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Enhancing competitive advantage is important for the business of a high-tech SME in a challenging business environment, which is why this study explores this in one company through the question of: “How can innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking drive competitive advantage in a high-tech SME?”. The dimensions of innovation, proactiveness, and risk-taking, originate in an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) (Miller, 1983). The study takes a guided exploratory approach through interviews, on-site observations, and textual data. The findings showed six drivers of competitive advantage of the examined company - an encouraging environment, being innovative, identifying industry gaps, planning, calculated risks, and strategic investments. Two additional drivers were further revealed - end-user focus and quickness, interpreted as a new aggregate dimension of adaptability. Additionally, the results add to the gap in existing research by bringing deeper insights into the drivers of competitive advantage that an EO can provide for a high-tech SME in a challenging environment.

<p>Immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship is a subject that has received increased attention in recent years. Many immigrants or people with ethnic backgrounds different from the majority population run their own businesses, in Sweden as well as in most countries and contexts in the world. However, ambitious research shows that there are great differences in business activity, behaviour and performance between different ethnic groups. Besides, it is easy to argue that differences also occur at the individual level. Thus, a person is not predetermined just because he/she belongs to a definable ethnic group. Another important question is the fact that the industrial setting and the context of the individual firm also affect the activity of the firm and the entrepreneur. E.g. in high tech environments, innovative competences may be of greater importance compared to business activity in the restaurant or retail sectors, where one could imitate already successful concepts.</p><p>In this dissertation immigrant as well as ethnic enterprises (where ethnic entrepreneurs are those who have clear ethnic involvement in terms of accessing and utilising different forms of ethnic resources) in different industries are studied. The work hypothesis, or rather assumption, is that the industry of the individual business plays an important role for the access to and utilisation of different forms of resources (organisational, financial, cultural, social, human, ethnic). Further, the industry of a business is also assumed to have an effect on the access to and utilisation of ethnic resources and the own ethnicity as a resource. The purpose of this study is to through a number of case studies explore the influence of ethnic background for immigrant businesses in different industries. The focus is on how ethnic involvement, thus ethnic resources, and identity as immigrant and/or ethnic business influence firms in their resource bases and resource acquisition efforts. That is, if the objective ethnic background is important for the firms in their resource acquisition efforts.</p><p>Since I want to study individual firms in an open and complex way I use a qualitative methodology with a multi-method approach, including ethnographic elements, direct observations, participant observations and interviews. This way, the possibility exists to grasp individual personal and firm characteristics that pay attention to the complexity and variation of immigrant and ethnic entrepreneurship, an issue that tends to be forgotten in broad descriptions of the subject. The Kista district hereby provides an interesting example with its high technology context, mixed with a considerable amount of immigrants living in the area.</p><p>The exploratory study of seven businesses shows that there are important differences between firms in different industries. However, apart from type of firm and kind of venture opportunity exploited, the action mode of the individual(s) involved and the degree of confirmation and legitimacy the businesses have experienced influence and affect the importance of ethnic background for these firms.</p>

This paper examines how small high-tech start-ups in Sweden source their funding and aims to understand the underlying factors affecting these firms financing behaviour, contributing to the relatively limited field of research conducted in Europe. To fulfil the purpose of the study, a multiple case study method was implemented as the study’s research design. A literature review generated in a theoretical framework consisting of capital structure and specifically the pecking order theory. Together with our empirics, consisting of data from interviews with six different companies, the theoretical framework composed the basis for our analysis. The data from our sample displays that these firms initially source their funding through internal funds, suggesting that small high-tech start-up firms in Sweden rely heavily on their own saved funds or other personal resources available to them at the start-up face. Our findings suggests that these firms are limited in their financial options but also that independency and control is to be seen as factors to initially be funded through internal funds. Inconsistent with the pecking order theory, evidence in this paper finds that when looking for external funds, equity is the funding source rather than debt. Two conclusions can be drawn from this. First, the high-tech start-up firms seem to value the advisory of equity investor. Second, capital imperfections makes it hard to access debt. Furthermore, we find that majority of the case companies does not implement a capital structure policy since it seems to limited their financial options.

Due to increase global competitive pressure, shortened product life cycles and ease of imitation, firms must continue to innovate to maintain their competitiveness. Technological innovation has become the primary basis of productivity improvements, sales volume growth, and competitiveness of firms, especially for the high-tech companies. Thus, identification and evaluation of technologies from a variety of perspectives now play important roles in the effective technological sources management. Traditionally, technological innovation studies stressed single model or variable having effects on firm productivity and performance. However, the challenge for business environment is continually changing; single model or variable is not good enough to explain the overall impact of technological innovation. The most difficult aspect of technological innovation performance measurement is the identification of appropriate metrics and approaches that provide information concerning these facets. In this study, the researcher tried to develop a technological innovation performance measurement model and determine tangible and intangible factors from the systematical perspective. That is, technological innovation in its nature is multi-dimensional and multi-criteria. Furthermore, technology innovation performance measurement can be conceptualized as multi-criteria a complex problem which involves the simultaneous consideration of multiple quantitative and qualitative requirements. In this empirical study, the researcher firstly utilizes the Delphi technique to build a hierarchical network structure model for evaluating the technological innovation performance measurement of high tech firms. Secondly, analytic network process (ANP) was applied to determine the importance weights of each dimension and criterion while exists interdependencies among criteria within the same dimension. Thirdly, Non-additive fuzzy integral method was then applied for information fusion and calculates the synthetic performance on a hierarchical network model structure for which criteria are interdependent and interactive. This study applied fuzzy measure and non-additive fuzzy integral method to derive the synthetic performance values of each dimension and firm. Through the technological innovation performance evaluation model can provide firms with an overview of their strengths and weaknesses with regards to technological innovation management. Furthermore, R&D managers and senior managers can apply this model to evaluate and determine the technological innovation capabilities of a firm to improve its technological innovation performance. Finally, this model may provide the useful information for managers and to reduce the overall technological innovation uncertainty.

During its first few decades, the People¡¦s Liberation Army Air Force strategy was primarily formulated to support the ground forces¡¦ needs. Serious changes in the way the PLAAF thought about its future really began as a result of Deng Xiaoping¡¦s 1985 ¡§strategic decision¡¨ that directed the armed forces to change from preparation for an ¡§early, major, and nuclear war¡¨ to preparation for ¡§local war.¡¨ These changes included writing new teaching materials, conducting research on combination of offensive and defensive capabilities, and doing research on campaign and strategic theory. Wang Hai initiated the concept of combination of offensive and defensive operations in 1987, but it did not receive much publicity. Since the Gulf war, the PLAAF has been grappling with the demands of a radically changed its strategy that underscored the technological obsolescence of their armaments and so fundamentally affected the missions of the air forces that its traditional training principles and objective were largely inapplicable to. In late 1999, the PLAAF¡¦s commander, Liu Shunyao, began to emphasize the need to fight offensive battles and declare PLAAF¡¦s strategy of combination of offensive and defensive operations to build a People¡¦s Liberation Army capable of waging ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ In a future high-tech local war, the PLAAF will be called up as the first one to encounter the enemy and fight until the last minute. It is gradually transitioning from a support service into an independent one and from a national territory air defense type of air force into one that conducts combination of offensive and defensive operations. The PLAAF is working on its way to reform its military conformation, adjust its military training guidelines and renew its old equipment. By establishing an all-weather and attack-defense air force to battle in a modern high-tech environment, it is expected to acquire the full ability to perform ¡§local war under high-tech conditions.¡¨ The purposes of the thesis are as follows: 1. Illustrate the tendency and contents of current air power theories and wars. 2. Illustrate the stages of PLAAF¡¦s development and the roles and performances it takes on in the wars. 3. Clarify the theoretic contents of PLAAF¡¦s air power in each stage. 4. Conclude the present and future contents and actions of the PLAAF¡¦s air power on the theoretic and practical aspects. 5. Analyze the future developments and challenges of PLAAF¡¦s air power. Expected to focus on the discussion on the theoretic and practical aspects, the thesis was organized as a modal for explaining the PLAAF¡¦s air power and to be used as the referential basis to illustrate the developments of the past, present and future PLAAF¡¦s air power.

An increasing number of countries develop bio-economy strategies to promote a stronger reliance on the efficient use of renewable biological resources in order to meet multiple sustainability challenges. At the global scale, however, bio-economies are diverse, with sectors such as agriculture, forestry, energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, as well as science and education. In this study, we developed a typology of bio-economies based on country-specific characteristics, and describe five different bio-economy types with varying degrees of importance in the primary and the high-tech sector. We also matched the bio-economy types against the foci of their bio-economy strategies and evaluated their sustainability performance. Overall, high-tech bio-economies seem to be more diversified in terms of their policy strategies while the policies of those relying on the primary sector are focused on bioenergy and high-tech industries. In terms of sustainability performance, indicators suggest that diversified high-tech economies have experienced a slight sustainability improvement, especially in terms of resource consumption. Footprints remain, however, at the highest levels compared to all other bio-economy types with large amounts of resources and raw materials being imported from other countries. These results highlight the necessity of developed high-tech bio-economies to further decrease their environmental footprint domestically and internationally, and the importance of biotechnology innovation transfer after critical and comprehensive sustainability assessments.

For a number of years, Canadian immigration selection policy has deliberately emphasized the human capital characteristics of applicants in determining admissibility for permanent residence. Largely due to these measures, Chinese immigrants today are overwhelmingly well-educated and skilled. This thesis examines the role of geography in shaping Chinese newcomers’ post-arrival employment status, with an emphasis on working in the high-tech sector. Given that Ottawa is a leading node of high-tech employment in Canada, this project initially investigates the probability that Chinese newcomers will work in the high-tech sector in Ottawa-Gatineau relative to other cities. The project subsequently examines the degree to which employment in the high-tech sector in Ottawa-Gatineau is related to ethnic, social and demographic characteristics of local spaces where people live and work. All aspects of the study adopt a gender lens with respect to interpreting employment status. The study finds that Chinese immigrants in Ottawa-Gatineau are more likely to work in this sector than their counterparts in Vancouver and Toronto. They are also more likely to work in high-tech relative to individuals in other immigrant groups or the Canadian-born population. With respect to co-ethnic residential and work spatial configurations, as well as social and demographic characteristics of residential neighbourhoods, the study finds that these factors exert quite different influences on the likelihood that Chinese women and men will work in Ottawa-Gatineau’s high-tech sector. The results are quite distinctly different for women and men, and underline the importance of a gendered analysis of relationships between geographic location/place and employment status.

Purpose: This study examines how hotels manage digitization within the industry. Specifically it seeks to examine how managers view decisions and strategies for implementing SST in relation to hotel guest’s acceptance. Design/methodology/approach: This study has assumed a mixed methods methodology. The method has been carried out through an abductive approach between theoretical and empirical material. The study is based on a combined research design of qualitative and quantitative nature and is grounded on the empirical evidence that consists of three semi-structured interviews and surveys. The qualitative part leads to analysis according to the theoretical structure and is then combined with statistical analysis of the survey responses. Findings: This study confirms a few elements of previous literature: implementations require considerable investments and costs; SST on offer in the hotel industry are found lacking; guests prefer technologies they have experience with; and managers have a wait-and-see attitude to SST. The study also shows that people used to technology are proportionately big and have a positive attitude towards SST. Further, the study presents new theoretical insights: high-end hotels are expected to offer technology; SST is perceived to reduce hotels security; attitude towards SST does not differ between genders; and SST is perceived to affect aesthetics. / Syfte: Denna studie undersöker hur hotell hanterar digitalisering av branschen. Mer specifikt undersöker denna studie hur managers betraktar beslut och strategier för implementering av SST i relation till hotellgästers acceptans. Design/metod/tillvägagångssätt: Denna studie har utgått från metodkombination. Metoden behandlas genom ett abduktivt tillvägagångssätt mellan det teoretiska och empiriska materialet. Studien baseras på en kombinerad forskningsdesign av kvalitativ och kvantitativ natur som består av tre semistrukturerade intervjuer samt efterföljande enkät. Den kvalitativa delen utmynnar i en analys enligt den teoretiska strukturen och kombineras sedan med statistiska analyser av enkätsvaren. Bidrag: Ett antal faktorer som resultatet påvisar bekräftar tidigare forskning: implementationer innebär höga kostnader och investeringar; utbudet av SST inom hotellbranschen är dåligt; gäster föredrar de tekniker de är vana vid; samt att managers har en vänta-och-se attityd till SST. Samtidigt visar studien på att andelen teknologivana människor är stor och att dessa är positivt inställda till SST. Studien bidrar även med nya teoretiska insikter såsom: att premiumhotell förväntas kombinera high-touch med high-tech; att SST upplevs minska hotellens upplevda säkerhet; att inställning till SST inte skiljer sig mellan kön; samt att viss SST upplevs påverka estetiken.