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Horizontal relationships between subsidiaries within an MNC are rarely shown on an organisation chart but the interactions along this dimension are critical to the achievement of an MNC’s global operations and strategic activities. Different interaction logics of social relationships and economic exchanges in horizontal relationships induce simultaneous competition and collaboration between the subsidiaries. Collaboration and competition is a business reality in inter-subsidiary relationships as they collaborate to share resources and knowledge, but ultimately compete for resources, customers and profits. While much research has focused on the effects of internal collaboration, and to a lesser extent internal competition, on organisational performance, little is known about the antecedents of competition and collaboration and the interplay of simultaneously occurring interactions. By focusing on one or the other, any understanding of the inherent tensions between the two is overlooked. This research explores the coopetitive nature of the inter-subsidiary relationship using a qualitative approach within three MNCs, where internal competition and collaboration are more salient. Data were gathered from 98 semi-structured interviews with top and senior management, top management focus groups and a body of secondary data including internal reports, policy documents and external publications, among others, has been referenced. The study makes three key contributions. First, by extending Luo’s (2005) theoretical model of intra-MNE coopetition, the study identifies additional respective antecedents of competition and collaboration. Second, the study locates inherent tensions arising from inter-subsidiary coopetition and explicates how the tensions are managed by the HQ and subsidiaries using spatial, balancing and assessing mechanisms and specific interventions. Third, the study offers an empirically-based model of inter-subsidiary coopetition with a more dynamic and temporal set of multiple relationships among the subsidiaries within the MNCs. Management implications include that senior management teams be aware of the opportunities and constraints of promoting a culture of collaboration while simultaneously fostering inter-subsidiary competition through internal accounting policies and incentive systems, and that the capability of senior managers to work effectively within dual organisational structures be developed and incorporated into executive development programmes.

In this dissertation the opening up to competition of the ferry route between the cities Elsinore in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden is analysed. The Danish government was forced by a decision adopted by the Competition Directorate (DG IV) in the European Commission to open up this ferry route for ferry operators other than the state owned Danish operator, Danish Rail. Accordingly, the main case analysed in this dissertation illustrates the relationship between the competition authorities in the European Union (EU), empowered with supranational legislative powers through article 90 in the Treaty, and the member states. In the literature, DG IV, the service within the Commission mainly responsible for competition policy, is often described as an autonomous body. The main aim of this dissertation is to assess the autonomy of DG IV in its enforcement and implementation of EU competition policy; and, as the presentation of the main case above indicates, this question is discussed in the context of the introduction of EU competition policy into the domain of public sector monopolies. Two main broad approaches are adopted in analysing this area. First, a systems approach is set out, in which the EU competition policy-making regime is analysed by focusing on its development, legal foundation, and practical formulation in general and in relation to public sector monopolies. The aim here is primarily to reveal the nitty gritty of this regime, which till now has been only fragmentally described in the literature, and to ease the modelling of the main case study undertaken in this dissertation. The Elsinore case is then analysed by adopting three well known perspectives for analysing EU decision-making: an interest group approach; an interorganisational approach; and finally, an institutional approach. The analysis's main observation is that an institutional approach to EU decisionmaking seems to provide us with a more thorough understanding of the processes focused on here than the two other approaches, and that this, at least, should lead us to rephrase the notion of an autonomous DG IV in this area.

Η παρούσα μελέτη αφορά την διερεύνηση ενός cluster επιχειρήσεων μεταποίησης τροφίμων στην περιφέρεια της Ηπείρου και της Αργολίδας. Πρόθεση της, είναι να ερευνήσει τις αιτίες συγκέντρωσης των επιχειρήσεων αυτών στις περιοχές, τους λόγους για τους οποίους επιλέγουν οι παλαιότερες επιχειρήσεις να παραμείνουν στην ιστορική τους βάση και ωθούν νέες επιχειρήσεις να εγκατασταθούν στην περιοχή. Ερευνά τα ειδή των σχέσεων και τις συνεργασίες που αναπτύσσουν μεταξύ τους οι επιχειρήσεις, αν αναπτύσσουν, αλλά και τις σχέσεις τους με τους προμηθευτές και τους πελάτες τους. / The current study is about a cluster of food processing companies in Ipiros and Argolida Greece and the reasons why the choose the particular locations for their establishments.

I provide evidence on the impact of foreign competition on firms' propensities to engage in mergers and acquisitions. Using import tariff reductions as an exogenous shock that increases foreign industry competition, I find that affected firms are more likely to make acquisitions following a tariff reduction. Cross-sectional tests show that this association is more pronounced for single segment firms, firms that innovate less, or that are more capital intensive, which suggests this association is stronger for firms which stand to gain more from an acquisition. Moreover, the positive relationship between acquisition likelihood and tariff cuts is less pronounced for financially constrained firms and during times of low capital liquidity, which implies that it is easier for firms with greater access to external capital to respond to increases in foreign competition by making acquisitions. Finally, I find that acquisitions made subsequent to tariff decreases are associated with positive wealth gains for bidder shareholders, indicating that these acquisitions are viewed favorably by market participants.

Goldfish, an exotic originally from Asia, are frequently released into North American waters, causing unknown impacts on native fauna and flora. In the wild, diet overlap between feral goldfish (Carassius auratus) and native red-spotted newts (Notophthalmus v. viridescens) is high, leading to potential interspecific competition over food. In the laboratory, we manipulated densities of goldfish and red-spotted newts to test competition for benthic food organisms between these unrelated species. / No intraspecific interference was noted for either goldfish or newts at any density. However, as density increased food resources were more rapidly depleted by both species, suggesting scramble competition. Foraging strategies of the species differed. Goldfish shoaled more and abandoned food patches before they were depleted, whereas newts were solitary and exhausted a food patch before moving on to new sites. Both species found more food patches when with heterospecifics than with conspecifics, suggesting interspecific information transfer. In addition, goldfish found more food patches than newts in all trials, indicating scramble competition occurred.

The objective of the three essays of this doctoral dissertation is to investigate the strategic choices of organizational forms by competing firms in various environments. The first essay, which is a joint work with Professor Guofu Tan, provides an alternative theory of divestitures that relies on product-line complementarities and product market competition. We consider a simple environment in which there axe two firms, each supplying a group of complementary products and the products across groups axe imperfect substitutes. We model the firms' choices of divesting and pricing as a two-stage game. The duopohsts simultaneously choose their divestiture strategies in the first stage of the game and the independent divisions compete by setting prices in the second. It is shown that, when competing with each other, firms with complementary product-lines have incentives to split into multiple independent divisions supplying complementary products and services. Such divestitures increase prices and the parent firms' values but reduce aggregate social welfare. Moreover, the degree of divestiture, as we illustrate in the linear demand case, depends on the severity of competition and the nature of product-lines. Then, intensified competition due to deregulation, trade liberalization and entry may trigger divestitures. We further show that if two firms axe able to coordinate their divestiture strategies, they can achieve the joint monopoly prices and profits in a non-cooperative price game. The second essay analyzes the strategic incentive of oligopolists to create autonomous rival divisions when products are differentiated. We consider a two stage game where firms choose the number of autonomous divisions in the first stage and all the divisions engage in Cournot competition in the second. It is shown that product differentiation ensures the existence of an interior subgame perfect Nash equiubrium, and the equilibrium number of divisions increases with the degree of substitution among products and the number of firms. Further, if divisions are allowed to further divide, they always will, which leads to total rent dissipation. Thus, parent firms have incentives to unilaterally restrict their divisions from further dividing. In the free entry equihbrium, it is found that the possibility of setting up autonomous divisions is a natural barrier to entry. Incumbents may persistently earn abnormally high profits. In the cases where product differentiation is difficult, the only pure strategy free entry equilibrium is the monopoly outcome even if the entry cost is relatively low. The third essay develops a game theoretic model to analyze strategic leasing behaviors of landowners in a nonexclusively owned common oil pool. The oil field development is modeled as two more-or-less independent one-stage noncooperative game. The landowners choose leasing strategies in the first stage, and independent lease operators choose extraction strategies in the second. It is found that, in a nonexclusively owned oil field, it is individually rational for a landowner to unilaterally subdivide his landholding and delegate production rights to multiple independent firms, even though more dispersed production control leads to heavier common pool losses. Moreover, the degree of landownership concentration determines the degree of production concentration. The more fragmented the land ownership, the lower is the degree of production concentration i n equilibrium. The analysis offers an explanation for the puzzling landowners' leasing behaviors in U . S . onshore oil fields.

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Spatial competition, in the context of industry-wide changes in retailing formats and strategies, is addressed in this dissertation from a theoretical modelling perspective. Chapter2 develops a normative individual choice model to explore how "power retailers" affect grocery shopping behaviour, and, consequently, market share. Power retailers are very large retail outlets that compete primarily on price, and are known variously as warehouse clubs, category killers, and superstores. The model shows that consideration of consumer stockpiling can lead to an "increasing returns" nonlinear response of market share to price reductions, and that the effect is not noticeable when competitors have small price differences. The model also differentiates between perishable and nonperishable goods, and shows that this may drive planned multistore shopping. Chapter 3 starts with the observation that competent management in many sectors of retailing, including grocery retailing, requires an ability to respond quickly and effectively to unexpected adversity. This dynamic is included in an oligopolistic spatial interaction model, and the system is shown to evolve to a novel and robust stochastic steady state known as self-organized criticality (SOC). One characteristic of the SOC state is that it allows small exogenous shocks to produce large responses at a rate greater than would be expected if the law of large numbers applied. This work represents the first known investigation of SOC in a marketing setting.