Background: Firms are today competing for educated and qualified people within the IT-industry, due to the high business activity. Firms require new employees to have both a formal education and relevant work expe-riences. Newspaper articles state that IT-companies have difficulties finding qualified employees and that they also see this shortage of competencies as the most prominent hinder to economic growth. To handle this shortage are an increased amount of companies starting structured training activities for their new employees, which by general terms is called trainee programs. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to do an explorative study of compa-nies in the Swedish IT-industry, to see if and why a trainee program could be a source of competitive advantage. Method: A qualitative approach has been applied when collecting data. Four small case studies were made by interviewing top managers and col-lecting company related information. The companies had diverse sizes and different experiences from trainee programs. The data was analyzed with the Resource-based view as a guiding theory applying the VRIN framework. Conclusion: By doing the studies three value adding aspects was found. They were staffing/recruitment, marketing and, organizational learning and development. Within the resource-based views boundaries were: recruitment and staffing found to be a source of at best tem-porary competitive advantage, the same conclusion applies for trai-nee program as a marketing tool. Organizational learning and de-velopment could be seen as a source of competitive advantage due to the complex impact a trainee program has to an organization. To summarize the above mentioned; trainee program could be a source of sustainable competitive advantage. Three obstacles for implementing trainee programs were found; feeling of being to small, short-term thinking and the lack of time.

Abstract Electrodeposited Copper Foil (ED Foil) is the most essential conductive material to PCB. With the recession of electronic industry and the appearance of Internet Economy Bubble for printed circuit board (PCB) industry, PCB industry slowed down its productivity around 2000 and the ED Foil industry in Taiwan had to face the vicious circle as the supply exceeds the demand. As for America, because of the declination of the industry, it is now almost out of the ED Foil industry which means that the global chief city of the field has changed from the States to Japan. However, with the high production costs and labor expenses, Japan is now suspending the enlargement of productivity, Therefore, the productivity of Taiwan till 2005 already ranked the top one in the world. Unfortunately, we are now facing the biggest competitor, China, who has tried enthusiastically to attract our ED Foil and PCB companies to move to his land, especially it has aimed the ED Foil industry as his top target to enkindle. This research has consulted several diverse documents from inside and outside Taiwan through the analyses of industrial structures, ¡§Diamond System¡¨ and ¡§SWOT Analysis¡¨ to have a clear understanding towards the construction of Taiwan¡¦s ED Foil industry and its ¡§competitive advantages¡¨. Owning these accomplished advantages as the base, we can come out the cooperative strategies for ED Foil industry¡¦s future and its ¡§Anti Competition Policy¡¨ according to the ¡§scenarios¡¨. We deeply hope that with these devices, we can strengthen the industrial¡¦s efficiency in our ED Foil¡¦s industry and at the same time, our status in this field can remain competitive around the world. The research found out that in ED Foil industry¡¦s area, the early players monopolized the market and twisted the market¡¦s efficiency at the same time. Therefore, those early players got the chance to earn a huge sum of money and as a result, some potential competitors joined the market to share the benefits. Besides, because of the rising concept of globalization among the mega electronic companies, more and more module and component companies are willing to be localized to correspond to the change. Simultaneously, the demand of both PCB and ED Foil has started to increase in Asia; therefore, the ED Foil industry in Taiwan is getting more and more prosperous because of the favorable geographical position. Moreover, high performing and large-sized facilities are adapted to produce high quality and low cost merchandizes efficiently to enhance the competitiveness in the industry. Therefore, the chain that connected with the downstream industry has become more completed and moreover, the bunching effect can be elaborate thoroughly. According to the research, we have discovered that there are many uncertainties within the operation of Taiwan¡¦s ED Foil industry such as the slight increase of the demand in Taiwan and the exports are overly centered on Hong Kong and China. Other concern like the percentage of the fixed prime cost is excessively high matters the efficiency of the productivity and as a result, a price war comes out easily because of the supply exceeds the demand. In the meantime, we have come out with the conclusion that the government should actively help the integration of the industry¡¦s future development. And we suggest that the ED Foil industry in Taiwan should take the co-opetition policy as follows: 1. The buying-associations that share the supplementary values of the recycling copper wires and R&D-associations can share the R&D cost in the area of the newly applying development will be erected to largely reduce the prime costs. Furthermore, an information exchange center will be provided for those associations to utilize others¡¦ useful experiences. 2. The business cooperative operations either with the same upstream or downstream companies all necessarily needed to be constructed. Those united cooperation such as Mergers & Acquisitions should be promoted within industries, including investments. These strategies will accelerate the development of the business. 3. New and prosperous markets such as Thailand and Vietnam need to be explored to disperse our export markets to decrease our dependency on China. 4. Complementary relationship and proper division of labors should be built up within cross-Strait without making other vicious competitions.

The extremely shrinking demand of domestic market on PS resin has been resulted by the relocation of sub-manufacturing lines to overseas and the threat of substitutes. Thereof, the export becomes the main life pulse for PS resin industry. However, in the recent years, both China and oil supply countries in Middle East have aggressively made the development in petrochemical industry ,our export has been confronted strong competitiveness accordingly. On top, the vacillated policy on resin restriction and the getting stricter environmental protection law from government have become the obstacles for PS resin industry to make further development and have increased the manufacturing cost. Facing this high competitiveness and various obstacles, manufacturers have to increase their competitiveness in their business strategy , or they could be eliminated from the competition. This thesis is based on the methodology of ¡§qualitative research¡¨ by referring to the national and international related documentation and the analysis of the entire environment and the external environment of industry in order to seek the opportunity and threat for the industry. Besides, through the internal analysis, the advantages and disadvantages have been understood. In addition, base on the practice of business strategy, the possible solutions; references and proposals to increase the competitiveness have been listed for manufacturers of traditional industry to make their business plan. The summary per our study to increase competitiveness for business strategy can be covered by the following: 1. To make differential products to seek new customers in different category. 2. To well control the cost of raw material to seek the opportunity profit. 3. To setup alliance strategy to improve the weakness of business. 4. To develop targeted market to build up new sales channel. 5. To adjust and develop the production line for alternative use to create more profitable products¡¦ production. 6. To make cooperation forum for R&D to develope value added products

In this research, the case company is by originally shipyard which make small fish boat, with fast development of the deep-sea fishery in Taiwan, the technology and producing can also the fast promotion. After the 21st century along with global sea environmental protection consciousness, the fishery policy adjustment causes 50% sales reduction. The case company inevitably is facing the traditional market reducing, pondered the future will manage direction and goal. This research in faces in the process in view of the document company which the market transforms, how creates the competitive advantage, this will study the conclusion summary as follows to show. 1. Is insufficient to when itself brand well-knowingness to sell in the market, using the seller develops the full quantity production line will causes the production and the technical personnel grow stably. 2. The domestic market is small, the marking strategy is important for the international market; the company should positively carry out and adjust the company resources. 3. Carries out the company to organize to reform, establishes the perfect organization system, expands and service promoting in order to help the company. 4. At present positively develops the full quantity production line and the dealer, long-term establishment brand and stable growth.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the foundation of Taiwan¡¦s corporate structures and the driving force behind Taiwan¡¦s economic development. The economic miracle in the past could be attributed to the high proportion (97.8%) of small enterprises in Taiwan (2005). Therefore, how small and medium enterprises use human resource management to obtain organizational competitive advantages is the motivation behind this research. High-performing and potential SMEs¡¦ practices of human resource management may be beneficial to the learning and referencing of domestic enterprises. Thus, this study focuses on enterprises which received the National SMEs Award from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and enterprises listed as ¡§small but beautiful, small but rich¡¨ on the Feb 2006 issue of CommonWealth Magazine. Through in-depth interviews, this study attempted to qualitatively induce and analyze the core practices involved in human resource management and the practices developed under and applied to various situations. Through literature review and interviews with six high-performing SMEs in Taiwan, the following results were obtained: 1.The analysis of the human resource management measures currently adopted by SMEs showed that human resource management and organizational competitive advantages are correlated. Human resource management measures are influential to human resource competence, organizational core competence, and organizational competitive advantages. 2.From a universalistic perspective, SMEs¡¦ core practices of human resource management include: sharing of operation results with employees, providing a strict recruitment procedure and valuing employees¡¦ cultural adaptation, offering highly-competitive salary, valuing cultivation of professional competence, integrating performance, salary, and development, and providing open communication channels. 3.From a contingency perspective, we probed into the SMEs¡¦ practices of human resource management developed under and applied to various contexts. The analysis of the outstanding SMEs showed that human resource management measures that enterprises have focused on to obtain competitive advantages may vary with practical contexts. Organizations can thus react and adapt to the dynamic environment and maintain or elevate their competitive advantages.

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Nowadays, the European airline market is characterized by two major different airline business models; the full service airlines and the low cost airlines. Secondary, appeared for the first time in 1985 in form of the Irish low cost carrier Ryanair. In recent days, the European low cost market stands out through its growth potential and high competitiveness. Therefore, startup companies aiming to join the wave of success as well as insolvency of newly established airlines are part of the daily occurrence. The challenge, that established low cost airlines are faced with, is to create competitive advantages against new entrants and direct competitors under the circumstances of environmental changes. In addition to the described problem a model was developed in order to picture the situation. This paper aims to provide an answer to the specific question: How do low cost airlines use relationship marketing in order to enhance, maintain and attract new customers? The second step is to figure out how those tools affect the airlines generic strategy. The purpose of this study is to find out how low cost airlines in Europe deal with tools of relationship marketing and what are the effects those tools have on generic strategies. This thesis is based on a case study within the European low cost airlines market, with a special focus on three airlines: Ryanair, EasyJet and Air Berlin. These questions are addressed using information obtained in interviews with respondents from the airlines that were recently conducted in Brussels and Bremen by personal interviews and additionally by telephone interviews and email contact. The results show that relationship marketing tools are used in a different extent by the airlines. The authors could not find evidence that using relationship marketing tools is the single solution to compete more successfully than without. It is further argued by the authors that RM is just one aspect strengthening the generic strategy in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

This present thesis aims to contribute to a better understand about how to use value innovation to get competitive advantages and get leading position in the market.   This theoretical approach is supported by an empirical case study about IKEA in Nanjing, China. This case is based on a qualitative research method of in-depth interviews with the local customers, co-workers and managers. The outcome is IKEA uses a unique strategy execution in Nanjing, and it fits Nanjing’s market very well.   The competitive strategy of IKEA is based on its vision of “create better everyday life for many people”, combined with the value-based service culture, and use value innovation to create more value for both customers and company. This present thesis will show its unique strategy operation way together with value creation, which leads IKEA successful apply its Blue Ocean strategy in a foreign country and gets leading position in the market.   So far we have the opinion that IKEA has been successful in Nanjing by implementing a Blue Ocean strategy, which is crucially supported by good value innovation for both customers and company. It is quite a good example of successful Blue Ocean strategy operator in globally.

The phenomenon analyzed within this thesis is the uprising of cloud computing technologies and their potential impact on SMEs. Cloud computing is ought to enable new capabilities for SMEs by the key benefits of being less expensive and its ubiquitous accessibility. The research was constituted on the theoretical framework of the resource based view and was conducted via semi-structured interviews along the themes of application history, financial impact, structural impact, strategic impact, risk considerations and future outlook. Thereby the core research question was to understand the impact of cloud computing technologies as new resources on the competitive advantage of SMEs. Therefore, 183 SMEs were contacted via email which were selected from a commerce authority and internet inquiry from which 6 agreed to an interview. The interview outcomes were analyzed by coding and an interpretation of the qualitative findings. Significant outcomes were that cloud computing provides SMEs capabilities of collaboration and mobility. The impact on innovation could not be verified but was indicated. Moreover, the adaption of cloud computing has led to SMEs saving resources in terms of time, IT budget and specific IT knowledge. The provision of the new capabilities and the savings of resources have shown to improve the SMEs’ overall performance by complementing, supplementing and substituting existing resources. Nevertheless, no direct linkage could be identified to a contribution to a competitive advantage but suggestive indirect linkages were found. However, the findings might deliver new comprehension about the organizational impact of cloud computing on SMEs in terms of resource enhancement and their impact on business practices. Furthermore, implications for future research include the need for investigation of the internal charging of cloud services and particular to narrow down the key advantages of cloud computing for SMEs and raise their business awareness as a source of competitive advantage. / <p>This paper has been a collective effort between Sten Ekström Winroth and Franco Bettels, the thesis has though been written in collaborative between the Management and Informatics department at Jönköping International Business School. These two departments have different requirements of the thesis writing process, which entails that we the authors have had different requirements. This is the reason that two theses exist with the same name, these two theses differ in the details, but are overall the same. </p>

Purpose: The purpose is to gain a better understanding in how a construction com-pany like Held &amp; Francke calculate the price of an offer for a building project and what role cost calculation, in relation to quality and time, plays in achieving competi-tive advantage. Method: Since the method of cost calculation only was investigated at one company we found it suitable for us to use a holistic single case study as the research strategy. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method since our empirical data, to a large extent, is based on interviews. Further, because our study is of a quali-tative nature, we have chosen to perform semi-structured interviews. Conclusions: After examining Held &amp; Francke we found that they manage very well to use some of the theoretical methods for cost calculations. Their main method of calculation is ABC, where the project is broken down into smaller work steps. Cost calculation plays a large role as a competitive advantage for Held &amp; Francke. Cost is the sole as-pect where Held &amp; Francke has full control and providing competitive project prices therefore becomes imperative in order to generate sales. With the focus on costs the cost calculation becomes an important role in achieving a competitive advantage.