Strategic alliances in a town centre : Stakeholder’s perceptions of property owner’s role

In order for town centres to manage increased competition in retailing, co-operation between stakeholders in a strategic alliance has become more important. A typical set of stakeholders in a strategic alliance for strengthening retailingare retailers, local authorities and property owners. The roles of retailer’sand local authorities’ are well researched. However, the role of property owners is not. The aim of this paper seeks to unfold the role of property owners in a strategic alliance. This is a case study of a medium-sized town in which semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders were conducted. In the chosen town there is a TCM alliance co-operation at work. The above mentioned stakeholders are possible members in an alliance. The case studied shows a fragmented property owner market with no dominant property owner, as it is in many medium-sized towns. Our study shows that many stakeholders look at the role of property owners as crucial for town centre development. However, property owners do not see that they can significantly contribute to or benefit from the development.The main reasons for this opinion are that they consider themselves as not having enough resources or the capability to influence the town development.

Strategic alliances between companies and non-governmental organizations pursuing the creation of shared value: an exploratory study at the base of the pyramid in Brazil

Na última década, uma crescente atenção tem sido dedicada ao desenvolvimento de estratégias que permitem uma empresa de atender os mercados de baixa renda de uma forma rentável e ao mesmo tempo enfrentar os desafios sociais. Uma das ferramentas estratégicas identificados para operar com sucesso na base da pirâmide ( BoP ), consiste no estabelecimento de alianças com organizações não governamentais (ONGs). Isso, no entanto, é um desafio, especialmente porque os atores do setor empresarial e da sociedade civil são movidos por um propósito diferente e adotam uma abordagem diferente na condução das suas atividades. O objetivo desta pesquisa é, portanto, investigar precisamente como ONGs e empresas podem alavancar os seus respectivos recursos e capacidades para criar valor econômico e social , servindo este segmento. Um estudo de casos múltiplos, com foco na base da pirâmide brasileira é utilizado, a fim de entender as dificuldades e fatores de sucesso para a criação e gestão de tais alianças e identificar os recursos e capacidades que são mobilizados por cada parceiro. Os resultados sugerem que as principais dificuldades estão em encontrar um parceiro adequado; superar percepções estereotipadas negativos e falta de confiança e, finalmente, na diferente estrutura, cultura e processos. Por sua vez, os fatores mais importantes que levam ao sucesso incluem a escolha do parceiro certo; compatibilidade em termos de missão, estratégia e valores; estabelecimento de confiança e comprometimento; comunicação eficaz e, finalmente, a capacidade da aliança de gerar valor para ambos os parceiros. Além disso, os resultados demostram que o papel das ONGs é na maior parte limitado a agir como uma ponte entre a empresa e as comunidades de baixa renda, enquanto as capacidades operacionais e os recursos financeiros são fornecidos pelas empresas.

Knowledge acquisition in international strategic alliances among Malaysian manufacturing firms

This thesis examines the process of knowledge acquisition by Malaysian manufacturing firms through their involvement in international strategic alliances. The strategic alliances can be with or without equity involvement. Firms involved with a foreign partner with equity involvement are joint venture firms while non-equity involvement are firms that engaged in contractual agreements. Using empirical evidence from 65 international alliances gathered through a survey conducted in high-technology manufacturing sectors, several factors that influence the process of knowledge acquisition are examined. The factors are: learning capacity, experience, goals, active involvement and accessibility to the foreign knowledge. Censored regression analysis and ordered probit analysis are used to analyse the effects of these factors on knowledge acquisition and its determinant parts, and the effects of knowledge acquisition and its determinants on the performance of the alliances. A second questionnaire gathered evidence relating to the factors, which encouraged tacit knowledge transfer between the foreign and Malaysian partners in international alliances. The key findings of the study are: knowledge acquisition in international strategic alliances is influenced by five determining factors; learning capacity, experience, articulated goals, active involvement and accessibility; new technology knowledge, product development knowledge and manufacturing process knowledge are influenced differently by the determining factors; knowledge acquisition and its determinant factors have a significant impact on the firm’s performance; cultural differences tend to moderate the effect on the firm’s performance; acquiring tacit knowledge is not only influenced by the five determinant factors but also by other factors, such as dependency, accessibility, trust, manufacturing control, learning methods and organisational systems; Malaysian firms involved in joint ventures tend to acquire more knowledge than those involved in contractual agreements, but joint ventures also exhibit higher degrees of dependency than contractual agreements; and the presence of R&D activity in the Malaysian partner encourages knowledge acquisition, but the amount of R&D expenditure has no effect on knowledge acquisition.

A kiskereskedelmi stratégiai szövetségek hatása a kiskereskedelmi marketing tevékenységére és teljesítményére = Effects of the retail strategic alliances to the retailers' marketing activity and performance

A kilencvenes évek második felétől egyre jelentősebb szerepet játszanak a vállalatközi együttműködések, hosszabb távú kooperációk a hazai élelmiszer- és napi cikk kiskereskedelemben. A társulások szintjén a piaci siker egyértelmű, amely jól nyomon követhető az évente megjelenő kiskereskedői rangsorokban. A cikk viszont a tagkereskedők szemszögéből vizsgálja a kérdést, vajon a társuláshoz való csatlakozás ténylegesen javítja-e a kiskereskedő teljesítményét és milyen dimenziókon keresztül. _____________ From the second half of the ’90s the strategic alliances, the long term cooperations have been increasingly role in the domestic food and FMCG retail. On the level of the alliances the market success has been obvious, which has well presented in the annual retail rankings. The article examines the issue from the retailers’ point of view: whether the accession to the alliance has effectively improved the retalier’s performance and which dimensions through.

Mapping the Contemporary Studies on Alliances and Strategic Networks

The competition among the companies depends on the velocity and efficience they can create and commercialize knowledge in a timely and cost-efficient manner. In this context, collaboration emerges as a reaction to the environmental changes. Although strategic alliances and networks have been exploited in the strategic literature for decades, the complexity and continuous usage of these cooperation structures, in a world of growing competition, justify the continuous interest in both themes. This article presents a scanning of the contemporary academic production in strategic alliances and networks, covering the period from January 1997 to august 2007, based on the top five journals accordingly to the journal of Citation Report 2006 in the business and management categories simultaneously. The results point to a retraction in publications about strategic alliances and a significant growth in the area of strategic. networks. The joint view of strategic alliances and networks, cited by some authors a the evolutionary path of study, still did not appear salient. The most cited topics found in the alliance literature are the governance structure, cooperation, knowledge transfer, culture, control, trust, alliance formation,,previous experience, resources, competition and partner selection. The theme network focuses mainly on structure, knowledge transfer and social network, while the joint vision is highly concentrated in: the subjects of alliance formation and the governance choice.

Ensuring dynamic strategic fit of firms that compete globally in alliances and networks: proposing the Global SNA - Strategic Network Analysis - framework

In order to sustain their competitive advantage in the current increasingly globalized and turbulent context, more and more firms are competing globally in alliances and networks that oblige them to adopt new managerial paradigms and tools. However, their strategic analyses rarely take into account the strategic implications of these alliances and networks, considering their global relational characteristics, admittedly because of a lack of adequate tools to do so. This paper contributes to research that seeks to fill this gap by proposing the Global Strategic Network Analysis - SNA - framework. Its purpose is to help firms that compete globally in alliances and networks to carry out their strategic assessments and decision-making with a view to ensuring dynamic strategic fit from both a global and relational perspective.

Strategic Airline Alliances: Advantages for Major Airlines Being Aligned

SSome factors including the deregulation in the U.S and the liberalization in Europe of the airline industry are essential to understanding why the number of partnership agreements between airlines has increased during the last 25 years. These events, coupled with the continuous economic downturn and the 9/11 catastrophe seem to be the perfect framework for the tendency to develop airline strategic alliances. However, it has been observed that this trend was not followed during the period 2005-2008. The purpose of this paper is to analyze if a benefit was experienced by the major airlines who became a member of the current 3 big alliances compared to the major airlines that decided not to become a member or were not admitted into the alliances during 2005-2008. The methodology of this report includes an analysis of several airlines’ performance figures. These performance figures include the revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs), the passenger load factor (PLF) and also the market share (MS). The figures will be compared between the aligned airlines and others which have similar business models. The value of this paper is to reveal whether being aligned provides advantages to major airlines under a bearish airline market in a globalized environment.

Strategic divide management in pharmaceutical alliances: A partner’s strategic evolution as a reason for strategic divide

Strategic alliances are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry and, ideally, they are long-lasting structures that bring many benefits and value to the alliance partners. However, organizations continuously encounter pressures to enhance performance, while the environment in which they operate evolves. Therefore, an alliance partner might be forced to change its strategy, which can lead to the partners’ misaligned priorities and strategic divide. The academic literature acknowledges the impact a partner’s strategic change can have on the value of the alliance, but the phenomenon is not studied further, which is why the purpose of this study is to understand the role that a partner’s strategic evolution plays in strategic alliances within the pharmaceutical industry. The main purpose is further divided into three sub-objectives: 1) Describe reasons behind the strategic direction change of a partner firm, 2) Understand the consequences of partners’ misaligned priorities, and 3) Describe proactive and reactive ways to manage strategic divide between alliance partners. Since the phenomenon is not studied much, the empirical part of the study was conducted as a qualitative analysis using expert interviews to better understand, how the partner’s strategic evolution affects the alliance. The empirical data was organized into themes, according to the researcher’s interpretations on the interviews. The research findings demonstrated, how the partners change their strategies if the external or organizational environments change. The strategic changes, again, cause strategic divides between the alliance partners that are likely to have an impact on the alliance value. The findings revealed that the interviewees consider anticipation of the partner’s strategic change to be really difficult, but, at the same time, it was noted that a proactive strategic divide management could help to prevent and detect some divides. Additionally, the results showed that, after the detection, a reactive approach in a controlled manner was seen to be the most beneficial for the alliance’s future performance. This study proved that a partner’s strategic evolution affects the partners’ priority alignment and alliance value, which is why the strategic divide management is important in organizations that are involved with strategic alliances. In order to understand the role of a partner’s strategic evolution and provide managers with a tool to manage alliances and strategic divides, the study combined the alliance lifecycle as well as the proactive and reactive approaches to strategic divide, and presented a framework for strategic divide management.

Horizontal alliances amongst small retailers in Brazil

Purpose - Application of the horizontal alliance paradigm has particularly relevance to small retailers. It is a powerful mechanism for independents and non-integrated chain retailers to develop competitive advantage, maintaining and improving their performance. The purpose of this article is to analyse the theory of alliance in the context of the retail sector. Design/methodology/approach - Both quantitative and qualitative research was carried out with horizontal retail alliances in Brazil. Findings - Focusing on the alliances among independents and non-integrated chain retailers, our discussion covers specifically the following issues: the reasons for forming a strategic alliance in retail; minimum criteria for the alliance activity amongst retailers; steps that managers must take to create a competitive retail alliance; critical core competencies to be developed on the retail alliance; types of retail alliances; and, finally, forms of strategic retail alliances and stages/steps to develop a retail alliance over time. Research limitations/implications - The study considers horizontal alliances in a Brazilian retail context, which is in some ways unique, however, key principles and findings are very much transferable. Practical implications/implications - The study is of value not only to researchers of retail horizontal alliances, but offers retail practitioners specific experience and guidance. Originality/value - It was identified from the literature that there have been relatively few theoretical and practical studies available that analyse the relationship between the outlined themes concerned with alliances and small retailers. The discussion in our paper provides useful information and new insights to both academics and practitioners.

Starburst accelerator and incubator construction & energy: How to monitor the activities of an incubator and give strategic advice to startups

This work project takes the format of a problem-solving approach suggested by “Impulse Partners”, a French consulting firm. It recommends a way to measure the success of ten startups in the incubators “Starburst” and “Incubator Construction & Energy” and give them strategic guidance. A Balanced Scorecard is elaborated to help incubated startups building up and implementing their strategy. The Scorecard suggests possible initiatives for the startups that are ideally realized with the help of the consulting firm that is steering the incubator. Special attention is drawn to what the startups need to succeed, which typically concerns financing, networking and managing skills.

Comovement of stock price risk in strategic alliance — Case: mobile internet

The focus of this study has been comovement of stock price risk level between two companies as they form strategic alliance. Thus the main reason has been to shed more light to possible increased risk level that the stockholder confronts when a company he owns forms a strategic alliance with another company. This study has centralized to interfirm cooperation between mobile and internet companies, which have furthered the development of mobile internet. The study has been divided into theoretical and empirical part. In theoretical part the main concepts riskiness of a stock (volatility), comovement and strategic alliance have been run through. In empirical part seven strategic alliances formed by mobile internet companies have been examined. Based on this, strategic alliance seems to increase comovement of stock price risk in some degree. This comovement seems to be stronger when core businesses or operating environments of cooperating companies differ more from each other.

Balanced scorecard to improve strategic management control at School of Mines and Energy, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

We studied the situation in Spanish public universities regarding the use of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as an instrument of control and strategic management. Also, we studied its application to the School of Mines and Energy at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The main advantage of the BSC is that improves the organizational structure of the workplace and the achievement of the objectives that ensure long-term success. First we review the strategy for success used in the Spanish educational system and specifically in the Spanish public universities. Then using the BSC and applying the main strategic lines for the successful management of the School of Mines and Energy at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The strategic lines affect all the college groups and the success of the BSC tool is to increase communication between the faculties, personal auxiliary, students and society in general that make up the university. First we performed a SWOT analysis (DAFO in Spanish) there are proposed different perspectives that focus the long-term strategic objectives. The BSC is designed based on the strategic objectives that set the direction through using indicators and initiatives, the goals are achieved up to the programmed schedule. In the perspective of teaching, objectives are set to update facilities and increase partnerships with other universities and businesses, encouraging ongoing training of staff and improved coordination and internal communication. The internal process perspective aims at improving the marketing, the promotion of the international dimension of the school through strategic alliances, better mobility for students and professors and improved teaching and research quality results. It continues with improving the image of the school between customer?s perspective, the quality perceived by students and the loyalty of the teaching staff by retaining talent. Finally, the financial perspective which should contain costs without harming the quality, improving the employability of students and achieve relevant jobs at teaching and research through international measurement standards.