This thesis takes a step beyond the current discussion on hybrid competitive strategies (HS) by identifying the underlying mechanisms and common elements of successful hybrid strategies. Reviewing empirical and theoretical literature revealed a significant gap in this respect. Therefore, the activity-based view of strategy is introduced to the discussion on HS. In a first step, four consistent and sustainable HS concepts are developed providing the basis for deriving specific HS models. A second step identifies commonalities among these HS types and theoretically derives a synthesized, common HS model. Thirdly, the critical realist stance was selected for answering this thesis’ research questions addressing consistent HS concepts, implementations, common activities achieving external and internal fit, as well as common capabilities and resources supporting these activities. In a case study approach, semi-structured, open ended interviews combining appreciative and laddering methods are conducted with twelve interviewees from five firms. The separate analysis of ladder elements and ladders allowed distinguishing constitutional from relational elements. Based on this, fourth, an empirically revised research construct is substantiated. This research finds HS firms applying intended and consistent, but mixed strategy concepts based on generating high customer benefits through combining competitive weapons of differentiation and price or total customer cost. Moreover, HS concepts centre on three strategic building blocks: customer centricity, fulfilment of customer needs and employee orientation. Additionally, the research indicates that firms apply activities primarily for achieving fit. While all firms combine both views, no activities are directed to both fit types simultaneously. Activities deploy capabilities and resources in general on two adaptive and two absorptive mechanisms. Several practical implications derive from this thesis. First, firms can apply the synthesized model as a kind of ‘blueprint’ providing orientation for how to combine competitive advantages. Second, policy makers can apply the outcomes as principles steering firms or industries to ‘higher’ levels of performance. Last, firm managers can adapt their own as well as their firm’s behaviour accordingly.

Nowadays many companies are interested to improve their production system. It has become important in globalize and competitive market for the survival. The companies are looking to their production systems in the different direction to get the competitive advantages. But the most important is to find out the problem of the production system to make improvements. In this thesis, a part of the production system of a company is studied to find the problems of the production system to make the improvements and to recommend some points to the company for the achievements of its goals. For this purpose, the overall equipment effectiveness calculations have been used to see the current situation of the production system of the company. These calculations of the O.E.E. of the different production work stations make the clear picture of the problems. It calculates the availability of the production system which shows that maintenance system’s effectiveness. The quality rate calculations of the work stations show the conditions of the machines and the worker’s skill and the calculations of the performance efficiency of the work stations show the utilization of the machines. The result of this thesis after all the calculations of O.E.E. is that there is a problem in the utilization of the machines. Most of the time the machines remain idle or wait for the maintenance if it fails.

Business cycle influences most of all industries without changing for year. However, semiconductor industry got the most affected one among those industries. The subsidiary industry of semiconductor industry¡Xsemiconductor equipment industry inherit all of characteristic from semiconductor and shows more significant performance than semiconductor industry to the business cycle. It had to increase the salary to enhance the attraction to get employee¡Xespecially those employee to do the after sales service jobs, while the business cycle is in the upturn position. It resulted in increasing human resource cost to those semiconductor equipment players. Of course, it will be the first target to reduce fixed costs which increased from the upturn, while the business cycle get to the down turn position. It will NOT benefit to semiconductor equipment industry if all the players just increase/decrease the employee numbers to response back to the business cycle fluctuation. Not only eroding the competition but also increasing the socioeconomic issue if a company follows the obsolete way to handle the business cycle fluctuation. There is still few industry could be utilized and have had been tremendous growth such as internet industry. If we could utilize internet technology to establish one system to achieve current operations in service and maintenance, it will help semiconductor equipment players a lot to decide how many employee they should increase while the business cycle in upturn position according to the internet system. By doing this way they could shift the thumb of the rule from original obsolete way. Porter¡]2001¡^points out that many of the companies that succeed will be ones that use the Internet as a complement to traditional ways of competing, not those that set their Internet initiatives apart from their established operations. This study not only could offer a new thinking to current players in semiconductor equipment industry to establish competitive advantage, but also provide a basis for those players in Taiwan intend to involve in semiconductor equipment industry. It will build up Taiwan semiconductor equipment industry¡¦s competitive advantage by increasing the successful rate for those Taiwan players in the industry and secure the Nation sustaining competitive advantage by aggregating more successful semiconductor related industry.

It is very important for a company to build the sustainable competitive advantages by integrating the Knowledge and Information Techniques¡C China Steel Corporation¡]CSC¡^is facing the problems of industry upgrading and mutating ¡Binternational competition ¡B human resource inconsistency and knowledge inheritance at the moment¡C In order to solve the problems and keep growing of the company¡A the researcher suggested that CSC should use knowledge management to integrate the corporate strategy¡Bthe corporate culture and the production knowledge so as to strengthen the competitive advantages¡C The purpose of the research is try to develop a reference model of knowledge management for CSC and further study the performance of knowledge management in CSC at present¡C The result of research introduced four basic dimensions of model¡Awhich are as follows¡G¢¹.The knowledge of competitive advantages¡B¢º.The activity of knowledge management¡B¢».The performing steps of knowledge management¡B¢¼.The promoting factors of knowledge management¡C According to the reference model of knowledge management and in-field study of CSC to testify the feasibility of the constructed referenced model ¡A some suggestion and recommendation are proposed after testifying finally¡C Keywords¡Gcompetitive advantages¡Bcore competence¡Bknowledge management

There is no doubted that the enterprises have to face the changeful and competitive environments today. That is why the Taipower Company needs to gain competitive advantages by providing the best of service quality to the consumer in the power market. This study is expected to be useful to the Taipower Company on the point of service quality in the strategy of knowledge management. It is made use of measuring consumer perceptions of service quality and researched for what the types of knowledge management strategy will be based on them. A new model of customer knowledge management includes the task environment, several important dimensions or variables such as the strategy of knowledge management, customer knowledge management. It is discussed for the process of knowledge management and established the institution of knowledge management in the Taipower Company.

ABSTRACT The development of information technology and the evolution of micro marketing urged the enterprises to value the effects of implementing database marketing. In the era of emphasizing customer centric, creating niches of differentiation, enhancing effectiveness of marketing, improving customers¡¦ satisfaction, database marketing is the most important basis of the above mentioned marketing development. The distinctions of database marketing are systematic, long-term oriented and emphasizing planning and analysis, which are different from the ways of traditional marketing that most of the companies are using. Developing Database Marketing is a significant change for all marketing related activities. The sales team has to learn new marketing skills, change the present marketing process, to invest in information technology, even to adjust the functions of organization and build up new concepts of marketing in order to improve the effects of database marketing. Practically, implementing database marketing must follow the process of strategic planning, for the purpose of building up competitive advantages, considering the capability and demand of the enterprise, to create the functions that the enterprise needs, then to improve the performance of marketing. The application of information technology is an important strategy of improving operation capability of the financial industry. Many banks had implemented database marketing to enhance their performance. Leasing is an important sector of financial industry, which is very suitable to execute database marketing for the characteristics of its business. Presently, Chailease finance Co., Ltd. is the only leasing company, to implement data marketing. So, this thesis is to study Chailease Financing Co., Ltd. for the following purposes: 1. The objectives of strategy that leasing industry implements database marketing. 2. The appliances and methods of executing database marketing in the case. 3. The critical success factors of implementing database marketing in the case. After illustrating the case and analyzing the theory, we can figure out the critical success factors related to the purpose of the thesis. Then we chose the objectives of strategy, appliances and methods, and critical success factors as 3 dimensions of studying the critical success factors in implementing database marketing of Chailease Financing Co., Ltd. By the way of investigation of questionnaire, we analyze the individual factors and relations among 3 dimensions. After the analysis of questionnaire, the result from the research shows that the objectives of strategy of implementing database marketing have been effective. But some of the important functions are not workable due to the influences of insufficient conditions or requirements and the other prior objectives of organization.

This study is to investigate the inter-relationship among risk recognition, marketing management of the school, and the competition advantages of the teaching staff at junior high schools in Kaohsiung County. The study object is the teaching staff at public junior high schools in Kaohsiung County. The number of valid returned questionnaires is 494, with a kickback rate of 95.0%. Since the formal questionnaires were collected, the data have been analyzed and tested by description statistics, t-test, single-factor ANOVA, Pearson movement correlation, typical correlation, and multiple-gradual transgression. According to the results of data analysis, the following conclusions are reached: 1. Teaching staff at junior high schools possesses favorable recognition of risk, among which ¡§risk of employees¡¨ is the best. 2. Marketing management at junior high schools is good, in which the category of ¡§staff strategy¡¨ is the best. 3. Competitive advantages at junior high schools are favorable, especially the category of ¡§quality.¡¨ 4. Male teachers who are at age 51 or above, hold concurrent jobs as section deans, and teach in remote areas have better risk recognition. 5. Male teachers who hold concurrent jobs as section deans, teach in remote areas, and whose schools have less than 12 classes have better marketing management. 6. Male teachers who are at age 51 or above, hold concurrent jobs as section deans, teach in remote areas, and whose schools have less than 12 classes have better competitive advantages. 7. The better the risk recognition of the teaching staff at junior high schools, the better their ability to carry out marketing management. 8. The better the risk recognition of the teaching staff at junior high schools, the better opportunity they have to boost their schools¡¦ competitive advantages. 9. The better the junior high schools¡¦ ability to carry out marketing management, the better opportunity they have to boost their schools¡¦ competitive advantages. 10. Both the channel strategies of schools¡¦ marketing management and personnel strategies toward schools¡¦ competition advantages have conspicuous predictability, and the channel strategies is especially useful in precisely predicting schools¡¦ competitive advantages. Based on the main findings and conclusions, some concrete suggestions are provided for school and educational administrative authorities concerned for future reference.

<p>Nowadays many companies are interested to improve their production system. It has become important in globalize and competitive market for the survival. The companies are looking to their production systems in the different direction to get the competitive advantages. But the most important is to find out the problem of the production system to make improvements.</p><p>In this thesis, a part of the production system of a company is studied to find the problems of the production system to make the improvements and to recommend some points to the company for the achievements of its goals. For this purpose, the overall equipment effectiveness calculations have been used to see the current situation of the production system of the company. These calculations of the O.E.E. of the different production work stations make the clear picture of the problems. It calculates the availability of the production system which shows that maintenance system’s effectiveness. The quality rate calculations of the work stations show the conditions of the machines and the worker’s skill and the calculations of the performance efficiency of the work stations show the utilization of the machines. The result of this thesis after all the calculations of O.E.E. is that there is a problem in the utilization of the machines. Most of the time the machines remain idle or wait for the maintenance if it fails.</p>

Competence building of a corporation is a vital choice for a third-party logistics (TPL) provider for it to face drastic challenges, and the issue of competence building has attracted the attention of both academic and business communities. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how an appliance maker can build TPL competence, and the research questions of the thesis are as follows: (1) What are the main factors in building the competence of a TPL enterprise? (2) What are the advantages of building logistics-related competence for Haier Logistics? (3) How important is logistics competence for Haier? By applying a qualitative research method, the present study takes Haier Logistics as a case, a subsidiary of the Haier Group, which provides logistics services not only for all the companies within the group but also for other companies as a TPL services enterprise. The study identifies the main factors in building up logistics competence, the advantages of such competence, and the importance of such competence. The authors of the present paper have found out that six factors—namely, the integration capacity, the operation capacity of logistics, the innovation ability of logistics, the operation capacity of information technology, the marketing ability in logistics markets, and the capability of building logistics brand—are vital for Haier Logistics.

The competitive advantages of Sri Lanka's garment industry, and how these can lead to increased trade with Swedish companies, were examined through a study divided in two main parts. The research was carried out with a focus on the labour force and the social aspects of CSR. It was initiated in Sweden, where the goal was to investigate how Swedish companies select suppliers and what their requirements are in terms of code of conduct and social responsibility. In the following part of the study we examined the corresponding parts of Sri Lanka's garment industry. To identify the competitive advantages and potential problems, we conducted a study on three different factories in the country, where the owners, managers and workers were interviewed. To further expand the survey results we also interviewed additional stakeholders to the industry. In this case a trade union and an organization working in the garment industry. The collected data were analysed using selected parts of Porter's diamond and Carroll's CSR pyramid, as well as the Swedish companies' demands on the social aspects of CSR. In order to identify these requirements, interviews were conducted with four different people at the Swedish companies. We were also given access to documents with their code of conduct. Through our analysis we are able to identify the competitive advantages that exist within the industry. In addition to that we are able to identify the areas of the industry where problems exist today, but where Sri Lanka has the opportunity to strengthen its competitive advantages in order to become a more attractive partner for Swedish companies.