。受到改革开放政策、内地庞大市场容量、近港区位优势和全价值链分工等外力作用,以及营商环境、市场环境、供应链之间相互作用内生关系影响,形成了螺旋演进式的情境正向优化模型。(2)外部情境会引致企业固化甚至暂时锁定在专业化战略上。支持型营商环境产生资源集聚效应,高度市场化引导行业分工出现,敏捷供应链形成专业化固化效应。研究解释了新兴国家为何会出现专业化比例提高现象,从情境构建角度拓展了企业战略选择的环境依赖理论,对新兴国家的产业政策调整和企业战略选择实践具有指导意义。     

Strategy and the “business portfolio”

In this article the author goes on to develop the conclusion reached in his previous article which appeared in the December edition of Long Range Planning. These conclusions concerned the requirements for strategic success for an individual business, here they are developed into their implications for strategy development in the typical multibusiness company.It is argued that relative competitive position and growth are the two fundamental parameters which must be considered in determining the strategy that an individual business should follow when viewed within the context of the company's overall ‘business portfolio’. The likely patterns of business strategy which will lead to overall corporate success are discussed and contrasted with those which can lead to disaster.The key is that strategies should be made to differ widely from business to business, as a function of the growth and relative competitive position of each business and the company's overall resource position particularly with respect to cash. The ‘across the board’ defensive measures which many companies have adopted in recent years as their response to the pressures of inflation and recession are therefore argued to be singularly inappropriate for the long term. The ‘business portfolio’ concept provides a superior approach for developing the differentiated strategic business objectives which are necessary for any company to make the most of its opportunities.     

Application of the Fuzzy Weighted Average in Strategic Portfolio Management*

We propose a systematic approach that incorporates fuzzy set theory in conjunction with portfolio matrices to assist managers in reaching a better understanding of the overall competitiveness of their business portfolios. Integer linear programming is also accommodated in the proposed integrated approach to help select strategic plans by using the results derived from the previous portfolio analysis and other financial data. The proposed integrated approach is designed from a strategy‐oriented perspective for portfolio management at the corporate level. It has the advantage of dealing with the uncertainty problem of decision makers in doing evaluation, providing a technique that presents the diversity of confidence and optimism levels of decision makers. Furthermore, integer linear programming is used because it offers an effective quantitative method for managers to allocate constrained resources optimally among proposed strategies. An illustration from a real‐world situation demonstrates the integrated approach. Although a particular portfolio matrix model has been adopted in our research, the procedure proposed here can be modified to incorporate other portfolio matrices.     

The business portfolio approach—Where it falls down in practice

During the past decade the SBU (or portfolio) concept has enjoyed widespread popularity as a basis for corporate-wide strategic planning systems within large, diversified firms. This article discusses the implementation of such systems on the basis of 3 years of clinical and small sample research. A ‘basic model’ of implementation is used as a basis for comparison to progressive practice as observed in a sample of 13 firms. Furthermore, a new conceptual perspective for the portfolio concept is developed as a complement to the observed approach to implementation.     

基于小波-高阶矩模型的投资组合策略——以国际原油市场为例

考虑到投资者异质性特征,将极大重叠离散小波变换方法与高阶矩投资组合框架相结合,提出小波-高阶矩投资组合模型,在此基础上提出频域视角下的高频尺度集成方案和时-频域视角下的全尺度集成方案,并遴选出合适的风险偏好特征改进模型,最后进行稳定性检验。基于国际原油市场数据,样本外检验结果表明：相较于对照组,大部分的小波-高阶矩投资组合策略均取得了更优的投资效果,其中集成部分表现最佳,且高频尺度集成方案侧重于提升收益,而全尺度集成方案侧重于降低波动;通过选择合适偏好高阶矩风险的特征,将会明显改善原始小波-高阶矩投资组合策略,且对两个集成方案改良效果最显著;稳健性检验证实了以上结论。     

A commonsense approach to portfolio planning

For the diversified firm, business portfolio planning offers a way of determining its individual businesses' roles and developing a synergistic corporate strategy. In practice, however, the common tools of portfolio planning—the growth/share and market attractiveness/business position matrices—present problems in that often neither of the matrices is precisely suitable for a given individual business. This article makes use of modifications of the growth/share and market attractiveness/business position matrices in order to make them more operational. The authors believe that a step-by-step ‘shirt-sleeve’ approach to portfolio planning can make this type of analysis accessible and invaluable to a small diversified firm, as well as providing insights to larger corporations with formal planning departments.     

A framework for the strategic management of future tyre technology

Strategically managing technology faces one major problem: technology planners and managers who mistake ‘R & D management’ for ‘strategic technology management’. In globally competitive markets, survival and growth of tyre companies will increasingly depend upon the ability to manage technological resources strategically. This article proposes a process model which views the strategic management of technology as ‘techno-business management’, where technology and business strategy, planning and implementation can be facilitated by the use of portfolio frameworks and technology forecasting techniques in analysing and addressing the key strategic management areas of techno-business strategy development and strategy implementation.     

基于β系数优化的动态投资组合策略研究

本文提出一种股票动态投资组合策略，首先通过上升和下降贝塔来优选行业，然后在选择的行业中构造股票投资组合。对于股票投资组合，利用均值方差投资组合模型作为内核，通过引入参考时间窗口和持有期限窗口两个外生参数构建动态的均值-方差模型，并实证检验了模型的可行性。然后再经过多项业绩评价指标对比分析得出动态投资组合策略的收益明显优于被动投资策略，这种动态投资组合策略能够获得部分超额收益并且具有更好的可靠性。本研究为投资者提供了一种定量的投资组合管理方法，并从侧面验证了我国股市的非有效性。     

Patent portfolios for strategic R&D planning

Empirical research has found a discrepancy between the perceived importance and the actual level of information on competitor's R&D strategies. It has been argued in the literature that patent information might be used to overcome this information deficit. However, empirical research further reveals that patent information is rarely used in strategic R&D planning. The present paper explores this issue and introduces two types of patent portfolios for strategic R&D planning. In patent portfolios on the company level, patenting strategies are identified and the quality of overall technological positions is benchmarked against relevant competitors. In addition, we present a patent portfolio on the technological level, which, as it is known from various technology portfolios, helps companies to manage the allocation of R&D resources effectively. Based on patent data from 21 German, European and Japanese mechanical engineering companies we show the application of both patent portfolios for strategic R&D planning purposes. The patent portfolios prove to be a very valuable tool for R&D decision makers in companies. Based on the experiences made in the case study, recommendation for the effective use of patent portfolios are formulated.     

An Analysis of the de minimis Strategy for Risk Management

A de minimis risk management strategy sets a threshold so that risks below the specified level are defined as trivial and exempted from further consideration. The intended purpose is to help avoid inappropriate and wasteful concern with insignificant low-level risks. In most instances a de minimis strategy is likely to have beneficial or innocuous effects, but under certain circumstances large differences may develop between nominal and actual de minimis levels. The potential for such discrepancies illustrates why de minimis (and all other risk management) strategies should be evaluated on the basis of the portfolio of risks that would accumulate from applying such strategies over time, rather than on the apparent reasonableness of any single instance of application.     

Organized manufacturing for superior market performance

This article describes a series of case studies which show the global marketing benefits that can result from a strategic deployment of advanced manufacturing technology. The paper points out that a desirable collaboration between manufacturing and marketing is often not achieved. The authors then identify a number of factors that inhibit the rapid adoption of manufacturing technology for competitive advantage. This leads to a final section where recommendations are made for achieving a better linkage between technology and competitive strategy, and for facilitating the introduction of technology in the plant itself.     

Environmental scanning—Does it help the chief executive?

Firms must correctly identify and analyze the nature of their strategic environments, their strategic oppurtunities and problems, and, formulate the precise strategy sets for corporate strategy for accomplishing the chosen organizational objectives and goals. This articles reports on a survey. Chief executives of industrial corporations provided their insights and experience (see Appendix I) and the findings are analyzed for the implications for other practising chief executives. The nature of environment which is strategic to a particular firm has considerable influence upon the firm's choice of strategies. The correct understanding of this influence is critical to the firm's organizational effectiveness. Only after a correct understanding can the chief executive formulate the precise mix of strategies and meld them in the strategy sets of the corporate strategy.The major findings indicate that the levels of difficulty experienced in accomplishing firm's objectives and goals depend upon the perceived nature of complexity, unpredictability and dynamism of the firm's strategic environments. The levels of clarity on strategic issues also depend upon these same attributes of environments. The formulation of strategy sets of corporate strategy are indicative of the ways by which the chief executive and his management team expect the firm to achieve its major objectives and goals by monitoring the strategy sets to keep in tune with the changing realities of the firm's strategic environments. General management, marketing and finance, were the vital group strategies, followed by production and research and development. External relations, personnel and procurement were the least important strategies. Firms operating in simple and stable environments experienced the least difficulty in achieving corporate goals, while firms in dynamic and complex environments experienced the greatest difficulty.     

Critical success factors and green supply chain management proactivity: shedding light on the human aspects of this relationship based on cases from the Brazilian industry

Abstract

By applying the resources-based view (RBV) theory to green management, this study aims to analyse the relationship between critical success factors (CSFs) and the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices for some Brazil-based manufacturers of automotive batteries considered focal in their supply chains. It also analyses how human issues, known as green human resource management (GHRM) aspects, can help to increase the effectiveness of CSFs for GSCM strategies that are still not totally well-managed, justifying a RBV perspective. This research assumes that firms tend to be in different stages of GSCM development (more strategic or less strategic) and tests four research propositions to determine whether more proactive GSCM is related to higher levels of effectively managed CSFs. Three focal companies that operate in the Brazilian automotive battery industry were studied. Research results suggest that more proactive GSCM practices correlate to more effectively managed CSFs and to a greater support from GHRM. We argue that managers with a clear GHRM strategy will have more success in GSCM adoption, using more green training, green recruitment and selection, green performance evaluation and employee rewards.     

Private and Public Sector Models for Strategies in Universities*

Increasing formalization of disciplined management of UK universities over the last 30 years has been accompanied by moves to articulate universities' strategies, by attempts to connect organizations' plans and management of activity to those strategies and by a desire to measure how well outcomes are fitted to universities' goals. In this complex change in the orientation of universities' management, lessons have been drawn from the contemporary development of the analysis of strategy and strategic process in commercial and, latterly, in public sector settings. It is argued that there have been very significant errors and weaknesses in the importation of such models of strategy, especially in the stress on strategic planning rather than strategic process and in the insensitivity of universities' planning to the underlying strategy process of the typical university. Most universities, it is argued, mistake planning – and even budgeting – for strategy itself, having failed to make proper sense of their own organizations' processes of generating strategies and putting them into practice. They have typically missed the crucial context of strategy and change. It is argued that there are crucial lessons to be learned from recent advances in theorizing about strategy in the private or commercial sector, particularly in relation to the development of modelling complex and path‐dependent systems; and it is argued strongly that universities' strategic process can fruitfully be analysed through the perspectives of real options analysis. This can also accommodate the richness of universities' traditions of strategy formation and implementation within ‘loose‐coupled’ organizations.     

Pitfalls in portfolio planning

This paper presents an analysis and comparison of the Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Co., and Arthur D. Little portfolio models and a discussion of the theoretical and operational problems with the general portfolio construct. The models seem to share the goal of optimizing the firm's financial performance and the same fundamental assumptions. The strategies suggested by each model will not always be the same because of differences in the structure of the three models. Also strategic analysis of each unit is necessary to avoid the pitfalls caused by the theoretical and operational problems with the portfolio construct.     

投资组合策略的有效性检验:基于中国市场的实证分析

本文针对中国股票市场的实际特点,对几种典型的投资策略进行了分析比较。本研究选取不同类型的数据库作为研究对象,截取出不同时间段的数据用以检验各种投资策略在各种投资背景下的表现。检验结果表明,对于行业层面的投资而言,基于数量化模型的优化策略总体表现较好;但在个股层面,市场组合策略的总体表现较好。此外,当资产数目较大时,简单的1/N平均投资策略在个股层面的投资表现也较为突出。而在股市行情处于单一的牛市或熊市的情形下,基于数量化模型的优化策略的表现比它们在长期平均行情下的表现更好。本文初步探析了这些现象背后的原因。这些结果表明策略类型的选择、参数估计的样本选取是实际投资操作中不可忽视的环节。     

非平移收益曲线的风险免疫策略

在债券收益曲线呈刚体运动的假设条件下,引入Fisher&Weil久期的概念.从收益曲线的运动分析出发,提出了非平移收益曲线的风险免疫模型,基于该模型研究了风险最小化债券组合的对冲技术和方法.通过数值模拟实验,采用风险值VaR次序统计量估计技术对不同免疫策略下债券组合的风险敞口进行了分析.结果表明,所提出的风险免疫策略能有效地防范和控制无违约债券的利率风险.     

Integrating the Content and Process of Strategic MIS Planning with Competitive Strategy*

This paper presents a framework that links strategic MIS planning and business strategy and relates it to competitive advantage and company performance. To achieve this objective, the paper first delineates the dimensions of strategic MIS planning, focusing on both content and process issues. The notion of fit within dimensions, between sets of dimensions (process and content), and between MIS planning and competitive strategy is also introduced. Next, employing the Miles-Snow typology of business strategy, the paper posits normative differences in the dimensions of strategic MIS planning along different business (or competitive) strategies. The implications of our study for both decision makers and scholars are discussed. Propositions that tie competitive strategy, strategic MIS planning, and company financial performance are then presented. The paper concludes by providing direction for future research.     

A strategic planning approach to the establishment of faculties for advanced technology in Egypt

The first part of the paper presents a strategic planning system applicable to higher education institutions. Four levels of strategy are identified: (1) institutional strategy; (2) faculty-wide strategy; (3) program strategies; and (4) program level functional strategies. The second part addresses strategic issues relating to the institutional strategy for a proposed “Faculty of Electronics and Industrial Technology” to be established in the Benha industrial region. The paper recommends a formation scheme based on a multi-stream, modular approach geared to industrial and technological human resources requirements for technologists in the Benha region. The options offered lead to a Bachelor of Technology, B.Tech., after five years of study in one of the following specializations: Manufacturing Technology and Production Management; Mechanical Systems and Materials Technology; Control, Instrumentation and Fluid Power Technology; Command, Control, Communication and Informatics (C³I) Technology. The proposed study programs are based on a sandwich approach with heavy involvement from industry in the implementation of four training modules.