This study is to explore the future development of Bank of Kaohsiung (BOK), the only Kaohsiung based medium-size banking institute. Due to the close relationship between banking and economic development, banking institutes with headquarter at Kaohsiung serving the local enterprises in this region play a significant role. While¡Amost of the local banking institutions in Kaohsiung area moved their headquarters to Taipei or have been merged by Finance holding companies owing to their poor performance. BOK is the only one left. Nevertheless, BOK should not be satisfied with the advantage of being the only medium-size local bank, but has to seek the way to withhold the advantage from the market and survive even better when facing the severe competition from giant Finance holding companies. This research adopts the questionnaire research method of case study and carries on the research by exploring: 1.the viewpoint of the middle-ranked clerks of BOK for the value of the Bank¡¦s operation core resources. 2.the viewpoint of the bank clerks of BOK for their intention and cooperative willingness in the bank development, including bank organizational change and economies of scope. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: 1.Most of the middle-ranked clerks of BOK agree to the view points of resource-based view that ability is more important than resources , intangible resources is more important than physical resources and finance resources. 2.42.5% of bank clerks agree that it is a major defect of BOK with most of their branch office located at the southern part of Taiwan. Over 70% of bank clerks agree to move of the poor performance branch office to other volatile city. However, 84.5% of the questionnaires insist that any assignment to serve in other area shall be volunteered. 3.Developing the wealth management business is mild positive to bank clerks of BOK, and young, new coming, high educated bank clerks are more optimism. Over 80% of bank clerks recognize that solid customer support is the great asset of their Bank. 4.Expanding the loaning business among the medium and small enterprises is mild positive to bank clerks of BOK, especially high educated young bank clerks. 5.Nearly half of bank clerks believe that there is a little chance that BOK will not become a financial holding company. Also, 42% of the employee reject or highly reject the Bank to carry out actively to merge with other financial holding company. This research attempts to make some contributions on this subject. We start from the viewpoint of the middle-ranked clerks and bank clerks of BOK, through the empirical questionnaire research. We hope this can provides an objective discussion platform for people who concern the future development of BOK in the relevant issues.

Small and medium enterprises play an important role in the development of a country. The growth of SMEs is also important for the world economy which has been widely discussed in recent years. Although the growth of small firm is a well known topic in theoretical research, still there are some research gaps that need to be filled. There is no single multidimensional theory which would embrace all possible approaches; most studies on SMEs’ growth examine the growth factors one by one. (Wasilczuk, 2000) Nor is there any single theory that can adequately explain small business growth due to the heterogeneity of SMEs. Moreover, growth itself is difficult to measure, and can be measured either objectively or subjectively. (Delmar, 1996) Therefore, this study incorporates the resource-based view, as well as the consideration of SMEs’ fives stages model to examine the growth factor of SMEs. The resource-based view provides a unified approach in the conceptualization of the resource analysis in the small firm. The five stages model shows the position of SMEs current growth stage. By analyzing SMEs’ key resources (tangible and intangible resources), indentifying their growth stages, SMEs can find out the critical resources which influence their business growth. As a conclusion, the study finds that each resource has its importance in different stages. Tangible resources, such as cash and physical resources are critical in the start-up firms, while intangible resources are prioritized in the success and resource maturity stages. In order to gain the competitive advantages, SMEs should fully develop the unique and inimitable resources such as the brand, technology, culture and reputations.

The phenomenon analyzed within this thesis is the uprising of cloud computing technologies and their potential impact on SMEs. Cloud computing is ought to enable new capabilities for SMEs by the key benefits of being less expensive and its ubiquitous accessibility. The research was constituted on the theoretical framework of the resource based view and was conducted via semi-structured interviews along the themes of application history, financial impact, structural impact, strategic impact, risk considerations and future outlook. Thereby the core research question was to understand the impact of cloud computing technologies as new resources on the competitive advantage of SMEs. Therefore, 183 SMEs were contacted via email which were selected from a commerce authority and internet inquiry from which 6 agreed to an interview. The interview outcomes were analyzed by coding and an interpretation of the qualitative findings. Significant outcomes were that cloud computing provides SMEs capabilities of collaboration and mobility. The impact on innovation could not be verified but was indicated. Moreover, the adaption of cloud computing has led to SMEs saving resources in terms of time, IT budget and specific IT knowledge. The provision of the new capabilities and the savings of resources have shown to improve the SMEs’ overall performance by complementing, supplementing and substituting existing resources. Nevertheless, no direct linkage could be identified to a contribution to a competitive advantage but suggestive indirect linkages were found. However, the findings might deliver new comprehension about the organizational impact of cloud computing on SMEs in terms of resource enhancement and their impact on business practices. Furthermore, implications for future research include the need for investigation of the internal charging of cloud services and particular to narrow down the key advantages of cloud computing for SMEs and raise their business awareness as a source of competitive advantage. / <p>This paper has been a collective effort between Sten Ekström Winroth and Franco Bettels, the thesis has though been written in collaborative between the Management and Informatics department at Jönköping International Business School. These two departments have different requirements of the thesis writing process, which entails that we the authors have had different requirements. This is the reason that two theses exist with the same name, these two theses differ in the details, but are overall the same. </p>

Since the Canadian nuclear reactor ¡§NRU¡¨ was shut down on 14th May, 2009, the global Moly shortage has occurred for a year. The crisis was not only an impact for the patients of the hospitals in Taiwan, but also decreased the sales and margin profit of the nuclear medicine distributors. The S company, a leading and monopolistical distributor in Taiwan, was no longer reliable for its customers because of the nuclear medicine shortage. Actually it looks like the advantage of the S company is lost and the reputation is damaged. This research is trying to figure out how a nuclear medicine distributor like the S company can pursue some effective supply chain strategies to turn around and keep the growth of profit. AHP is the study method for this research. But at first we¡¦ll plan some strategies and tactics for the nuclear medicine distributors (especial the S company), according to Potters¡¦ competition theory and the resource based view of the firm. And then develop the two levels structure for the AHP study in this research. The factors of upper level are 4 strategies, like ¡§Research & Development Strategy¡¨ etc. The factors of lower level are 18 tactics or plans just like ¡§Try to acquire new technology from the advanced radiopharmaceutical institutes¡¨ etc. The AHP will be performed by surveys of experts¡¦ opinions, including both qualitative and quantitative surveys. Five different groups of experts were sampling and chosen for the surveys. By the AHP, the two most weights of the tactics are determined. They are ¡§Integrate individual (country) procurement into multinational procurement for reducing cost¡¨ and ¡§Actively globalized procurement, and monopolistically securing the sources¡¨. Besides, we can discover more valuable opinions from the qualitative analysis of the expert¡¦s surveys. So the results of this research, the effective and advanced strategies and tactics, are the first securing more reliable sources of the nuclear medicine and the second improving globalized procurement. And then try to enhance marketing and strengthen customer relationship. These will be expected to be helpful on both distributors¡¦ profit and customers¡¦ satisfaction.

Family business is a typical organizational form around the world and dominates the economic landscape of many nations. Scholars propose that the reason why family businesses are different from non-family business because of resources that are distinctive to a firm as a result of the interactions between family, family members and business. The bundle of resources that have been theoretically developed within the resource-based view framework are identified as ¡§Familiness¡¨ of the firm. Familiness is considered as a source of competitive advantage to family firms, but some scholars believe that the resources are necessary but not sufficient to achieve a competitive advantage. Resources must also be managed and deployed effectively through capabilities. Marketing capabilities is one of the most important capabilities of a firm, there are many studies have pointed out that the marketing capabilities and business performance are significantly related. The purpose of this paper is to exam the relationships among the familiness of individual family firm and their marketing capabilities through the resource-based view framework. This paper conducted a convenience sampling questionnaire survey to collect data, using the members of "Taiwan Fastener Association", "Taiwan Watch & Clock Industrial Association¡¨, ¡§Taiwan Fluid Power Association", and the companies that National Sun Yat-sen University MBA¡¦s students work for as sample, issued 571 questionnaires, 134 valid questionnaires were retuned, the effective response rate is 23.5%. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, multivariate analysis and multiple regression analysis were used for data analysis and hypothesis testing. The results of this paper show that all of family human resource, family social resource and patiant financial resource have significantly positive correlation with marketing capabilities. The managers of family business can take advantage of such unique resources to strengthen marketing capabilities that create sustainable competitive advantage and achieve superior performance.

With rapid development of technology in industries and aggressive globalization competitiveness, business operation success from the past does not guarantee present and future success, and the competitive advantages of enterprises may vanish after time or environment differences. Promoting new products and process innovation have becoming the main strategies for enterprises, and they also become the key points of the existence of enterprises. Therefore, enterprises should intake technological innovation when formulating strategies, and concentrate on their core resources and capabilities. Through the integrations, the enterprises will be able to react and get the sustainable competitive advantages when changes from outside and inside the organizations occurred. This research is using the Resource-Based View as foundation, and the high technology manufacturers and enterprises in Taiwan as our research objects. Exploring the characteristics of enterprise inner resources, capabilities and the impacts on creating sustainable competitive advantages through the interactions and effects when enterprises engage planning their technological innovation strategies. The obtained data is adapted by Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis. The research result is hopefully to be able to provide with the high technology manufacturers and enterprises in promoting the competitive advantages in business operation and decision application. The result of this research is that, the technological innovation strategy is indeed affected by core resources and capabilities. The different core resource contents and characteristics have remarkable effects on enterprises technological innovation strategies. This research result is corresponding with resource-strategy paradigm by the Resource-Based School. Technological innovation strategy has outstanding impact on the sustainable competitive advantages. Different types of technological innovation strategies have effects on innovation performances, which shows the importance of applying technological innovation strategy to enhance the competitive advantages. However, the core resource contents and characteristics do not show the direct impact on the sustainable competitive advantages. The core resources and capabilities of enterprises will have contribution to the sustainable competitive advantages by strategy formulation and implementation.

The Cheng Ching Lake is a reservoir. It functions not only as a water supplier, but also as a scenic spot. It used to be one of the top three scenic spots in Taiwan. However, it has gradually lost its competitiveness with environmental change. And its tourists has also decreased with year, which has resulted in deficits of earning and prosperity. This study probes into the competitive advantage of the Cheng Ching Lake scenic spot according to the Resource-Based Theory. The unique competitiveness of general enterprises comes from two complementary sources-- the resources and the competencies in the enterprises. Since it is easier for an enterprise to control and manage its resources and competencies, the two factors are more suitable being as references and indicators for a company to decide on its tactics of development. Therefore, an enterprise should make good use of its resources in advantage and even its core resources in order to make profits and maintain its substainable competitive advantage. This thesis adopted qualitative methods and conducted in-depth interviews with the administrator of the Cheng Ching Lake scenic spot, superiors in authorities concerned, scholars, and experts. After discussing with them the effects that tangible assets, intangible assets, human resources and capabilities have on competitive advantage, the results¡GThe core resource of the Cheng Ching Lake scenic spot is ¡§its water resource and ecology¡¨ that is unique, specific, and imperfectly imitable, which shape the Cheng Ching Lake¡¦s competitiveness. As for the core competence, the management ability, age, quality, professional training, adjustment ability of its employees lack in competitiveness, the Cheng Ching Lake scenic spot does not have core competence . Based on the above findings, this study gets some suggest to development strategies for the Cheng Ching Lake senic spot as follows: 1.Using the differentiation to separate the market. 2.Selecting a specific theme for further development. 3.Modifying after a whole plan, and to run the business with each section separated for different usage. 4.Adopting alliance strategy to promote its competitiveness. 5.Collecting cleaning fees from people doing morning exercise to compensate for the loss in profits.

As the growth of internet, the E-commerce has become a global business trend. Under this globalization of the e-economy, the international value chains, such as the division of labor, force the domestic enterprises such as manufacturing and service industries to face this great challenge in recent years. The reason why the information technology(IT) services industries are flourishing for past few years is due to they can provide a combination between professional knowledge and information technology for improving enterprises¡¦ international competiveness to gain excess-profit. However, the market in Taiwan is too limited to survive for those service providers. Under such highly competitive market, the services industries have made a drop in making profits. In order to sustain technological leadership to maintain a stable market place, how to integrate inter limited resources becomes a key factor to gain business improvement. This study will be the case for the study, the first industrial survey, a systematic insight into the company's resources, markets, technology, organizational structure and found that the company's strengths, weak, facing the threat of competition and opportunities for further growth. Organizational model and then explore the sale of better mode of change and corporate resources to business organizations, the impact of sales and marketing organizations before and after changes in sales performance for the effect of changes in sales organization, summed up the following conclusions: 1, The IT services industry sales organization designed based on strategic objectives and characteristics of its Selling Motion designed. 2, Sales organization of IT services industry transformation, the enterprise intangible resources of personnel and organizational skills that affect business sales organizations key to the success of the transformation factor. 3, Sales organization of IT services industry transformation, that need to design model according to their characteristics to be adjusted business performance assessment methods.

With overview of the diversification theory, we could know the resource-based view theory played a very important role among enterprises¡¦ diversification process. According to our observation, 7-11¡¦s outstanding performance created by itself and its subsidiaries proved that 7-11 did very well on its accumulation and exertion of its resources during its expansion. However, the accumulated resources and exerted resources achieved tremendous performance for 7-11. Moreover, 7-11 had been promoted to be the leader of retail industry successfully. That was why 7-11 was a good case study for understanding the application of the resource-based view theory. Apparently, the theory of resource-based view theory exploited by 7-11 to realize diversification was worth to learn. Therefore, our works employed the resource-based view theory to explore how 7-11 developed their resources and capabilities among its diversification by organizing second-hand data, and obtained the further information by interviewing managers of Cosmed, Starbucks, MUJI, and Dream-mall. Interviews also brought other discoveries; we found out that a shared service creating profound synergies was also the successful application of horizontal strategy, so this theory became another significant issue in our works. Consequently, in the last chapter, we summarize 7-11¡¦s diversification by using three mechanisms, which are reinforcement, supplement, and sharing.

This thesis answers calls for fine-grained studies of product diversification, in this case, predominantly using the resource based view of the firm. The context is UK providers of banking services. The thesis has developed the concept of resource matching. Resource matching combines levels of: resource heterogeneity, resource similarity and difference, and the external environmental setting of the organisation with the business performance of product diversification. Resource matching significantly increases the limited conceptual underpinning of diversification RBV by adapting and developing concepts from single firm RBV literature. Two new research strategies were developed to gather data on multiple resources and external factors. One was unused due to access issues during the credit crunch. The other, which was used, utilised multiple sources of publicly available information both qualitative and quantitative. These conceptual and methodological developments offer a way to restart the research on the impact of product diversification on business performance. This research has stalled due to conflicting results and methodological issues. Twenty nine providers of banking services in the UK where examined: building societies; other providers of retail banking services; providers of investment banking services; and combined banks which offer both investment and retail banking services. This thesis found: varying amounts of resource heterogeneity, resource bundles can be constructed from publicly available external data, performance in diversification does not adhere to the previously posited curvilinear pattern but to one of the greater the product diversification the greater the business performance risk and reward, with rewards being both positive and negative, and finally the external environment does vary within the industry. The results on product diversification performance suggest of a new way of looking at product diversification which might reconcile the previous conflicting results. A modified version of the conceptual model of resource matching was developed to take account of the results. Opportunities for further work include; studying other industries and providers of banking services in other countries, refining the single industry fine grained research methods and further developing the resource matching model.