published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 97-101).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 314-330).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oxford, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-217).

This dissertation is a study of strategy in thin industries, a class of industries whose members include the aircraft industry, jet engines, heavy electrical equipment, and diesel locomotives. These industries have a number of common features which inter-relate to produce a unique configuration. Foremost among the attributes that make up this configuration is the sparsity and magnitude of transactions on which the industry must subsist. The decrease in the number of transactions, and the increase in their size, results in a "thin" industry. The sparsity and size of transactions combine to produce complex, unstable, and highly interconnected environments. These environmental conditions motivate firms to develop external linkages with other organizations. The successful management of external linkages will frequently depend on knowledge and experience obtained in previous relationships. Many of the problems created by external linkages can only be resolved once they are formed. At the same time, the knowledge required to resolve these problems calls for previous experience. / The dissertation is divided into two parts. In the first three chapters we explore thin industries as a type and as an environment. In the remaining three chapters we look at the ramifications of interorganizational learning on the management of external linkages. In the concluding chapter we discuss the implications of thin industries to the study and practice of strategic management. Three issues in particular are singled out: the decline of organizational autonomy, the limits of competition, and new directions for theory building. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

No description available.

This thesis examines the development of a capital goods industry in Mendoza Argentina through an analysis of linkages and industrial governance systems. Linkages are material, informational, and financial flows among firms. Industrial governance systems are the social practices that cement linkages. Hence, linkages are understood as socially embedded and not as market transactions governed solely by price considerations. The study has two major arguments. First, it claims that contrary to conventional industrial location theory firms do not locate in view of the previous existence of certain favorable factors, but rather construct these factors as they grow. This argument is operationalized by asking how firms generate in time their own linkages. Examples taken from the 1895-1990 period include labor and subcontractors, clientele, services, and the emergence of economic groups. Second, this study argues that the capital-goods industry in Mendoza is undergoing a Substantial (and unprecedented) transition in the way production is organized. The transition is part of the larger shift taking place at both the national and global scales. The analysis focuses on the historical pattern of linkages and governance systems in the industry, and contrasts that pattern with that of the recent decade. Implicit in the previous two arguments are two territorial dimensions. First, the development of “industry produces regions" (Storper and Walker 1989). Second, at the intra-city level this means that the evolution of the industry (and specifically its linkage structure and governance systems) has a direct bearing on the direction and nature of the city’s growth. These two arguments are illustrated through empirical work in Mendoza, a city of close to a million people in western Argentina. Over 100 interviews gathered over ten months reveal the origins, evolution, and current form of linkages in the capital-goods industry. These interviews are complemented by data from a variety of sources. The main conclusions of the study are three. First, the study illustrates the richness and depth that emerges from a project based on substantial fieldwork. Second, it shows the advantages of conceiving industrialization not as the location of plants in response to favorable conditions, but as a process initiated by the firms themselves. Third, the dissertation shows that the capital-goods industry of Mendoza iS in a transitional phase towards new ways of organizing production. The transition is expressed in new linkage structures, new governance systems, and the emergence of new types of firms and institutional arrangements. / Ph. D.