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Current theoretical insights into firm internationalisation have mainly focused on large American multinationals or on smaller early internationalising firms. Global niche players, often competing alongside or even complementary, have been less researched. They, like larger players, often strive to go global and dominate their market segments simply to survive and endure processes of global consolidation and often it is necessary to achieve top global positions. One such successful global niche strategy variant is ‘Global Hidden Champions’ (GHCs), which are low profile, global top three under US$ 5 billion firms, mainly found in Germany (Simon, 2012). The question becomes pressing: how do GHCs reach world market leadership? This study seeks to identify through which internationalisation paths and associated market entry modes 30 GHCs investigated from Germany and Britain reached global dominance and the specific competitive advantages without which such strategies would not have succeeded. This thesis takes an evolutionary historic perspective by distinguishing enduring with less-enduring GHCs, established at various points in time between 1838 and 2007. A qualitative multiple case study approach is used based on 30 cases, 15 from each country. The abductive stance facilitates deductions of existing theoretical frameworks, whilst also allowing exploratory new themes to emerge. Structured and semi-structured interviews, combined with documentation, allow triangulation of findings and help minimise bias. Guided by the conceptual framework, data has been thematically coded, analysed and systematically explored, allowing several new themes to emerge. Not one single GHC was found pursuing the traditional Uppsala Model internationalisation path. Instead 43% were identified as Born Globals (BGs); 20% as Born-Again Globals (BAGs); but no less than 37% emerged as quite different hybrid internationalisers, which because of their quite distinctive traits, were denoted ‘Re- Born-Again Globals’ (Re-BAGs). The analysis involved innovative methodological analysis, which further clarified some partial overlap of BGs, BAGs, and re-BAGs with Uppsala Model features, yet decided differences in terms of tempo and direction. All three alternative paths led to top three global market leadership positions, depending on the GHCs context and historical circumstances. Nevertheless, recently established GHCs pursued BG paths, whereas more enduring GHCs almost all followed BAG and re-BAG paths. Younger British GHCs frequently embarked on early proactive paths, whilst their more enduring German equivalents pursued more belated internationalisation routes. History emerged as pivotal. BAGs and re-BAGs were both distinguished by critical incidents which, in all 17 cases, shifted strategies on to much more proactive internationalisation paths. German GHCs, though, shifted primarily in response to technology advances, whereas British GHCs typically responded to specific management appointments. Literature on accelerated internationalisation paths, such as in relation to BGs, remains unclear on commitments beyond trade. Yet, 90% of GHCs deployed substantial foreign direct investment (FDI), in addition to mere trade activity. Initially, German GHCs grew organically focusing on neighbouring markets. In contrast, British GHCs often used acquisitions and targeted more global, in particular, Commonwealth markets. FDI thus emerged as a crucial addition to export activity in all three alternative paths followed by BGs, BAGs and re-BAGs enabling them to sustain leading global market positions. Yet, such paths were in turn contingent upon competitive advantages. GHCs from both countries complied remarkably closely with 6 out of 8 of Simon’s (2009) identified theoretical HC Model traits: being ‘leadership with ambitious goals’; ‘innovation’; ‘high-performance employees’; ‘closeness to customer’; ‘globalisation’, and ‘focus’. More in depth, albeit exploratory, analysis further uncovered the critical role played by ‘visions and values’ and ‘brand’, leading to a new tentative theoretical GHC Model. This new Model, moreover, recognises a virtuous cycle of market leadership advantages from which more enduring GHCs particularly benefitted. It also integrates comfortably with Teece’s (2014) model of dynamic capabilities, extending his framework by including market leadership approaches and more precise competitive advantages of the GHC Model, alongside more specific concepts relating to entrepreneurial orientation. In summary, this study contributes to the knowledge of how both long-standing and newer German and British GHCs conquer global markets by unveiling their specific and successful internationalisation paths, market entry mode choices and their underlying competitive advantages.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 58 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 55-58).

<p>The term of Hidden Champions was first put forward by Simon (1996a) in his book and has already been a well-studied subject all over the world. The purpose of this dissertation is to figure out what are the main factors underlying Chinese Hidden Champions. </p><p>The literature part is composed of earlier research on Hidden Champions and theories on several factors that have been identified by authors, which form an analytical framework for analyzing empirical data.</p><p>Conducting a qualitative approach, the empirical data was collected through semi-structured telephone interviews with the senior personnel of two Chinese companies. Secondary data, such as public reports, also played a complementary role.</p><p>The findings of this study showed the factors of clear goal, excellent entrepreneur, focused strategy, sustained innovation, globalization and customer orientation immensely affect the success of Chinese Hidden Champions. It was also pointed out that there remain some views that are different from concepts of Simon’s.</p>

Two brain segmentation approaches based on Hidden Markov Models are proposed. The first approach aims to segment normal brain 3D multi-channel MR images into three tissues WM, GM, and CSF. Linear Discriminant Analysis, LDA, is applied to separate voxels belonging to different tissues as well as to reduce their features vector size. The second approach aims to detect MS lesions in Brain 3D multi-channel MR images and to label WM, GM, and CSF tissues. Preprocessing is applied in both approaches to reduce the noise level and to address sudden intensity and global intensity correction. The proposed techniques are tested using 3D images from Montereal BrainWeb data set. In the first approach, the results were numerically assessed and compared to results reported using techniques based on single channel data and applied to the same data sets. The results obtained using the multi channel HMM-based algorithm were better than the results reported for single channel data in terms of an objective measure of overlap, Dice coefficient, compared to other methods. In the second approach, the segmentation accuracy is measured using Dice coefficient and total lesions load percentage

In this thesis, a two-word, three-word and four-word Mandarin phrases speech recognition system is studied and implemented. This system utilizes hidden Markov model, lexicon search strategy and tone recognition to select the initial phrase candidates and make the final decision. Experimental results indicate that using about one third of the total phrase population, 80%, 92% and 97% correct rates can be achieved for the 70,000 two-word, 24,000 three-word and 22,000 four-word phrases recognition problems respectively. Any spoken phrase can be found within 1 second, using a PC with Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz CPU and Red Hat Linux 9.0 operating system.

In this thesis, hidden Markov model, maximum likelihood ratio and lexicon search strategy are used to establish a Chinese resume inputting system. The resume contains five items: name introduction, gender, birth date, birth place and education. This system is developed using a PC with an Intel Pentium 1.6 GHz CPU and Red Hat Linux 9.0 operating system. For the speaker-dependent case, a resume can be completed within 45 seconds on the average.

The objective of this thesis is to design and implement a speech recognition system for one hundred thousand Chinese names. Mel frequency cepstrum coefficient, hidden Markov model and lexicon search strategy are utilized to choose the name candidates. Furthermore, a mandarin intonation technique is also incorporated into this system to increase the final speech recognition accuracy. The experimental results indicate that for the speaker dependent case, an 85% correct rate can be achieved by use of the proposed intonation classification scheme and the balanced monosyllable training database. The above correct rate has an increase of 8% over the previous method without using these two techniques. Under Redhat Linux 9.0 environment, a mandarin name can be recognized within 2 seconds by the use of a computer with Intel Celeron 2.4 GHz CPU.