This book uses game theory to analyze anti-competitive behavior among firms and to consider its implications for competition policy. Topics include "explicit collusion," "tacit collusion," "semicollusion," and the detection of predatory pricing. The book discusses several European antitrust decisions and empirical studies in detail.

Challenging the long-held belief that economics is a discipline that can be adequately pursued in isolation from the other social sciences, this book develops a new theoretical approach to entrepreneurship in the firm. Casson argues that the productivity of economic units--whether families, firms, or nation states--is affected by the degree of cooperation between the members of these units, which cannot be fully understood unless one considers cultural dynamics. The book combines economic and cultural determinants of performance into a single analytical framework, applying theory to a wide range of topical issues that will be of major interest to policymakers and strategists. The book's international perspective highlights the way in which cultural differences influence innovation and competitiveness at both the corporate and national level.

Large, diversified firms face unique challenges as they compete worldwide, and corporate restructuring is one way multinationals strive for competitive advantage. Weighing the pros and cons of a variety of approaches to restructuring, Downscoping offers executives a clear, strategic path through the maze.
The authors show that when a multinational conglomerate fails to compete effectively, too much diversification may be the culprit. Whether the result of weak corporate governance or poor corporate strategy, over-diversification can make managers, unfamiliar with some of the markets in which they compete, opt for safety over innovation. This risk-aversion and lack of long-range commitment to innovation lead inevitably to stagnation over the longer term.
The answer is not downsizing--closing offices and laying off personnel--but downscoping a strategic approach to restructuring. The options include incentive and compensation adjustments for executives, leveraged buy-outs and capital structure changes, focusing on core skills, diversifying internationally while focusing on businesses in which a firm has strong competencies, and buying and selling mature businesses where product development is not a great concern. Regardless of the approach, executives must exercise strategic leadership during and after restructuring, including providing strategic direction, exploiting core competencies, developing human capital, and sustaining the corporate culture.
Based on systematic research rather than casual observation, Downscoping provides a strong description of restructuring alternatives and their resulting tradeoffs. Its specific guidelines for maintaining competitiveness will be essential reading for managers involved in corporate restructuring.

This book examines two characteristics that lie at the core of Japanese management: growth pursuit by internal investments (as opposed to acquisitions), and the intensive competition within and among Japanese firms. Odagiri also looks at how these firms maintain flexibility and efficiency under the seemingly rigid system of "lifetime" employment. This work begins with an enquiry into the financial and human aspects of the firm, with particular emphasis on its human portion. The motivation, behavior, and organization of Japanese management as well as the consequences of the system on the Japan's industrial organization and economy are explored. Emphasis is placed on the fact that competition is at the center of the Japanese economy and management style to the same, if not a greater, degree as in the West. This competition is enhanced by the growth preference of the Japanese management style and it also, in turn, makes growth possible.

With the expansion of global competition through international trade agreements and heightened rivalry between firms in the domestic market, it is easy to understand why a firm would seek to compete by lowering the wages paid to labor. Yet, this strategy is troubled not only by the efforts of other firms pursuing cheaper labor costs, but also by the failure to adopt better ways of organizing work. New products are copied within a short time after introduction. What is difficult to imitate is the organizing of work--as applied to the factory floor, to the corporation, and to relations among firms and other institutions. This book explores detailed case studies of individual firms, country comparisons, and historical patterns of diffusion. The authors emphasize that the speed by which a firm adopts and integrates new technologies and ways of organizing must be understood in the context of the strength of the regional and national network of firms and institutions. The chapters in the book are written by world-renowned scholars--including Giovanni Dosi, Horst Kern, Michael Schumann, and Eleanor D. Westner--and represent major schools of thought from Germany, France, the U.S., Japan, and the United Kingdom. The studies are international in nature and include in-depth analyses of software systems, automobile manufacturing (e.g. the Toyota Production System), and the machine tool industry.

How do markets evolve? Why are some innovations picked up straightaway whilst others take years to be commercialized? Are there first-mover advantages? Why do we behave with 'irrational exuberance' in the early evolution of markets as was the case with the dot.com boom? Paul Geroski is a leading economist who has taught economics to business school students, managers, and executives at the London Business School. In this book he explains in a refreshingly clear style how markets develop. In particular he stresses how the early evolution of markets can significantly shape their later development and structure. His purpose is to show how a good grasp of economics can improve managers' business and investment decisions. Whilst using the development of the Internet as a case in point, Geroski also refers to other sectors and products, for example cars, television, mobile phones, and personal computers. This short book is an ideal introduction for managers, MBA students, and the general reader wanting to understand how markets evolve.

During the 1970s and 1980s, American manufacturing enterprises saw their technological dominance challenged by increasingly tough competition from abroad. This book investigates business responses to those challenges. On average, F. M. Scherer shows, 308 U.S. companies reacted to rising imports of high-technology products by cutting back research and development expenditures as a percentage of sales. The cutbacks were particularly large in industries protected by voluntary trade restraint agreements and other trade barriers. Using statistical data and eleven in-depth case studies, Scherer finds that company responses to new high-technology competition from abroad were highly diverse. Aggressive reactions predominated in firms producing color film, wet shavers, medical imaging apparatus, fiber optics, and earth-moving equipment. But the efforts of U.S. manufacturers in other lines such as color television, VCRs, and facsimile machines were too meager to repel technologically innovative overseas challengers. Exploring why reactions differed so much from case to case, Scherer finds systematic explanations in such variables as the multinationality of enterprises, domestic market structure, links to academic science bases, and the educational background of top managers. He concludes by offering proposals to improve the competitiveness of American high-technology companies.

One of the predominant trends of modern society is the pervasive presence of competition. No longer just a function of economic markets or democratic systems, competition has become a favoured tool for governing people and organizations, from the provision of schooling and elder care to the way we consume popular culture. Yet social scientists have played a surprisingly modest role in analysing its implications, as the discussion of competition has largely been confined to its narrow economic meaning. This book opens up competition for the study of social scientists. Its central message is that while competition seems ubiquitous, it should not be taken for granted or be naturalized as an inevitable aspect of human existence. Its emergence, maintenance, and change are based on institutions and organizational efforts, and a central challenge for social science is to learn more about these processes and their outcomes. With the use of a novel definition of competition, more fundamental questions can be addressed than merely whether or not competition works. How is competition constructed - and by whom? Which behaviours result from competition? What are its consequences? Can competition be removed? And, how do these factors vary with the object of competition - be it money, attention, status, or other scarce and desired objects? This book investigates these and more questions in studies of competition among and within schools, universities, multinational corporations, auditors, waste-disposal firms, fashion designers, and more.

Business firms around the world are experimenting with new organizational designs, changing their formal architectures, their routines and processes, and their corporate cultures as they seek to improve their current performance and their growth prospects. In the process they are changing the scope of their business operations, redrawing their organization charts, redefining the allocation of decision-making authority and responsibility, revamping the mechanisms for motivating and rewarding people, reconsidering which activities to conduct in-house and which to out-source, redesigning their information systems, and seeking to alter the shared beliefs, values and norms that their people hold.
In this book, John Roberts argues that there are predictable, necessary relationships among these changes that will improve performance and growth. The organizations that are successful will establish patterns of fit among the elements of their organizational designs, their competitive strategies and the external environment in which they operate and will go about this in a holistic manner.
The Modern Firm develops powerful conceptual frameworks for analyzing the interrelations between organizational design features, competitive strategy and the business environment. Written in a non-technical language, the book is nevertheless based on rigorous modeling and draws on numerous examples from eighteenth century fur trading companies to such modern firms such as BP and Nokia. Finally the book explores why these developments are happening now, pointing to the increase in global competition and changes in technology.
Written by one of the world's leading economists and experts that willimprove performance and growth. The organizations that are successful will establish patterns of fit among the elements of their organizational designs, their competitive strategies and the external environment in which they operate and will go about this in a holistic manner.