The purpose of this paper is to explore a cooperation‐driven stage in the traditional framework of country competitiveness development and also suggest an approach to address…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore a cooperation‐driven stage in the traditional framework of country competitiveness development and also suggest an approach to address pragmatic issues related to cooperation in the context, particularly, competitiveness evaluation and choice of partner country.
Design/methodology/approach
The objectives of the research were achieved by a research design that leveraged quantitative tools with strength of case study research. Quantitative data for benchmarking were obtained from a carefully selected Country Competitiveness Report. For identifying criteria of competitiveness for success of a country (aka critical success factors CSF), content analysis of strategic reports from competitive countries was employed.
Findings
Cooperative strategies and flagship firms emerged to be CSFs that can drive investment needed for innovation and technology development, the later stages in country competitiveness development framework. Evaluation of competitiveness can be quite difficult and resource‐intensive process, but can be improved with innovative mix of different approaches and tools. With quite consistent and effective results in one more international context and a new industry, the assets‐processes‐performance (APP) framework of competitiveness can provide a simple, yet valuable approach with flexibility to adapt across levels and contexts, a vital need.
Practical implications
Competitiveness leaders should review cooperation processes and performance. They should evolve strategies to leverage cooperation on relevant dimensions.
Originality/value
A key contribution of this paper is proposing a vital cooperation‐driven stage for country competitiveness and operationlizing it using three major frameworks of competitiveness in a practical and useful context of nanotechnology, when many countries are evolving their strategies for such industries. An approach is tested to simplify evaluation of competitiveness in a difficult context of emerging industries. It can help leadership take more informed critical decisions about competitiveness and assess their impact for enhancing desired impacts of the decisions. For the purpose, comparing three alternatives, the author extends the APP framework with strategy concept of CSF to enhance its flexibility, thus contributing to needs of effectiveness and simplicity of emerging country context.
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Sanjay Bhattacharya and K.S. Momaya
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) holds the potential to improve capabilities- and technology-based innovation, which will enable breakout for architectural, engineering…
Abstract
Purpose
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) holds the potential to improve capabilities- and technology-based innovation, which will enable breakout for architectural, engineering, construction and operation and maintenance (AECO) companies, for international competitiveness. Though the top management of such companies is convinced on the utility of the applications, they are unsure on the strategy of implementing the same. The objective of this research is to suggest a strategy framework for digital transformation of the AECO value chain.
Design/methodology/approach
The nascent level of research on 4IR in construction necessitated the adoption of the integrative review methodology for the study. Extensive literature review of research on strategy and 4IR has been utilized to establish the validity of the first two pillars, namely “a strategy of simple rules in a complex environment; and deployment of dynamic capabilities.” The validation of a construct for the third pillar of “confluence of change and continuity forces” has been achieved via hypothesis testing of data obtained through a questionnaire survey.
Findings
The present study has integrated three diverse ideas of strategy, named as the pillars, to facilitate sustainable digital transformation. Within the third pillar, top three continuity forces which offer resistance to change are organization culture, existing delivery processes and networks, and existing standard operating procedures. On the other hand, the leading drivers of change are needs of competitiveness; global industry trends and the advent of new technologies/innovations.
Research limitations/implications
This provides a practical approach to operationalize digital transformation of the AECO at an organization level. The validation relied on opinion and perspectives of a sample frame in the Indian context, which was its limitation.
Originality/value
This paper suggests a strategy framework of three pillars to help address specific strategy dilemmas during implementation of digital transformation of particular organizations in AECO. The study contributes to both theory and practice by helping leaders of AECO companies, associations, policymakers and the academia to strategize transformations successfully.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the patterns of location of key activities for break-out in corporate competitiveness. The key objective is to identify linkages that may…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the patterns of location of key activities for break-out in corporate competitiveness. The key objective is to identify linkages that may exist among the location of corporate center activities, innovation capabilities and the break-out.
Design/methodology/approach
Patterns of location of corporate center across the world have been explored first, using sample data from Global 500. For the context of innovation and India, two polar locations were selected. The patterns in the growth of focal firms from the locations were evaluated using select competitiveness criteria such as revenues, profits and assets, based on data of a larger sample from Global 2000.
Findings
Findings support the view on “role of location with innovation clusters” such as Bangalore, particularly for competitiveness of born global firms. Surprisingly, Mumbai has increased its percentage share of contributions in terms of revenues and profits, indicating sustenance of cluster, entrepreneurial and other advantages.
Practical implications
Considering the enormous scope for enhancing contributions of emerging-country multinational enterprises to the world economy, decisions related to break-out in competitiveness are critical. Depending on strategic intent and the role of innovation and internationalization, firms can take better decisions related to the location of specific corporate activities to foster multinational enterprise (MNE) competitiveness.
Social implications
The findings may inspire key stakeholders to take decisions that enhance sustainability of city clusters and communities.
Originality/value
Analyzing the role of location of key corporate activities, for the phenomenon “break-out to higher stages of competitiveness”, is a unique contribution. These concepts and findings can be of high value to firms and MNEs thinking long term about location or relocation of corporate center activities, particularly for innovation.
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Tapan Sahoo, D.K. Banwet and K. Momaya
The automobile industry in India is one of the sunrise industries and is poised to enhance its contribution from 5 percent of GDP in 2006 to 10 percent by 2016. The auto component…
Abstract
Purpose
The automobile industry in India is one of the sunrise industries and is poised to enhance its contribution from 5 percent of GDP in 2006 to 10 percent by 2016. The auto component industry in India has grown hand in hand with the industry and is in the process of transforming itself from being a “Job order fulfiller” to being an “Integrated organization”. With the liberalization process having started in 1991, most auto component manufacturers in India have chosen the easy path of attempting to progress on operational or manufacturing capabilities. For advancing on technology capability dimension, they mostly relied on international collaborations. The purpose of this paper is to study the strategic technology management (STM) practices in select case organizations in the auto component industry in India.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology employed for this study is a combination of literature survey, expert opinion, comparative case study and a flexible systems methodology, situation‐actor‐process‐learning‐action‐performance analysis. Longitudinal studies of technology development at the two case organizations have been done and the case analysis and synthesis has been developed based on valuable inputs and insights shared by key personnel in the case organizations.
Findings
The study finds that two different organizations have adopted different technology strategies. While both case organizations have strong linkage between business and technology strategy, the approach has been reasonably different for technology acquisition and development. The findings suggest that an effective STM can contribute to faster technology absorption and overall business performance. Organizations in India need to develop the in‐house capabilities along with suitable technology acquisitions, wherever required.
Originality/value
The two cases provide valuable insights into STM practices in two organizations and highlight the methodology adopted by the companies in their evolutions toward becoming world‐class integrated organizations. The learning can provide the way forward for capable firms in the auto component industry in India.
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Sneha Bhat and Kirankumar S. Momaya
This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of market characteristics on the relationship between innovation capabilities and export performance of Indian pharmaceutical…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of market characteristics on the relationship between innovation capabilities and export performance of Indian pharmaceutical firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test the hypotheses using generalized least square estimator with random effects, on a panel data set, for the period 2010–2016.
Findings
Analyses of the data show that innovation capabilities lead to superior export performance. R&D investment positively affects export performance of both developing and developed countries, whereas patent quality negatively affects the export performance of developed countries and has no significance in developing countries. Size of the firm has significant positive effect on its export performance.
Originality/value
This study explores the role of market characteristics in determining the relationship between innovation and export performance, which has mostly been ignored in extant literature, especially in the context of emerging market multinationals.
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B.R. Bhardwaj, Sushil and K. Momaya
The purpose of this paper is to study the various systems, processes, tools and mechanisms related to vision, team management, and compensation for stimulating entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the various systems, processes, tools and mechanisms related to vision, team management, and compensation for stimulating entrepreneurial behavior within the organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a historical analysis of the reasons why the company implemented corporate entrepreneurship (CE), reflecting upon the various systems and processes the company adopted to design vision, team management, and compensation structures to stimulate entrepreneurship within the organization. It elaborates on how these initiatives have helped the organization to reach its goals in innovation and new business creation and be competitive.
Findings
The paper identifies the current major challenges the company faced in designing the vision and the processes and systems to support it such as the design of appropriate structure to enable proper communication and interaction between departments. The paper develops a model showing top‐down and front‐line CE processes. The design of appropriate reward structure should complement the vision of the company. These are some of the drivers of corporate entrepreneurship as a guiding force for continuous future development.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes by describing a guiding model on the basis of case study research, which shows the top‐down and front‐line CE processes to stimulate entrepreneurial behavior within the organization. Future researchers can study this model and its impact on the CE outcomes in terms of performance and competitiveness.
Practical implications
This model describes the various processes including how executives can champion entrepreneurial initiatives, support and monitor the business unit. The study also suggests how an organization can effectively allocate resources to support entrepreneurial activities.
Originality/value
The paper identifies the current design challenges facing the organization and describes some of the processes to codesign the objectives and goals, compensation and design of new venture teams.
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Dieudonné Tchuente and Anass El Haddadi
Using analytics for firms' competitiveness is a vital component of a company's strategic planning and management process. In recent years, organizations have started to capitalize…
Abstract
Purpose
Using analytics for firms' competitiveness is a vital component of a company's strategic planning and management process. In recent years, organizations have started to capitalize on the significant use of big data for analyses to gain valuable insights to improve decision-making processes. In this regard, leveraging and unleashing the potential of big data has become a significant success factor for steering firms' competitiveness, and the related literature is increasing at a very high pace. Thus, the authors propose a bibliometric study to understand the most important insights from these studies and enrich existing conceptual models.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors use a bibliometric review on articles related to the use of big data for firms' competitiveness. The authors examine the contributions of research constituents (authors, institutions, countries and journals) and their structural and thematic relationships (collaborations, co-citations networks, co-word networks, thematic trends and thematic map). The most important insights are used to enrich a conceptual model.
Findings
Based on the performance analysis results, the authors found that China is by far the most productive country in this research field. However, in terms of influence (by the number of citations per article), the most influential countries are the UK, Australia and the USA, respectively. Based on the science mapping analysis results, the most important findings are projected in the common phases of competitive intelligence processes and include planning and directions concepts, data collection concepts, data analysis concepts, dissemination concepts and feedback concepts. This projection is supplemented by cross-cutting themes such as digital transformation, cloud computing, privacy, data science and competition law. Three main future research directions are identified: the broadening of the scope of application fields, the specific case of managing or anticipating the consequences of pandemics or high disruptive events such as COVID-19 and the improvement of connection between firms' competitiveness and innovation practices in a big data context.
Research limitations/implications
The findings of this study show that the most important research axis in the existing literature on big data and firms' competitiveness are mostly related to common phases of competitive intelligence processes. However, concepts in these phases are strongly related to the most important dimensions intrinsic to big data. The use of a single database (Scopus) or the selected keywords can lead to bias in this study. Therefore, to address these limitations, future studies could combine different databases (i.e. Web of Science and Scopus) or different sets of keywords.
Practical implications
This study can provide to practitioners the most important concepts and future directions to deal with for using big data analytics to improve their competitiveness.
Social implications
This study can help researchers or practitioners to identify potential research collaborators or identify suitable sources of publications in the context of big data for firms' competitiveness.
Originality/value
The authors propose a conceptual model related to big data and firms' competitiveness from the outputs of a bibliometric study.
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Ondřej Dvouletý and Ivana Blažková
The purpose of this paper is to examine the firm-level drivers of competitiveness of the Czech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using the complex firm-level…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the firm-level drivers of competitiveness of the Czech small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using the complex firm-level competitiveness index. The authors explored the relationship between firm competitiveness and firm characteristics such as size, age, industry affiliation and location.
Design/methodology/approach
The complex competitiveness index as a proxy for firm competitiveness was calculated from the survey data. In total, 132 complete questionnaires filled in by representatives of randomly selected Czech SMEs were collected in 2018. Additional firm characteristics (size, age, industry affiliation and location) considered as determinants of competitiveness were obtained from the commercial database Albertina and from the Czech Statistical Office. The determinants of competitiveness were tested econometrically by estimation of multivariate regression models.
Findings
The authors mainly found a significant relationship between the firm size and competitiveness of the Czech SMEs. The authors have also confirmed that the least competitive enterprises are those operating in the agricultural sector and that regional location plays an important role in the determination of firm competitiveness.
Practical implications
The identification of competitiveness drivers can provide entrepreneurs, managers and policymakers with important implications. It seems beneficial for the Czech SMEs to expand the scope of operations to achieve a larger company size, for example, by focussing on investment activities, direct marketing, improving entrepreneurial skills or by applying an aggressive sales strategy, especially towards markets with lower competition. Politicians may respond to these efforts by setting the appropriate policies that promote SMEs’ competitiveness, for example, through the hard and soft public support for financial and human resources.
Originality/value
Although many studies on competitiveness have been published, there is still a limited number of firm-level studies looking at competitiveness from multiple angles rather than from the study of profitability and productivity. In contrast, the study uses a complex firm-level competitiveness index based on ten competitiveness pillars (technology, human capital, products, domestic market, networks, international markets, online presence, marketing, decision making and strategy) to capture the contribution of different resources and capabilities to firm competitiveness.
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The purpose of this paper is to identify strategies that encourage corporate entrepreneurship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify strategies that encourage corporate entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a case study of an Indian technology giant, XYZ, using interviews, questionnaires, and studying associated literature to extrapolate conclusions on best practices.
Findings
XYZ's transformation in the 1990s was due to the company's identification of IT as a potent market, and its ability to adapt its internal structure to encourage all its employees to engage in cutting edge advances in technology and managerial practice.
Research limitations/implications
The study was an in‐depth analysis of only one corporation.
Originality/value
It helps provide a framework for other corporations to be able to react to uncertain market conditions and to maximize fully the potential of their existing talent pool at all levels.
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Pragya Bhawsar and Utpal Chattopadhyay
The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative approach to measure industry clusters competitiveness.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative approach to measure industry clusters competitiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
An attempt has been made to construct a composite indicator backed up by a conceptually grounded framework, by means of Analytical Hierarchical Process technique. Four industry clusters from auto sector in India are chosen for manifestation of the methodology.
Findings
The proposed methodology sufficiently emphasises on the order of significance of the factors/indicators that make a cluster competitive. The study demonstrates the comparative competitiveness performance of four select industry clusters from India.
Research limitations/implications
The methodology only focusses on auto clusters from India, application of the model/methodology needs to be extended to other set of industries that follows tier structure, or belong to other developing nations to corroborate the findings.
Practical implications
The proposed approach is a useful tool to provide guidance to policy-makers and in monitoring industry clusters progress.
Originality/value
The paper offers an empirical approach for measuring competitiveness of industry clusters. So far there has been only a minuscule research on cluster competitiveness using empirical methods specifically in case of developing countries like India. Because of the heterogeneity of actors in industry clusters and absence of cluster relevant databases, its performance has been mostly captured via means of case studies. This study is one of its kind that renders comparison of competitiveness across industry clusters by combining secondary data with the perception of cluster actors.