The study undertook an examination of the process, context and organisational factors that lead to an IS-driven sustainable competitive advantage. The research contributes theory-based conceptual synthesis and empirical evidence to an area that has transformed radically over the last fifteen years. The methodology adopted a pluralistic approach drawing upon both positivism and interpretist evidence. Care was taken to ensure that the primary research undertaken in Financial Services, Retailing and Manufacturing was subject to a variety of validating procedures and controls. The study identifled a role for the IS derived sustainability model and found that technology alone did not sustain a performance edge but that it needs to be combined with complementary resources to create an isolating mechanism. The work demonstrated that trade secrets, communication links to external organisations, innovative developments and accessing unique resources were the source of sustained competitive advantages. The findings also provided evidence that open culture and communications, workgroup consensus, top management support and possessing a highly flexible organisation were also important attributes of non ephemeral IS based advantages. A practical framework was proposed which allows an organisation to assess the potential of deriving IS based sustainable competitive advantage from analysing its resources and capabilities and discusses ways in which those resources and capabilities can be augmented.

Research on the organization of systems industries generally takes the boundaries of platforms to be exogenously-determined artifacts, given by the nature of technology. This paper studies whether platform boundaries are responsive to economic incentives by studying variation in platform boundaries in competing systems in mobile computing. Using detailed descriptive evidence and systematically collected databases of integration patterns, I find that platform boundaries in this industry could be understood as established in response to three primary goals: 1) to consolidate control around assets that conferred the power to regulate production in the system as a whole; 2) to integrate economic activities that risked coordination problems; 3) to open platform boundaries in response to interactions with market competition.

This paper provides an evolutionary perspective on financial systems based on complex systems theory. This perspective is used to organize the discussion about the convergence and non-convergence of financial systems. In recent years the discussion about the relative merits and the efficiency of market- and bank-based financial systems is subject to considerable academic and policy debate throughout the world. Bank- and market-based systems are found to give rise to different economic and corporate dynamics. Based on a notion of financial systems as configuration of complementary elements, it is suggested that the convergence of financial systems is best conceptualized as path dependent process of institutional change. This is illustrated with special reference to the recent developments of convergence of financial systems in Europe. The implication of the evolutionary perspective on financial systems is that neither theories using a simple evolutionary argument of survival of the fittest nor theories related to a institutional ossification perspective can provide much guidance for analyzing the transformations of financial systems. A multilevel institutional analysis which takes the interdependencies between national and firm-level institutions explicitly into account is required. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers Series "Growth and Employment in Europe: Sustainability and Competitiveness"

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 86-88).

Submitted by Elba Lopes (elba.lopes@fecap.br) on 2016-05-04T20:57:57Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Rubens_Santanna_Junior.pdf: 651868 bytes, checksum: 37ccb1fbac0e554051327465270028f3 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-04T20:57:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Rubens_Santanna_Junior.pdf: 651868 bytes, checksum: 37ccb1fbac0e554051327465270028f3 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-10-30 / We examine with an empirical study the hypothesis that the IT Deployment Capabilities impacts are positively associated with competitive advantage in Brazilian companies. The study uses the conceptual research model proposed by Tian et al. (2009). As part of this study, some of the main theoretical concepts of Resource Based View are reviewed, establishing a link between these concepts and the explanation about competitive advantage. The three constructs that set up the IT Deployment Capabilities are identified and investigated: Strategic Flexibility Partnership Business and Business Alignment. This is a descriptive exploratory research with a quantitative approach. The data collection instrument answered by the employees was a survey with a 7-point Likert scale available through Electronic Link on the Internet, using the website Survey Monkey. The study used public or private companies, national or international companies headquartered in Brazil as criteria for population, within various segments, and sample included the following functions: CEOs and Directors, Managers and Coordinators working at Information Technology areas in their companies. 320 e-mails were sent, yielding 192 responses. Of these 108 were selected as surveys with the desired research profile. To provide validation to the study, a statistical tool validation was used performing exploratory factor analysis tests (FAT) and multiple linear regression (MLR). The results showed that the constructs Strategic Flexibility and Business Partnership are positively associated with the perception of the impact of information technology competitive advantage, while the construct Business Alignment had no significant results to corroborate the studies by Tian et al. (2009) in Chinese companies. / O principal objetivo deste trabalho ?? examinar, com um estudo emp??rico, se os impactos da Capacidade Implanta????o-TI est??o positivamente associados ?? vantagem competitiva nas empresas brasileiras. O estudo utiliza o modelo conceitual de pesquisa proposto por Tian et al. (2009). Como partes deste estudo s??o revistos, dentre eles alguns dos principais conceitos te??ricos da Vis??o Baseada em Recursos, estabelece-se um elo entre esses conceitos e a explica????o da vantagem competitiva, identificando-se e investigando-se os tr??s constructos que comp??em a Capacidade Implanta????o-TI: Flexibilidade Estrat??gica, Parceria de Neg??cio e Alinhamento do Neg??cio. Trata-se de uma pesquisa explorat??ria descritiva, com uma abordagem quantitativa. O instrumento de coleta de dados empregado foi um Survey, utilizando-se a escala Likert com 7 pontos de Link eletr??nico, dispon??vel na Internet atrav??s do site Monkey Survey. O estudo utilizou como crit??rio de popula????o empresas nacionais ou internacionais sediadas no Brasil, de capital aberto ou fechado, e seus diversos segmentos, sendo que a amostra envolveu as fun????es de: CEOs, Diretores, Gerentes e Coordenadores que estavam ligados ?? ??rea de Tecnologia da Informa????o nas empresas onde colaboram. Foram enviados 320 e-mails, obtendo-se 192 respostas. Desse total, foram selecionadas 108 respostas com o perfil desejado da pesquisa. Para proporcionar garantia ao estudo, foi utilizado o instrumento estat??stico de valida????o, no qual foram realizados os testes de an??lise fatorial explorat??ria (AFE) e regress??es lineares m??ltiplas (RLM). Os resultados mostraram que os constructos Flexibilidade Estrat??gica e Parceria de Neg??cio est??o positivamente associados ?? percep????o dos impactos da Tecnologia da Informa????o na vantagem competitiva, enquanto o constructo Alinhamento do Neg??cio n??o apresentou resultados significativos, corroborando os estudos realizados por Tian et al. (2009) nas empresas chinesas.