The new techno-economic paradigm of the information age has brought about new structures and processes in international business (IB). In this article, we examine the changing nature of the ...competitive advantages of places, the competitive advantages and strategies of firms, and the governance structure of IB networks in what has also been called the third industrial revolution. These three areas of change in IB activities can be mapped respectively to the location (L), ownership (O) and internalization (I) advantages of the eclectic paradigm. We interpret these OLI factors as dynamic constructs in order to depict analytically the shifts in the IB environment and their implications for IB.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to re-assess the concept of ownership advantages in the light of successful international expansion of multinationals from emerging economies (EMNEs) and explore ...how these advantages are built.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a viewpoint based on analysis of the successful international expansion of a sample of Chinese EMNEs where success is measured their ability win share in overseas markets. This allows us to identify their ownership advantages, the antecedents of these advantages and how they were built using dynamic capabilities.FindingsEMNEs have “non-traditional” ownership advantages that have been built by finding innovative ways to leverage the locational advantages of their home countries. The conversion of locational advantages into ownership advantages requires that firms build dynamic capabilities that enable them to innovate in the use of the locational advantages they enjoy.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to a small sample of EMNEs from China who have succeeded in winning market share in the initial phases of their international expansion. In the light of these limitations, the authors discuss the question the sustainability of their competitive advantage as well as the likely applicability of our findings to EMNEs from other EMNEs.Originality/valueThe authors revisit the paradox that despite the growth and success of multinationals from EMNEs in the past decade they are assumed to lack ownership advantages. The authors show that EMNEs’ ownership advantages differ from the traditional advantages such proprietary technologies and brand equity that are enjoyed by incumbent multinationals.
Research Summary
Shocks, whether they derive from shifts in demand, supply, regulation, or innovation, can create the need for competitive repositioning by industry participants when they disrupt ...established sources of competitive advantage. Such situations can therefore create a canonical strategic problem: whether, where, and how to (re‐)position following an industry shock. In this paper, we explore the role of comparative adjustment costs in determining competitive advantage in dynamic environments. In so doing, we synthesize contributions from Penrose, Porter, and Williamson to conceptualize the relationship between adjustment costs and related concepts such as resources/capabilities, dynamic capabilities, transaction costs, and opportunity costs.
Managerial Summary
Whether, where, and how should leaders reposition their firms in response to industry shocks? This paper develops a framework to guide leaders charged with making these decisions. The framework emphasizes that firms facing an industry shock must: (a) assess their firm's cost and time to move to each new position, and compare that cost and time to rivals' costs and time to move to those same positions; (b) compare the cost of delaying repositioning (such as forfeiting first mover advantage) to the profits from remaining in its original position, and (c) consider that, in order to speed repositioning, the efficient choice may be to temporarily accept certain hazards from outsourcing, and later integrate to eliminate those hazards. We illustrate the framework using an example from the smartphone industry.
Online communities are an increasingly relevant yet relatively underexamined stakeholder group for firms. I argue that firms may garner distinct competitive advantages from engaging with online ...communities. Drawing on social capital theory and stakeholder theory, I examine the benefits, tactics, and firm attributes that underlie a positive relationship between firm engagement in an online community and firm performance. In so doing, I develop a theory pertaining to online community advantage, which both accounts for the information, influence, and solidarity benefits that flow to firms from firm engagement in an online community and highlights the firm tactics and attributes associated with the generation of such benefits.
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•Advantages and drawbacks of phase change materials.•Supercooling is a shortcoming in phase change material’s practical applications.•Comprehensive discussion of supercooling ...mitigation techniques.•Different techniques for PCMs’ supercooling suppression were investigated.
In the quest for alternatives for fossil fuels, phase change materials (PCMs) have attracted considerable attention due to their ability to store renewable thermal energy. Compared to other storage systems, PCM systems are of low cost and capable of the storage of a high density of energy. However, few drawbacks hinder their practical application at an industrial scale. Among the drawbacks, supercooling problem affecting all types of PCMs is crucial. Supercooling as a shortcoming in PCM applications limits their practical applications. However, a comprehensive discussion or review articles have not been published. A PCM can exists in the liquid form below the phase change temperature or its freezing point, without fully freezing, due to supercooling. Thus, practical applications are limited by major problems such as the temperature variations and the increase of energy consumption. In this paper, most of the reported supercooling mitigation techniques for various types of PCMs and nanofluids are reviewed. These techniques are based mainly on adding nucleating agents (such as carbon nanotubes, fine salt particles, and nanoaditives), thickeners (such as carboxy methyl cellulose), and macroporous structures. The mitigation of phase separation and thermal cycling effects on supercooling are also discussed. The mitigation of supercooling in encapsulated organic PCMs, which is an important issue that is not very well understood, too is briefly addressed. Recommendations and future challenges to enhance the application of PCMs are discussed.
Based on the upper echelons theory, ecofeminist theory, and natural resource‐based theory (NRBV), this study has constructed a relational model between female executives' participation, unethical ...environmental behavior, proactive environmental strategy, and corporate sustainable competitive advantage. The samples include a total of 496 female executives from listed 524 companies in the manufacturing sector in China, and multiple regression methods are used for the analysis. The study showed that female executives' participation had double positive effects on corporate sustainable competitive advantage, which included both the inhibiting effect on unethical environmental behavior and the stimulating effect on proactive environmental strategies. The study also explored the boundary conditions of “conservative” and “proactive” behaviors from the internal and external perspectives of enterprises. But it was shown that the effect would not be further improved when both moderation effects of environmental stakeholder pressure and environmental leadership were higher at the same time. As enterprises' behaviors should match with their capability range, radical behaviors might run counter to their desires.
According to The Guardian, “Professors, programmers and journalists could all be out of a job in just a few years” 1. In North America, long before the pandemic, some high schools (both public and ...private) replaced books and notebooks with laptops. In universities, the students preferred listening to the recordings of the lectures taken on their computers or phones instead of actively taking notes during the classes. Technology has been the topic of many debates among teachers, parents, and students. Seen both advantageous and disadvantageous, technology in the classroom has become indispensable to teaching. Technology has proven to have been the only way out of the pandemic crisis regarding business and education. The trend in the education field in a post-pandemic context resulted from a blend between teaching approaches and technology use. However, in a post-pandemic context, this trend has been seen as one of the central factors leading to an increase in the lack of inperson socialization for youths and a principal distraction from their studies. Moreover, the development of more advanced software (A.I. Bot ChatGPT) has started to influence the teaching process regarding assignments. However, the real question is how and to what extent the use of technology can be advantageous for students today.
Innovation ecosystems are formed by interconnected firms that coalesce in interdependent networks to jointly create value. Such ecosystems rely on the norm of reciprocity—the give-and-take ethos of ...sharing knowledge-based resources. It is well established that an ecosystem firm can increase its competitive advantage by increasing interconnectedness with partners. However, much research has focused heavily on the positive role of inbound openness or ‘taking’ resources from ecosystem partners. The positive role of outbound openness or ‘giving’ resources to ecosystem partners remained less explored and often misunderstood as eroding competitive advantage. We address this gap by first developing a conceptual model about the mediating role of inbound openness and outbound openness in the relationship between a firm’s ecosystem interconnectedness and competitive advantage. We then test this model on a large sample (
n
= 794 managers) from Silicon Valley (USA) and Macquarie Business Park (Australia). Results indicate that outbound openness is a more important mediator than inbound openness for ecosystem firms seeking competitive advantage. Our findings suggest that the effect of outbound openness goes beyond merely generating tit-for-tat reciprocity to generating strategic benefits in their own right. The study adds to knowledge about the ethics of innovation ecosystems by showing that outbound openness to partners improves competitive advantage. Ecosystem firms, thus, do well by doing good when they increase their outbound openness.
The paper applies a variant of the gravity model to test whether there is a positive link between the size of trade flows and the extent to which they follow the pattern of comparative advantage. ...Using UNCTAD's 2016 trade data for every country in the world, and 255 merchandise items, we show that countries trading more with each other tend to follow the patterns of comparative advantages more than countries with smaller mutual trade flows. While smaller trade flows can be easily influenced by business decisions of individual companies or one-off trade contracts going against trade pattern predictions, this is not the case with larger flows. We also find signs that holding trade volume constant, more distant countries trade less than geographically proximate countries, in line with predictions from comparative advantage. The results are valid for the whole database of all country pairs in world trade, but the goodness of fit increases with the number of items these country pairs trade in. The paper is the first insight into the topic and can be expanded to a higher level of disaggregation and more variables in future research.
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