Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-82). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / The Chinese automotive industry was established 50 years ago with the technology transfer of a truck production system from the Soviet Union. Since then, it developed into a decentralized and fragmented truck industry layout due to the self-reliant and defensive policies set forth by the central government. Over the past two decades, China has obtained substantial and modern passenger car production systems with a large sum of foreign direct investment (FDI) and comprehensive technology transfer from global carmakers in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. This research studies the 50- year development history of the Chinese automotive industry and seeks to understand the role of the Chinese protectionist automotive industry policies and the impact of FDI and technology transfer. China officially entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in November 2001 and committed to end the 50 years of protectionism. The WTO membership is expected to inject fierce market competition into the Chinese automotive industry and ultimately propel the industry to a new level. My research attempts to forecast what might happen in the coming years. My research included site visits and personal interviews with seven senior executives from Chinese automotive firms located in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, as well as three academic experts on the Chinese automotive industry at the Tsinghua University. This research finds that China has benefited significantly from foreign investment and technology transfers. China was able to leapfrog from 1950s-level automotive production systems into 1990s-level advanced technologies, and the gap with world standards continues to narrow. My research also indicates the protectionist automotive industry policies China had before the WTO accession have seriously hindered China's ability to achieve the full potential impact that FDI could have made. The lack of coherent policies between protection and competition has caused the Chinese automotive industry to remain fragmented and uncompetitive. The lack of competition and restrictions on foreign equity has delayed the speed of technology transfers and China's development of full automotive design and production capabilities. China will stride in the post-WTO era. However, the protectionism, particular from regional and local governments, is likely to continue and hinder the full impact of benefits from the WTO membership. / by Michael Y. Lee. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Electricity provisioning has historically satisfied demand by centralized generation and pervasive distribution through an extensive transmission and distribution network. Once demand increases beyond a fixed threshold, however, the capacity of the generation, transmission and distribution can become crippled and the mal-effects of periodic brownouts and skyrocketing prices may ripple through the nationwide grid system. The traditional response to this constraint is to build new facilities. However, an alternative approach getting increased attention is to satisfy local demands by incrementally investing in distributed generation. Distributed generation facilities can be strategically sited to deliver combined heat and power (CHP) near the source of consumption at unprecedented efficiencies. Presently the distributed generation market remains largely focused on industrial and commercial peak-shaving and emergency back-up applications. The residential market is a frontier yet to be tackled. Residential electricity tariffs, in contrast, are the highest among all sectors and household users are responsible for a large proportion of the peak demand and usage growth. For residential self-generation needs, fuel cell technology is foreseen to be an ideal solution stemming from its low noise, negligible pollution and high efficiency operation. This thesis will assess the market viability of fuel cell technologies for residential distributed generation application. More specifically, the study will consider single household (5 kW) proton exchange membrane fuel cells versus hybrid solid oxide fuel cell with integrated gas turbine (10 kW) technologies for the household end-use and determine the competitiveness and sustainability of each choice. / by David Tsay. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-92). / Japan's industries have great expectations for the future of B2B public e-marketplaces, but the e-marketplace revolution in Japan is still at an early stage of development, and most have not yet produced satisfactory results. In this thesis, my objectives are to investigate and report on the major issues and challenges that impact the future success of Japan's public e-marketplaces, as well as to identify critical success factors. I conducted interviews with representatives of eight e-marketplaces in different industries. In those interviews, I learned that the unique characteristics of Japan's business environment, such as intermediates, Keiretsu-based business, and delays in the penetration of IT into small and medium-size enterprises, have had a major influence on the development of Japan's public e-marketplaces. Moreover, since it is customary for companies that try to change their internal business processes to encounter resistance and political pressure from both inside and outside companies, the e-marketplaces must expend an extraordinary amount of company effort and time to achieve success. The following are the key critical success factors I identified during the interviews: * take an honest and sound approach; * respect traditional business practices; * offer value-added services that benefit customers; * offer off-line customer support as well as on-line services; * develop an effective alliance strategy. I believe these critical success factors are fairly universal, and could be equally useful in the public e-marketplaces of Japan's other industries. / by Takayuki Mizuno. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-112). / Since the 1990's, the PC has come under increasing integration pressure. Many electronic components which had previously existed as separate standalone components have been integrated onto the PC mainboard. Examples include the disk-drive, video, sound and network controllers. Some of these had in fact been de-integrated from the mainboard in the 1980's during the burgeoning years of the PC boom (when the capabilities of on-board electronics could not keep pace with the performance demands) before being re-integrated. Technological and market forces drive this integration trend. These forces are the result of the complex interaction between technological advances, industry competitors (old and new), suppliers, customers, complementors and potential substitutes for the PC. The forces are often inter-dependent and the dynamic system set up by a combination of all these forces produces the integration paths of the aforementioned components. Besides integration trends, the future evolution of the PC is another area of great interest. In particular, the roles played by architectural innovation and digital convergence are significant in determining the future utility of the PC, in terms of both its reach (extent of peripheral device coverage) and range (extent of application). The potential of the PC is currently held in check by the limitations of its existing architecture and the confines of the traditional industry boundaries. The removal of both barriers will perhaps lead to a shift of paradigm to that of a virtual PC, which is dynamically constructed (by the intelligent network computer) from shared resources found on the network. This scenario will usher in an era of universal computing - access to information and processing power anytime, / (cont.) anywhere and through any device - which represent today's concept of computing utopia. / by Chin-Ann Ong. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-93). / Energy in various forms is essential to all human activity, be it leisure or business. Currently employed stationary energy generation technology is marked by relatively high emissions of pathogenic chemicals such as carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide and other criteria pollutants. These chemicals are proven to adversely affect human health and are suspected of influencing the global climate. Consequently, there is a high potential for damages in some parts of earth but also benefits in others, particularly to agricultural yields and weather related catastrophes. Last not least, current energy conversion is largely based on fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. On timescales relevant to humans, these sources are physically exhaustible and beyond that economically not sustainable. This thesis will provide details of renewable and therefore sustainable energy concepts as they support the emergence of hydrogen based stationary energy conversion using fuel cells. Given this premise, several sources of naturally available and long-term sustainable energy supply are identified, quantified and discussed with respect to their economical utilization. Wind energy, foremost, but also solar energy, hydropower and others are identified as viable options for generating hydrogen. Fuel cells provide the link between intermittent and randomly located renewable energy sources and demand properties. Given infrastructure availability will identify natural gas as the immediate but transitional hydrogen source prior to renewable energy being commercially viable at large scales. Since technical obstacles to fuel cell adoption can be overcome, this thesis will show that in a market economy, governmental intervention is inevitable for timely fuel cell / (cont.) adoption. Hence, besides recommendations for private business activity this thesis will provide suggestions for federal and state intervention driving stationary fuel cell diffusion. / by Benjamin Bhaumick. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-76). / Consumers are constantly demanding better products, at lower prices, along with better overall services and customer support. Organizations, on the other hand, are struggling with shorter product life cycles, increased product variety and lower profit margins due to fierce global competition and faster commoditization of products and services. In a new, global world, targeting local markets does not seem to be enough for long-term company survival. Good supply chain management and design is becoming a key factor for resource optimization, overall user experience enhancement and to achieve a competitive strategic advantage in order to gain sustainable growth ratios. This thesis analyses how current trends in Supply Chain Management are affecting the global wine supply chain, and builds on the specific case of Argentinean wineries that sell their products in the U.S. market. I start by analyzing each tier of the supply chain using Porter's Five Forces model in order to understand the characteristics of each tier, how these forces impact the supply chain as a whole, and how companies interact between tiers. While doing so, I also analyze how current trends in Supply Chain Management are affecting the current state of the supply chain. Finally, I describe possible changes in the supply chain configuration due to the adoption of these new trends by organizations along the chain, and describe some of the major aspects that Argentinean wineries should take into account in order to gain a better competitive advantage along the chain. / by Cristian Adamo. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-83). / We would like to propose two critical dimensions for strategy: "Industry Scope Shift" and "Reverse Strategy Trace." Recent changes in the progress of information technology and economic globalization raised the importance of these dimensions. Rapid progress in information technology requires firms to respond to the changes of scope including market and product. The execution speed is increasingly becoming critical to keep uniqueness of product and service offerings. Industry Scope Shift helps the capturing of these changes into strategy. Economic globalization demands the organizational challenge to manage conflicts between local market responsiveness and global operation efficiency. Reverse Strategy Trace gives a clear perspective to analyze emergent strategy to accumulate organizational learning from business operations. We will examine the importance of these two dimensions and provides answers when and why these are critical in the strategy planning process. / by Yasuhiko Kiuchi. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-93). / I expand Christensen's concept and classify two disruptive technologies, company disruptive technology and product disruptive technology. The company disruptive technology is Christensen's definition itself. The product disruptive technology is the disruptive one outside his definition, for example the digital still camera (DSC). I will discuss about some cases, such as a case of high-end disruption, in this expanded definition. Company disruption follows product disruption. Targeting "company" is useful for making strategies, but it is not enough to target only "company" disruptive innovation because the product disruption sometimes badly damages or kills companies. Complementors, such as other products, law, environment etc, are also very important when we consider the disruptive technology, because they change the value criteria of the product performance. It is very important for us to take advantage of complementors in order to grow the disruptive technology. Disruption is a process and it does not always disrupt everything. The disruption is limited in the case of value-change disruption and another disruption is usually required to disrupt a product which falls outside the immediate influence of the first disruption. The disruptions must be happen one after another to disrupt all in the case of the value-change disruption. Circumstances also limit the impact of product disruption. Therefore, it is very useful for one to check and consider a disruptive technology from the viewpoints of both the value criteria and the circumstances. / by Mitsuhiro Kameda. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-142). / Customer power is growing, and customers now have tools that inform them of the true state of affairs. This power enables them to avoid the pushy messages of marketers, make their own decisions, and determine what to buy. A company advocates for its customers and earns their trust. It may not be a strategy for everyone, but innovative companies are following this path. The marketing paradigm is shifting from traditional push-based marketing to trust-based advocacy marketing. This research identifies and summarizes the key elements needed to create customer advocacy. It considers the following research questions: What are the key elements to creating customer advocacy? What means or types are there in each key element? Which elements are influential on advocacy marketing in each company and industry? The author sent out requests for interviews to many firms and received affirmative replies from about thirty. Based on the data gathered by the author, twelve new key elements were identified, and several means for realizing these elements, which can be distilled in several ways. These key elements and means are effective for firms in a variety of industries and categories. In addition, the author introduces a new framework which can effectively identify a firm's position in terms of two dimensions: push and trust. This framework is useful for confirming differences between competitors and validating corporate strategies for building and maintaining competitive advantage. Few firms can afford to ignore advocacy marketing as a marketing strategy. Advocacy marketing is associated not only with customer marketing, but also with overall corporate strategy. This research will focus on enriching practical knowledge for the / (cont.) real world, and be a useful reference when a company launches its advocacy marketing campaigns. / by Takashi Yamaoka. / S.M.M.O.T.

Thesis (S.M.M.O.T.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Management of Technology Program, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-94). / This thesis presents research about the potential business impacts of the Semantic Web. The concept of the Semantic Web is an expansion of the Web for computers, enabling them to comprehend the meaning of information. In addition, Semantic Web Services (SWS), the emerging convergence of Web Services with the Semantic Web, is the next major generation of the Web (and of the Internet), in which e-services and business communication become more knowledge-based and agent-based. The study arose out of a technology review of the Semantic Web and its current adoption. Following further analysis and research into business cases involving Semantic Web applications, the author focused specifically on the system integration business in an effort to understand the potential business impacts of the Semantic Web for system integration. In the system integration field, there are various trends for companies thinking about adopting the Semantic Web into the real business world. In this thesis, I offer answers to two questions: Why do system integrators need the Semantic Web, and how they should go about adopting it? / by Akio Saita. / S.M.M.O.T.