This thesis critically analyses the definitions of strategy within the management control literature, the relationship between resource-based view of strategy and the balanced scorecard, as well as the impact of these on manager's perceived performance. Contingency theory has been used as the overall framework for this thesis. The thesis discusses the interaction between changes in management control systems and organisational changes through the use of the Laughlin framework and the three mechanisms of institutional isomorphic suggested by DiMaggio and Powell.

華人藝術市場的主要區塊是台灣、香港、及中國大陸，然而三者的發展背景、時間和模式都不同。其中，台灣因為保留了最完整的中華文化與人文素養，使得台灣成為最早發展華人西畫藝術的地方，也是發展最成熟的地方，幾乎主導了「二十世紀華人藝術」項目的市場走向。 八零年代開始台灣經濟起飛，各項商業活動蓬勃發展，藝術市場也欣欣向榮。國際知名拍賣公司—蘇富比（Sotheby’s）洞見先機，1981年便來台設立辦事處，1992年台灣正式成為拍賣中心，於3月22日舉辦台灣首拍。競爭對手佳士得（Christie’s）則於1991年成立台灣辦事處（太古佳士得台灣分公司），1993年10月10日在台舉辦首場拍賣。這兩家在當時獨佔全球藝術拍賣市場的國際公司來台舉行拍賣會，帶動了台灣拍賣產業與國際接軌，更發展台灣成為華人西畫藝術最重要的成熟市場。 本研究的目的是比較九零年代兩大國際拍賣公司進入台灣市場的營運策略，梳理其策略觀點與資源基礎之分析，探討哪些異質性資源決定了企業競爭力的差異、影響持久競爭優勢之形成，及如何充分運用差異性機會追求成長。由於大多數台灣本土拍賣公司的規模與優勢較小，面對亞洲市場的成長和外國拍賣公司的潛在競爭，期望本研究結果有助於台灣本土拍賣公司在經營華人藝術項目的拍賣策略與經營方向的擬定。 本研究發現，蘇富比與佳士得在台獲致成功的營運策略核心是調適策略—因地制宜且熟悉地主國文化之地主國導向調適；而有關進入對台灣拍賣產業帶來之影響，本研究發現，兩大國際拍賣公司不僅幫助台灣藝術拍賣產業奠定各項規範，使台灣正式與國際接軌，也帶動畫廊、藝術博覽會等相關藝文產業升級，成功的拍賣會更擴大帶動周圍其他產業（如旅館業、餐飲業、會展業、精品業等）的發展商機。 ※ 關鍵字：資源基礎，佳士得，蘇富比，二十世紀華人藝術。 / The main areas of Chinese art market are Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China; however, the developing background, time and model in each area are quite different. Among the three, Taiwan is the earliest and the most developed market for Chinese oil paintings because of its full preservation of Chinese culture and humanities. Taiwan almost dominates the market trend of “20th Century Chinese Art”. In 1980s, the economy in Taiwan was booming and commercial activities were very active which lead to thriving art market. Sotheby’s foresaw the opportunity to carry out auction business in Taiwan. Therefore, the company established Taiwan branch office in 1981 and upgraded the branch to auction center in 1992, holding the first auction in Taiwan on March 22nd in the same year. Its competitor, Christie’s, established Taiwan branch in 1991. Unlike Sotheby’s, Christie’s formed a joint venture to enter Taiwan. It established “Christie’s Swire” Taiwan in 1991 and started its first auction in October 10th, 1993. The two global auction companies coming to Taiwan to hold auctions drove Taiwan’s art auction industry to be geared to international standards. Furthermore, Sotheby’s and Christie’s coming has transformed Taiwan to become the most mature art market of 20th Century Chinese Art. The purpose of this thesis is to compare the operational strategies of Sotheby’s and Christie’s in Taiwan in the 90s. By analyzing their strategies and resource bases, we can understand how heterogeneous resources affect their competitiveness, sustainable competitive advantages, and pursuing of growth opportunities. Because most Taiwanese local auction houses are small and have less competitive advantage, facing the strong growth of Asian art market and potential competition of foreign auction houses, I hope that my research findings can help their strategic thinking and strategy formation to capture the business opportunities in 20th Century Chinese Art. This research finds that the core strategy to make Sotheby’s and Christie’s successful in Taiwan art market is “adaption”, which is a poly-centric adaption in which the companies are pretty familiar with local conditions and culture of the host country. As for the impact these two companies have on Taiwan art auction industry, this research finds that Sotheby’s and Christie’s coming not only help Taiwan settle the norms of auction and make Taiwan to be geared to international standards, but also drive galleries, art fairs and other related art industries upgrading. The successful auctions in Taiwan have also stimulated the development of other industries, such as hotels, restaurants, conventions, exhibitions, and luxury industry. ※ Keywords: Resource-based view, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, 20th Century Chinese Art.

The world market has during recent decades become an increasingly globalized arena, in which lowered trade barriers, enhanced technology, worldwide communication and containerization have made internationalization an easily obtainable option for companies. The once dominating multinational enterprises are present day challenged by small- and medium sized enterprises as global actors, and competitiveness is an ever-increasing factor, making the pursuit and exploitation of opportunities essential.   The International Entrepreneurship Theory has during the last two decades emerged as a theory explaining the phenomena of small- and medium sized enterprises internationalizing their operations at an early age; a theory comprehending entrepreneurial behavior, the ability to explore and take advantage of opportunities overlooked by others in order to create value in the organization.   The purpose of this thesis is to create an understanding of the emergence, definition and theoretical framework of the International Entrepreneurship Theory. By implementing a deductive research approach and a quantitative research method, empirical data is collected in order to confront the theoretical framework in the analysis. The analysis will further be the basis for conclusions and recommendations that will conclude our thesis.

The study is a retrospective and summarized the related subjected and jounals of corelations.The accumulated materials and subjects let us understanding the present trend of the bussiness,the strategy,tendency and point of profit that attracts.This study also let us have a view of how International Bussiness Machine(IBM) becomes a leading star in the field of electronic technology bussiness.This study including the analysis of organizatin,porduct,diferent of market,the strategy of market,the service and inventive value.In essentials,the 5 points of successful elements is(1)the high value of bussiness culture,(2)attrative salary and benefits,(3)efficient leadership,(4)invention,(5)decrease the fixed consumtions and costs.The author also want to present the difference between the past and present change in this area of competitions and maturation of the markets.Either the red ocean strategy of market percentage increase or the mainly inventive leading of blue ocean strategy,the leading man should have a view of complete understanding of the changing markets and opportunity at the changing moments.We all know even excellent company will lose to 2nd on time by other competitor.Ultimately,the one who invented the strategy of blue ocean that make up a strong profitable revenue is in commonplace that need our further study.The author of this article want to make dicussions on the competitive invention and new strategy that make the electronic technology a pace ahead the others and make it the out-standing business of the others.

The goal of this dissertation was to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between supply chain structure and the pursuit of a sustainability-driven corporate strategy. The literature indicates that in order to pursue a sustainability-focused strategy, an increased level of integration across the supply chain is required. However, there are also industry-level dynamics that impact observed levels of vertical integration. That is, some industries are naturally more integrated than others based on the maturity level of the industry. Thus, some firms may experience opposing forces regarding their sourcing strategies once they choose to pursue a sustainability-focused strategy. To explore this potential tension, it is first necessary to objectively measure vertical integration. Several methods for measuring vertical integration exist; however, all of these methods rely exclusively on economic data. These measures might overlook other forms of integration that might be enacted, such as the development of stronger social ties. Thus, this research will seek to utilize a novel method that makes use of social network analysis to assess integration among firms in a supply chain along social dimensions. This dissertation 1) determined the correlation between having a vertically-integrated organizational structure and pursuing a sustainable supply chain strategy by identifying if sustainability-focused companies (SFCs) have a more vertically-integrated organizational structure than their counterparts that are not pursuing such strategies, 2) examined the evolution of supply chain structure as a company becomes more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable over time, and 3) defined the social ties between SFCs and their first- and second-tier suppliers to understand if they develop stronger social ties as a potential substitute for pure vertical integration. This dissertation is comprised of four main parts. In the first part of the dissertation, I compared three recently developed vertical integration indices based on consistency and ease of measurement. The three vertical integration indices studied were empirically tested on companies in the U.S. Medical Devices Industry and the limitations of each are discussed. Our analysis suggested adoption of the Fan and Lang's method. In the second part, I examined the vertical integration level of environmentally sustainable and non-sustainable companies. I empirically examined the vertical integration level of 144 sustainability-focused companies in 9 different industries. The results demonstrate that sustainability-focused companies in the Medical Devices Industry and the Industrials Industry tend to have more vertically integrated organizational structures than their industry competitors that are not pursuing such a strategy since these two industries are production oriented and they have closer relationships with their suppliers. In the third part, the objective was to understand how the organizational structure of sustainability-focused companies changes over time as the companies become more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. I applied trend analysis to the sustainability and vertical integration level of the companies. Our sample consisted of 10 sustainability-focused companies from the industrials industry. I used the content analysis of annual reports to calculate sustainability development scores, and applied the Fan and Lang's method to determine the vertical integration level of the companies. The study results demonstrated an increasing trend in both vertical integration and sustainability development of industrial industry companies over a 15-year of period. Furthermore, the companies became more vertically integrated as their environmental, economical, and social sustainability increased. Finally, in the fourth part, I developed and empirically tested a theoretical model that examines the supplier relationships of sustainability-focused companies (SFCs) to understand if these relationships are substitute to a vertically integrated organizational structure. Furthermore, I tested if SFCs are more socially connected to their suppliers compared to non-sustainable companies (non-SFCs). An online survey instrument was utilized for data collection. The empirical findings of path analysis demonstrated that SFCs establish long term relationships, collaborate, transfer know-how and experience, and create strong-ties with their first and second-tier suppliers to have an organizational structure that is substitute to a pure vertical integration. Findings further revealed that SFCs are connected to their first and second tier suppliers with stronger social ties compared to non-SFCs. Results support the natural transaction cost economics and natural resource based perspectives. Our study results should be useful to researchers and managers who are interested in corporate sustainability behavior.

The author analyzed three different perspectives of the development of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) from the resource-based view. The first article discusses how the resource base impacts the internationalization behavior of German NTBFs. Some companies go international early, some internationalize only after a few years. We argued that the resource base is a substantial factor determining if a NTBF will internationalize or not. In the second article, we analyze how the resource base impacts the survival of German NTBFs. We argued that a lack of sufficient resources can lead to early business failure. We further state that the different resources are necessary to fulfill the requirements within the development phases of the NTBF. To broaden our perspective we combined the resource-based view with the market view. In the third article, we analyzed how the resource base impacts the business model innovation of NTBFs. The business model for NTBFs must often be tailored to fulfill the requirements of potential customers or to further grow the business. A sufficient resource base is necessary to be able to change the business model and buffer the transition phase.

Purpose To determine sustainable Resource Based View drivers (RBV) (i.e. resources, capabilities) and motivation for the successful (i.e. positive Financial (FP) / Social Performance (SP)) implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the strategies of top performing companies in regards to CSR. In addition to find out how these drivers are being nourished, developed and utilized in order to contribute to the sustainable development in companies. Design/ Methodology/ Approach Interviews are held with CSR-managers from top performing companies based on their engagement and performance in CSR. In addition, their Corporate Responsibility (CR) reports are observed in order to apply triangulation on the company’s engagement in CSR. Furthermore shall reports by third party organizations be observed to get multiple perspectives on the concept of CSR and Sustainability? Lastly an exclusive guest lecture at Linnaeus University is attended which provided insight on corporate partnership in regards to CSR from the point of view of a charitable organization. Findings The most important non-financial drivers of CSR and Sustainability are; knowledge flow, capabilities and competence. Knowledge can be acquired through active engagement with all the company’s stakeholders, especially by collaborating with universities and for example charitable organizations. Companies have invested in the training of top level management in their understanding of the importance of CSR and Sustainability. This is because the top level management is seen as the driving and deciding force within the company to engage in CSR and Sustainability. Some companies have invested research in the understanding of their stakeholders’ perceptions on Sustainability issues which they deem as most important. Delimitations/ Limitations This research investigates the non-financial drivers (i.e. sources and antecedents) of CSR and Suitability in order to invest in and develop the drivers with the purpose of further developing Sustainability. This research is primarily focussed on Swedish companies as they seem to be further advanced in this subject due to for example legislation and the fact that Sweden is one of the most prosperous countries in the world. The purpose of this research is not to generalize the findings, but to provide insight so other companies could learn and develop themselves further in their pursuit for Sustainability.  Implications In order to develop Sustainability further companies need to create tighter collaborations with especially universities as the managers and business leaders for the future, but also other employees, are the students of today. Especially business students complain about the way their subject is being taught as it fails to thoroughly address current and future business problems. Furthermore the concept of Sustainability should be taught not only at universities but at high schools as well, because the society as a whole needs to collaborate to deal with the mega forces that await us in the not too distant future.  Originality/ Value CSR finds itself in a cross-section in academic literature between different affecting disciplines. By combining the different disciplines the authors want to contribute to sustainable development and competitive advantage in CSR-strategies by examining top performing companies who are (perceived to be) well advanced in this subject. Previous research has primarily focussed on proving the relationship between implementing CSR and positive Financial Performance (FP) as the driver of CSR. Much less have other antecedents to CSR been investigated with purpose of further improving sustainable development.

The wood-based building products industry has experienced significant turbulence over the past several decades as a function of multiple forces including among others globalization, product and process innovation, and shifting customer and consumer interest and demands. Collectively, these changes have challenged the historical tenets which have defined industry strategy and competition in the realm of basic products and contributed to consolidation and labor reductions. Consequently, an onus has been placed on industry participants to better understand and adapt to the new competitive landscape or risk loss of competitive advantages built on the practices suited to historical tradition. However, a limited range of work that considers the machinations of turbulence and resulting strategic implications has been directed toward the industry particularly where differentiation of products is limited. A contributing factor for this deficiency is the relative stability that has defined the industry for generations due in part to limited strategic variation beyond cost and production, limited cycles of technological and product innovation, commodity nature of many products, and passive manner of consumption. Accordingly, there is value in work that takes a critical and empirical view of industry changes in the context of both strategic and competitive implications, how participating firms address challenges, and what factors influence consumer purchase decisions. This work addresses this need through examination of each element, industry, firm, and consumer, in the context of turbulence, competition, and strategy and delineates previously unidentified considerations for competing in the new landscape. At the industry level, drivers of industry turbulence and subsequent strategic challenges, adaptations, and opportunities are identified and reviewed. Analysis suggests that improved strategy which considers organizational and product differentiation beyond cost and production efficiencies permits greater stability and increased leverage in the turbulent competitive environment. Recognizing a need for improved strategy, the firm level analysis employs a primary qualitative approach to isolate previously unidentified firm qualities analogous to successful deployment of a market orientation strategy using the resource based view of the firm as a framework for analysis. Connecting strategy to the consumer and product, theoretical consumer behavior constructs (consumption, behavior, and involvement) were connected to conceptualize dimensions of product differentiation capable of holding consumer appeal and acting as behavioral drivers in the passively consumed arena of primary wood-based building products. Taken together this work provides a view of strategic considerations within the wood-based building product industry that extends beyond previous work in several ways. First, by considering industry environment, firm strategy, and consumer behavior and product differentiation collectively in the manner described, this work provides a more vertically complete strategic perspective for industry participants. Second, within each chapter, findings and case based examples relevant to each element are presented. / Graduation date: 2012

This study provides a better understanding of the interactions between firm resources, strategy choice, marketing environment, and performance in rural SMEs. To date, a strategy framework specifically for SMEs in developing countries had not been developed. Past studies adapted the Miles and Snow (1987) strategy typologies or have developed strategy types for SMEs in developing countries only conceptually. This study extended the modelling approach adopted by DeSarbo et al., (2005, 2006) by empirically deriving a strategy typology specifically for SMEs in a developing country. Based on K-means clustering of theoretically relevant strategy dimensions, two strategy clusters were identified??lower performing conservative strategy A, and higher performing customer oriented strategy B. The issue of resource limitations in strategy formulation had not been adequately addressed by past studies on SME strategy. By examining how and to what extent objective and perceived dimensions of the external environment impact the resources-strategy-performance (RSP) links in rural SMEs, the study tested the applicability of the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) in a new context??that of rural SMEs in a developing country. Both RBV and KBV were supported by the findings. Key strategic resources in rural SMEs were explored for its strategic and performance implications. General resources and capabilities, knowledge-based resources, and in particular ??tacit?? marketing knowledge, were examined in an aggregated sense through the intuitive understanding within the one SME owner-manager. Strategy choice moderated and mediated the resource-performance relationship. SMEs with higher levels of resources and capabilities tended to adopt the higher performing strategy B. The study provided further insights on the kinds of knowledge that mattered. Knowledge-based resources that were more tacit in character determined strategy choice and performance??higher customer serving skills led to adopting the higher performing strategy B, while planning skills led to adopting the lower performing strategy A. Both the objective and perceived environments influenced SME performance by moderating the resource-strategy-performance relationship. SMEs located in more munificent provinces perceived their market environment accurately, possessed higher knowledge-based resources, and were more likely to adopt the higher performing strategy B.

The rapid advancement and penetration of information technology (IT), amid continued questions over its benefits, has resulted in research efforts to understand the extent to which IT resources contribute to organisational performance. There is little question that the presence of IT contributes to organisational performance. Our understanding of how and where IT contributes to value in organisations, however, is limited. Current IT business value research advances the notion that firm’s IT-related capabilities ability to leverage their IT resources explains the IT-related performance differences across firms. Understanding the nature of the IT-related capabilities, and their relationship with IT resources can provide a better understanding of how organisations can make better use of their IT resources. IT resources are dynamic and change at a rapid pace. Current IT business value research suggests the firm’s IT-related capabilities at a point in time can source value from the IT resources. However, firms IT-related capabilities must demonstrate parallel dynamics to maximise their influence on their IT resources. In this dynamic resource relationship environment, firm’s ability to sustain a level of influence on their IT resources will determine the extent of IT resources’ value-creating ability. Using the resource-based view of the firm that suggest an organisation is a bundle of resources, and using a complementary theoretical lens, this study introduces a higher-level resource, co-created by combining two or more complementary resources. This higher-level resource is capable of contributing to business value on its own, and importantly, can help organisations sustain their existing IT-related capabilities. The sustainable IT-related capabilities will have a better influence on the IT resources and will source better IT-related business value. This higher-level resource can also help with the timing of IT investments, and can provide an environment where a firm’s technical IT skills can better integrate the IT resources into the business processes. On measurement of organisational performance, this study suggests that a unique combination of organisational resources creates an efficient and effective internal environment that then becomes a powerful tool to enhance the key external process of customer service. Such enhancements in process-level efficiency and effectiveness will carry forward to be recognised in overall firm-level performance. This study develops and tests a model that assesses the association between the two generic IT resources (IT investment and technical IT skills), three IT-related capabilities (top management commitment, shared organisational knowledge, and flexible IT infrastructure), and internal process-level performance. It also assesses whether the IT-Usage Platform, a higher-level co-created resource, on its own associates with, and enhances the generic IT resources’ and IT-related capabilities’ association with internal process-level performance. The study also proposes that improvement in internal process-level performance will be positively associated with external process-level performance of customer service. Firms that improve their internal and external process performance should also improve their firm-level performance. The results, as hypothesised, failed to reject the non-association between the generic IT resources and the internal process-level performance. The study, as predicted, found a positive association between the three IT-related capabilities, IT-Usage Platform, and the internal process-level performance. The IT-Usage Platform indeed enhances the association between the IT-related capabilities and internal process-level performance. The results also suggest that the association between the technical IT skills and internal process-level performance improves in the presence of the IT-Usage Platform. Firms’ improved internal process-level performance also relates to improvement in external process-level performance. Improvement in the internal-external process performance also contributes to performance at the firm level. For research, this study demonstrates that the complementarity and the resource-based view theories allow inclusion of a greater variety of resources in a bundle of capable resources that could be a source of IT-related business value. The complementary theoretical lens also enables one to consider firms’ higher-level resources, co-created from complementary resources. The result is a robust model with the flexibility to consider other forms of resource interactions that sustain firms existing IT-related capabilities. The model also enables comparison of IT and other organisational resources on a level-platform and allows for a deeper understanding of how organisations can better leverage their IT resources. The study also presents the internal-external coordination path of IT-related value creation. For decision makers this study reinforces the importance of the concept of a coordinated IT-related change to secure value from their IT investments. It also presents decision makers with a visual IT business value path from internal process benefits to external process benefits, and finally to firm-level benefits. This study suggests all organisational resources, through various combinations, could be a source of IT-related business value. Future research can consider resources that are at the boundary of capable/non-capable resources to evaluate whether firms various resource arrangements can make these resources more valuable in sourcing IT-related business value. This research also provides strong theoretical arguments to consider other higher-level factors that may have the potential to sustain firms existing IT-related capabilities.