Clusters and the New Economics of Competition

2. Why do companies tend to thrive in global markets when their country of origin enjoys a comparative advantage

Competition is prevalent in various aspects of life, including sports, school, and jobs. Everyone at some point in their lifetime will have to compete against others in order to achieve a goal or earn a prize. It’s how the world has worked for a long time; it’s survival of the fittest and this minor competition between everyone is how we have continuously gotten smarter, faster, and stronger. Competition is necessary to a certain degree, but how much is too much? It’s definitely not a bad thing, and as long as there’s a healthy amount, it can be beneficial because it fosters self-improvement, and it will push people to go all out and try their absolute best.

1. High pressure for local adaptation combined with low pressure for lower costs would suggest what type of international strategy: A. global B. multidomestic C. transnational D. overall cost leadership 2. Foreign direct investment includes the following form of entry strategy: A. licensing B. franchising C. joint ventures D. exporting 3. According to Michael Porter, firms that have experienced intense domestic competition are A. unlikely to have the time or resources to compete abroad. B. most likely to design strategies aimed primarily at the domestic market. C. more likely to design strategies and structures that allow them to successfully compete abroad. D. more likely to demand protection from their governments.

Know the three different kinds of agglomeration economies – what is the difference between them? which one is significant for innovation?

Factors Underlying City Patterns, Economies of Scale – Cheaper to produce goods in large volume, Economies of Agglomeration – Cost advantages to colocating production factors, Positive Locational Externalities – “piggyback” benefits, Factors that make centralization less productive or more costly:, Congestion, Pollution, Crime, Transportation costs

There is a need for the federal government to initiate a national innovation strategy that incorporates and engages the existing regional technology clusters in Canada (primarily Waterloo and Ottawa, and to some extent, Vancouver). One tactic, for example, would involve the funding of new infrastructure for science and technology facilities in these regional innovation hubs, and then partnering them with local educational institutions and like-minded corporations. The addition of the private industry ensures that the resulting innovation can be commercialized and, subsequently, that job creation can also

The local businesses tapping into more markets with the help of Globalization. The world is changing, we are living longer than before, capita income has gone up, advance in science and technology and change of poverty due to globalization taking part of our lives (Bildt). Employment and economic growth are recovering almost everywhere. “Since 1990, the share of people living in extreme poverty in the developing world has fallen from 47% to 14%, and child mortality -- a critical indicator -- has been halved” (Bildt). It all depends on what area you live that is changing because of the consumers believe certain countries make the best product.

The organisation aims to operate a local business in all its locations. Even though the organisation has multiple geographic locations, it has embedded a culture of inclusion, which acknowledges and respect the cultural differences in these locations. This proposition has made Caterpillar an employer of choice and people are motivate to be successful in their jobs. Being an employer of choice is a competitive advantage because it attracts good talent, which leads to the creation of innovative products. Talent is considered a driver of global manufacturing competitiveness by CEOs in a research conducted by Deloitte Tohmatsu

The article Innovation: Location Matters discusses how the challenges for competiveness in advanced nations and regions has changed. It elaborates on how organizations must create and commercialize a stream of new products and processes that shift the technology frontier. Companies must be able to innovate to sustain competitive advantage by acquiring and deploying the best current technology. Location matters for innovation, and companies must broaden their approaches to the management of innovation accordingly: by developing and commercializing innovation in the most attractive location, taking active steps to access locational strengths, and proactively enhancing the environment for innovation and commercialization in locations where they operate (Porter & Stern, 2001).

In the article “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” Michael Porter describes a diamond shaped relationship of forces that define a country’s potential for being competitive in a specified industry. The four points on the diamond representing the different forces are: factor conditions; demand conditions; firm strategy, structure and rivalry; and related and supporting industries. According to Porter, the four points apply pressure to each other resulting in a national

It is undeniable that strategies of today’s organization lead to manage for Globalization because the world is becoming global market. Concerning the relevance for Today’s Business, it is questionable: Are Porter’s Five Competitive forces still applicable? Dälken (2014) argued that the question to what extent digitalization, globalization and deregulation affect Porter’s Five Competitive Forces can be answered as follows: Since Porter’s Five Forces relies on the principals of microeconomics; the challenge of the credibility of the model is limited. The mentioned three forces make network unstable, more extensive, and more dynamic.

To identify an appropriate strategy for a given industry one must look into the external and internal factors influencing the company. This Schnell Air report has been conceived with a triple objective in mind: to provide the Schnell Air Board with (i) a brief and compelling synthesis of Schnell Air’s competitive market environment overview since it entered the Innsbruck – Turin route in January 1997 as compared to prior to its entry, (ii) analyse the available data to establish the extent of predatory pricing strategies being plotted by the two existing duopolies – Air Turin and Innsbruck Air and (iii) by using a Game Theoretic approach model and highlight the affect of a 4th daily service on the same route given the

Attitudes of geocentricism are biased toward marketing, human resource, production policies, and finance that try to synthesize local and global practices. Preeminence is given to accruing the right people and policies. For instance, a decision maker, who is geocentric, would endorse a global pricing policy that would be adapted to regional and local environments. These decision makers strive to ratify policies that fit both local differences and global commonalities. Furthermore, when one adopts a geocentric mindset, this in turn, leads to the evolution of a geocentric company.

As trade increases hyper-competition grows forcing organizations to go global. By a company going global it requires them to rethink strategy and reform (Ananthram and Pearson, 2008). Global organizational structure is the way a company aims to merge local preferences with global strategy. The definition of global strategy is “strategic choices that have the characteristics of being globally uniform or integrated,” (Yip et al., 1997) such as standardization of products, uniform marketing, and competitive moves, but all globally (Townsend et al., 2004; Zou and Cavusgil, 2002; Bayraktar and Ndubisi, 2014). Global strategic strategy is a way to adjust to globalization. Globalization is “the economic and social process by which economies and communities grow inextricably interdependent “(Jhirad et al., 2009). The recent financial crisis (Das, 2010), large amount of poverty, and climate change are all problems that show how the world is globally connected because all countries impact each other (Jhirad et al., 2009).

As a concept that has become common since the 1990s, globalization is described as the technological, economic, cultural, ideological, and economic changes across borders. It can also be regarded as the transformation of the global economy through the anarchy of financial markets or a technological revolution with social impacts. In contrast, regionalization is the growth of societal integration within a specific area that incorporates all the undirected procedures of economic and social interactions among the units in the region. Since these concepts are different in nature, they contain various strategies that are only effective in specific situations.