Abstract The development of engineering business enterprises in Taiwan began around 1960 to meet the demands of economic development. In the early days, the majority were judicial organizations with government involvement, their growth were slow and small in operation scale. It is only in recent years that few engineering enterprises became capable of handling complete facility turnkey projects, and be able to participate in larger projects internationally. The so-called ¡§engineering enterprises¡¨ in the early days were a blend of engineering consultants and constructors. The services provided by both entities are oriented toward public works. The engineering consultants would be responsible for engineering planning, design, supervision and tender administration. The constructors would be responsible for supply of materials and construction works. This research is a case study of the business strategy of a turnkey engineering enterprise in Taiwan. The subject enterprise is the only full engineering, procurement and construction service turnkey enterprise domestically. Relevant literatures, both locally and abroad, were reviewed and discussed, and, senior management of the subject enterprise interviewed. The industry in which the subject enterprise operates and its competitiveness were analyzed. Research findings were collated and discussed. Eight conclusive points and eight recommendations were tabled for the subject enterprise. This report provides a reference for domestic turnkey engineering enterprises in drafting their business strategy. Eight conclusive points were raised: (1) success comes from seizing internal and external environmental opportunities, more importantly is to have core competitive strength, (2) a superior business culture nurtures superior staff, (3) growth is derived from a long term loyal relationship with clients and subcontractors, (4) adopt key diversification strategies with high probabilities of success, (5) oligopoly of domestic market and competition in the international market, (6) participation of renowned international enterprises in the domestic market will enhance the competitive advantage, (7) attaining accreditation of ISO management system facilitates entering the international engineering market, and (8) the next five years are great opportunities for the subject enterprise to grow domestically and internationally. Eight recommendations were made to the subject enterprise: (1) acquisition of upstream product processes and patents, (2) adopt a product concentration strategy in the international market, (3) adopt a ward-off strategy in the domestic market, abandon the medium and small competitors, (4) development of new products and branch into new discipline, (5) elevate working level and expand operations, (6) expand international market, promote international exposure, (7) focus more on product R&D and quality, and (8) adopt a water reservoir management method. Two suggestions for future research: (1) comparative study of business strategy of internationally renowned engineering enterprises, and (2) risk management of turnkey projects.

The effect of liberalization and the great improvement of the internet using caused a huge impact in global airline industry which has brought more opportunities to airline¡¦s company but fallow with keen competition. Using China Airlines as research object by using a detailed case study method to analyze its changing of resources to achieve competitive advantage since the rapid changing of the environment and understand how China Airlines changes its worse resource become a superior resource to gain competitive advantage. Airlines firm resources can be conveniently classified into four categories: physical asset, intangible asset, human capital resources and orginazation capabilities. After the analyzing, this study found that firstly, after China Airlines no more a monopoly, its core resources turned into a weak resources comparing with competitor. Second, airlines industry¡¦s resources indeed changed or adjusted due to the changing of the environment. Third, the resources of airlines industry can be imitable and substitutabile easily. Therefore, human resource can be the most potential resource which establishes sustainable competitive advantage and make differentiation. Forth, all the resources of the airline¡¦s company are core resources however one resource itself is impossible to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, only the fit and the connection of the resources can become sustainable competitive advantage. Finally, unique history conditions help airline industry to gain more resources and become more advantage than competitor. Key words: Resource, Competitive advantage, Sustainable competitive advantage, Airline industry

ABSTRACT In the record of the theory, we found out that the competitive advantage always be focused on the thinking of strength, the strength aiming at ¡ugood¡v¡B¡ustrong¡vresources or conditions, whatever in the resource-based theory or the strategy-based theory. The reason is all research was deeply influenced by SWOT. Japanese Industry successfully growing up, ¡§with small to win huge¡¨, to beat global deader, had highlighted the important issue, ¡§ Shall small always be small? Shall big always be big? ¡§ Gray hamel and C.K. Prahalad in ¡uCompeting in the future¡vdeclared¡G ¡¨ Mastering industrial spaces is not by company¡¦s small or big, not by less or much resource, not by less or much market-share.¡¨ In case, it shall convince of us to study the factor of competitive advantage shall be in a vision more than ¡ustrength¡v, good , strong, or much resources and conditions. Meanwhile, in the record of theory, we also found out that the efficient method of resource & strategy must carefully consider the differentiation of product, industry and industrial structure. On fact, the differentiation of product, industry and industrial structure formed at each industry¡¦s differentiation and each industry¡¦s specificity. Concluding all of above, the writer is interested in the research of the topic; the key of factor of competitive advantage shall be emphasized and aimed at the specificity of the industry. In order to studying the relevance between the competitive advantage and the industry¡¦s specificity, the writer design the researching range as followings as: 1. The original of the competitive advantage. 2. The relevance between the competitive advantage and resource, strategy. 3. The relevance between the competitive advantage and the industry¡¦s specificity. Keywords: Competitive advantage ¡BIndustrial specificity¡B Chains-strand competitive advantage

-¢» Power libralization & Privatilization of power industry have become a worldwide trend in the recent years. To cope with the problems of power shortage and power development, ROC government began the libralization of power generation in 1995. Fifteen IPPs(independent power producers)were acceped to build power plants, through open bidding of phase 1& 2 and current phase, a total of 13210 MW of new capacity. However 7of them were cancelled due to the diffculties of land acquisition. By the end of 2001, Taipower has signed Power Purchase Agreement with 8 IPPs, totaling 7220MW. Amount them, Mailiao units #1¡B#2& #3 and Everpower units #1& #2 started commercial operation respectly from the beginning of 1999 , totaling about 2700MW. Those new competitor have great impacted on Taipower operation. Some of high cost traditional oil and gas fuel units of Taipower had to be shut down or operated in lower load condition. It is of urgency for Taipower to propose optimal competitive stratagies to improve the performance and upgrade the competitiveness. Right now Taipower power market is moving from monopoly toward competitive. By taking Taipowe as study sample, referring to the experience of power libralizationof other countries, and reviewing the characters of Taiwan¡¦s power industry, the study aims to validate following foresight operation stratagies such as¡Gto downsize its organization structure and to increase the productivity of its employee; to promote the Sixth Transportation and Transformation Project to maintain the strength and advantage of transportation and transformation; to develope renewal source generation, to supply the users high-quality and low-price electric power, to prevent the loss of big user and to implement load management polices. The SWOT analysis shows that Taipower must take some competitive stratagies in order to become the leader of power industry and the most reputation enterprise group in Taiwan, These competititive stragies include: 1. Taipower should retrofit and improve the high cost units and low efficency equipment to reduce the generation cost and decrease air pollution ;most of them can generate much power also, Then these units would not be a sunk cost, and can operate all the time. In addition, Taipower should build high efficency units to competite with IPPs. By setting open bidding price and resonable power wheeling price in the future , Taipower can increase its revenue, and secure the resonable rights of its customer, shareholders and emplyee. 2. To establish the development of core techniques and to create innovation mechanism, and to cooperate with domestic & foreign academic organization and manufactures, to lower down repair & maintenance cost. To visit and obtain longterm R&M contracts from IPPs and co-generaters to enlarge R&M market, to establish the excellance image of brand. 3. To diversify its operation by Investing in bangala coal mining in Australia and in fixed network communication business etc.so as to increse revenue and return of investment. In addition, two build coal ships of Taipower were operated by CSC subsidiary in the first 5 years to reduce the cost and keep the supply safety. In the future, Taipower can build more ships to transport the coal by itself.

As one of the top four IC revenue contributed countries, Taiwan is getting higher and higher weight in the world. With the highest density of 12-inch factory per area in the world, Taiwan is in the first tier of semiconductor equipment buyers. In year 2006, for an example, there was about eight billion US dollars spent in this island for her semiconductor manufacturing capacity expansion, which weighted 18.7% in the worldwide semiconductor equipment capital spending in 2006. It was only second to Japan. For a 12-inch fab, that will cost it 75% more in its whole capital spending. However, it is less than 1% spent in local equipment companies. That is no doubt we should pay more attention on this missing part of Taiwan semiconductor supply chain. After millennium, the center of semiconductor manufacturing has been migrating toward to Great Asia, the most promising and emerging area in the world. For the semiconductor equipment capital expense, according to Gartner Dataquest survey results, great Asia including Japan is the number one expense area in more than 50% weight in the world after year 2000. And the great Asia except Japan has been becoming the highest growing area in the expense of semiconductor equipment. Furthermore, its CAGR from 2005 to 2011 is estimated more than 11% which is 3% higher than the worldwide average at the same period. In the trend of this migration of semiconductor equipment market to Great Asia, especially the great China area, it¡¦s definitely a good opportunity for Taiwan to be prepared and ready to this era and try to play an important role in it. In this study, with the analysis of industrial environment in Porter¡¦s five competitive forces structure, a case study of company X is carried out as a successful example of global competitive strategy practice based on the methodology of Yip (2003) Global Strategy Levels. From a higher perspective on corporate strategy level, it intends to demonstrate the possibility to enhance the competitive advantage of Taiwan semiconductor industry in leverage of global strategy.

Asserts that competitive pressures make careful applications of marketing management tools imperative for the survival of time-dependent non-profit organizations. Illustrates a pragmatic tool which a volunteer-dependent organization can use to determine its strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the competition. This tool is used to assess the competitive weaknesses and strengths of Big Brothers/Big Sisters vis-à-vis Special Olympics. Concludes by offering constructive advice as to how Big Brothers/Big Sisters can turn a “latent competitive advantage” into a “solid competitive advantage”.

This cross-sectional study of Portuguese service organizations seeks to determine the level of alignment of competitive methods with strategy typologies covered in the business literature. Surveyed firms were asked to indicate their level of utilization of several competitive methods. The results of factor analysis of the survey data indicate that 30 of the 33 competitive methods covered in this study represent seven underlying strategy dimensions. Further analysis revealed that there is some congruence between the derived strategy dimensions and established strategy typologies in the literature. Cluster analysis revealed that each of the responding firms could be classified into one of four hybrid or mixed strategy orientations. However, differences in strategy orientation were not statistically significant in explaining differences in the financial performance of these organizations. These findings are discussed in the light of their implications for strategy development, strategy choices and performance evaluation in the Portuguese service sector.

<p>Title: The Pursuit of Sustainable Competitive Advantage – A Profile of the Starbucks Corporation</p><p>Authors: Benjamin Adam White & Ettore Moraschinelli</p><p>Advisor: Jean-Charles Languilaire</p><p>Date: 2009 May 29</p><p>Program: International Business and Entrepreneurship</p><p>Purpose: To study sustainable competitive advantages using Starbucks as a case study.</p><p>Methods: The qualitative method was utilized to collect the secondary data used in this type of thesis, being a case study. This approach applied to both the theories used in the analysis as well as the empirical data about Starbucks.</p><p>Conclusion: Nothing is sustainable in business including a company’s such as Starbucks competitive advantages.  It is the pursuit of the utopian idea of sustainable competitive advantages that can actually be sustained.  This approach does not guarantee success, but important components of a company’s pursuit are their leadership, innovative nature and relationship management.  Accordingly these theories do not cover all aspects or offer a full explanation of Starbucks success. Therefore, it is recommended for others to research Starbucks using different theories and perspectives in order to draw out other analyses from the empirical case</p>

<p>This research study focuses on how a company can achieve competitive advantage through total quality management from a marketing mix standpoint. To gain a deeper grasp of the research topic, a research question was formulated and the thesis is based on the marketing mix and competitive advantage model which is the theoretical framework of this study.</p><p>The research is a qualitative study and the empirical data was collected from two international companies operating in Halmstad i.e. HMS Industrial Networks AB and Ernst & Young LLP.</p><p>The findings show that quality is not an extra cost for the company, rather it is a way to increase your productivity, the better quality you have, the fewer products you discard and the better planning you have. Hence it was deduced from the research that competitive advantage is achievable by ensuring proper quality management in the pricing, product, promotion and distribution strategies implemented by a company.</p>

In this thesis, we study how the efficiency of competitive equilibrium in a pure exchange economy with hidden action depends on the market structure. We consider both competitive anonymous markets, where consumers make their choices taking as given some relevant economic parameters, and competitive strategic markets, where consumers interact with financial intermediaries who explicitly take into account the choices of other economic agents. In the first chapter, we review some known results on the efficiency of competitive equilibrium under different market structures. In the second chapter, we assume that there are multiple consumption goods and that the level of action affects the marginal benefit consumers get from consumption. We consider two different market structures: a complete set of contingent-commodity markets, and a complete set of financial markets, together with spot markets for consumption goods. The main result we provide in this chapter is that under more general hypothesis than those usually considered in the literature, the equilibrium with financial markets is not efficient. In the third chapter, we assume that consumers can insure themselves by voluntarily committing to deliver part of their endowment to a common pool in exchange for a sure return from the pool itself. We show that an equilibrium with pool of promises exists, and we characterize it.