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Traditional industry was initially built with kinship, cultural value, and unique characters representing a particular system of production. However, current industry challenges pressurized traditional industry bond of primordial system with the need of adaptations to survive. Some traditional industry may resist the twenty-first-century challenges and pressures, but many of them are transforming their cultural and production characters to adapt modern business competitions. Indonesian traditional furniture industry Jepara has their familial system of productions which constitute “flexible specialization” where particular kinship and work contract created from a very specialized household small-scale furniture producer. However, this production system in fact struggles and is contrasted with the community needs to survive in the industry. The likely occurring progress of traditional industry are then remaining on the senior members of the industry to preserve knowledge which has empowered over many generations, while the younger generations consider transforming their ability for survivability and better financial rewards.

This chapter is the further elaboration of how Indonesian rural traditional furniture industry in Jepara presents its survivability and whether it is sustainable. This chapter exemplifies participants’ quotes and statements which create anxiety toward their future, cultural value, bond of industry kinship, and doubting their ability to withhold global and local pressures.

Small traditional industry has been recognized as an important local economy that support cultural industry and is significant in many parts of the world, particularly in developing countries. The significance of this type industry as a poverty barrier, enables jobs for local rural villagers, and their role in continuing local community based cultural activities have become obvious. However, as the current modern days global pressures affecting many traditional people in developing countries, pathways of small traditional industry toward local sustainable development remain unclear. Further continuous investigations are still required on how this industry provide the platform for greater local, regional and global sustainability. Literatures and debates on the sustainability of the rural developing country concerning small traditional industries may even begin from the establishment of Brundtland sustainability commission in 1987. The conflict between brown and green agenda in Brundtland commission may also point to small-scale traditional industry growth in the developing world. Cultural traditional industries in developing countries could better lead to local sustainability pathway. On the other hand, conflict of the use of natural resources and competition may create different stories. How traditional industry in developing country survive and further innovate for development is a significant knowledge to understand. This chapter uses Jepara traditional furniture industry in Central Java – Indonesia which has been the subject of prolonged study on how small-scale industry implicated to global competition and pressures of raw material resources decline. This chapter further reviews previous research and recent study on Jepara industry upgrade and innovation, and how likely innovation may prosper for the future sustainability of this type of industry.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the different business co-operation mechanisms within two different Portuguese industries, with particular regards to the nature of the industry and to the places in which these industries are embedded.

This chapter uses qualitative data to explore the mechanisms associated to forms of business co-operation in enterprising places.

Manufacturing industries require a particular location of activities and, in many cases, these firms cluster in local productive systems. In such cases, co-operation mechanisms assume particular forms. Production is a critical business activity in traditional manufacturing industries, while its relative importance is smaller for other industries.

The findings obtained in this research do not allow generality of the results. However, it provides an in-depth explanation of the mechanisms of business co-operation taking place in enterprising places and elsewhere.

This chapter compares two contrasting Portuguese industries, allowing to suggest that some of the business co-operation mechanisms are particular of certain business contexts. It contrasts a manufacturing, traditional and geographically concentrated industry (furniture) with a service-based, modern and geographically dispersed industry (events organisation). In addition, it allows to gain insights on the evolution of business co-operation as it uses data collected from two different generations of entrepreneurs within the furniture industry.

This article supports managers in their attempts to organize effective export strategies. Exporting is not just an initial low-commitment internationalization strategy that leads naturally into higher commitment entry modes such as FDI or acquisitions. For many firms, location advantages do not justify foreign direct investments and they therefore decide to service foreign markets from their domestic markets. But despite the relevance of this internationalization mode, there does not seem to be much consolidated knowledge about the organization of successful export strategies. As a result, firms are not just confronted with the choice between export or FDI but with numerous distinct strategic exporting alternatives. The article unfolds as follows: after a brief introduction on the relevance of international trade and the characteristics of export strategies, we describe four distinct export archetypes: (1) export manager, (2) centralistic export developer, (3) export skimmer, (4) integrated export developer. This article concludes with a discussion on the impact different export models have on firm performance.

Defined as local manufacturing systems, industrial districts have been recognized as particularly important for the location of firms’ manufacturing activities intertwined with innovation processes. The debate on the internationalization of production has stressed the low value related to manufacturing within value chain activities (smile framework), emphasizing the need to focus on high value-added activities (R&D or marketing). Following multinational enterprises’ internationalization strategies, also district firms have progressively offshored their production phases in the past years. However, recent studies focused on backshoring have revamped the attention on the domestic control of production for firms’ competitiveness. This chapter explores district firms’ location choices for manufacturing activities between local and global. Based on an empirical analysis of about 260 Italian district firms specialized in mechanics, furniture, and fashion and supported by a case study investigation, our results show that despite district internationalization processes, a non-negligible amount of firms still carry out – in-house or through outsourcing – production activities at district level. Larger firms couple district production and long-term upstream outsourced internationalization activities. The district system confirms its role of pooling specialized competences and product know-how, being decisive for firms’ innovation and responsiveness to national and international markets. Backshoring, instead, is a very limited phenomenon and linked to upgrading strategies.

This paper explores the transformation of international business models in the context of international ICT businesses where cloud computing has triggered a major paradigm change in the way software and hardware related services are offered to international customers.

Through comparative analysis of two cases, this paper examines the business model transformation processes in the cloud computing context.

The key challenges of the case companies were related to business model transformation as cloud computing was triggering a change in most of the business model elements.

There is a need to define the concept of business model in a way that suits the cloud and internationalization.

There is increasing recognition that a marketing, customer-based perspective in merger and acquisition (M&A) processes is needed. However, there is still limited information about how customers experience an acquisition and whether merging firms perceive their customers as assets to trade or as stakeholders to engage. In this chapter, the authors aim to contribute to this knowledge gap by developing a research agenda that incorporates a customer-based perspective in the investigation of M&A. The authors achieve this aim by reviewing 40 articles published in economic, marketing and management journals that examine customer and marketing issues in M&As. By engaging with existing studies and their hidden assumptions and drawing inspiration from current trends in the analysis of consumer behavior, the authors suggest four research avenues to inform future studies and to increase our understanding of M&As from the customer perspective.

Conventional wisdom regarding the gains from globalization states that, if managed correctly, it can lead to increased market opportunities for firms to grow and prosper, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Nevertheless, some sectoral case studies raise questions regarding the terms under which SMEs in developing countries participate in global production systems and the scope of opportunities that globalized markets actually do offer for industrial development and SME upgrading in developing countries.