Bakgrund: Svenskarna ligger idag i topp på listan över andelen internetanvändare i befolkningen. Hela 94 procent av Sveriges befolkning använder internet och av dem har hela 84 procent någon gång handlat på internet. E-handeln växer så det knakar och det gör att konsumenternas krav på leveransservice ökar. Man kan se det som att leveransservice har utvecklats till ett nytt konkurrensmedel för att kunna överleva på en hårt konkurrensutsatt marknad. Syfte och forskningsfrågor: Syftet med studien är att undersöka och analysera svenska ehandelsföretags leveransservice för att bidra till en ökad förståelse för betydelsen av leveransservice. För att uppfylla syftet har följande forskningsfrågor utformats: Hur arbetar utvalda svenska e-handelsföretag med leveransservice som konkurrensmedel? Hur lever utvalda svenska e-handelsföretag upp till konsumenternas krav på leveransservice? Metod och tillvägagångssätt: Datainsamling har skett genom två metoder. Utvalda ehandelsföretag har intervjuats i syfte att ta reda på hur de arbetar med leveransservice. Detta har kombinerats med en enkätundersökning där konsumenters förväntan på leveransservice undersökts. Datan har tolkats och analyserats på ett kvalitativt sätt för att skapa en förståelse för ämnet. Slutsats: Studien visar att svenska e-handelsföretag lever upp till konsumenternas krav på leveransservice samt att de arbetar kontinuerligt för att fortsätta med detta. Resultatet av studien har bekräftat att leveransservice är ett viktigt konkurrensmedel men att det är svårt för e-handelsföretagen att hitta den optimala nivån att ligga på. I takt med att konsumenternas krav på leveransservice ökar gäller det för företagen att följa denna utveckling och ständigt arbeta med effektiviseringar.

Many organisations use strategic management as an imperative to gain competitive advantages. Theorists have not been able to ascertain whether prescriptive or emergent strategic approaches will be most suitable within an organisational climate for sustaining these competitive advantages. The notion of creativity has been identified as a source of competitive advantage that organisations may make use of within their strategic frameworks. However, within the organisational climate, there may be various barriers to creativity that will impede performance outcomes, efficiency and potential competitive advantage for an organisation. The study concerns itself m d y with an investigation into the strategic and organisational climates within selected higher education institutions in South Africa, as these institutions are in need of an assessment regarding potential sources of competitive advantage, in order to survive. The imperative to remain competitive is primarily due to the turbulent and changeable environments that these institutions find themselves in. This instability has occurred as a result of various changes in higher education due to the merging of several higher education institutions and the changes in the configuration of others. The study has shown that creativity is a source of competitive advantage. This was done by determining which barriers to creativity were present within the organisational climates of the selected institutions, as well as which strategic management approaches were being employed by the said institutions. The information obtained from the data gathered was compared to two competitive advantage measures (throughput and research output rates) of those higher education institutions. Three pivotal questions were asked and answered by the study in this regard. What are the prevalent prescriptive strategy dimensions and processes being employed by selected South African public higher education institutions? What are the prevalent creativity barrier dimensions that exist with selected public higher education institutions in South Africa? What relationships can be observed between the prescriptive strategy dimensions, the creativity barrier dimensions and the organisational competitive advantage performance output dimensions of throughput rate and research output in selected public South African higher education institutions? Non probability, judgment sample was obtained from four selected higher education institutions located in the Gauteng province in South Africa during the latter half of 2004. The survey requested certain biographical information on respondents (who had to fulfill the criteria of being full-time academic employees working for the institution in question), information on the strategic climate and barriers to creativity with the organisational climate. The last section of the questionnaire contained open-ended questions. Data on the throughput and research output rates of the institutions was obtained separately from the South African Department of Education (DOE), and correlated against the data obtained from the questionnaire. The questionnaire was testing for eight pre-determined creativity factors within the organisational climate (identified from the literature review and previous studies), and a separate dimension of prescriptive strategic planning. Overall only five of the creativity barriers were found to be most predominant within the selected higher education institutions, namely: Insufficient Resources; Lack of Team Unity; Lack of Organisational Support; Organisational Hindrances and Workload pressure. The factors were compared to the measures of competitive advantage and it was determined that there was a positive correlation between a higher prevalence of barriers and a lower performance output, which indicated that creativity could be identified as a source of competitive advantage within those institutions. This lent evidence to support the initial, first hypothesis of the study. Furthermore, it was discovered that those institutions that were utilising prescriptive strategic management approaches were more inched to achieve higher performance in terms of their throughput rates. Refuted the second hypothesis of the study that was advocating that emergent strategy was more likely to result in competitive advantage. More education institutions, known for their typically bureaucratic approaches might be more able to utilise formal procedures to obtain increased competitive advantage than utilising a more informal, emergent approach, as academic employees might more freely be able to explore creative alternatives under the security of prescriptive strategic approaches. It is likely that any organisation would wish to improve their competitive performance in order to be more effective. Higher education institutions also need to be concerned about their performance in order to continue operating effectively. It is necessary, then for those higher education institutions, to take note of these potential barriers to creativity with their organisational climates, which were highlighted by the study and to proactively remove them to ensure they remain competitive into the future. In addition, these institutions should consider which strategic management approaches they are currently utilising and streamline them to cement the competitive advantage. It was advocated that South African higher education institutions should be adopting formalised strategic management approaches in this regard. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Management))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

This thesis forms part of a PhD by Publication based on the research and scholarly work of Sheila Wright. It explores her contribution to the field of Competitive Intelligence & Insight Management (CI&IM) made through ten articles published between 2002 and 2010. The research projects that involved the collection of primary data were carried out within a qualitative research methodology using a semi-structured interview or case study method and typically adopting a pragmatic paradigm. Through this work, it has been possible to present a best-practice framework for CI&IM. Similarly, it has been possible to develop an operational framework for CI&IM, which identifies the inter-connectivity of the CI&IM tasks as well as the organisational influencing factors which can aid or hinder successful implementation. As well as engaging in a critical evaluation of current CI&IM practice the thesis indicates how the articles offer solutions which can aid the delivery of improved performance to practitioners as well as academics who teach and research the subject. The thesis also identifies the place of CI&IM in the business discipline and draws attention to the cross-boundary, inter-disciplinary nature of its reach. The development of bibliometric software and citation identification programmes has enabled the inclusion of a citation analysis for each article which also identifies the context within which that citation was made. This is presented as supporting evidence for the contribution to knowledge and value of the body of work. Through this mechanism it has also been possible, not only to identify the frequency with which the articles have been cited, but more importantly, the impact and contribution this has had on scholars who have subsequently used the output and frameworks as a basis for their own research.

“Knowledge is the only treasure you can give entirely without running short of it (African proverb cited in IFAD, 2007).” And it has been largely recognised by organisations that knowledge is a resource that they can leverage on. As Bryan (2004) mentioned, the proprietary knowledge that resides in the minds of a company’s top professionals are a source of Competitive Advantage. Therefore, organisations that leverage on Knowledge Management to promote a Knowledge Management Strategy can achieve Competitive Advantage in a world of rapid change and growth where only organisations who keep on learning and adapting will survive. Therefore, this thesis work aims to answer the following research question: “How does leveraging on Knowledge Management promotes the delivery of Knowledge Management Strategy to achieve Competitive Advantage through the Dynamic Capabilities View?” The purpose of this research is to understand more about the practical path which aims to evolve into a dynamic path for organisations to leverage on Knowledge Management (KM) in order that its strategy consecution delivers Competitive Advantage. The authors explore the subject matter by building from existing literature on the main theoretical areas encountered, and then design the research and its approach from the research question. The research followed a qualitative approach and method by utilising semi-structured interviews done to 7 international development organisations, where 13 respondents contributed with their experiences and insights from their involvement in KM in their organisations. Moreover, secondary data was used to complement, support, compare and contrast the findings of the empirical research as the authors used qualitative documents related to the topic published by the organisations. As a result, all primary and secondary data were analysed in an inter-subjective interpretative way deriving from the theoretical framework in order to answer the research question. The research revealed that the identified gap in literature between Knowledge Management and Knowledge Management Strategy is also existing in practice. It was identified that it depends on the maturity of KM in the organisation and/or the organisation’ maturity itself. But is not only restricted to that, the success of a KMS is directly linked to how the organisation articulates KM, and the importance given to it is based on the sense and utilisation of the dynamic nature of KM. Thus, it can turn its organisational capabilities into Dynamic Capabilities and achieve a Competitive Advantage, this is fundamental in international development organisations in the nonprofit sector, which is increasingly striving for resources where every organisation aims to be “the partner of choice.”

With the arising digital disruption and global market pressures, several manufacturing companies have recognized the strategic integration of services as a way to competitive advantage and corporate profitability, they therefore have the desire to differentiate themselves by creating new service-oriented strategies, namely Product-Service Systems (PSS). While transforming towards a PSS provider there are a number of barriers that the organization has to overcome. After an extensive literature review the authors identified 34 such barriers. Tukker (2015) argues that the number of successful adoptions of PSS among manufacturing firms is surprisingly low, despite an increased literature awareness and focus on the barriers. The identified barriers are most often seen through the manufacturers’ perspective and little is mentioned about the customers’ perspective on barriers. The gap that was identified in the literature was the lack of customers’ perspective upon these barriers. This thesis aims to investigate the perceived barriers from both the customers’- and the provider’s perspective, and to examine which barriers the provider should emphasize to have the highest potential to successfully transform into a PSS provider. We used Bosch Rexroth as a focal firm and conducted in total 29 interviews with them and their customers and a workshop with 11 participants from the provider. The data from the provider and the customers were separately analysed until the last step, where it generated a barrier spheres. The spheres were used as a foundation for the emerging framework. The framework’s step wise approach is a guideline for manufacturing firms in their efforts to overcome the barriers in order to successfully adopt PSS. This thesis is a first contribution towards shredding light upon the customers’ perspective of barriers towards PSS. Our research shows that one perspective of these barriers is insufficient, since PSS involves both the provider and the customers it should thereby include both perspectives. The managerial implications of this thesis is partly the framework but also the importance for a provider to work closely to their customers and build strong relationships in order to overcome to barriers towards PSS together.

This thesis deals with strategic analysis of particular organisation. Appropriate methods of internal and external analysis are chosen and theoretically described as well as the theories for competitive strategy design. In practical part of the work, strategic analysis outputs are implemented for the needs of organization with a view to formulate optimal design of competitive strategy. The work concludes with results summarization, representing the preview to the strategy selection issue, designated for the needs of company management.

The goal of the master thesis is to conduct strategic analysis of an enterprise Soma spol. s r.o. and suggest possible recommendation for further development based on the knowledge acquired from the analysis. Theoretical part is focused on information referring to the topic of the thesis. Method and techniques of the strategic analysis are described and afterwards applied in the practical part. Practical section contains environment analysis using PESTEL analysis and Porter's Five Forces analysis. Onward the internal analysis is performed including identification of company's assets, financial analysis, Value Chain analysis and Portfolio analysis. In conclusion the results of all performed analysis are summarized using the SWOT matrix and the recommendation are suggested based on detected opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of the company.

Strategic analysis of company and its practical application, external and internal analyses and strategy of the company.

[pt] O mercado de saúde do Rio de Janeiro está em transformação. O ambiente mais competitivo e complexo gera um momento de incertezas para os gestores, os quais buscam readequar suas unidades, estimulados pelo desafio de garantir a sobrevivência das instituições. Nesse contexto, os gestores devem adequar suas práticas de gestão, com a finalidade de tornar as empresas de serviço em saúde mais comerciais, capazes de atender as demandas da sociedade e gerar vantagem competitiva superior aos seus concorrentes. Sendo assim, este estudo visa a responder a seguinte pergunta problema: no atual contexto, que práticas de gestão levam as empresas de serviço em saúde a obter vantagem competitiva através da utilização eficiente de seus recursos? Para responder a pergunta, foi utilizada a teoria de Resource-based view como base conceitual para identificar os recursos que geram valor para as organizações e como eles são geridos. Trata-se de um estudo descritivo, pois se propõe a apresentar características relevantes do setor focalizado. Caracteriza-se também como uma pesquisa qualitativa, pois se baseia em percepções subjetivas de participantes do setor analisado sobre determinados eventos ou situações. Os sujeitos da pesquisa são gestores ou pessoas que ocupam cargos estratégicos em alguns dos principais hospitais e clínicas privados da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Foram entrevistados quinze indivíduos com este perfil. Além de outros aspectos, os resultados ressaltam a afiliação a uma rede verticalizada associada a um plano de saúde e à gestão da rede de unidade coligadas como elementos que representam vantagem competitiva para algumas empresas do setor. Outros fatores que se mostram relevantes são os ganhos de escala produzidos por meio de uma gestão mais eficiente dos recursos físicos e da maior quantidade e rotatividade de ocupação dos leitos. Aspectos como a qualidade da hotelaria e a diversificação de convênios foram identificados como requisitos de paridade competitiva. Fatores ligados à tecnologia e a sistemas de aquisição se mostraram como fontes de vantagem temporária. / [en] Health market in Rio de Janeiro is in transformation. The more competitive and complex situation generates a moment of uncertainties for managers, who search to readapt their units, stimulated by the challenge of guaranteeing the survival of the institutions. In this context, managers must adapt their management practices with the purpose of turning the health service companies more efficient, capable to fulfill society`s demands and produce a competitive advantage better than the one provided by its competitors. Therefore, this study aims at answering the following question: in the present context, which management practices would lead health service companies to obtain a competitive advantage through the efficient use of its own resources? In order to answer this question, was used the Resource-based view theory as a conceptual base for identifying the resources that generate value to the organizations and how they are managed. It is a descriptive study, since it proposes to present relevant characteristics of such health sector. It may also be characterized as a qualitative research, since it is based on subjective perceptions by members of the analyzed sector over certain events or situations. Research subjects are managers or persons occupying strategic positions in some of the major private hospital and clinics in Rio de Janeiro City. Fifteen persons with this profile have been interviewed. In addition to other aspects, results point out the affiliation to a verticalized network associated to a health plan and the management of the connected unit network, as elements representing a competitive advantage for some companies of the sector. Other relevant factors are the scale gains produced through a more efficient management of the physical resources and through a greater quantity and rotation of beds occupancy. Aspects such as hotel quality and diversification of health plans were identified as requirements for a competitive parity. Factors connected to technology and acquisition systems have shown themselves as sources of temporary advantage.

This thesis analyzes the current situation of the market in the South Moravian region in the field of purchase and processing of metal scrap. The first part is focused on the necessary theoretical background. The second part presents a TSR Czech Republic, Ltd. and the analysis of general and professional environment with the emphasis on competition. The result of the work activities are suggestions for getting new customers and the establishment of a new market, where the company last year built a new strategic scrap yard.