The union of Western Europe poses many complex and technical obstacles. Analysing the advantages as well as the difficulties, the book discusses competition and the nature and direction of the increased pressures it brings to bear upon entrepreneurial activity, through which the effects of economic union will mostly be felt.

Part of the "European Economic Interaction and Integration Workshop Papers" series, this book examines the role of competition in economic transition and integration, looking at examples in history such as Japan's postwar industrial policy and Czechoslovakia's competition policies. So far, in the countries of Central and East Europe, and of the former USSR, privatization of state enterprises has failed to bring about a more responsive, more competitive behaviour of these firms. It is recognized that various elements of competition - privatization, breaking down of monopolies, trade liberalization, strengthening of small- and medium-sized competitors, and institutional requirements - should be implemented simultaneously.

Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach and using the case of the automotive industry as a starting point this volume discusses how industrial companies can remain competitive in spite of the current economic downturn.

Discussing how and by what paths Japan and Korea have built competitive and innovative capital goods sectors, this text examines the role of user firms in shaping the innovation dynamics of capital goods. These firms are represented in this study by car makers in both countries - companies which have involved themselves in the technical and entrepreneurial entry into machine tools along with active investments. The suggested consequence of this is an increased competitive advantage and competence of their specialized suppliers.

This timely research review explores the main issues surrounding competition and regulation in electricity markets. The industry is experiencing irresistible forces for change driven by energy policy objectives; a reassessment of market regulation in the face of high energy prices and the response to consumer pressure to agree on what constitutes a fair price for energy. This research review identifies the key articles that underpin the debate across the industries supply chain (generation, supply and networks) and from a regulatory perspective (including market power and incentive regulation) followed by a consideration of the overall impact of liberalisation and future developments.

This book offers insight into international trade and foreign direct investment competitiveness in Africa. It examines two policies frequently used to enhance international competitiveness in Sub-Saharan African economies: exchange rate policy and productivity-related policy.

Providing an authoritative perspective on the best current research regarding telecommunication policy, this book is based on the 22nd Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. The papers focus on the critical policy issues created by increasing competition in the industry. The book contains a careful analysis of local competition and interconnection, international competition, universal service issues, the Internet and emerging new methods of communication, and the first amendment problems created by changing telecommunication technology.
It brings together -- in a convenient form -- a wide range of important scholarship on telecommunication policy that otherwise would require extensive research into a variety of journals, government filings, and unpublished papers.

Location is an important factor in the efficiency and profitability of industrial activity. This work provides an introduction to and critical review of this field of growing academic and business interest. In business, the right choices have to be made to produce profit. Industrial location is a fixed investment, crucial to the strategy and capital investment of any organization. Location also impacts upon non-investors, directly affecting employment, the environment and economic activity in the locale. Focusing chiefly on the United States, but drawing on an international range of cases, the authors explain the economic, social and political forces which have shaped contemporary patterns of industrialization and examine the changing nature of production and systems.

How can retail brand power be built and maintained? What are the implications of this for 'producer brands' like Coca-Cola? How will retailing look in the twenty-first century? This book sets out strategies and implementation programmes for building strong brands in retailing, to create competitive differentiation and superior financial returns. It begins with an analysis of how retail and 'own label' brands have leap-frogged traditional producer brands. The authors argue that this is changing the consumer goods industry. To meet these new challenges, the book sets out action plans and examines branding strategies in a number of different market sectors. It also uses analysis and case-studies from around the world, particularly the USA, Europe and Japan.

Government policies to reduce environmental pollution and global warming are often criticized as damaging to the economy, particularly by reducing international competitiveness. This book addresses the issue by examining many of the policies concerned, and their effects on competitiveness. It demonstrates that well-designed, market-oriented environmental policies may be expected to improve both domestic and international competitiveness. The authors dismiss the fear that environmental policies will damage competitiveness by approaching the issue from four different perspectives: the economic analysis of competitiveness; a geo-economic approach to trade and foreign investment between Europe, NAFTA and Southeast Asia; studies of the effects of environmental policies on competitiveness; and the formal modelling of carbon taxation, international competitiveness and carbon leakage. The book also includes results from a global econometric model on the potential for carbon leakage, a detailed case study of German national policies, an examination of life cycle analysis and competitiveness, and an empirical study of green product development. This book will be of great interest to academics working in the field of environmental economics and researchers involved in environmental policy.

Corporate Geography examines the spatial structures and behaviour of large business organizations. Corporations are key operational units of economies. Each corporation has several locations and connections to suppliers and customers who also operate in geographical space. The effectiveness of corporate spatial organizations is of importance for their well-being and for the health of the national and local economies in which they operate. This volume discusses where and why firms locate units of production, sales and control and how these interact with each other, with suppliers and with customers. The foundations are from commercial geography, business economics and location theory, but there are some unique characteristics. One is the blending of manufacturing and retailing in one treatise. Another is the extensive use of real-company case studies which illustrate both the basic concepts and the inadequacies of existing models. Corporate managers can relate to the experiences of actual companies. This book is of interest to scientists, researchers and professionals in economic geography, business administration, general management, microeconomies, industrial organization and economic planning.

This book presents the theory of Industrial Organization in a unified and concise way. It presents the main models and results in the area, using game theory as a unifying theoretical background. Besides corrections and new sections, the new edition contains a new chapter on games of incomplete information. More than 200 excercises help the reader to understand the results of the book.

As businesses learn more about competitive intelligence (CI) and how to use it, the ferocity of competition rises to a new level. Naturally, people will seek ways to protect themselves and their organizations against CI, but how? McGonagle and Vella, specialists in CI and what can be called CI countermeasures, have studied the problem from its beginning, and now offer corporate executives and executives in public and nonprofit organizations a portfolio of strategies and tactics. Each one is designed to meet two mutually important criteria: self-protection against the competitive intelligence activities of others, but also the freedom and mobility needed to maneuver in the marketplace. The result, a so-called cloaking program, allows an organization to become significantly less visible to its competitors, and can therefore compete more effectively against them. Including full details on the new Economic Espionage Act of 1996, this book is an extremely useful resource for executives throughout the public and private sectors.

McGonagle and Vella maintain that there is nothing illegal about protecting an organization against competition. They argue that businesses can and should restrict the information available to others--available legally and ethically from newspapers, for example, or from an organization's annual reports. The authors' aim is for organizations to respond to CI's advances by making it more difficult for competitors to learn about them. They begin by explaining how CI data collection works and the analytical tools that are most effective and commonly used. They then develop the basic precepts for establishing and managing a cloaking program, that is, a way for a business to protect key pieces of competitively sensitive information by the same legal and ethical means others are using to discover it. Well written and easily accessed, "Protecting Your Company Against Competitive Intelligence" is important information not only for experienced CI professionals and those who aspire to such positions, but also for executives with general management responsibilities.

The Wall Street Journal Top Ten Bestseller: The 10 strategies to sustainable growth, based on a purpose-led culture for all businesses.

'A worthy successor to Michael Porter, Bova's book is that rare gift: it opens doors for new ideas and new actions. No glib answers here, simply hard-won wisdom that will provoke big changes for organizations large and small.' - Seth Godin, author of Linchpin

Tiffani Bova, the Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, draws on her expertise as a consultant and practitioner to devise a new framework for business leaders looking to pursue growth. We're witnessing an age of endless customization, and growth strategy is no exception. There's no one size fits all strategy; a winning strategy for one business may spell doom for another.

In Growth IQ, Bova determines that there are ten simple – but easily misunderstood – growth paths, and explains how companies can get a handle on their particular business context, and use it to determine the right combination and sequence of growth paths to take them into the future.

Bova breaks down the strategies deployed by a wide range of companies to show you how:

* GE and John Deere have lasted over a century and continue to thrive by combining their strategy of innovative product development with a renewed focus on R&D and customer experience.
* Marvel transformed from a struggling comic book publisher to a global entertainment behemoth by realigning their market penetration strategy to focus on comic book characters, instead of just comic books.
* Gateway's attempt at market expansion into brick-and-mortar retail led to its failure, while the same move by Apple has accelerated its growth.

Whether your company is on a growth spurt, in a worrying stall, or showing signs of decline, Growth IQ is your map to charting the course of your company's future.

How a country competes in the world is the crucial factor in determining that country's ability to benefit from international trade in today's global economy. This book offers a complete and proper understanding of the meaning of international competitiveness, analyzes the implications it holds for an economy's progress, examines how it may be pursued and sustained at both the sectoral level (firms and industries) and the national level (strategic objectives). The author offers pertinent policy guidelines and prescriptions for how a nation can achieve and maintain international competitiveness in order to sustain the long-term prosperity of its industries, and hence the overall pace of economic growth.

The book is arranged into three parts. Part I discusses and defines the theories of international competitiveness. Part II deals with policy issues, specifically the policy analysis of structural reforms for promoting a country's ability to compete, the impact of globalization and the role of Communication and Information Technology (CIT), strategic trade policies, and environmental issues. Part III analyzes the strategies used to pursue competitiveness. The book will be useful for researchers, students, and teachers of business and economics as well as policy makers, business practitioners, and international and governmental agencies.

David Gabel and David F. Weiman The chapters in this volwne address the related problems of regulating and pricing access in network industries. Interconnection between network suppliers raises the important policy questions of how to sustain competition and realize economic efficiency. To foster rivalry in any industry, suppliers must have access to customers. But unlike in other sectors, the very organization of network industries creates major impediments to potential entrants trying to carve out a niche in the market. In traditional sectors such as gas, electric, rail, and telephone services, these barriers take the form of the large private and social costs necessary to duplicate the physical infrastructure of pipelines, wires, or tracks. Few firms can afford to finance such an undertaking, because the level of sunk costs and the very large scale economies make it extremely risky. In other newer sectors, entrants face less tangible but no less pressing constraints. In the microcomputer industry, for example, high switching costs can prevent users from experimenting with alternative, but perhaps more efficient hardware platforms or operating systems. Although gateway technologies can reduce these barriers, the installed base of an incumbent can create powerful bandwagon effects that reinforce its advantage (such as the greater availability of compatible peripherals and software applications). In the era of electronic banking, entrants into the automated teller machine. (A TM) and credit card markets face a similar problem of establishing a ubiquitous presence."

Classical location theory is extended from its least cost approach to a maximum profit framework in this outstanding collection of Melvin L. Greenhut's key essays. This extension of classical location theory changes the analysis used in location economics from that of pure competition to oligopolistic competition. Using the analysis which is developed in this volume, locational interdependencies and, in turn, industrial location are shown to be affected by, diverse factors, including among others, marginal cost curves, demand curves and the number of firms in the market. Employing empirical findings to relate theory to practice, the author establishes a general theory via which he investigates and resolves specific issues and problems. These essays make a major contribution by enabling the reader to appreciate the important developments that have taken place over recent years in location economics. Location Economics and its companion volume, Spatial Microeconomics, will be welcomed by students, teachers and practitioners of economics for improving access to Professor Greenhut's many important essays and papers.

This book aims to clarify the link between geographic clustering and international competitiveness in light of the Turkish experience, a subject that is high on the agendas of researchers as well as policy makers and strategic planners. The key findings of the study are discussed with respect to the recent debates on clusters to provide a full account of what the Turkish experience, when looked at from the viewpoint of the strategic management discipline, offers to further intellectual thinking on clusters.

More than 15 million people in this country earn their livings by serving clients, and their numbers are growing every day. Unfortunately, far too few develop the skills and strategies needed to rise to the top in a world where clients have almost unlimited access to information and expertise. Supported by more than one hundred case studies and wisdom gleaned from interviews with dozens of leading CEOs and prominent business advisors, Clients for Life identifies what clients really want and lays out the core qualities that distinguish the client advisor -- an irreplaceable resource -- from the expert for hire -- a tradable commodity.

• Experts are specialists; advisors become deep generalists who have broad perspective.
  
• Experts are for hire; advisors have selfless independence, balancing client devotion with objectivity and detachment.
  
• Experts have professional credibility; advisors develop deep personal trust.
  
• Experts analyze; advisors synthesize and bring big-picture thinking to the table.
  
• Experts supply expertise and information; advisors are educators who provide insight and wisdom.
  

Portraits of history's most famously successful advisors, including Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, and J. P. Morgan, underscore these timeless qualities that modern professionals need to develop to excel in today's competitive environment.

The book is an iconoclastic overview of the art of analyzing industries and competition. The book examines the capabilities of several complex business tools such as decision analysis, accounting, and other 'MBA-science' disciplines, and translates them into commonsensical concepts such as competitive strengths, uncertainty, complexity and 'results'.

Throughout the world, governments are reducing their involvement in the area of telecommunications. Some telecommunications are being fully or partly privatized while others are experiencing deregulation. The situation in six Asian countries, four European countries, and two Latin American countries are examined. In addition, there is one chapter on the telecommunications business in developing countries as a whole. All sections explore the interaction with encroaching competition, new technology, and a desire for greater freedom.

Reviews theories of competition and existing literature, and examines the attributes of market competition and strategies adhered to by firms in the global marketplace. Provides an in-depth analysis of a broad spectrum of important topics on competitive strategies and tactics.

Innovation is a major contributory factor to economic growth. How can it be encouraged? One solution favoured especially in highly-competitive high-tech industries is cooperation in research and development. The theoretical issues raised by these joint ventures are examined in these essays which cover all aspects for growth, technology, competition and welfare. Contributions from the UK, Europe, North America and Asia ensure a broad international approach. There is an indepth study of European technology policy.