The Dynamics Of Competition

This book focuses on the actions and reactions of companies as they interact with one another and strive for advantage. Using actual data and case studies from the highly competitive airline, high technology, insurance and banking industries, the authors develop an original communication-information model which provides an effective method to explain, measure and even predict the ways in which firms compete in the marketplace. The theoretical contributions presented are backed up by a wealth of data, case studies, examples and illustrations.

This book explores which kind of competitive moves and countermoves have been taken by mobile phone vendors like Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Apple, as well as emerging rivals from developing countries, to defend their competitive position over the industry life cycle, and which factors have driven these actions.

The Dynamics of Industrial Competition describes the internal dynamics of industries using new and unique longitudinal data that make it possible to track firms over time. It provides a comprehensive picture of a number of aspects of firm turnover in North America that arise from the competitive process - the entry and the exit of firms, the growth and the decline of incumbent firms, and the merger process. Instantaneous and cumulative measures of market dynamics are provided. Since the forces contributing to competition are varied and industries are affected by heterogeneous forces, different aspects of firm turnover are considered in order to provide a comprehensive overview of the competitive process. Entry is divided into that portion coming from the creation of new plants and that portion arising from the acquisition of existing firms. Differences are drawn between the effects of related and unrelated acquisitions and between the effects of take-overs made by domestic and foreign firms. Differences between large- and small-firm activity are also investigated. The effects of turnover on productivity, efficiency, wage rates, and profitability are extensively model led. Using various measures of firm turnover to proxy the amount of competition, the study examines and contextualizes the relationship between industry performance and the intensity of the competitive process.

Strategy as Action presents an action plan for how firms can build, improve, and defend their competitive advantage at every stage of their life cycle. For start-up firms entering a market, it provides a model for exploiting competitive uncertainty and blind spots; for growth firms who have established some market advantages, it provides an action plan for exploiting relative resources; for mature firms, it explains how to exploit market position; finally, for firms that have no decisive resource advantage, it provides an action plan based on firm co-operative reactions.

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now. In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant. Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage. This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today. Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage.

`I found myself questioning my current views on globalization and international competition. In so doing, I have come to a fuller understanding of the dynamics of the process and have enjoyed a unique view into the minds of the decision makers′ - Organization Studies `This book is an unusual and valuable addition to the literatures of international business′ - International Business Review `The first interesting feature of this study is the selection of industries.... The book provides some valuable insight into the geographic distribution of the world in the mind of the chief executives... a matter of interest not only to industry and academia, but also to policy makers.... The classification of international strategies deducted from the interview data is another contribution that book makes.... The book has achieved its main goal of linking theory and practical experience [and] provides interesting reading.... The book translates the logic of the industry world into a nice theory leaving it up to the reader to accept or reject the accompanying business ethics and values′ - Prometheus `A highly effective analysis of the changing patterns of competition viewed from an international perspective. There is a plethora of books on globalization and internationalization of industries, but most are long on words and speculation, but short on hard evidence and perspective. Here, the approach of the authors is not to argue that the world is becoming more (or less) global, but to provide a valuable insight into just how these forces are shaping industries, whether managers can influence these forces and what they might mean for those involve′- Charles Baden-Fuller, City Business School, Series Editor This book uses in-depth current data from a range of international business, and provides an important new framework for understanding international competitive systems and formulating international business strategy.

Die Wharton Business School ist die älteste Institution ihrer Art in Amerika und eine der bestangesehenen der Welt. Ein Expertenteam aus fünf verschiedenen Fachgebieten in Wharton diskutiert hier eine der wichtigsten Fragen für ein Unternehmen der Gegenwart - die Sicherung der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Neueste Konzepte kreativer Strategien werden vorgestellt.

In order to integrate the various contributions to the book, the text has been carefully edited to ensure a consistent, carefully defined, and straightforward vocabulary. It will therefore appeal both to researchers and students for whom theoretical rigor is important, and to practising executives, managers and consultants who will welcome its clear applicability to their own experience.