published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

M.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Choi, Wing-Hon. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-61). / Abstract and questionnaire also in Chinese.

by Ivy Chan Kit-chuen. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990. / Bibliography: leaves 67-68. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.v / Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION / Reasons Behind Grocery Product Expansion --- p.1 / Obstacles to New Product Introduction --- p.2 / Differential Treatment Among Manufacturers --- p.3 / Objectives of This Paper --- p.5 / Chapter II. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.6 / The New Product Flurry --- p.6 / The Birth of Slotting Allowances --- p.9 / Cost Center or Profit Center --- p.9 / Payment Upfront or In Disguise --- p.10 / An Evolution from Trade Allowances --- p.11 / The Extent of the Practice --- p.12 / The Amount Involved --- p.12 / The Type of Company and The Form of Payment Involved --- p.13 / The Controversy Involved in Failure Fee --- p.14 / Beyond Supermarkets --- p.16 / Implications of the Problem --- p.17 / The Effect of Slotting Allowances on All Concerned --- p.17 / The Outcome of Consolidation and Information Control --- p.18 / Factors Influencing New Product Decisions --- p.19 / Management Information at the Retail Level --- p.19 / The Product and Its Company --- p.20 / The Customer's Needs --- p.20 / Alternative Courses of Actions to Consider --- p.21 / Government Regulation --- p.22 / Manufacturer-Retailer Settlement --- p.23 / Venture into Other Channels --- p.23 / Innovation in Packaging --- p.23 / Exercise Family Planning --- p.25 / Return to Pull Marketing --- p.25 / Innovation in Fixtures --- p.26 / Manufacturer-Retailer Cooperation --- p.26 / Summary --- p.29 / Chapter III. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.31 / The Scope of Study --- p.32 / The Approach --- p.32 / The Response --- p.33 / Chapter IV. --- FINDINGS OF THE STUDY --- p.34 / The U.S. and Hong Kong: A Preliminary Comparison --- p.35 / The Birth of Listing Allowances --- p.36 / What is a New Product --- p.37 / Where is the Competition for Space? --- p.37 / Slotting Allowances Practices in Hong Kong --- p.37 / Listing Allowances --- p.38 / In-Store Promotions --- p.39 / Discounts --- p.40 / Summary of New Product Introduction Charges --- p.41 / How Much is Involved? --- p.42 / Is It Negotiable? --- p.42 / Criteria for New Product Acceptance --- p.43 / Alternative Channels of Distribution --- p.44 / Japanese Supermarkets --- p.44 / The Independents --- p.45 / General Sentiments of the Industry --- p.45 / Other Issues --- p.46 / Choice of Location --- p.47 / Types of Promotion --- p.48 / Undersells --- p.49 / Chapter V. --- SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS --- p.50 / APPENDIX --- p.53 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.67

It is widely believed that with the transition from the industrial to information-based economics, organizational knowledge has emerged as the single most critical resource at both macro and micro levels, which promotes the creation, sharing, and leveraging of the organization???s knowledge in current Customer Order Driven Engineering (CODE) environment. Insufficient knowledge management, hence lack of a structured Enterprise Knowledge Base (EKB) in a CODE environment, whilst involved in New Product Development (NPD) process may result in several problems resulting in creating less successful products. This research establishes an ???Enterprise Knowledge Base (EKB) framework??? with focus on the Product, Process and Organizational issues related to the NPD process. The framework has three major stages, namely ???Knowledge Acquisition???, ???Knowledge Organizing??? and ???Knowledge Validating???. Various frameworks/methods/models are developed as steps for each of these stages. The framework may increase the effectiveness of product and process development as well as enterprise competitiveness through developing a system architecture to understand, analyse and map organisational, operational activities and business objectives; and increasing the ability of an organisation to establish an integrated partnerships to share efforts on the design, manufacture and delivery of products. In knowledge acquisition stage, a ???Knowledge Capture framework??? and the ???Relationship matrices??? are developed to analyse and link the generic knowledge items of a NPD process in concurrent engineering environment. Among the relationship matrices, Task versus Task (Design Structure Matrix - DSM) matrix is comprehensively explored and decomposed to structure and link several processes at different levels for effective representation of the overall enterprise representation. In knowledge organizing stage, the acquired knowledge (important relations identified in the Task versus Task matrices) is represented in the form of ???Questionnaires???. Best practices gathered from several manufacturing firms in NPD in CODE have also been used as knowledge resource base for the Questionnaires. For grouping and validation of these Questionnaires, an ???Assessment Model??? is developed, which consists of five performance indicators of the organization namely ???Marketing???, ???Technical???, ???Financial???, ???Resource Management???, and ???Project Management???. Industry applications are carried out in two Australian Manufacturing Companies for the validation of the acquired knowledge. Two tests are carried out; in order to assess the sensitivity of question categories followed by another test to observe whether the model can accurately display the overall performance of the company in the five categories of NPD phases. These two tests have identified possible improvement areas in the NPD process of manufacturing organizations involved in the validation phase. Up to 80% of the findings of the EKB framework and assessment model were found to reflect the actual practices of the organizations.

The research project reported in this dissertation discovered, applied and drew inferences about the utility and applicability of an enhanced paradigm of Entrepreneurial Business Planning (EBP). The project was motivated by the observation that a clear disparity existed between the teaching of entrepreneurship � in which attention to EBP has been intense and significant � and entrepreneurship research � in which attention to EBP has been negligible. Discovery commenced with development of an analytical framework suitable for classifying and analysing an EBP paradigm, should one be found to exist. This framework was created by combining the four essential ingredients of a paradigm � distilled from an analysis of several definitions of the word paradigm in appropriate contexts � with the three core roles which Mintzberg (1994) argued are the key descriptors of the function of any plan. An existing but inadequate EBP paradigm was revealed by a content analysis, conducted according to an adapted combination of the methodological prescriptions of Krippendorf (1980) and Carney (1972), of a large sample of the existing EBP normative literature: that is, prescriptions purporting to teach the reader how to write a successful Entrepreneurial Business Plan. A combination of logical critique, application of appropriate analytical models and development of grounded theory � based upon the methodology first articulated by Glaser and Strauss (1967) � resulted in production of an enhanced EBP paradigm, a complex construct embracing: (1) precise definition of application boundaries, (2) twelve laws; (3) six success rules; (4) and specified instrumentation requirements. Application of the enhanced EBP paradigm involved four research case studies embracing the case research methodology espoused by Yin (1989). Four Entrepreneurial Business Plans were written according to the prescriptions of the enhanced EBP paradigm and submitted to the marketplace. Sufficient time (between four and eight years) was allowed for results to be monitored. The four case study businesses were selected to span a variety of key attributes designed to maximise two things: (1) the ability to attribute causation of observed results (most particularly the attraction of the investment funds solicited by each Entrepreneurial Business Plan) directly the application of the enhanced EBP paradigm rather than any other possible cause; (2) the ability to make wide rather than narrow inferences about the applicability and utility of the enhanced EBP paradigm. Inferential conclusions were drawn from individual and cross-case analysis. Four points encapsulate the most significant results of the research to the community of entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners and beyond them, to the managerial community at large. (1) The research provides a basis for systematic inquiry in the field of Entrepreneurial Business Planning and a template for quality assessment of Entrepreneurial Business Plans. (2)It redresses the imbalance between research and teaching in an important field of the entrepreneurship discipline. (3)It extends the domain, credibility and utility of entrepreneurship as a discipline. (4) It is the potential generator of many practical analytical constructs and corollary theory in a wide variety of managerial fields. Extended case analysis provided two examples of domain extension and the generation of corollary theory and practice: first, in the field of �venture renaissance� (a term coined to represent the domain of all non startup applications of the enhanced paradigm of Entrepreneurial Business Planning) and second, in the field of mergers and acquisitions. These two illustrations of corollary theory and practice provide strong concluding arguments in favour of the proposition that the enhanced EBP paradigm has substantial general utility. In summary, as a result of the research reported in this dissertation, Entrepreneurial Business Planning may be regarded as a distinct grouping of integrated techniques amounting to a managerial technology for removing impediments to business growth by attracting necessary investments on behalf of articulated strategies. Entrepreneurial Business Planning has thus emerged from vague definition amid the narrow contextual confines of a startup venture seeking venture capital, to precise definition in a far broader context as a generic technology for the removal of impediments to business growth, wherever and however they occur.

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