Strategy and Circumstance: the Response of American Firms to Japanese Competition in Semiconductors, 1980-1995

The transistor was an American invention, and American firms led the world in semiconductor production and innovation for the first three decades of that industry's existence. In the 1980s, however, Japanese producers began to challenge American dominance. Shrill cries arose from the literature of public policy, warning that the American semiconductor industry would soon share the fate of the lamented American consumer electronics business. Few dissented from the implications: the only hope for salvation would be to adopt Japanese-style public policies and imitate the kinds of capabilities Japanese firms possessed. But the predicted extinction never occurred. Instead, American firms surged back during the 1990s, and it now seems the Japanese who are embattled. This striking American turnaround has gone largely unremarked upon in the public policy literature. And even scholarship in strategic management, which thrives on stories of success instead of stories of failure, has been comparatively silent. Drawing on a more thorough economic history of the worldwide semiconductor industry (Langlois and Steinmueller 1999), this essay attempts to collect some of the lessons for strategy research of the American resurgence. We argue that, although some of the American response did consist in changing or augmenting capabilities, most of the renewed American success is in fact the result not of imitating superior Japanese capabilities but rather of taking good advantage of a set of capabilities developed in the heyday of American dominance. Serendipity played at least as important a role as did strategy.

Comparative Analysis of Firms’ Participation in National and International Programmes to Support Innovation

Innovation is a process that faces several market failure situations. For this reason and for being considered one of the main drivers of economic growth, a large number of governmental and supranational policies are designed to foster technological progress. Along with these policies, there is an increasing concern with their continuous evaluation aiming at providing valuable feedback for these program?s adaptation and adequacy to the firm?s needs. The paper develops an evaluation of the influence of innovation-focused programs in firm¿s innovation and economic performance by means of a comparative analysis of the results obtained by Spanish firms that have participated in R&D national programmes and those achieved by Spanish firms participating in EUREKA international program. Findings show that the programmes were effective in achieving their objective of promoting technological innovation but, as regards the economic effects, the results were less conclusive since some differences were observed depending on the programme. The EUREKA companies displayed better behaviour, with positive differences in their returns on assets and labour productivity. The results also confirm the importance of designing more detailed and rigorous evaluation processes, taking into account the risk variable, in order to draw a more realistic picture of the impact of national and international programmes.

Difference Blindness vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms with the Best of Intentions Have Failed to Create Diverse Partnerships

This Article uses the example of BigLaw firms to explore the challenges that many elite organizations face in providing equal opportunity to their workers. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, large law firms have been consistently unable to deliver diverse partnership structures - especially in more senior positions of power. Building on implicit and institutional bias scholarship and on successful approaches described in the organizational behavior literature, we argue that a significant barrier to systemic diversity at the law firm partnership level has been, paradoxically, the insistence on difference blindness standards that seek to evaluate each person on their individual merit. While powerful in dismantling intentional discrimination, these standards rely on an assumption that lawyers are, and have the power to act as, atomistic individuals - a dangerous assumption that has been disproven consistently by the literature establishing the continuing and powerful influence of implicit and institutional bias. Accordingly, difference blindness, which holds all lawyers accountable to seemingly neutral standards, disproportionately disadvantages diverse populations and normalizes the dominance of certain actors - here, white men - by creating the illusion that success or failure depends upon individual rather than structural constraints. In contrast, we argue that a bias awareness approach that encourages identity awareness and a relational framework is a more promising way to promote equality, equity, and inclusion.

The role of HR in cross-border mergers and acquisitions:the case of Indian pharmaceutical firms

Mergers and acquisitions (M&) are increasingly becoming a strategy of choice for companies attempting to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. However, not all M&As are a success. In this paper, we examine the three main reasons highlighted in the literature as major causes of M&A failure (clashing corporate cultures, absence of clear communication, and employee involvement) in three Indian pharmaceutical companies, and we analyze the role played by the HR function in addressing them. Also, we discuss the importance of gaining the commitment and focus of the workforce during the acquisition process through employee involvement.

Re-examining the BMW-Rover affair:a case study of corporate, strategic and government failure?

This paper analyses corporate and government strategies during the purchase, period of control and divestment by BMW of the car manufacturer Rover over the period 1994 to 2000. This paper examines three types of ‘failure’. It views BMW’s purchase of Rover as a ‘corporate failure’, with British Aerospace keen to sell Rover to raise cash and with BMW not realising the real condition of Rover. It then moves on to examine BMW’s ‘divide and rule’ strategies with regard to working conditions and subsidy-seeking and its decision to sell Rover as an example of ‘strategic failure’. Finally, it considers the ‘hands-off’ nature of British policy towards such transnational firms, and BMW in particular, as an example of ‘government failure’. This paper concludes by raising the possibility of an EU-wide policy towards transnationals, especially in terms of monitoring the activities of such firms.

Innovation and the survival of new firms across British regions

This paper analyses the survival of the complete cohort of more than 162,000 limited companies incorporated in Britain in 2001 over the subsequent five-year period. For this purpose, we estimate firms' hazards of failure and survival functions using nonparametric and semi-parametric techniques. The paper focuses on two important policy-related issues.The first is to what extent survival rates vary across regions in Britain. A second, and related, policy issue concerns innovation. The data available allows us to look at the intellectual property (IP) activity of all British firms, including that of the 162,000 new firms in 2001. The results indicate substantial differences in survival rates across regions, and also that IP activity is associated with a higher probability of survival. These differences across regions, and the importance of IP activity, remain when we condition on a large range of regional, industry and firm-level characteristics shifting firms' hazards of failure.

Performance measurement with multiple interrelated variables and threshold target levels:evidence from retail firms in the US

In this study, we developed a DEA-based performance measurement methodology that is consistent with performance assessment frameworks such as the Balanced Scorecard. The methodology developed in this paper takes into account the direct or inverse relationships that may exist among the dimensions of performance to construct appropriate production frontiers. The production frontiers we obtained are deemed appropriate as they consist solely of firms with desirable levels for all dimensions of performance. These levels should be at least equal to the critical values set by decision makers. The properties and advantages of our methodology against competing methodologies are presented through an application to a real-world case study from retail firms operating in the US. A comparative analysis between the new methodology and existing methodologies explains the failure of the existing approaches to define appropriate production frontiers when directly or inversely related dimensions of performance are present and to express the interrelationships between the dimensions of performance.

Bankruptcy Situation Model in Small Business: The Case of Restaurant Firms

The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the current bankruptcy prediction models. This is done in the context of pros and cons of proposed models to determine the appropriate factors of failure phenomenon in cases involving restaurants that have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11. A sample of 11 restaurant companies that filed for bankruptcy between 1993 and 2003 were identified from the Form 8-K reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). By applying financial ratios retrieved from the annual reports which contain, income statements, balance sheets, statements of cash flows, and statements of stockholders’ equity (or deficit) to the Atlman’s mode, Springate model, and Fulmer’s model. The study found that Atlman’s model for the non-manufacturing industry provided the most accurate bankruptcy predictions.