Background: The rise in ethical consumerism has become evident through an increase in sales of fair trade products in recent years. Consumers are prepared to pay a premium for fair trade chocolate, and with a steady future growth in the fair trade movement, this is an attractive market for new entrants. Of particular focus are the Swedish and German markets for fair trade chocolate as they show promising growth rates and interest in this field. Problem:       The chocolate industry is very competitive, and the observation that consumers reward companies that act socially responsible presents an opportunity for ethical companies to compete. This is attractive for entrepreneurial firms, but there exist numerous motivations why firms choose to engage in fair trade. Purpose:        The purpose of this thesis is to understand the role of fair trade in corporate strategy (either in partial or entire assortment), its relation to entrepreneurial opportunity-seeking behaviour, and examining how the strategic resource of Fairtrade certification is used to gain competitive advantage. Method:         A qualitative interview study was applied, and ten chocolate companies active in the Swedish and German markets were included in the sample. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews (four telephone interviews and six email responses), and complemented with secondary data from company websites and press releases. The interviewees were mainly representatives of the marketing department and CEOs. Empirical findings were analysed using relevant models and theories, and organized under the two categories of ‘firm use of fair trade’ and ‘visibility of fair trade.’ Conclusion:   The findings in this thesis show that there are multiple reasons why chocolate companies engage in fair trade including reputation, spreading awareness, proactive opportunity-seeking behaviour, strategic differentiation, as a means of communicating to producers and consumers, and for quality insurance of raw ingredients. Fair trade engagement is visible through its role as a social resource. This image is created by ethical and social commitment and wholeness in values, non-exploitative respectful business network relationships, consistency in firm behaviour, and through wealth creation in terms of benefiting the firm, society, and the environment. The Fairtrade label is not imperative to achieving a state of competitive advantage, but can inevitably lead to that result through the firm wholeness created by mission- and vision-driven values.

In recent years, corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes more and more popular not only in  academic world but also in practical world. Many transnational companies adopted CSR practices base on kinds of motivations. There is also a rising trend on CSR program among Chinese SME. Moreover we noticed that, despite the challenges and misunderstandings, some Chinese textile SME successfully created competitive advantage with strategic CSR. However, there are few previous researches try to study on Chinese company in field of strategic CSR, especially on Chinese SME. This research intends to discover how the competitive advantage was created by strategic CSR in Chinese textile SME and try to explain the process by the existing theories. A case study approach was adopted in the study. From the case study and interview results, we aim to explain the behaviours of case firm by existing theories and conclude a Chinese SME specific CSR strategy. In the end, differentiated corporate social strategy, special CSR concept and CSR communication were concluded as the key factors influencing the success in the Chinese textile SME.

Abstract As technology advances, new computer, telecommunications and consumer electronic products are constantly being introduced, giving consumers more choice than in the past. However, fluctuations in the business cycle mean that competitors fight to gain market share and this often results in an oversupply of 3C products and a decline in prices. Taiwan's notebook industry is world-famous, but because of pressure from foreign companies profit margins are relatively low. The notebook producers try to control the price of the components by putting pressure on component makers. This leads to a price war between the suppliers and even the winners of this war still have to cut prices on a quarterly basis. Technology, consumer preferences and prices are all changing rapidly. Component agents are being squeezed between suppliers, who want to maintain a fixed price, and customers who want prices to be cut. This has reduced profit margins. This research focuses on how passive component agents change in response to this situation and meet the demands for higher quality, better service, lower prices and faster delivery. The case study concerns Company A, which originally acted solely as a passive component agent. It examines how, between 2002-2010, the company restructured its business and supply chain and developed its own-brand components to gain key competitive advantage and establish an operating platform. This study researched the relevant literature and information concerning Company A to produce a summary of the company's transition strategy and how it was implemented. It is hoped that this research will provide a reference for other agents which are going through a similar transition. Keywords: passive components, OEM, own-brand, competitive advantage

As the leading brand in the international PC industry, Acer has been encountered countless challenges on dramatically environmental change when it endeavored to create and operate its own brand. To achieve the aim of sustainable management and the strategy of organizational growth, Acer has embarked on its reengineering several times since it was established. The purpose of this study is based on the Resource-Based View to uncover what kind of key factories contributed in Acer¡¦s two time of reengineering? And what kind of unique resources and capabilities were created? This study also characterized and catalogued these unique resources and capabilities to figure out clearly that what kind of main resources and capabilities existed at the first glance. There are three stages for Acer¡¦s transformation: the first time reengineering was happened in 1992; the reengineering in 1998 was called the quasi-reengineering stage that Acer adjusted its organizational structure to relocate operational direction; the second time reengineering was happened in the end of 2000. Based on above three different stages, this study analyzes the effect of internal and external environment as well as the operational strategies on each stage to infer its resources and capabilities. Moreover, This study categorizes these resources and capabilities by the classify method of Fong- Cher Min (2000) into four groups, Tangible Asset, Intangible Asset, Human Resource and Organization Capability, and discuss how Acer used these resources and capabilities to foster them became the Sustainable Competitive Advantage to overcome the harsh IT industry environment. By the way of analyzing the case company in depth, this study found that the probability of resources or capabilities can be upgrade into the Sustainable Competitive Advantage was not only affect by the properties such as Appropriability or Inimitable, but also greatly influence by outside environment. Furthermore, the next time success of reengineering was attributed to those of resources or capabilities which have been accumulated since earlier periods. Therefore, this study suggests that a firm should continuously adjust its competences as well as accumulate reengineering experiences to cope with the unpredictable environment.

Fastener industry has developed for fifty years in Taiwan, and it created significant contribution to be called ¡§Economic Miracle¡¨. First, this research used questionnaire as research. The purpose is to understand the fastener company¡¦s opinion adopt automobile¡¦s quality system of QS 9000 or ISO/TS 16949 to understand the company¡¦s motivation, benefit and long term performance after adopting the QS9000 and ISO/TS 16949. Moreover, this research interviewed six companies in fastener industry to understand the certification of quality how to affect the fastener industry. In questionnarire aspect, quality system will affect in two sides. One side is reducing the company¡¦s the inner cost, including less bad products, inner process improvement etc. The other side is improving customer satisfaction, including fast and correct delivery, best handle customer complainant. Otherwise, from interview results we discovered that the fastener company in Taiwan must provide more additionally valuable products. In order to enter this product niche, to got quality certification is the necessary condition and is the way to build the entry barrier. Therefore, getting several quality certifications are the basic competitive strategies of the company and also build the competitive advantages of the company. It is not only improving company¡¦s profit, but also promoting supply chain performance in this industry.

This research regards ASE(Advanced Semiconductor Engineer) company as the subject of studying, combine with two subjects of resources construct and competitive advantage, to discuss that the ASE technology receives process and the situation of resource constructing. The main research purpose, is to probe into constructing of the resource and ability organized, how move and transfer knowledge that outside make to and organize the inside effectively, and via the study mechanism of, make useful knowledge organize the memory to store and spread after absorbing , melting and putting into inside, become the foundation of organization key ability. This research adopt ¡§case study method¡¨, choose ASE by the way of depth interview, to combine the relevant paper and develop the proposition to report the resource constructing process comprehensively deeply. The main conclusion has: The ASE, to accumulate and to study experience, and strong study willing, carry on with the technological provider FCT in the dynamic course of technological transfer, study to latent know-how and skill of management in a lot of different nature nearer and nearer in a proper order, and play an aggressive role in the course of technological transfer, learn tactic knowledge and cooperate with the characteristic of technology to launch the corresponding study activity during the process of transferring, and after accumulating certain knowledge resource foundation, have build up the competitive advantage by the knowledge learning. In addition, ASE set the cross-function mechanism that communicates and role crossing over department boundary person while organizing, in order to improve the horizontal communication. This suggestion on this industry development is: 1.Key ability is obtained, cultivation, subordinate to a ministry can not be reached shortly. So, short-term interests may not represent and succeed for a long time . 2.Key value of ability come from value of customer, because one urviv grasp customer need new value e in market early than competitor only.

There is a significant relationship between strategy management and business performance of an enterprise. An enterprise can gain superior performance when it maintains competitive advantage. The essentiality of strategic management is to assist an enterprise to build up and maintain competitive advantage. Strategic management contains a serial of planned actions and decisions, it helps organization to achieve strategic competitiveness, maintain its competitive advantage, and gain above-average returns. Strategic management includes four major processes, they are environment scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and performance measurement and feedback and each of them has significant influence to performance of business. This research is to discuss processes of strategic management and how those processes could influence strategy formulation, management, and implementation and the key success factors of a business via study documents and a company. The purposes of this thesis include: 1. To analyze possible strategic management process that could maintain business competitive advantage and business performance at today¡¦s competitive environment via study related documents and theories. 2. To probe into the application of strategic management on a business via study strategic management process of semiconductor product division of a company. 3. To understand related issues on semiconductor¡¦s strategic management and build up a strategic management process model via study related documents and a company. 4. To provide suggestions to the company also those suggestions can be the reference of domestic¡¦s industries while formulating and implementing strategy and managing business performance and the reference of other researchers. Conclusions of this research: 1. To build up a dynamic strategic management process model. 2. Strategic management has significant influence to business performance. 3. The effectiveness of strategic management is influenced by consistence of strategy and collaboration within organization. 4. It has a positive influence to effectiveness of strategic management on confirming and managing key processes. 5. Strategic leadership has significant influence to business performance. 6. There is a significant relationship between strategy control mechanism¡¦s build up and effectiveness of strategy. Keyword : Strategic management; Business performance; Competitive advantage; Semiconductor

TFT-LCD industry has been developing rapidly in Taiwan over last several years. Because of a large amount of investment and output value in TFT industry, it become one of the most important industry which droved relative industrial development. Japanese and Korean are known as the leading manufacturers in TFT-LCD industry. The TFT-LCD firms in Taiwan suffered difficult industrial environment. They compete with both Japanese and Korean, and earn low or negative profits. What are the company¡¦s prior strategic commitments in the face of environmental change? The purpose of this paper is to study TFT-LCD firms about their business model and strategic performance, and try to analyze the key factor of success basing on strategic management theory including ¡§five force model¡¨, ¡§resource-based theory¡¨ and ¡§resource dependence theory¡¨ etc. We may learn some lessons from firm¡¦s experiences both of success and failure, and find out why some business can be so successful and some else can¡¦t. Another important aspect of this study is to assess TFT-LCD firms¡¦ strategic performance basing on financial information, and analyzed the relation between business strategy and financial performance. For a company to have distinctive competency, it must at a minimum have either ¡§a unique and valuable resource and the capabilities necessary to exploit that resource ¡¨ or ¡§a unique capability to manage common resources¡¨. A company¡¦s distinctive competence is strongest when it possesses both unique and valuable resources and capabilities to manage those resources. This study tries to contribute to competitive advantage of Taiwan¡¦s TFT-LCD industry.

Ever since China opened its door to the world in the ¡¥90, investors poured into China to ¡§dig gold¡¨. Hence, a new surge of ¡§learning Chinese¡¨ has been setting off. According to an unofficial statistics, over 30 million people all over the world are learning Chinese. Likewise, Taiwan is certainly eager to attract Chinese learners while the whole world is infected with ¡§Chinese fever¡¨. As a result, Chinese centers affiliated to higher education institutes in Taiwan have sprung up in recent years. However, the market size in Taiwan is relatively smaller in comparison with China. Each year, the average number of foreign students heading for China fluctuates between 70,000 to 80,000 while only about thousands of students choose to study at Taiwan though the number eventually exceeded 10,000 for the first time in 2007. As the market remains stagnant, the emergence of more competitors obviously intensifies the competitiveness. Therefore, how is each Chinese center going to survive and even excel in such keen competition? Many scholars analyze competitive strategies of enterprises from external factors. Whereas, the research of Rumelt ¡]1991¡^and Roquebert¡]1993¡^indicates that external factors only account for 15%~19% while analyzing the variation of overall performance. The resource-based view investigates how enterprises build up and sustain competitive advantages from internal resources and abilities. This research is conducted on the basis of literature review and in-depth interview with two Chinese centers that enjoy a long history in Kaohsing area¡XNational Sun Yat-sen University and Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages. The purpose of this research is to probe into the strategies these two Chinese centers apply in light of the core resources and competitive advantages they possess. For those universities and colleges who plan to join this industry in the future, they may use the following conclusion and suggestion as reference in identifying their own competitive advantages and strategies. The conclusion this research has drawn is particularized as follows: 1. The core resources Chinese centers value are reputation and faculty¡¦s professionalism. Further, intangible resources are more important than tangible resources. 2. The core abilities Chinese centers value are administration, R&D and corporate culture. 3. Both Chinese centers tend to apply ¡§Strategies of Differentiation¡¨ though each possesses different competitive advantages. Whereas, our government should consider to simplify the application procedures in terms of admission and visa in order to attract more foreign students inwards. The review of Taiwan Scholarship Program and consulting service provided to those international students are necessary. More active initiatives should be adopted so that Taiwan can stand out as the key Chinese-learning providers. Further, a clearer and more favorable Chinese teacher certification system should be stipulated in order to attract more people of ability to devote themselves in this industry.

The cashmere industry is an important sector in Mongolia, and it has the potential to contribute to the growth of the economy and poverty alleviation. It provides income and employment for over a third of the population, and raw cashmere and cashmere products are the Mongolia¡¦s third largest official export products after copper and gold. Mongolia is the world¡¦s second largest producer of raw cashmere, producing over 20 percent of world supply next to the neighboring country China. Nevertheless, 55.9% of the raw cashmere is used for manufacturing finished and semi-finished products, the capacity utilization rate remains low at all stages of processing, and processing firms are losing their competitiveness. Firstly, through the review of related literature, this study finds out the key issues of cashmere industry in Mongolia. Then, based on Michael Porter¡¦s Diamond Model with AHP method, this study develops a hierarchical framework including a goal, criteria, sub-criteria, and alternatives affecting the competitiveness of cashmere industry. Secondly, this study intended to develop questionnaires for experts including CEOs and managers from cashmere industry, government organizations, and research institutions. The main purpose is to find out the relations among the factors, and give them their weights of importance, and it points out its further competitive advantages of Cashmere Industry. As a result, 25 responses were received at the end of the survey. The collected data from the survey was analyzed through the AHP approach. We have calculated a composite weight to each factor and put the factors in order based on the weight that each factor has got. Our study suggests that the cashmere industry in Mongolia should further upgrade its working efficiency in order to create a more sustainable advantage. In addition, our results further confirm that a government can play a significant role in creating competitive advantages. Finally, on the basis of the above results, we proposed several policy recommendations for relevant organizations in order to help cashmere industry upgrade their competitiveness by increasing the capacity of producing more value added products.