O trabalho estuda a competitividade internacional do setor têxtil, através das interações da cadeia produtiva. Especificamente, se verifica como a internacionalização do varejo está influenciando a competitividade internacional dos fornecedores de confeccionados têxteis, especificamente aquelas com foco em vestuário e acessórios. Pretende-se contribuir, ainda, para o aperfeiçoamento da capacidade de competir internacionalmente do setor de confeccionados têxteis. O ponto de partida é a revisão teórica dos temas competitividade internacional, estratégias de globalização e alianças estratégicas, contrapondo-os com os casos, sete no total. Portanto, o método utilizado é o de estudo de múltiplos casos, sendo a seleção realizada através de visitas aos pontos de venda das empresas varejistas selecionadas, localizados na região metropolitana de São Paulo. Verificou-se que: (1) Em somente uma empresa há esforço para criar marcas internacionais; (2) A rede de relacionamentos pode ter desempenhado papel fundamental para o sucesso competitivo em muitas das empresas estudadas; (3) Somente uma das empresas brasileiras (há duas multinacionais na amostra) tem como estratégia aumentar o valor adicionado dos produtos vendidos pela empresa; (4) Há consciência, por parte de pelo menos uma empresa, que nem sempre mão-de-obra de baixo custo é garantia de sucesso neste setor; (5) Pode haver obstáculos dentro da cadeia têxtil para que as empresas de confeccionados atendam ao padrão de qualidade exigido pelos varejistas internacionais nos países desenvolvidos. O trabalho traz ainda muitos outros fatos e um quadro com recomendações para alguns dos casos estudados. / The study analyzes the international competitiveness of the textile sector through supply chain interactions. It specifically verifies how the globalization of the retail sector influences the international competitiveness of garment suppliers, all of them listed as vendors of international retailers operating in Brazil. The effort aims to contribute to enhancing the international competitive strength of garment makers. The starting point is a theoretical review of the themes: International Competitiveness, Globalization Strategies and Strategic Alliances; comparing the concepts with what was found in the field study. The research method is a multiple case study. Cases were selected through visits to the points-of-sale of the international retailers, all of them located in the metropolitan area of the city of Sao Paulo. The main findings are: (1) Only one company is endeavoring to create international brands; (2) The network of alliances might have had an instrumental role in the competitive success of many of the companies; (3) Only one of the Brazilian companies pursues the strategy of increasing the added value of the products it sells; (4) In at least one company there is awareness that low wages will not always bring success in this sector; (5) There might be hurdles in the textile supply chain that halt the garment makers to comply with the pattern demanded by international retailers in the operations they carry in developed countries. Many other interesting facts were found and a chart with recommendations to some of the cases studied is presented.

Using data from the biopharmaceutical industry, this study analyzes the relationship between internal and external exploration (exploitation) and the moderating role of firm characteristics. We argue that the characteristics of a firm - in particular a firm's vertical scope - are an important but so far overlooked contingency factor determining the relationship between internal and external exploration (exploitation). Our findings indicate that differences in vertical scope result in alternative combinations of internal and external exploration. While specialized firms tend to focus either on exploration or exploitation both within the firm as well as with their alliance portfolio, vertically integrated firms prefer to balance exploration and exploitation across firm boundaries. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Institute for Strategic Management

Ein empirisch belegtes Phänomen ist die steigende Anzahl strategischer Allianzen von Unternehmen, speziell in dynamischen Wettbewerbsumgebungen. Über strategische Allianzen versuchen Unternehmen, auch in einer dynamischen Wettbewerbsumwelt unter hoher Unsicherheit Wettbewerbsvorteile aufzubauen. Dabei belegen verschiedene Forschungsarbeiten, dass strategische Allianzen häufig scheitern und weisen übereinstimmend relativ niedrige Erfolgsquoten von 50% nach. Harbison und Pekár belegen zwischen Unternehmen eine hohe Varianz und identifizieren, dass einige Unternehmen bei 87% ihrer strategischen Allianzen erfolgreich sind, während andere Unternehmen nur eine Erfolgsrate von 37% aufweisen. Die Fragestellung, warum Unternehmen in dieser Hinsicht so signifikant differieren, bildet die grundlegende Motivation für die vorliegende Arbeit. Die Ursache für die hohe Varianz der Erfolgsrate von strategischen Allianzen zwischen Unternehmen, ist in den internen Prozessen und Strukturen der Unternehmen zu vermuten. Diese unternehmensinternen Prozesse und Strukturen werden mit dem Begriff Allianzfähigkeit bezeichnet. 1. Forschungsfrage Aus welchen Prozessen und Strukturen besteht Allianzfähigkeit in Unternehmen? 2. Forschungsfrage Wie entwickelt sich Allianzfähigkeit in Unternehmen? Die vermutete Kausalität zwischen Allianzfähigkeit und der Erfolgsrate bei strategischen Allianzen verweist auf einen post-positivistischen Charakter der Untersuchung. Es wird auf wissenschaftliche Literatur, aber auch auf Beiträge von Unternehmensberatungen, Nichtregierungsorganisationen und andere Quellen zurückgegriffen, wie es als Forschungsansatz im Kontext strategischer Allianzen vorgeschlagen wird. Zunächst werden im zweiten Kapitel die beiden beobachtbaren Phänomene, eine steigende Dynamik der Wettbewerbsumwelt vieler Unternehmen und die zunehmende Anzahl strategischer Allianzen, die Interdependenzen aufweisen, unter Einbeziehung der Literatur, charakterisiert. Insbesondere die Motive von Unternehmen und deren Strategien zum Eingehen strategischer Allianzen werden erläutert. Im folgenden dritten Kapitel werden die traditionellen Erklärungsansätze des strategischen Managements anhand einer empirischen Literaturanalyse skizziert. Das Ergebnis der empirischen Literaturanalyse ist die Notwendigkeit eines neuen theoretischen Zugangs, der die gestiegene Dynamik der Wettbewerbsumwelt stärker reflektiert und interne Prozesse von Unternehmen intensiver betrachtet. Mit den Beiträgen von Teece et al., Eisenhardt und Martin, scheint sich der fähigkeitsorientierte Ansatz als neue Erklärungsperspektive zu etablieren. Der junge fähigkeitsorientierte Ansatz wird als geeignet identifiziert und im vierten Kapitel ausführlich dargestellt sowie in seinen aktuellen Entwicklungen erläutert. Das vierte Kapitel bildet den theoretischen Rahmen für das folgende fünfte Kapitel, das die Charakterisierung von Allianzfähigkeit auf der Grundlage eines Literaturreviews umfasst und direkt die Forschungsfragen anhand einer Modellentwicklung adressiert. Erkennt¬nisse aus anderen theoretischen Perspektiven werden in den fähigkeitsorientierten Ansatz übertragen und in das Modell integriert. Ein Vorgehen, das in der Tradition des strategischen Managements, insbesondere der Beiträge zum fähigkeitsorientierten Ansatz, steht. Im sechsten Kapitel wird das skizzierte Modell als Grundlage verwendet, um die Entwicklung von Allianzfähigkeit empirisch anhand einer Longitudinal-Fallstudie zu untersuchen. Die Analyse von Allianzfähigkeit sollte vor dem Hintergrund einer hohen Wettbewerbsdynamik unter der Bedingung von Hyperwettbewerb (Kriterium 1) in einer Branche erfolgen, bei der strategische Allianzen eine hohe Rolle spielen (Kriterium 2). Darüber hinaus soll die Möglichkeit bestehen, Zugang zu Dokumenten, Interviewpartnern sowie Datenbanken zu erhalten (Kriterium 3). Aufgrund dieser Kriterien wurde die Börsenindustrie als Industrie und die Deutsche Börse als Unternehmen ausgewählt. Das Ziel der Fallstudie ist die Darstellung der Entwicklung der strategischen Allianzen der Deutschen Börse von 1997 bis 2007, um Rückschlüsse auf die Allianzfähigkeit des Unternehmens ziehen zu können. Da die Entwicklung der Allianzfähigkeit im Vordergrund der Fallstudie steht, wird eine Längsschnittfallstudie mit chronologischem Aufbau verwendet. Dabei wurden drei verschiedene Quellen, Experteninterviews, Datenbanken sowie Dokumente, ausgewertet. / Firms are confronted by a lot of internal and external challenges within a dynamic competitive environment. Especially the increasing technological change derived from innovations, the fast diffusion of new technologies, the development of new business models, and the globalization are known as the main drivers for this. The consequence is increasing dynamism and complexity in business relations resulting in the emergence of strategic alliances, such as joint ventures, virtual organizations, and loose contractual agreements among firms. In this contribution strategic alliances are defined as cooperative agreements of any form with the aim of strengthening the partners’ positions in an industry (Arino & la Torre, 1998). Opportunities for risk and knowledge sharing among business partners, obtaining new veins for new markets, and the possibility to add new competencies are the main forces behind this trend towards strategic alliances (Prahalad & Hamel, 1994). Several quantitative studies counted an increasing number of international strategic alliances during the past four decades (Büchel, 2004; Gomes-Casseres, 1988; Hagedoorn & van Kranenburg, 2003; Narula & Hagedoorn, 1998). But even if the strategic alliances are popular, several studies reported a high failure rate of strategic alliances between 40% and 60% (Drago, 1997; Bresser & Harl, 1986; Hennart, Kim & Zeng, 1998; Park & Ungson, 2001). Harbison and Pekár (1998) analyzed that some firms have a success rate in strategic alliancing of 87% while other firms have a success rate of only 37%. The main motivation of this contribution is to address this significant difference and to analyze the impact of internal capabilities in strategic alliances. Therefore we argue that firms need a specific capability to build up and develop strategic alliances, which is labeled as the alliance capability. This contribution covers two research questions: (1) Which processes and structures determine alliance capability? (2) How do firms develop alliance capability? Even if alliance capability covers identifiable routines and resources, it has a dynamic character which means that these capabilities could increase or decrease over time. This capability is a result of learning processes and past dependent experiences. An alliance capability is positively related to an increased absorptive capacity and to a firm’s performance in the full sense of successful behavior in the market (Kapur et al., 2005). Therefore an alliance capability is necessary to operate in a co-opetitive environment which is characterized by Bresser and Harl (1986) or more recently by Luo (2007). Schilke (2007) argues that an alliance capability has an influence on the competitive advantages of a firm. This contribution will describe a research framework of alliance capability to analyze the roles of resources, processes, and paths in respect of alliance capability. To validate the model, an explorative study of the alliance activities of Deutsche Boerse Group (DBAG), a global stock exchange company, between 1997 and 2007 will be performed.

In this thesis we analyze the procurement process of buyers and supply decisions of manufacturers. Companies are looking for ways to decrease their procurement costs, which account for a large percentage of the supply chain costs. We study the effects of demand aggregation and collaborative procurement on buyers' profitability. First, we make a high-level analysis and consider a market with multiple buyers and suppliers where multi-unit transactions for multiple items take place. The procurement costs are effected by economies of scale in the suppliers' production costs and by economies of scope in transportation. We design buyer strategies that model different collaboration levels and assess the role of collaboration under varying market conditions. Next, we analyze the procurement process at a lower level and identify benefits of inter-firm collaboration among buyers who are potential competitors in the end market. We adopt a game-theoretic approach to explore the economics of the basic mechanism underlying collaborative procurement, and determine the conditions that makes it beneficial for the participants. Besides low procurement costs, important considerations in supplier selection are responsiveness and the reliability of the suppliers in meeting demand. Hence, manufacturers face the pressure for quoting short and reliable lead times. We cover several aspects of the manufacturer's problem, such as quoting reliable due-dates based on current workload in the system, maximizing profit considering the lateness cost incurred due to late deliveries, and deciding on the level of inventory to increase responsiveness. We employ a model where demand arrival and manufacturing processes are stochastic, and obtain insights on the optimal due-date quotation policy and on the optimal inventory level.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität der Bundeswehr, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-253).

The leisure industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in Britain (Grade, 1998), and in the year 2000 accounted for approximately 10% of Britain's gross domestic product (LeisureWeek, 2000a). Health clubs have been one of the fastest developing business sectors within the leisure industry (Mintel, 1999), and there is predicted to be plenty of scope for future growth (Mintel, 2001). The health club sector has evolved greatly since its inception, with developments including consolidation, diversification, bi-polarisation and market segmentation. One of the most recent trends in the sector has been intenationalisation, with fifteen British companies now having a presence overseas. This research seeks to analyse the process by which the British health club sector has developed from being purely domestic based to having significant overseas investment. A number of stages within that process are identified including the motives to internationalise, the choice of country, the mode of entry utilised and the management and co-ordination of overseas activities. One of the key objectives of this research is to determine if a holistic view of internationalisation is appropriate, or even plausible for the health club sector. The research suggests that the influence of environmental and company-factors results in a company's initial decision to internationalise, with certain 'determinants' regulating which companies actually invest overseas. A number of ownershipspecific factors are identified that establish which companies might be able to compete effectively overseas. The process of internationalisation. is then analysed and a number of factors established which influence the companies' choice of country to invest in, the mode of entry and the manner in which the overseas investments are managed.

This study aims to elucidate firm and performance attributes of a population of small, elite firms that assume prominent positions in their respective technological spaces and product markets. More specifically, this study addresses the role and impact of industrial agglomeration on the location and performance characteristics of serial innovator firms. The dissertation was conceived as a collection of three distinct but related essays. The first essay on the geographical location of firms with high levels of innovative prowess i.e. serial innovator firms vis-à-vis technology clusters and research universities indicates that these firms are not necessarily located in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) with higher average levels of industry clustering than non-serial innovator firms of similar size. Serial innovator firms and their less innovative counterparts appear to have the same need and capacity to absorb knowledge spillovers in technology clusters. Further analysis, however, revealed that serial innovator firms in the Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology and IT hardware industries are located in MSA's with significantly higher levels of regional specialization than non-serial innovator firms in that industry which suggests an asymmetric need for knowledge spillovers by these firms. Furthermore, serial innovator firms seem to be located in MSA's with a significantly higher number of research universities than a non-serial innovator firm although differences across industries can be noted. This again indicates an asymmetric use and need for academic knowledge spillovers and pecuniary advantages offered by these institutions. The analysis in the second essay reveals that serial innovator firms located in MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) with elevated levels of industrial clustering announce significantly more new products than their counterparts located in MSA areas with low levels of industrial clustering. However, no differences in the pace of technological progress of the technologies developed by serial innovator firms located in technology clusters and those outside of clusters was found. Finally, the research reported in the third essay indicates that the level of industrial agglomeration has a positive impact on the export performance of serial innovator firms and that these firms benefit proportionately more from technology clusters than non-serial innovator firms.

Thesis (M.S.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Nancy Hodges; submitted to the Dept. of Consumer Apparel and Retail Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 13, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-139).

Países têm mudados suas políticas econômicas. As formas de governança tidas como protecionistas são discutidas quanto a sua eficácia como modelos de gestão atuais, obrigando a todos, estados, empresas, indivíduos, a compreenderem a amplitude e profundidade de mudanças rápidas e grandiosas em seus vários aspectos. Muitas empresas não se sentem prontas para sozinhas assumirem estes novos desafios; por isto, um crescente número de alianças vem se formando em vários lugares do mundo, buscando reforçar competências e sanar deficiências para então competir e sobreviver. O Pólo Ervateiro do Norte Gaúcho, considerado como um centro de produção do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, é o objeto deste estudo. Buscou-se conhecer as características individuais das empresas que executam processo de industrialização e comercialização, sob o aspecto de cadeia de valores e condutores de singularidade (Porter 1989); e o quanto estas empresas se assemelham para futuramente poderem se unir buscando novos mercados, inclusive internacionais, os quais oferecem grandes oportunidades. Ao final, o trabalho apresenta um quadro dos grupos de empresas afins, tipos de alianças que se adequam às suas realidades, etapas de processos que cada grupo deverá desenvolver com base nas suas características, para que possam se inserir no mercado internacional, e uma análise do nível de dificuldade que provavelmente os grupos enfrentarão no desenvolvimento e gerenciamento das alianças. / The world is not closed and unknown anymore. The governance forms considered as protectionists are discussed as for its effectiveness as current administration models, forcing to ali, states, companies, individuais, to understand it the width and depth of fast and huge choices in their several aspects. A lot of companies don't feel ready for alone to assume these new chailenges; then, a crescent number of alliances are getting together in several places of the world, searching for to reinforce competences and to cure dificiencies overcome to compete and to survive. The Pólo Ervateiro Gaúcho, considered as a center of production of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, is the object of this study. It was tried to know the individual characteristics of the companies that execute industrialization process and commercialization, under the aspect of chain of values and drivers of singularity (Porter, 1989); and how much these companies resemble each other for hereafter to be able to join looking for new markets, besides international, ones which ofter great opportunities. At the end, the work presents a picture of the groups of similar companies, types of alliances that can be adapted to their realities, stages of processes that each group should develop base in their characteristics, so that they can interfere in the international market, and an analysis of the levei of difficulty that probably the groups will face in the development and administration of alliances.

Made available in DSpace on 2010-04-20T20:51:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3 61060100569.pdf.jpg: 17543 bytes, checksum: c74bd00a0544b092b58dd92225ec6217 (MD5) 61060100569.pdf: 945451 bytes, checksum: bf42d9d92ec8d894f559f7b80215246d (MD5) 61060100569.pdf.txt: 258557 bytes, checksum: 41c9acc62d81302fbf794736cd068df6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-07-01T00:00:00Z / The choice of strategic alliances as a way to survive in the market is more common each day, more often since the 80's. Among all these alliances, one special type calls up our attention: the strategic alliances among competitors. Inside these alliances, also known as Horizontal Alliances, there is an element of simultaneous cooperation and competition, creating an apparent paradox. An interesting issue is to know how managers deals with this duality, carrying us to travel throughout an specter of different strategic relationships going from extreme competition till the open cooperation, passing through a co-opetitive vision, where market’s relationships may be, at same time, competitive and cooperative, composing a complex game of perceptions and impressions where the boundaries of competition become more and more unclear. This research tried to understand the sensemaking process in creating and managing strategic alliances between competitors through the phases purposed by Daft and Weick (1984): scanning, interpretation and learning. For this purpose, this thesis investigates the concepts of Strategic Alliance and Sensemaking, as well the way which this meaning is created about alliances opportunities. Also was investigated if these alliances are instrumentals and short term, or strategic and long term. The research strategy used in this thesis is based on multiple case studies, using ante narrative analysis and critical incident method as tools to construct the cases. Ante narrative analysis try to construct a narrative story through fragments of speeches and news. These analyses provided a valuable source of information used to construct the cases because they are focused in manager’s cognition issues and it is too difficult to capture this directly. The alliances studied in this research are the code-share operation between Varig and TAM, during approximately 2.5 years; and Credicard, a Brazilian credit card joint venture created by Itaú, Unibanco and Citibank in the early 70’s. Two major reasons justifies the choice of these alliances: both cases provide complete cycles of alliances life, but in different industries; and also both cases are well known Brazilian cases occurred recently. These cases show that the alliance’s meaning changes along the time, also changing the actions taken by the partners in response of the change of perceptions about the environment and the partners itself. While the perception and interpretation changes, the alliance’s game change too. So, it’s possible suppose while the meaning of alliances changes, also changes the goals and perception of the alliance, going from instrumentals to strategic, and vice-versa during the life time of an alliance. / A opção pelas alianças estratégicas como forma de sobrevivência empresarial tem se tornado cada vez mais comum, principalmente a partir da década de 1980. Dentre as alianças que vêm sendo formadas, um modelo chama a atenção por suas características peculiares: as alianças estratégicas entre empresas concorrentes. Essas alianças, também conhecidas como Alianças Horizontais, trazem em si um elemento de cooperação e competição simultâneos, criando um aparente paradoxo. Compreender como os gestores lidam com essa dualidade é uma tarefa interessante que nos leva a trafegar em um espectro de posições estratégicas que vão desde a competição extrema até a irrestrita cooperação, passando por uma visão co-opetitiva, onde as relações de mercado podem ser, ao mesmo tempo, de competição e cooperação, em um complexo jogo de percepções e impressões onde a fronteira da concorrência torna-se cada vez mais nebulosa. Esta pesquisa buscou compreender como se dá a criação de sentido (sensemaking) nos processos de formação e gestão de alianças estratégicas entre empresas concorrentes através das etapas de busca, percepção e interpretação propostas por Daft e Weick (1984). Para tal, foi necessário compreender os conceitos de Alianças Estratégicas e de criação de sentido (sensemaking), bem como entender o processo de criação de sentido acerca dessas oportunidades de alianças. Foi também importante investigar se essas alianças são formadas com intuitos instrumentais e imediatos ou se são vistas como estratégicas para a organização e de longo prazo. Utilizou-se neste trabalho uma estratégia de pesquisa com base em Estudo de Casos Múltiplos, valendo-se para tal de Análises de Antenarrativas e utilizou-se o Método do Incidente Crítico para orientar a análise. Análises de Antenarrativas buscam construir a narrativa dos casos através de fragmentos de falas e notícias. Por se tratar de uma construção focada na cognição dos gestores e reconhecendo a dificuldade de se captar essas questões, as antenarrativas forneceram um arcabouço material valioso para a construção dos casos. Foram estudadas as alianças entre TAM e Varig, quando realizaram operações de code-share durante cerca de 2,5 anos no início da década, e a Credicard, joint venture formada na década de 70 por Itaú, Unibanco e Citibank, para a expansão do mercado de cartões de crédito no país. Os casos utilizados foram escolhidos por duas razões principais: fornecem um ciclo completo de duas alianças diferentes, em setores diferentes, porém realizadas entre concorrentes; são casos emblemáticos na economia brasileira, com desfecho recente. Foi possível verificar que, para os casos citados, o sentido da aliança se altera ao longo do tempo, alterando também as ações tomadas por cada um dos parceiros em função da percepção que eles têm do ambiente e dos próprios parceiros. Enquanto muda a percepção, muda o próprio jogo da aliança. Dessa forma, é possível supor que o significado das alianças que vai mudando ao longo do tempo pode ser, em dado momento, instrumental e, em outro, estratégico.