Guanxi plays an important role in Chinese entrepreneurial networking activities, especially for micro entrepreneurial firms in China. Due to limited information and resources available to micro firms, micro firms are more dependent on entrepreneurs’ guanxi networks to get access to the necessary resources. Previous literatures have particularly discussed the impacts of guanxi networks for foreigners successfully doing business in China. Nevertheless, there are scant literatures that study on the role of the guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the role of guanxi in Chinese entrepreneurship. This study employs the relevant guanxi concepts, Western social capital theory, and network-based entrepreneurship as the main conceptual framework to examine how Chinese entrepreneurs utilize their guanxi networks during the development of micro firms. Furthermore, this study is based on ten case studies in China. Empirical Data are collected from semi-structured interviews with ten Chinese entrepreneurs in micro firms. The results show that guanxi networks are highly important for Chinese entrepreneurs to develop their business. Firstly, Chinese entrepreneurs make use of different guanxi governance mechanisms--qinqing, renqing and jiaoqing to acquire different information and resources for the development of their firms. The obtained information and resources constitute the social capital, which can be used to complement insufficient capital within the firms. Secondly, Chinese entrepreneurs intentionally enlarge their guanxi network size to obtain more resources. Moreover, Chinese entrepreneurs benefit from strong guanxi ties and closure network structures to obtain the cohesive social capital. While Chinese entrepreneurs gain greater benefits from weak guanxi ties and spare network structures for acquiring additional information, resources and business opportunities. Thirdly, guanxi-networking activities are different from Western social networking activities, as guanxi-networking activities put more emphasize on keeping harmony and mutual reciprocity. Furthermore, Chinese entrepreneurs are proactive to build and maintain guanxi networks through various approaches for their business development. Lastly, even though guanxi networks play important roles in the development of micro entrepreneurial firms, they cannot be sustainable competitive advantage in the long term. Indeed, the core competences such as high quality of products and services, advanced technologies and marketing channels could be sustainable competitive advantages for the entrepreneurial firms in today’s increasingly fierce competitive market.

Family business is a typical governance structure around the world. From the resource-based theory viewpoint, the family members input and the trans-generational family business entrepreneurship is critical resources in family business sustainability. However, how the family capital can be a sustainable capability in family business entrepreneurship is an issue that needs to be investigated with life cycle stage in family businesses. By utilizing case studies, this research tries to investigate the role of family capital and family members in family business entrepreneurship with life cycle stage and scale consideration. The first observation reveals that family capital will develop from single to multiple items in differential life cycle and scale stage. In addressing the family business entrepreneurship issue, the development of family capital and organizational capital and the possible synergy between them are critical resources in family business entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the family capital implications in family business entrepreneurship need to be considered with the trans-generational family member characteristics and the possible synergy with organizational capital. In other words, family input and the family capital implications in family business entrepreneurship is integrated sustainable capabilities with life cycle and scale stage consideration in family businesses. The observation from Taiwan¡¦s family businesses can provide insights in family business entrepreneurship issue in greater Chinese contexts.

In order to stay sustainably competitive and provide low cost, high quality products safely and on schedule, China Steel Group must depend on a highly automated and sophisticated electric control system for dynamic and optimized control. Therefore, the promotion of group synergy as well as integration and management of the resources of China Steel Group¡¦s electric control system become the main purpose of this study. This study is based on resource-based theory, Collis & Montgomery's strategy and the literatures on Group Company¡¦s management. Management system of Formosa Plastics Group, three Japanese and one Korean Steel Groups were also investigated as benchmarking practices. Following issues have been analyzed via 4 experts¡¦ interviews and 135 questionnaires: 1).Core electric control resources with sustainable competitive advantage of China Steel Group, 2).The electric control resources¡¦ integration and management system of China Steel Group, 3).The necessity and direction to establish China Steel Group¡¦s general management office. Findings and conclusions of this study are shown as follows: 1) . Core electric control resources with sustainable competitive advantage of China Steel Group: a. Expertise is the most important core resources of electric control system; process and operation domain knowledge, process control maintenance knowledge and basic engineering of electric control project are the most sustainable competitive advantage in daily business operation. b. Process domain knowledge in rolling mill is the most valuable and difficult electric core resource and need to be enhanced first. c. The most important factors to evaluate the performance of electric control business are: quality, time schedule, safety and environmental protection, technical ability, communication and coordination services. 2) . The electric control resources¡¦ integration and management of China Steel Group: a. Through resources, business and organization as well as by the coordination and monitoring system, the integration and management of the electric control resources of China Steel Group will become more effectively. b. In addition to the original electric control maintenance and engineering business, China Steel Group should strengthen the function of electric control professional staff to integrate the group¡¦s resources. c. The way to integrate electric control resources are: technology and information integration, material and logistics integration, process/organization and human resources integration. d. Project detail design and software maintenance for DCS and PLC should be subcontracted to subsidiary company, InfoChamp System Corp., to enhance its capability in addition to keep core capability inside China Steel Group. e. Maintain the existing district-based electric maintenance system; Integrate group-wide resources to set up group¡¦s electric control engineering company responsible for all group's electric control projects; Functions of companies¡¦ electric control department shall be transformed into group¡¦s professional staff. 3) . The necessity and direction to establish China Steel Group¡¦s general management office: a. The performance of resource integration in China Steel Group is very important. b. More than 85.2% of respondents considered Group¡¦s general management office should be established or expand the parent company (China Steel Corp.) existing organizations to integrate the resources of China Steel Group. Finally, the result of this study is not only meaningful for China Steel Group but also can be applied in other industry group companies and engineering companies.

In recent years, tourism has been recognized as the most potential industry. Kaohsiung is a city which has a very rich cultural and natural resources such as mountains, sea, river and sea port to develop the tourism industry. Due to the official opening of high speed railway and completion of Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit increased accessibility to attract many tourists. The most popular tourist accommodation is the new "daily rental suites" instead of the traditional hotels or motels. Through the competitive advantage matrix analysis model to find out the competitive advantage of daily rental suites, one dimension is from the outside analysis the key success factors of the industry, the other dimension is from the inside analysis the assets and capabilities of the daily rental suites which select three well-known ones in Kaohsiung as my study cases. The main contribution of this research is summarized six competitive advantages of daily rental suite through the matrix as (1) location, (2) the reputation and the brand, (3) service quality, (4) price, (5) atmosphere and (6) room equipment and decoration. The results show that daily rental suite¡¦s core resources how match with the key success factors. By examining their feature of the core resources to reinforce his internal assets as well as capabilities, so as to keep and create its competitive advantage.

Internet and mobile wireless as emerging content distribution platforms have not only redefined the traditional media market, but also influenced the business strategies of the transnational media corporations (TNMC) that are expanding their operations into the ¡§new-media¡¨ system in another country. The purpose of this study is to explore how global media move from the traditional television distribution channel to the Internet and mobile wireless platform in the country of China and what strategic patterns of alliance they engage to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. Applying a resource-based view (RBV) framework of analyzing strategy and employing a case study approach, this study investigates the formation and evolution of strategic alliances for the U.S.-based TNMCS in the marketplace of China and discusses how their resources were aligned with their local counterparts¡¦ resources in marketing their content products. The alliance involving Time Warner, News Corporation, Disney, and Viacom were examined. Cross-case analysis identified six alliance patterns, including the importance of content-distribution resource alignment, the acquisition of local knowledge resources, the strategic alliances between TNMCs, the decrease of equity-based alliances, the complementary role of property and knowledge resources, and the necessity of uniting resources that enable the local responsiveness of video-related products.

The biochip industry is characterized by high entry barrier in technology. For those firms in this industry, owning law-protected patents to lower the entry of the potential competitors is a key strategy in competition and competitive advantage. The firm¡¦s patent analysis not only discloses the firm¡¦s knowledge-base in biochip industry, it also impact other firms¡¦ innovation activity and technology development strategy in this industry. Previous patent analysis literatures usually focus on the performance implications of firm¡¦s patent number or the patent citation on the focal firm. However, the possible performance implications of patent contents between the focal firm and other firms in the biochip industry are relatively under-examined. From the network theory and resource-based theory viewpoint, this study tries to examine the performance implications by developing two patent indexes in patent content analysis, i.e., the patent status and the patent similarity. The results indicate that when the firm¡¦s patent status difference with each other is smaller, or the firm¡¦s patent similarity with each other is larger, the performance difference between the dyad firms will be smaller. In other words, the patent status and the patent similarity are solid indexes to predict the firm¡¦s performance difference in highly competitive and highly innovative industry, such as the biochip industry in this sample. The results provide referable value in addressing the performance issues of patent content analysis from network theory viewpoint. Moreover, it also provides complementary values in discussing market commonality and resource similarity in competitive issues.

The life cycle of the semiconductor equipment industry has evolved from a fast growth high profit ramp-up phase to one of much slower growth and intense competitiveness that has squeezed profit margins. In this environment, one of the key success factors for semiconductor equipment suppliers is product management. A correct product planning and implementation strategy will generate a healthy market performance and profitable business operations. Semiconductor equipment manufacturers and agents need to consider their product competencies to develop a planning strategy for new product introduction, which includes product positioning, target market selection as well as new product introduction guidance and evaluation procedures. This thesis focuses on industrial data analysis and a case study based on face-to-face interviews with several people at various positions within semiconductor equipment suppliers. The major approach of this study is a description of competitive strategy through a qualitative analysis of the industry, and an analysis the key factors¡Xincluding product management, product lifetime cycle and knowledge management¡Xthat influence the technology service ability of an equipment company. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: Semiconductor agency has to introduce new product to different market segments for its product life time extension or future business development as well as product competence enhancement. New technology development trends become a threat to existing technology and products, which will replace current products in the market within a short period. Product management needs a procedure to evaluate the new product and the service income potential in order to assess the product¡¦s profit and loss prospects. Then the management can adjust the business priorities to maximize total company revenue through periodic review. Future studies should consider the effect of changes in the industrial structure and/or the market environment and analyze the impact on market development risks and strategies.

The Law for the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries is passed by the Legislative Yuan on Feb 3, 2010 and implementated on August 30, 2010. It shows that the Taiwanese government is devoted into cultural and creative industries, and also to position cultural and creative industries in a significant place of culture policy. In the Law, there are 16 categories. Among them, the researcher thinks that the handicrafts industry, the digital content industry and the visual communication design industries are full of developmental potential. Therefore, this study will draw three cultural and creative industry projects form these industries as the focus of the analysis. This research applies the resource-based theory on three Taiwan's cultural and creative industry companies. The research interviews one case of each industry listed above. Through interviews and documents, the research attempts to understand those companies¡¦ internal resources, explore their core competencies, and further analyze of the competitive advantages and strategies. Several research questions are listed: what are the successful factors of three cases? What resources are available in their companies? What are their competitive strategies? The analysis will help to understand the development of Taiwan's cultural and creative enterprise and business. In addition, interviewees also provided suggestions for the current policy of Taiwan's cultural and creative industries. Finally, the researcher provides suggestions to the three cases, Taiwanese government on policy of Cultural and Creative Industries in Taiwan, also made efforts for the further studies.

The insurance industry in Taiwan has been more open and geared to the international standards during the recent years. At the same time, the Taiwanese and international financial industry has gone through drastic changes. Interest rate dropped and cost of material and human resource went up, leading to increased operation cost for insurance companies. In addition, the popularity of internet and elevated consumer awareness have challenged insurance companies¡¦ traditional marketing model ¡V direct sales force. Therefore, in order to cut down operation cost and expand the market, insurance companies started to develop diversified marketing channels, such as tele-marketing, bank insurance marketing, internet, TV direct sales, etc. New sales channels such as insurance agency and insurance broker also emerged at the same time. Every insurance company has different resources and competitive advantages, and hence created different marketing and operation models. Insurance companies hope to sell insurance through insurance brokers in order to lower operation cost. However, to avoid increasing bargaining power of insurance brokers, insurance companies are reluctant to overly rely on one or two insurance brokers. Insurance brokers, on the other hand, oftentimes recruit sales force from insurance companies to lower training cost. Such competition-cooperation relationship with insurance companies has shaped insurance brokers¡¦ operation model. This research is to analyze the industrial value chain within the insurance industry and to explore the potential operation models for insurance brokers via the five-force analysis of company L.

Researth on the Value Creation Strategy -The Case Of Ritek Group By Li-Mei Chen Seeking sustainable growth has always been the core value of an enterprise.However, to achieve such goal, many questions followed¡Kwhat rules to obey upon seeking sustainable growth? High growth leads to high profit for sure? Larger company scale accompanies higher profit? Such growth strategy should be managed according more to external environment or more on own core competence? How to create company value resulting from the diversification and collectivization of the company growth? I adopt Ritek group (ëä¼w¶°¹Î) as my case study object. Purpose of my study is to find out the affection of their growth strategy to their company value, and, how this efficient growth strategy enhances sustainable competitive advantage. My study integrated the relation between company value and Resource-Based view, Enterprise Growth Strategy view and Economic Value Added (EVA) view. Results of my empirical study: 1. Resources construction is a key in the development of company. 2. Strategy to focus on core competencies and to be effective. 3. Company valued scale expansion strategy increased their company value. 4. Fast capital outlay expansion helps no company value promotion. 5. Long-term investment amount decides future value. 6. Highly fund financing could not create company value. 7. Company¡¦s profit ability affects its future growth opportunity.