Search

According to the Global Competitiveness Report released by the WEF in 2007-2009, Taiwan has been ranked No. 1 in the assessment of industry cluster developments for three consecutive years. It is one of the success stories in the worldwide development of innovation and industry clusters furthermore the creation and driven Taiwan economics development of benchmark is special economic zones. This paper examines the special economic zones and performs an empirical study on industry clusters and company competitiveness. A questionnaire survey is conducted and the statistics are regressed and analyzed. The purpose is to explore the strategic resources of industry clusters in special economic zones, the relationship with company clusters and the effects on company performance. The study finds that the strategic resources of clusters in special economic zones are indeed a key factor that influences the relationship with industry clusters and also enhance enterprise competitive advantage. All the hypotheses are supported. The study also proves that the resources and relationships associated with industry clusters have impacts on company performance and can enhance company competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how investors perceive and respond to a firm's R&D announcement. We propose that board structure and intra-industry competition jointly dictate the announcement return. In addition, we assume that investors prefer carefully scrutinized R&D investments to mitigate asymmetric-information risks. Finally, we assume that investors prefer a sustainable R&D investment to prevent intense intra-industry competition and to ensure profit potential. We use a sample of 229 announcements made by 116 Taiwanese listed firms to verify our postulation. Our postulation is the abnormal returns are positively correlated with board independence while negatively correlated with board size. We construct two variables to capture intra-industry competition: (i) the number of days that have elapsed since a competitor's prior announcement and (ii) the ordinal number of announcements in the same industry. Our results show that the announcement effect is negatively correlated with industry R&D intensity. The negative effect is partially ameliorated when the lapse since a prior competitor's announcement is long. Moreover, the announcement effect is also lower when the announcing firm has a high-level of R&D intensity and has experienced numerous prior R&D announcements in the same industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's increasingly competitive business world, selecting and evaluating the suppliers is one of the most important activities of a company. In the Taiwanese TV industry, selecting optimal suppliers of programs is also vital. But few attempts have so far been made to address this specific point. After reviewing the literature, we collect criteria for the selection of a program supplier. Considering the interdependence among the selection criteria, the analytic network process (ANP) is applied to help Taiwanese TV companies to effectively select optimal program suppliers. To avoid the complicated computing process from additional pairwise comparisons of the ANP, we retain the 12 critical criteria according to the opinions of the 44 senior executives about the importance of criteria: Quality, On-time, Marketability, Reputation, Rating, Finance, Relationship, Attitude, Communication, Creativity, Price and Time. Subsequently, we discuss with senior executives to group these criteria into 4 perspectives to structure the hierarchy for the selection of program suppliers. According to the hierarchy based on 4 perspectives and 12 vital criteria, Taiwanese TV companies could select optimal program suppliers more effectively. Moreover, the practical application of the ANP presented in Section 4 is generic and also suitable to be exploited for Taiwanese TV companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines product architecture and competitive action by using a survey of the Taiwan IT industry. The analytic framework is applied to the theory of situational management to observe whether there is a good fit between product architecture (modular or integral), and inter-firm competitive action (homogeneous or heterogeneous), which corresponds to the level of business performance. This study thus seeks an in-depth understanding of the relationship between product architecture and competitive action, as well as confirmation for the development direction and competitive model of Taiwan's IT industry, where some important characteristics have been found. First, to establish the competitive advantages, the product architecture needs to match the competitive action. Second, a firm usually adopts homogeneous action when its product architecture tends to be modular products; inversely, it usually adopts heterogeneous action when its product architecture tends to be integral products. Third, homogeneous competitive action has a mediating effect on modular architecture and business performance. Overall, this study provides a theoretical analytic framework to better understand the interactive relationship between product architecture and competitive action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study demonstrates how top management team (TMT) conflict impacts new product development (NPD) under cultural differences between Taiwan and the United States. Based on cultural differences, we compare Taiwan and the United States to explore how the heterogeneity of TMT composition leads to team conflict and how TMT conflict affects NPD outcomes in different stages. Several research propositions are presented and indicate that the higher TMT heterogeneity results in a higher degree of team conflict. Furthermore, cognitive conflict positively affects NPD initiation stage, but negative in the implementation stage. From a perspective of cultural differences, managers in Taiwan, compared with those in the United States, tend to sustain organizational cohesion and harmony, emphasize personal relationships, and sidestep direct conflict as much as possible. This cultural characteristic negatively affects NPD initiation, and also wears away the competitive advantages for Taiwanese companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]