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We investigate the dynamics of competitive repositioning of firms in the deregulated U.S. airline industry (1979–1995) in terms of a firm's target market, strategic posture, and resource endowment relative to other firms in the industry. We suggest that, despite strong inertia in competitive positions, the direction of repositioning responds to external and internal alignment considerations. For external alignment, we examined how firms changed their competitive positioning to mimic the positions of similar, successful firms, and to differentiate themselves when experiencing intense rivalry. For internal alignment, we examined how firms changed their position in each dimension to align with the other dimensions of positioning. This internal alignment led to convergent positioning moves for firms with similar resource endowments and strategic postures, and divergent moves for firms with similar target markets and strategic postures. The evidence suggests that repositioning moves in terms of target markets and resource endowments are more sensitive to external and internal alignment considerations, but that changes in strategic posture are subject to very high inertia and do not appear to respond well to alignment considerations.

The linkage between diversification and performance has puzzled scholars for decades. A vast amount of empirical studies, together with the help of meta-analyses condensing diverse results, established a widely shared understanding that related diversification leads to superior firm performance. The main rationale for this finding is that relatedness within a company’s portfolio of businesses allows the company to achieve synergies by sharing or transferring resources. Although the predominant importance of related diversification seems generally accepted, scholars raise severe concerns about our ability to precisely define and measure relatedness. In most studies, traditional measures of diversification such as the Berry index are used, which assess relatedness from a product/market perspective. However, these measures face strong criticisms for their low degree of content validity. So if we doubt our understanding of relatedness, how can we agree on the performance effect of related diversification? To reassure our understanding of the diversification-performance linkage, this study critically reflects upon the underlying phenomenon of relatedness. By compiling and evaluating the different perspectives of relatedness with their heterogeneous conceptualizations and measures, this study supports the view that the multi-facetted nature of relatedness can only be captured inadequately so far. Moreover, most prior work mainly focuses on synergy potential rather than on the realization of synergies, thereby neglecting a mechanism that may have an important bearing on the performance effects of diversification.

We examine collaborative complexity arising from strategic alliances among competitors. In high technology industries, rapidly evolving and modular technologies increase the likelihood that collaborative alliances will develop between partners who also compete with one another. Partnering under these conditions involves choosing collaborative structures that foster the transfer and integration of some resources, while simultaneously protecting other resources from unintended transfer. Using resource-based, transaction cost, and industrial organization economic theories we develop a model to depict the risks and rewards of collaboration under different modes of competitive interdependence. Two dimensions underlie our conceptual model: resource interdependence and competitive interdependence. Resource interdependence is the degree of integration needed for the resources contributed by alliance partners as reflected in the nature of the resources and their co-specialization. Competitive interdependence gauges the similarity between partners in their overall strategic capabilities and customer markets. We conclude with a discussion of the contingent use of inter-organizational structures to enable partners to balance resource contributions and resource protection in collaborative-competitive relationships.

This paper presents the major findings of recently completed research in the UK concerning the attributes of information as an asset and its impact on organisational performance. The research study employed an automated information asset- and attribute-scoring grid exercise and semi-structured open-ended interviews with 45 senior UK managers in four case study organisations. The information asset-scoring grid was developed to provide a simple visual representation of information assets and attributes using Excel charts. The semi-structured open-ended interviews aimed to identify the attributes of information assets considered significant by 45 senior UK managers and to explore relevant issues such as the value of information and organisational effectiveness.

In this chapter we develop a new approach, based on the identification of strategy classes, to study how firms face multiple demands. The procedure that we propose (called Relational Class Analysis) stems from an analysis of the similarity of associative patterns across multiple observable outcomes, which reflect the underlying set of choices firms make to similarly address demands. Empirically, the study of 18 financial and extra-financial performance outcomes for 3,655 firms shows the existence of three main strategic classes. Drawing on our analysis, we redefine strategy as the set of committed decisions undertaken to resolve trade-offs between multiple concurrent objectives and discuss the implications of our approach for eight core questions for strategy and organizational theory.

Purpose – As researchers need partners to collaborate with, this study aims to provide author recommendation for academic researchers for potential collaboration, conference planning, and compilation of scientific working groups with the help of social information. Hereby the chapter analyzes and compares different similarity metrics in information and computer science.

Methodology/approach – The study uses data from the multidiscipline information services Web of Science and Scopus as well as the social bookmarking service CiteULike to measure author similarity and recommend researchers to unique target researchers. The similarity approach is based on author co-citation, bibliographic coupling of authors and collaborative filtering methods. The developed clusters and graphs are then evaluated by these target researchers.

Findings – The analysis shows, for example, that different methods for social recommendation complement each other and that the researchers evaluated user- and tag-based data from a social bookmarking system positively.

Research limitations/implications – The present study, providing author recommendation for six target physicists, is supposed to be a starting point for further approaches on social academic author recommendation.

Practical implications – The chapter investigates in recommendation methods and similarity algorithm models as basis for an implementation of a social recommendation system for researchers in academics and knowledge-intensive organizations.

Originality/value of chapter – The comparison of different similarity measurements and the user evaluation provide new insights into the construction of social data mining and the investigation of personalized recommendation.

While earlier acquisition research often focused on either the acquirer or the target side of analysis, recent work has increasingly emphasized the need to understand the dyadic interrelationship between the target and the acquirer. This review aims at synthesizing research progress in the area of target–acquirer interrelationships and understanding what questions remain unanswered. The author organizes this review into three dimensions of target–acquirer interrelationship: (a) their relative attributes (what both parties are relative to each other), (b) their connections (what both parties have with each other), and (c) their interactions (what both parties do to each other). Based on the review, the author then identifies critical research gaps and opportunities for developing a more comprehensive understanding of the interrelationship between the target and the acquirer in acquisitions.

The globalization of knowledge has driven an increased emphasis on cross-border, high-technology acquisitions where a target firm in a technology industry is acquired by a firm in another nation. However, learning depends on similarity of knowledge, and we find that needed similarity can be provided by either technology or culture. As a result, firms can learn from acquiring targets at increasing cultural distance or at increasing technological distance, but not both. We find an interaction where acquisitions made at longer cultural distances and less technological distance, and acquisitions at shorter cultural distances and greater technological distance improve financial performance. This means technological distance and cultural distance are substitutes or represent a trade-off where improved acquisition performance depends on having commonality (low distance) for one of the variables.

The resource-based view of the firm and strategic groups research are two of the most investigated frameworks in strategic management. Historically, assumptions behind these two views have seemingly put them at odds. The resource-based view of the firm argues that sustained competitive advantage is best attained when firms have unique resources, while strategic groups research argues that a number of firms within the same industry can achieve sustained profitability with strategies that are similar to one another, but distinct from other industry members. The two views focus on different levels of analysis and each largely ignores the other’s focal level. Yet neither offers any propositions that are incompatible with the tenets of the other. Thus, conceptual integration that crosses levels of analysis is possible and potentially fruitful. Indeed, some strategic groups research has begun to bridge the gap between these two theories by suggesting that firm differences exist both within and between strategic groups. This article adopts a multi-level view by developing propositions concerning contingencies when firm differences, group processes, or both may lead to sustained competitive advantage. Implications for practitioners as well as suggestions for future theory building and empirical tests are also discussed.

Israel, characterized by various knowledge-intensive entrepreneurial firms, provides an interesting case study for examining sector-based differences and “small country” regional patterns. This chapter has a dual goal of exploring sector and regional differences of knowledge-intensive firms in Israel. The first goal is to depict similarities and differences between firms in three knowledge-intensive sectors: Life Sciences, information technology, and Cleantech. The second goal questions whether the geographical distribution of these firms across regions is associated with different levels of knowledge concentration and organizational homogeneity. Regional and sector-based differences were measured by firm-level network structures, funding patterns, and innovation proxies. One way analysis of variance tests were conducted for attaining these research goals. The main findings show that while most regions exhibit similar patterns of firm and network characteristics, many differences exist on the sector level that are associated with sector-specific attributes. These findings support the notion of a “small country inter-regional homogeneity effect.”