Industry Competitive Position Research Articles

Product market competition and cost stickiness: Evidence from China

Product market competition affects management's resource allocation and cost adjustment decisions. It also affects cost stickiness. This paper looks at the impact of product market competition on cost stickiness in different economic environments. Using quasi natural experiment and the samples in Chinese capital market, this paper analyzes and tests these questions. We conclude that (1) in emerging markets, product market competition reduces cost stickiness. (2) For enterprises with differentiation strategy, the impact of product market competition on cost stickiness is not significantly weakened. (3) For enterprises with state‐owned property rights, the impact of product market competition on cost stickiness is significantly weakened. In addition, financial strength and industry competitive position also weak the impact of product market competition on cost stickiness.

МАРКЕТИНГ ТЕРРИТОРИЙ КАК ОСНОВА ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ МНОГОУРОВНЕВОЙ СИСТЕМЫ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ТЕРРИТОРИАЛЬНЫМ РАЗВИТИЕМ

This article features results of research of specific properties and new possibilities of using marketing areas. For this purposes we analysed the main differences between traditional marketing and area marketing. We point out their most significant differences in the composition and content, evaluate competitive positions, purposes, methods, organizational support, place and role in the control system. The analysis disclosed the two-sided nature of the concept of "territory" in the marketplace as a special "commodity" with multiuseful value and as "major company" that produces a certain set of goods and services. On this basis, we formed some approaches to the identification and grouping of the competitive position of the territories. There are three groups: territorial competitive position, the industry's competitive position, territorial and industry competitive position. The article identifies the main purpose of marketing areas, aimed at creating an enabling environment for the implementation of investment proposals, providing the best growth prospects. It shows the place and the role of marketing territories as a key element in the development of control systems in market conditions. There are five stages of formation and development of marketing territories. Accordingly, there are five areas of development management models in market conditions. On this basis, we prove the possibility and the necessity of forming a multi-level development of the control systems in areas across the country as a whole. Each level of control in such system takes a proactive approach and learns new methods of presenting the territory for investors. It generates investment proposals and investment fields, negotiates and coordinates with other levels of management of their investment interests and goals to enable the development through "vectors as corridors" investment development. It implements a set of investment marketing mix. New processes to market-oriented multi-level governance model are described, such as: - management of competitive positions of the territory; - process of interaction with investors; - process of harmonization and lobbying interests of the territory; - process of self-development marketing territories.

Technological Innovation Capability and Firm’s Performance in New Product Development

INTRODUCTION A critical issue for industrialization and governments everywhere is the need to encourage innovation and change among industry members in order to increase productivity and enhance the industry's competitive position. In order to achieve this objective, it is important that all those involved in making decisions that affect productivity improvement and industry development understand the complex processes and dynamics that are at work within and between organizations and individuals that are also involved in the context of the innovation system. It has been argued that the success of today's businesses increasingly, depends on their intellectual assets as opposed to their tangible resources (Stewart, 1997). Among other things, these assets include attitude, knowledge and skills of the workforce. According to American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), these assets are known as competences. It is a general believe that managing individual competencies is one important element in the management of strategic competitive advantage, and technological innovation has become an important competence of individuals. The purpose of technology innovation is to create business value, the value, that can take many different forms such as incremental improvements to products, the creation of entirely new products and services and reducing costs. Drucker (2001) emphasizes that every organization needs one core competence innovation, and further stresses that every organization needs a way to record and appraise its innovative performance: Mohanty (2006) outlined that for an economy or a nation to achieve preeminent position and superior status, it has to pioneer the culture of innovation. In the history of business, it is clear that the effective innovators have a better chance of surviving and non-innovators tend not to survive at all. The method of innovation is to develop ideas, refine them into a useful form and bring them to fruition. Amabile (1996) define technological innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization while Tidd, Bessant, and Pavitt (2001) says that technological innovation is the process of turning opportunities into new ideas and of putting them into widely used practice. Freeman and Carloza (1988) sees this as a process that includes the technical, design, manufacturing, management and commercial activities involved in the marketing of a new or improved product. Afuah (1998) suggests that innovations do not have to be breakthrough or paradigm shifting. Roberts (1988) suggests that the overall management of technological innovation includes the organization and direction of human and capital resources towards effectively creating new knowledge, generating ideas aimed at new and enhanced products, manufacturing processes and services, developing those ideas into working proto types and finally transferring them into manufacturing, distribution and use. The conclusion is that innovation is concerned with the process of commercializing or extracting value from ideas. From this perspective, innovation would be expected to be closely linked to firm performance. Objectives In this study, we aim to explore innovations and their effects on firm performance on new product development by examining product, process and marketing, as well as by focusing on various aspects of firm performance such as innovation performance, production performance, marketing and financial performance respectively. In essence, the widespread application of technology has become an important factor in structuring an industry, with technological innovation providing a competitive advantage for a company. This study conducted a questionnaire survey on the plastic manufacturing industry in Nigeria to collect empirical data, in order to discuss issues such as the relationship between a company's technological innovation, new product development and firm's performance. …

Competitive forces and innovation strategies: a study of the Indonesian crab industries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the current competitive position and performance of Indonesian Crab Industries (ICI). The paper examines whether a reorientation of the innovation strategic vision is needed to build future industrial excellence. Design/methodology/approach – Data collected from secondary sources and interviews with processors and stakeholders in the major ICI are analyzed in a five competitive forces value chain model. Findings – It is significant that the industry's competitive position and its performance in relation to international buyers is strongly related to good infrastructure and the uniqueness of the products and services it offers to buyers. Key factors related to this include: the sustainability of the raw material supply, the volume of production demanded, the manufacturing facilities and innovations and the consistency of quality. These all strengthen the value chain position. Threats from substitute products like surimi are, however, limiting the price level. The lack of market-oriented capacity to effectively develop unique products and strategies is a major barrier for entering new markets. Research limitations/implications – The interview data are based on the industry managers’ experiences as suppliers of the US market. This study may be applied as an example for analyzing market performance factors in natural resource-based industrial environments. Originality/value – The paper provides original empirical data analysis of the development and innovation strategies of the crab industries in Indonesia. It contributes to the marketing literature by linking value chain structure and industrial perception of performance drivers.

Challenges for the floriculture industry in a developing country: a South African perspective

The increasing numbers of global floriculture producers, and changes in the basis of competition in this international industry, make it important to evaluate the South African floriculture industry's competitive position. The industry employs more than 17 500 people and provides opportunities for rural employment. This article assesses the challenges facing the South African floriculture industry in the competitive global market, using a framework based on global value chain (GVC) and global commodity chain (GCC) analyses. An empirical study showed that the industry is insufficiently competitive and does not participate to its full potential in the global market. It is recommended that floriculture producers shift their focus from the domestic to the international market, as the domestic market is becoming saturated and its turnover is small. However, as enhancing the industry's competitiveness is a complex endeavour, the industry first needs to address the weaknesses identified.

Inter-regional comparisons of production technology in Canada's timber harvesting industries

Enhanced productivity in the logging industry is one of the key factors that determine the competitiveness of the forest products sector. Policy measures to improve efficiency must therefore start at the timber harvesting stage. This study analyzed and compared the production technologies in the timber harvesting industries of British Columbia (B.C.), Ontario, and Quebec, which are Canada's largest timber producing provinces. The study used annual data of log output and four inputs: labour, capital, energy, and materials from 1961 to 1999. Six models, encompassing different restrictions on the long-run translog cost function, were applied to each industry to determine the best technology for that industry. The cost function that best described each industry's technology was used to estimate own- and cross-price elasticities, input substitution elasticities, scale effects, technological change and bias, and total factor productivity. The production technologies of B.C. and Quebec were best described by homothetic, linearly homogeneous functions, while that of Ontario was found to be non-homothetic. Based on the Morishima elasticities of substitution, the results in general indicated inelastic substitution among all the four factor inputs. As a result the industries had limited options to make input adjustments with respect to changes in relative input prices; and hence required output levels were maintained at higher production costs. All three provincial industries exhibited biased technological changes, saving on capital and labour, and intensively using energy and materials. Labour and capital therefore recorded higher productivity than energy and materials over all provinces; consequently, efforts at improving the efficiency of the logging industries should focus on increasing the productivity of the latter inputs. Scale effects ranged from 2.17 in B.C. to 1.44 in Quebec implying that the timber harvesting industries appeared to have had the greatest potential for cost reduction through output expansion. In a competitive market structure, the strategic policy implication of these scale effects is that low-cost producers force high-cost industries out, leading to industrial concentration. The low levels of technological change in the timber harvesting industries observed in this study may reflect these industrial concentration problems. Policies that reduce the rental cost of capital, such an increase in investment tax credits and cuts in the corporate income tax rates have the potential to increase productivity and hence improve on the timber industry's competitive position.

DIE RELATIEWE MEDEDINGENDHEID VAN DIE SUID-AFRIKAANSE KORINGBEDRYF MET BETREKKING TOT DIE INTERNASIONALE KORINGMARK / The relative competitiveness of the South African wheat industry with regard to the international wheat market

Abstract The South African wheat industry's competitive position relative to the international wheat market and factors which may influence it in the long term are discussed in this article. In this respect the emphasis mainly falls on the trends in the cost of wheat imports and the factors which affect it, as well as on the potential implications of international trade liberalisation for the South African wheat industry's competitive position.