In the digital industry, FTV mainly develops three kinds of business: digital TV, network and cell phone. In the aspect of digital TV, there are ¡§Follow Me TV¡¨ and ¡§Fly Vision¡¨; in the aspect of network, there are ¡§Online TV¡¨ and ¡§FTV-beauty.com¡¨ e-commerce website; and in the aspect of cell phone, there are ¡§Cell-phone TV¡¨ and ¡§FTV Master¡¨ monitoring system. This research adopts ¡§semi-structured interview¡¨ and transaction cost theory to study the motive, type and management actions of FTV strategic alliance and evaluate the performance of the strategic alliance. It is found in this research that, after FTV enters the digital industry, the network TV and transmission stations with simpler alliance motives and type have lower performance in management and see less profit. ¡§Fly Vision¡¨ and ¡§Cell-phone TV¡¨ have complicated motives, including market expansion, cost sharing, risk reducing, technology supplementing and competitive advantage increasing; they have achieved relatively stable growth due to the longer time of alliance. ¡§Follow Me TV¡¨ has the five motives of alliance; however, it fails to reach remarkable performance because the viewership rate of digital TV is not clear. ¡§FTV-beauty.com¡¨ and ¡§FTV Master¡¨ also have the five motives of alliance, but the time of market exploitation is relatively shorter, so it has just seen a relatively high growth and its performance will be steady after that.

Program: MIMA student – International business and Entrepreneurship Course name: Master Thesis (EFO705)Title: Imitation as Organization’s StrategyAuthors: Voravej AssavapisitkulSataporn Bukkavesa Supervisor: Sven-Åke NyströmProblem: Does imitation really benefit organization? Purpose: The authors are writing this topic because the authors feel that this topic is not widely been investigated, moreover, it is a very interesting topic for the authors. According to the course literatures that the authors have read, the authors perceived that most of them focused on innovation and seems like they ignored or mentioned little on the topic of imitation and how can imitation benefits organization. Therefore, the authors are personally interested in the topic. The authors hope that the readers would gain more knowledge on the topic and would be able to apply with their business or study. Method: Interpretivist; Documentary; Interview Summary: In this Master Thesis, the authors have discussed several dimensions of imitation with examples. First, the authors discussed about imitation during the early stage of industrialization with the examples in Korea. This topic discussed of the opportunity provided through imitation process for the new firms to be able to catch up and compete with experienced firms. The next topic is on unique capability. Firms can apply imitation as their own capability that can prevent others’ imitation, moreover, they can become successful in the new market. Then the authors found that there are ways to imitate other firms’ knowledge legally in the form of strategic alliances. In the topic of creation of strategic alliances, the authors suggested four patterns of engagement that firms can select according to their objectives. Under the topic of firms experience, there are some empirical data supported that the degree of imitation has negative relationship with firms’ experience curve. Moreover, the authors discussed about the how competitors’ actions affect the firms to select different strategy of organization management in the topic of the choice of alliances and mergers and acquisitions by competitor’s move. Then the authors discussed about how successful were the imitations by reverse-engineering implemented by Korea’s electronics industry. Furthermore, the authors also provide examples of imitations in other industries. The next topic is limitation and prevention on imitation. Then the authors provided the reasons why do firms imitate. Moreover, the authors discussed about the factors that affect the speed of imitation process and show how the speed of imitation related to benefits and losses of the firms. Next, the authors suggested some successful strategies for product imitation. Then the authors discussed about the drawbacks of imitation with some examples. Finally, the authors provided the results and analysis of the interviews as primary data collection to show the success of firms that implemented imitations, people’s attitudes toward imitation, and the degree that originality and product origin can limit imitation.

Abstract     In global arena there exists a trend to engage in strategic alliances.  The alliances are assumed to be addressing the existing resource gaps that various organizations have. Not only for-profit organizations have a need to fill in the gap, but also non-profit organizations. Various types of alliances are formed to satisfy various needs. One particular form of alliances will be discussed in this thesis is the learning alliance, which is organized in a way to facilitate the knowledge transfer between the partners involved. More specifically, the learning alliance between the university and service companies will be discussed. Even though there has been done studies examining university – industry cooperations, yet they have focused on Natural Science faculties and industry cooperations, while Business Schools did not receive much attention from the researchers. Thus, this thesis will attempt to fill in this research gap by conducting a research on Umeå School of Business and service companies to be able to produce a model for a successful learning alliance      In order to pursue the targeted aim, a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews was conducted. Moreover, a mix of deductive and inductive approach was adopted to facilitate the research.      The analysis indicated that in order to facilitate a successful learning alliance between the Umeå School of Business and service companies, certain requirements should be fulfilled. In particular, the rationale for alliance engagement should be knowledge sharing and knowledge types should create a collective strength. Moreover, the structure of the actual co-operations should satisfy the needs of all the actors involved and there should be adopted practices or experiential and organizational learning to benefit from the learning alliance. In addition, it was identified that the alliance organizers should consider the problems as well, which might affect the performance of the alliance. Finally, the result of the study is presented in the model designed by the authors based on prior theories and the analysis of the respondent’s comments.

Internet and mobile wireless as emerging content distribution platforms have not only redefined the traditional media market, but also influenced the business strategies of the transnational media corporations (TNMC) that are expanding their operations into the ¡§new-media¡¨ system in another country. The purpose of this study is to explore how global media move from the traditional television distribution channel to the Internet and mobile wireless platform in the country of China and what strategic patterns of alliance they engage to obtain sustainable competitive advantage. Applying a resource-based view (RBV) framework of analyzing strategy and employing a case study approach, this study investigates the formation and evolution of strategic alliances for the U.S.-based TNMCS in the marketplace of China and discusses how their resources were aligned with their local counterparts¡¦ resources in marketing their content products. The alliance involving Time Warner, News Corporation, Disney, and Viacom were examined. Cross-case analysis identified six alliance patterns, including the importance of content-distribution resource alignment, the acquisition of local knowledge resources, the strategic alliances between TNMCs, the decrease of equity-based alliances, the complementary role of property and knowledge resources, and the necessity of uniting resources that enable the local responsiveness of video-related products.

A substantial literature has evolved focusing on the synergies generated by the strategic alliances (SAs). In this dissertation, the author chooses Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide as the focal firm, and analyze the cases of SAs formed by its brands, including St.Regis, Westin, W Hotel and Element from year 2008 to 2010. First of all, this dissertation will discuss the development and the general condition of the hotel industry in the United States of America. And then present Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide by analyzing its position in its brands. Also, this dissertation introduces the partner firms and then infers the reasons of the SAs and the synergies created by them. At last, gives the readers suggestions from those cases. According to the overall analysis, there are 5 kinds synergies generated by SAs are shown as follow. (1) synergies generated by brand alliance (2) synergies generated by CSR (3) synergies generated by social relation network (4) synergies generated by market (5) synergies generated by complementary abilities The managers can employ the 5 categories of synergies constructed by this literature when deciding partners, scopes and types of SAs. The categories and the practical cases presented will provide more directions and aspects for reference.

The International environmental become significant issue for each countries, base on green trend more and more green products launched into market. E-Reader is one of the green product that growing rapidly in recent years due to the internet blooming. There have lot of advantages for people using E-Reader, such as easy to carry and you can own thousand of books content inside the E-Reader, it is amazing convenient for this development. The E-reader in this case study was identified by using electronic paper as the panel material, which is different from the LCD panel screen reader¡]Tablet¡^. So far Taiwan is the biggest OEM/ODM manufacturer area for worldwide E-reader market beause the E-paper source, also Taiwan maker can laverge all manufactuer capabilities coming from electronic and 3C industries and have well integrated supplier resource, that¡¦s why Taiwan maker can control 90% OEM/ODM E-reader manufactureing in the world. The global recession since 2008 has resulted in sharp drop for international business. It is getting more and more difficult for business competition, especially for OEM/ODM model. Although Taiwan E-reader manufacturers still have margin at this moment, but gradually they will face other competitors from China or Kera, on the other hand the threat from Tablet-reader is getting apparent, and the DRM still don¡¦t have well organized by governments, more and more challenges close to E-reader manufacturers. In the case of A company, base on five force model & Resources basic model as it can be aware how A company running his E-reader business under Globalization. The industrial circumstances change rapidly, it is important for Tawian maker to think over how to apply their own resource and make the right business strategy. By reviewing this case of A company, here is some suggestions for Taiwan E-reader industry. 1. Bring up for globalization talents. 2. Global system reinforcement. 3. To have Strong and well finance management. 4. Enchance RD capabilities by using core technology. 5. Process techniques and quality stability. 6. Strengthen the business strategic alliance.

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Economy in China has been blooming recently. The business potential has drawn attention from all over the world. Now varied industries have started to locate in China. Furthermore, it is believed that the interaction between cross-strait will be very close with the condition that both China and Taiwan have joined in WTO. This research will be focused on 1.The impact and the influence on higher education publishers in Taiwan after both China and Taiwan joined in WTO. 2. Is it a threat or an opportunity to the publishers with the consequent implementation from WTO? 3. What is the role of foreign publishers in Taiwan under this circumstance? As publishing industry in China hasn¡¦t been opened yet, this research will target on the discussion of co-publishing model from cross-strait. Taking a case study and its analysis, it is found that publishing industry has been identified as traditional industry but its upgrade and transition can not be applied to traditional industry. Therefore, the conclusions are as follow: 1. The regulations of publishing in China are still the key factors. 2. The extent of the resource publishers possess is the key factor of entering higher education market in China. 3. Publishers in Taiwan are more flexible to the consequent implementation. 4. Core competence is not equivalent to regional competitive advantage. 5. Market in China will be another opportunity for Taiwan. 6. The position of publishers in Taiwan in Chinese publishing has been changed. 7. Taiwan is the bridge between China and the rest of the world. 8. Each region has its own individual business model. 9. There is a remarkable difference of the process between publishing industry and traditional industry.

This research aims at exploring the interaction and differences of the relations among knowledge protection, relationship capital, strategic attribute of knowledge, and alliance performance. Through a mail survey, 95 effective samples of cross-border learning alliances of Taiwanese hi-tech firms were collected and analyzed. Using regression and simultaneous equations models, the proposed model was tested. The main conclusions are presented as follows: 1.Communication, trust, and commitment construct the determinants of relationship capital. 2.Knowledge which has more tacit, complexity, and special attributes is a more significant in strategic asset. 3.It is significant that the strategic attribute of knowledge will guarantee a influence on the relationship capital 4.It follows that the strategic attribute of knowledge that is transferred by alliances maintain a positive influence on knowledge protection by the target focus firm. 5.Relationship capital will guarantee a positive influence apparently on knowledge protection by the focus firm. 6.The higher the degree of relationship capital between alliance partners, the greater the alliance performance between the partners 7.It follows that the higher the degree of individual knowledge protection between alliance partners, the poorer the alliance performance between the partners.

Following the development of new technologies, more and more users can access online mobile content now. Reading news is the most used service in Taiwan. Because of the potential profits of valued-added services in telecommunications, many traditional media are joining this market by providing news content. The author tries to find out the motivations, reasons of partner selection, and the measures of performance of the strategic alliances between telecommunication operators and news content providers by in-depth interviewing managers of telecommunication and media in news mobile content service strategic alliance. This research analyzes the different strategies taken by both parties and evaluates the outcome of strategic alliance. This research indicates that the different managerial culture between alliances would influence the sustainability. Besides, Strategic alliances have the risk of profit-sharing and stray from seeking short-term profit.