Explores the ways in which an organization's existing competences can be enhanced as sources of competitive advantage - either enduring or intendedly transitional.

Now beyond its eleventh printing and translated into twelve languages, Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations has changed completely our conception of how prosperity is created and sustained in the modern global economy. Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central America. Based on research in ten leading trading nations, The Competitive Advantage of Nations offers the first theory of competitiveness based on the causes of the productivity with which companies compete. Porter shows how traditional comparative advantages such as natural resources and pools of labor have been superseded as sources of prosperity, and how broad macroeconomic accounts of competitiveness are insufficient. The book introduces Porter’s “diamond,” a whole new way to understand the competitive position of a nation (or other locations) in global competition that is now an integral part of international business thinking. Porter's concept of “clusters,” or groups of interconnected firms, suppliers, related industries, and institutions that arise in particular locations, has become a new way for companies and governments to think about economies, assess the competitive advantage of locations, and set public policy. Even before publication of the book, Porter’s theory had guided national reassessments in New Zealand and elsewhere. His ideas and personal involvement have shaped strategy in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India, and regions such as Massachusetts, California, and the Basque country. Hundreds of cluster initiatives have flourished throughout the world. In an era of intensifying global competition, this pathbreaking book on the new wealth of nations has become the standard by which all future work must be measured.

"If a partner understands better the role alliances play in business strategy, is able to engage in a strategic conversation around the needs for and benefits derived from an alliance, and has a more sophisticated approach to partner selection, there should be fewer conflicts down the road." —from Alliance Competence Dell Computers revolutionized the PC market when the company formed an alliance between Intel and FedEx. Through this partnership, Dell was able to mass-customize and deliver computers faster than most of its competitors. With monthly losses around $1 million, USAir decided to join forces with British Airways. Through this alliance, USAir became a global player in the airline industry, and gave both companies the ability to save millions in annual costs by incorporating joint purchasing of services, fuel, aircraft, and more. Strategic alliances are becoming more and more essential to the viability of a company. These alliances are pervasive throughout the corporate landscape and have a big impact on the way business is conducted across the globe. Written by strategy experts from the University of Virginia's prestigious Darden School, Alliance Competence combines the latest research and case studies to explore the key aspects necessary to develop a successful alliance. Enhanced by a five-year study of global companies, this book offers unique insights about building the foundations of alliance competence. These competencies provide firms with a source of sustainable competitive advantage that will help them compete more successfully in global markets. Through actual "war stories" the problems and challenges that alliances tend to face are revealed, as well as concrete suggestions for managing through the evolutionary cycle. After examining all the research available, the authors introduce a process they've developed called The No Blame Review? (NBR). This collaborative, nonjudgmental process helps alliances constructively confront times when the alliance seems off track. The NBR creates an objective, nonthreatening, and non-value-laden opportunity for alliance managers and strategic sponsors on both sides to raise, investigate, and review serious issues. It also allows partners to check the alliance's vital signs and to make a determination that all systems are in alignment. This process provides the most positive approach to conflict resolution. The insight, real-world examples, and research featured in Alliance Competence will give you the tools and diagnostics necessary for locating potential allies and creating a successful alliance. "A thoughtful, experience-based exploration of the subtleties and nuances that must be addressed when entering into complex alliance relationships. Required reading!" —Lawrence M. Small, President and COO, Fannie Mae "From global service enterprises to e-business start-ups, firms in the future will win or lose by how well they manage their alliance strategies. This book is a gold mine of valuable perspectives, useful advice, and practical checklists that will help you tilt the game in your favor. Read it and, more importantly, use it to develop your own alliance competence." —Benjamin Gomes-Casseres, Director, MBA Program, Brandeis University and author, The Alliance Revolution

Exceptional managers know that they can create competitive advantages by basing decisions on performance response under alternative scenarios. To create these advantages, managers need to understand how to use statistics to provide information on performance response under alternative scenarios. Statistics are created to make better decisions. Statistics are essential and relevant. Statistics must be easily and quickly produced using widely available software, Excel. Then results must be translated into general business language and illustrated with compelling graphics to make them understandable and usable by decision makers. This book helps students master this process of using statistics to create competitive advantages as decision makers. Statistics are essential, relevant, easy to produce, easy to understand, valuable, and fun, when used to create competitive advantage. The Examples, Assignments, And Cases Used To Illustrate Statistics For Decision Making Come From Business Problems McIntire Corporate Sponsors and Partners, such as Rolls-Royce, Procter & Gamble, and Dell, and the industries that they do business in, provide many realistic examples. The book also features a number of examples of global business problems, including those from important emerging markets in China and India. It is exciting to see how statistics are used to improve decision making in real and important business decisions. This makes it easy to see how statistics can be used to create competitive advantages in similar applications in internships and careers. Learning Is Hands On With Excel and Shortcuts

This book develops a unified framework to explain the phenomena of competitive advantage and firm value creation in dynamic environments. Through a new strategic value creation theory, it explores how a firm can measure and sustain its competitive advantage through management incentives, capital market forces, organizational culture and structure, and social complexity. It also considers how management can utilize their resources and capabilities, shadow options, product market forces, customer needs, and organizational learning as a means to differentiate them from the competition. With an innovative approach to theory and research, it will be positioned to inform both scholars and practitioners in management, business strategy, and entrepreneurship on the process of competitive and sustainable value creation.

The revised Fifth Edition of this popular textbook is redesigned with Excel 2019 and the new inclusion of interactive, user-friendly JMP to encourage business students to develop competitive advantages for use in their future careers. Students learn to build models, produce statistics, and translate results into implications for decision makers. The text features new and updated examples and assignments, and each chapter discusses a focal case from the business world which can be analyzed using the statistical strategies and software provided in the text. Paralleling recent interest in climate change and sustainability, new case studies concentrate on issues such as the impact of drought on business, automobile emissions, and sustainable package goods. The book continues its coverage of inference, Monte Carlo simulation, contingency analysis, and linear and nonlinear regression. A new chapter is dedicated to conjoint analysis design and analysis, including complementary use of regression and JMP.​ For access to accompanying data sets, please email author Cynthia Fraser at [email protected].

This book constitures selected and revised papers presented at the First International Workshop on Measuring Ontologies for Value Enhancement, MOVE 2020, held as Virtual Event in October 2020. The 7 extended and revised papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from the 13 submissions. Along with them, the volume presents 5 invited papers. The volume articles are arranged in the topical sections on complexity of knowledge-intensive endeavors; ontology modeling; enterprise ontologies; knowledge discovery and innovations.

Unified Theory of Business Strategy (UTBS) Successful businesses require strategic thinking, well-formulated goals and a clear approach to implementation. These are widely accepted as essential to business success. But describing these factors is not the same as making them happen. What corporate executives and business owners increasingly need is a practical, workable approach to business strategy that is supported by theory (but not drowned in it). That is where this book comes in. In Unified Theory of Business Strategy, Dr Rod Samimi combines theory and practice to give readers a solid understanding of how to formulate and implement a pragmatic business strategy. It includes a theoretical framework and applied interpretations, plus a detailed guide for compiling business plans. Using the Sentinel 9 multidisciplinary approach, the book configures an innovative way to look at business strategy.

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In recent years, we have witnessed a surge of alliances among major corporations throughout the whole world; hardly a day goes by without announcements in the business press of new linkages, partnerships, or alliances. They increasingly involve partners from different parts of the world, are cross-cultural, and don ́t seem to have a limit. My curiosity for this phenomenon was captured by the course Collaborative Strategies in International Business , which I frequented at the Aarhus School of Business, Denmark in 1995. One of the articles, that made up the course literature was Gary Hamel ́s Competition for Competence and Interpartner Learning within International Strategic Alliance (1991). In this influential paper he investigated which role International Strategic Alliances might play in effecting a partial redistribution of skills amongst partners. Furthermore, he found several determinants that influenced the success of interpartner learning. This study was the point of departure for my work. I just wanted to dig deeper into this topic and find answers to the following questions: What are the motives behind the increasing number of alliance formation? What role does the increasingly popular Resource-Based View of the firm play? How do Organizational Learning processes take shape? Which factors influence the success of learning processes in Strategic Alliances? What are then the managerial implications for the management of collaborative ventures? In the following chapters I try to find some answers to these questions. To this aim my paper will be organized in the following way: In Chapter 2 I will try to explain what a Strategic Alliance is and put forward some definitions. We will see, that this term comprises quite a lot of different forms of interfirm cooperation, from the classical form of Joint Venture to Joint Product Development arrangements. Furthermore, I will discuss some special features of the modern forms of collaboration: They are increasingly formed between direct rivals and also across national boundaries. Chapter 3 will give an overview of the drivers, that are responsible for the steadily increasing number of alliances. Globalization will be subdivided into four aspects, that have considerable influence on firms and their manager s ways of thinking and acting. The main point of this chapter will be that Strategic Alliances are one way of coping with the challenges that are posed by the [...]

While many advances have been made in understanding the complexity of manufacturing and production engineering, the social and organizational context remains problematic due to the abstract nature of leadership and diverse personnel. Interdisciplinary perspectives to increase knowledge and understanding of engineering management and related processes are necessary in the industry. Enhancing Competitive Advantage With Dynamic Management and Engineering is an essential reference source containing scholarly research on the relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings of strategic administration in engineering. It also explores how to better merge, interrelationship organizations, management, and employee needs in order to increase efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as business process orientation, diversity management, and enterprise architecture, this book provides vital research for managers, researchers, engineers, and other professionals within engineering and production management.