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The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

In currently facing dynamic environments, the tools of strategic management appear to be more and more important in improving the quality of decision‐making. Among the great Chinese wisdoms, Sun Tzu's, The Art of War, is probably the oldest military book in Chinese with principles which Sun Tzu advocated, still very valuable in business operations today. Thus, this study tends to evaluate the relationships among Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control through an empirical study. Furthermore, how the levels of adoption on Sun Tzu's principles of situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control impact on a firm acquiring its key success factors is also verified. The results show that the adoption levels of Sun Tzu's principles on situation appraisal, strategy implementation, and strategic control are highly interrelated. The adoption levels are positively related to the firm acquiring its key success factors, as well.

The main purpose of this study focuses on how to integrate the supply chain management business process. There were a total of 600 questionnaires issued in this study with 134 valid questionnaires being retrieved. The study concludes the following results: the level of idiosyncratic investments to supply chain partners, the degree of dependence between supply chain partners, and the level of product salability of manufacturer would enhance commitment and, consequently, the integration of the SCM business process. The degree of trust, power, continuity, and communication between supply chain partners would enhance commitment and, consequently, the integration of the SCM business process. The level of affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment of supply chain partners would be helpful in the integration of the SCM business process.

The purpose of this paper is to present a cooperation model identifying the R&D capability as the central driver of startup commercialization strategy, by which new startups can evaluate their relative R&D capability and consequently choose an appropriate commercialization strategy.

A cooperation model has been constructed, and drawing upon the patent data of 91 aluminum nitride manufacturers, the implications of R&D capability for commercialization strategy are illustrated.

The authors' analysis suggests that competitive interaction between startup innovators and established firms depends on the R&D capability of the startup innovators, which can be evaluated by patent data.

For technologically efficient firms, a high level of integration to achieve the benefits of economies of scope will lead to more profits. However, for technologically inefficient firms, maintaining a low level of integration to achieve the benefits of specialization is the better strategy.

This paper provides a simplified model which combines an evaluation of R&D capability using patent data with strategic decision making to facilitate successful commercialization in startups.

The study aims to shed light on how to identify drivers of sustainable competitive advantage under a turbulent and uncertain environment, one of the most crucial challenges faced by resource‐based strategists.

This study introduces a VRIO‐based framework to evaluate a firm's internal activities, in which the fuzzy set and utilities functions are adopted to identify the competitive advantage of available resources based on resource‐based theory. A case study is conducted to illustrate how the framework can be applied as a tool for exploring the potential competitiveness of a firm's core resources.

The quantitative VRIO‐based framework is a useful tool to assist top management to identify a list of potential competitive advantages of the available sources.

The VRIO‐based framework is built through the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods, and this innovative approach is proposed to bridge the gap between resource‐based theory and its application.

The purpose of this paper is to look at factors which result in improved attitudinal outcome (AO) through the proposal and empirical validation of a theoretical model. The model incorporates four major self‐perceived dimensions: personality traits (PTs), job characteristics (JCs), transformational leadership behaviors (LBs), and AOs.

This is a quantitative research using a survey questionnaire as data collecting instrument. Data collected from ten technological companies located in the Neihu Science Park in Taiwan (n=221) were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that both personal traits and JCs have positive yet insignificant effects on AOs. However, both factors significantly and indirectly influence AOs via transformational LBs.

This proposed model provides an overall framework which indicates how both intrinsic and extrinsic factors can affect the perception of LBs, which consequently plays a critical role in influencing employees emotionally. This structure has rarely been explored and the findings are particularly useful for management in helping to set leadership in a bigger context.

Building on the transaction cost theory and power structure literature, this paper aims to investigate the extent to which firms use two safeguarding mechanisms (supply chain relational investments and electronic collaboration) in different network dependency contexts in order to protect their portfolios of business relationships.

Empirical evidence is gathered though a survey data conducted with 159 firms in the wireless communication sector. The paper tests the assumption that the two safeguarding mechanisms are used to a greater extent in interdependency‐intensive networks than in other supply chain contexts.

This empirical study suggests that: in a network‐dependent context, relational investments allow firms to safeguard their portfolios of relationships; electronic collaboration seems to be a safeguarding mechanism for firms in downstream‐dependent network contexts; in general, firms appear to use both relational investments and electronic collaboration to manage their relationships in a supply chain network; and the knowledge‐based theory may explain the strong relationship between upstream and downstream use of electronic collaboration.

Overall, the present study complements the extant literature on supply chain management and inter‐firm electronic collaboration by showing how an important structural characteristic of supply chain networks (i.e. dependency) operates on the choice of using two key safeguarding mechanisms.

Results stress the importance of these safeguarding mechanisms in joint actions such as collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment.

The paper addresses interdependencies from a network perspective which encompasses the firms' complete portfolio of relationships.