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Based on theories of organizational learning and strategic considerations, this study aims to develop a strategic contingency model for technology alliance and identify how alliance‐specific factors, strategic factors, and organizational capability factors influence firms to acquire competencies and competitive advantages through technology alliance.

A six‐page, 94‐item survey questionnaire was developed and mailed to top‐level managers of the semiconductor firms in Taiwan. A total of 63 valid responses were received.

The study results indicate that firms with higher absorption orientation, higher risk reduction orientation, higher R&D scale economy orientation, and higher top management team experiences tend to perform better in acquiring competitive advantages. In addition, the strategic fit between strategic factors, organizational capability factors and technology alliance choice could lead firms to better competitive advantage.

Although the results of this study are fruitful, several suggestions could be made for academicians and business practitioners. First, the respondent rate of this study is low and could be improved. Second, in addition to the strategic contingency model as developed in this study, more research factors could be further investigated. Third, more case studies could be conducted to reconfirm the results of this study.

The major contribution of this study is to investigate what critical factors would influence the choice of a technology alliance model, and what effects the influencing factors have on the relationship between a technology alliance model and the intended competency development. The results of this study provide very important references for academicians and practitioners to investigate the effectiveness of technology alliance.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model of strategic performance factors for effective strategy execution.

This study uses multiple methods combining both the qualitative and quantitative research routes to unearth a more complete picture of the phenomenon facilitating accurate, generalizable, and practically useful theory.

There is a lack of literature on strategic performance factors and their role in effective strategy execution, which turns out be a barrier to the success of strategy execution. This study not only reviews the SPFs in the context of effective performance management leading to effective strategy execution but also identifies linkages among the SPFs to demonstrate the relative criticality of SPFs and how one SPF leads to another SPF. Interestingly, the situation and actor factors, which were explained in a very limited way in traditional models, have emerged as the most influential strategic performance factors.

Although this study attempts to synergize multiple research methods to increase the significance of the findings, a comparatively large sample size would be more useful to test the reliability of the results. Additionally, the SPFs are contextual in nature and, therefore, this study requires extended efforts to test the research propositions in different research settings and reveals the generalized as well as differentiated results. The possible bias in ISM exercise can be improved by having multiple discussions with the respondents. This study extends the theoretical debate on balancing the strategic and operational performance measures for successful strategy execution. The study also fills the gap in the literature by proposing the model of strategic performance factors. Adding methodological value extending triangulation along with the interpretative tool, this study also suggests methodological implication of the research design.

The proposed model of SPF could be useful in measuring the right thing in the right way to ensure effective strategy execution. Management of SPFs such as situation and actor is a further value addition to the debate on balancing lead and lag measures or financial and non‐financial measures. The study demonstrates that organizations should go beyond operation measures (both financial and non‐financial) and also focus on strategic factors such as situation and actors, which actually lead to the other SPFs.

This study took unique steps to integrate the multiple perspectives of performance measures and develop a model which can facilitate effective strategy execution. It not only fills the gaps in the literature but also provides a strategic perspective of the performance measurement and management systems. The methodological experimentation to not only bring rigor in model building but also use interpretive tools is an innovative attempt to clarify the “what”, “how” as well as “why” aspects of model building.

A competitive business strategy with a greater chance of success depends on an accurate quantitative analysis of business strategic factors prevailing in a company. The purpose of this paper is to conduct the latter to determine the level of competitiveness in a sector.

This study develops a tool based on literature classics and tested in the telecommunications industry to determine market segment competitiveness, market attractiveness and the relative ability of companies to generate profits.

The proposed tool allows managers to quantify each strategic factor and, thus, identify positive factors leading to a competitive advantage and weaknesses leading to vulnerability, which enables an improvement in daily strategic decision making.

Implementing the tool can enable managers to both quantify each strategic factor and improve strategic decision making.

This methodology employed here is novel. As such, this study provides new insights into how to compete in the telecommunications industry and discusses useful implications for academia, new entrepreneurs, buyers and suppliers.

This paper aims to present strategic performance management modeling of the Indian automobile manufacturing enterprises. This will help to understand the hierarchical structure and linkages of different strategic factors related to enterprise performance in a better way. Automobile manufacturing industry is one of the top industries in India. It is of paramount importance to identify the strategic factors and their linkages to understand the strategic performance management issues better.

Flexible strategy game-card, an evolving performance management framework, has been taken as the basis for the development of a strategic performance management model. Thematic content analysis is used to analyze semi-structured interviews and for identifying strategic factors related to performance. Total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) is used to develop the hierarchical structure of these performance strategic factors. Case-lets and statistical analysis are used to further validate these models.

The study proposes a strategic performance management model for Indian automobile enterprises that can be considered as a conceptual framework which helps to identify the leading and lagging factors of performance. This can be considered as an exploratory study for conceptualization and can be further validated through empirical testing.

The research methodology adopted here gives a guideline to researchers for conducting an exploratory study where they can identify the factors/variables of interest through semi-structured interviews and thematic content analysis. The TISM helps to develop the poorly articulated mental model in a well-structured hierarchical form, which would help to get more insights in relation to performance.

The study fills the gaps by addressing the issue of performance in the Indian context by identifying strategic performance factors for automobile enterprises. There is an attempt to demonstrate the application of an evolving performance management framework, i.e. flexible strategy game-card. The methodological rigor and application of mixed methods adds value to the knowledge base by providing a mechanism to conduct an exploratory study for the area of interest.

The purpose of this research is to identify the core values and key success factors in strategic sourcing; and to examine the importance of strategic sourcing and the key success factors in the Hong Kong toy industry. In addition, the relationship between the implementation of the key factors and sourcing performance in the Hong Kong toy industry are investigated.

The empirical research is based on a questionnaire survey that collected data from 205 Hong Kong toy companies. The survey investigated the degree of importance of key success strategic sourcing factors and the extent of implementation of the key factors in the companies. Furthermore, the sourcing performance of the companies was measured to investigate its relationship with the implementation of the key factors.

The research identifies five core values and 14 key success factors in strategic sourcing through literature reviews. The survey findings indicate that the identified key success factors are important and positively related to the sourcing performance. Moreover, the results show that the implementation of strategic sourcing in the Hong Kong toy industry is lagging behind the degree of importance of strategic sourcing.

Since there is a gap between the implementation and importance of strategic sourcing, there is room for the Hong Kong toy industry to improve sourcing performance by addressing the 14 key success factors.

The paper identifies the key success strategic sourcing factors to improve sourcing performance in the Hong Kong toy industry.

Outsourcing is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of pharmaceutical supply chain management (PSCM), and many pharmaceutical companies engage in international outsourcing of services (IOS) to survive in global highly competitive business. Since the key success factors for both domestic & international alliances are partnership characteristics and strategic fit management, but there is no empirical research on this issue in Thai pharmaceutical partnership offshore outsourcing. Therefore, this survey of Thai and foreign companies, both contract providers (CPs) and contract manufacturers (CMs), seeks to indicate significant relationships among both outsourcing strategic fit and partnership types, including outsourcing performance outcome. This research is two-fold. First, the partnership types (Type I, II, & III), the strategic fit types (low fit, moderate fit, and good fit), and their correlations are analyzed. And second, their outsourcing performance (company revenues and growth rates) are presented. The results showed that the most of the Thai pharmaceutical outsourcing manufacturing are classified as the partnership Type II, as well as the moderate strategic fit, and strongly support the relationship between the two models. Both of the companies’ revenue and growth rate could predict the companies’ performances outcome for each of partnership and strategic fit types. However, it is not necessary that the most integrative type of partnership, Type III, will be always the best, because it depends also on the strategic fit between each pair of partners as well.

This paper seeks to identify the related factors of strategic thinking and their assessment (determining the gap between “importance of the factors”, and “present situation of the factors”) in Benetton Co. branches located in Iran.

The paper briefly reviews the literature related to strategic planning, and especially strategic thinking. Through the review of literature, some factors will be identified, and then presents statistical evidence to show their relevance and situation (the gap between present situation and optimum situation) in Benetton Co. branches located to Iran.

The findings of the research indicate that there are 12 relevant factors of strategic thinking; and difference between “importance of the factors”, and the present situation of all 12 factors in Benetton, are meaningful.

More research needs to be conducted about the factors related to strategic thinking. Due to the fact that the research is limited to a specific company, the findings cannot be generalized. Also, it seems that relying on questionnaire can cause some limitations to the findings.

Although strategic planning and thinking are distinct, they are interrelated and complementary in terms of thought processes. If they sustain and support each other, effective strategic planning can be formulated and implemented.

The paper provides insights to different dimensions of strategic thinking and the amount of their presence in an international company working in a developing country; and the way it enhances the capacity of the company for implementation of strategic planning.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured review of the literature on the factors affecting the strategic thinking of an organization. This study offers some theoretical insights by analysing the divergent or analogous views of authors on these factors by analysing the empirical studies carried out in the literature.

An empirical method of conducting a structured literature review has been adopted in this study. Theory context characteristic methodology framework and meta-analysis are the methodologies applied to analyse the different empirical studies conducted in the literature and determine the variation or similarities in the views of authors over the same factor based on their effect sizes. This study analyses over 45 different empirical studies in the literature conducted on the factors affecting strategic thinking.

This study explains how the factors have been similarly or differently explained by the authors in the literature. This analysis gives a better understanding of the factors affecting strategic thinking and quantitatively amalgamates the current empirical studies carried out in the literature. The effects sizes generated for each factor helps in determining the homogeneous or heterogeneous nature of the factor.

The study is limited only to analyse the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the factors affecting strategic thinking at an organisational level. This study can be further extended by analysing the type of effect these factors have on the strategic thinking of the organisation.

The findings of this study identify the homogeneity or heterogeneity of the factors affecting strategic thinking in an organisation. This helps the top management to concentrate on these factors, which might develop a strategic thinking nature in the organisation, leading to the better formation of strategies, and successfully implement them in their businesses.

The study fills the unattended gaps in the literature by analysing the homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of the factors affecting the strategic thinking of an organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to understand whether firms evolve towards more comprehensive postures of CSR and what strategic factors drive the change.

The approach is deductive‐inductive research based on six critical case studies and supported by extensive review of related literature. The paper provides historical analysis of six firms leaders in their industry (Nike, Shell, General Electric, 3M, CEMEX and IBM) combining primary and secondary data.

Firms evolve over time towards more complex CSR postures. This evolution is driven by some key strategic factors. The article sets out a three‐stage framework connecting CSR evolution and the strategic change factors.

The paper provides managers with a framework to promote strategic CSR change in their organizations.

The paper is a joint research study on the evolution of CSR and strategic drivers of change.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map to evaluate the interaction and importance of factors affecting the development of strategic alliance partnerships between the outlying island duty-free shops and existing collaboration firms in duty-free shops. Meanwhile, the key factors should be considered in establishing strategic alliance partnerships while analyzing and comparing the perspectives of owners for outlying island duty-free shop and partner vendors of collaborating firms along with differences of influencing key factors on partnership quality.

This study incorporates a fuzzy linguistic preference relation analytical network process (fuzzy LinPreRa ANP) in the fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) method to formulate a fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map to evaluate the interactions and importance of key factors and the conditions of interactive impacts during the establishment of strategic alliance partnerships. The authors use the outlying island duty-free shops in Taiwan as the empirical subject to illustrate how the fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map is applied. In-depth, interviews and questionnaire surveys are conducted to collect and evaluate respondents concerning key factors affecting strategic alliance partnerships establishment.

The following three findings based on the results of empirical analysis: first, the administrative behavioral patterns of managers for strategic alliance partnerships encompass shared values and goal coherence, while the associative statements are located on the first layer of fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map core associations, which illustrates that businesses attach great importance to conceptual ideas. Second, integrity and reputations of both parties are the governing mechanism of strategic alliance partnerships, influencing mutual reputation. Third, the relationship of strategic alliance partnerships refers to the profit opportunities of both parties and their ability to respond to the market, including future development, regional indicators, marketing capabilities, brand multiplicity and customer retention. However, it can be inferred that such associative factors are located in the outer layer or belong to noncore associations, which means that both parties’ abilities to respond to market reactions are weakened.

This study provides valuable relationship managerial strategies to maintain long-term partnerships for outlying island duty-free shops and their alliance collaborating firms including strengthened relationships of both parties’ managers to achieve common values and consistent objectives; improved beneficial value of both parties in strategic alliance partnerships; continued close communications to enhance the quality of strategic alliance partnerships; and establishment of personnel training mechanisms and strict formulation of management rules for strategic alliance partnerships.

The main valuable contributions are included the fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map by combining two different decision methods including FCM and fuzzy LinPreRa ANP is proposed to help decision makers to improve the evaluation quality and calculation efficiency for critical elements’ interaction and importance; the fuzzy LinPreRa cognitive map can clarify considering significant factors when maintaining strategic alliance partnerships and further provide valuable relationship managerial strategies to maintain long-term relationships for duty-free shop owners and their alliance collaborating firms.