Animal Spirits or Engaging Spirits?

After having discussed the contemporary importance of the not-for-profit and social economy, the chapter builds on a cluster analysis of performances and roles of grant-making foundations, who are the essential node of the cooperation and coopetitiveness, today. This chapter aims to present worldwide grant-making foundations for their performances and profiling according to the latest accounting data and mission reports, which collect results of their projects according to the classification of pure grant-making, networking, leadership, partnership and pooling. With this in mind, the chapter adopts a typical approach of cluster analysis of industrial organization. The cluster analysis emphasizes the profiling of the sample and it allows to separate groups with significant features. The main focus remains on the issues of the finance of the social economy, when the Public Welfare State is too much indebted. Complementary and substitute roles of the Private Welfare State can emerge for the support the not-for-profit economy.

Polish Firms' Innovation Capability for Competitiveness via Information Technologies and Social Media Implementation

This chapter examines the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as innovative tools and the use of Social Media (SM) by Polish medium and small sized companies. The chapter aims to present the scope and importance of the use of Information Technology (IT) and SM in the process of companies' functioning and management. Presentation of the results of empirical research is another important aim. Companies' assessment of IT tools and SM's effective use as a prerequisite to improve the company performance is also examined. This is an exploratory study based on a sample of 166 southern Polish firms and it adds to the scant literature on firms' internal IT capabilities to support SM. The paper makes a theoretical and practical contribution in that it brings forth the emerging theme of IT resources that small and medium-sized enterprises adapt to their processes. It further examines the SM use from these firms based on the IT technology they implement as a whole. Managerial implications for marketers are provided since findings illustrate the tendency from small and medium-sized Polish companies not to implement ICTs and SM to a full extent and they could further incorporate SM in the firms' advertising and communication campaigns. Limitations and further research are discussed.

Performance Evaluation of Hotel Enterprises in Crete

The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the financial performance of hotel enterprises in Crete from a Multiple-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) perspective. Crete is one of the most developed tourist destinations in the Mediterranean basin and the hotel sector plays a major role constituting the main driving power towards economic growth. In this study, the multi-criteria method PROMETHEE II, based on outranking relations, will be implemented based on five different criteria. The original financial data are obtained through financial statements for the recession period 2008-2012. According to the availability of data, the sample consists of 194 hotel companies. The present study provides valuable insights for a number of stakeholders in such a dynamic competitive sector.

An Investigation of Competitor Networks in Manufacturing Strategy and Implications for Performance

Our study demonstrates the value of taking a more encompassing and explicit view of competition in manufacturing strategy research. In doing so, we go beyond a dyadic-based approach and investigate the ways in which the degree of competition among firms in a network influences performance. Using social network analysis techniques, we develop a novel measure—which we refer to as competitor infighting—that captures the extent to which a firm's rivals compete amongst themselves. Our results suggest that a firm has a greater, unimpeded opportunity to demonstrate market gains as the degree of competition among its rivals increases, all else equal. In fact, competitor infighting is a better predictor of market performance in our sample than is a simpler, though perhaps more traditional, count of competitors. It serves an important moderating role in the relationship between a firm's operational weaknesses and market performance. As predicted, we find that as competitor infighting increases, the relationship between operational weaknesses and market performance is diminished.

Firm Competitiveness

Competitiveness has been a topic of research in the manufacturing and related sectors since the early 1990s. While there is much agreement on the economic and social importance of competitiveness, it is less clear what exactly competitiveness is and what its most important determinants are. The focus of this paper is to review the literature at the firm level and evaluate and compare all the available competitiveness-related frameworks and models, to present the empirical evidence and to investigate the relevant competitiveness indices.

Currency Parity and Competitiveness

The international competitiveness of a country is the ability of its domestic production to participate commercially in foreign markets. There are many elements that influence in the long run this competitive ability, some of macroeconomic nature as low inflation and real exchange rate, others of microeconomic character such as the productivity of its offer and its labor and wage level in relation to their Business partners. The problems that monetary parity has on the competitiveness of a country's productive plant seemed to be overcome in Europe with the establishment of the euro as the common currency in many of its countries, the so called Eurozone. The first years seemed to confirm this. However, the global crisis in 2008, as a prelude to that the Eurozone would live in 2011, put on the table for discussion the weak economic theory of currency areas in which it was based and, therefore, the irresponsibility with which it was established.

Franchise Management and the Greek Franchise Industry

In this chapter, the development and growth of franchising is studied through the collection and comparison of statistical data from several countries with a special focus on Greece. The business concept of franchising, its different types as well as its advantages and disadvantages are investigated especially under the pressures of the current economic crisis. With Greece being one of the worst hit countries, this paper, suggests that that franchising is one of the most viable, low risk business models and possibly a pathway to re-igniting entrepreneurial activity. To argue the case, the authors present a historic account of the development of franchising in Greece; an analysis of the current Greek business climate and the ease of doing business in Greece; Greek market trends in relation to franchise activity; Greek franchise market prospects and limitations. The paper ends with proposed implications especially aimed towards managers of franchise businesses in Greece.

Joint Venture Efficiency through Skills Complementarity or by Reducing Transaction Costs?

This paper aims to examine the main strategies multinational companies implement to enter new markets, and more specifically emerging ones, by reviewing the determinants of the strategic choice between establishing a joint venture formed by a multinational and a local partner, and the merger/acquisition of a local firm. By reviewing the relevant literature, we explore the strategies that Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) follow to enter new markets in emerging economies. Finally we put the literature in test by presenting a case study of a clothing retail company that has been a platform for multinationals wishing to enter the market of Mexico.

Firm Performance and Research and Development

The objective of this chapter is to analyze the impact of research and development activities on the profitability of oligopolistic firms. The analysis is conducted in a two-stage, game-theoretic model of duopolistic competition. In the first stage, firms decide about the size of R&D investments, and in the second stage, they decide about the supply of the final product. On the one hand, different levels of research externalities are considered. And, on the other hand, three types of firms' behavior in the final-product market are analyzed: Cournot competition, Stackelberg competition, and cooperation within a cartel. The numerical analysis shows that the full cartelization of the industry generates the highest profits for both firms, independent of the size of technological spillovers. In the non-cartelized industry the performance of the Stackelberg leader is better in comparison to the Cournot firm, when the extent of research externalities is not too high.

Competitiveness of Polish International New Ventures from Managerial Perspective

The key objective of this chapter is to describe and evaluate the main sources of competitive advantages and market strategies of Polish International New Ventures (INVs). Previous research showed that in the case of firms from the developed countries, the consistent implementation of competitive strategy was the decisive factor of success. It appears that the best competitive strategy for the Polish INVs is strong differentiation, because either it was related to higher evaluation of success or it has been at least “neutral” in the sense that it has never been related to lower (or worst) evaluation of success. Similarly, the second best strategy is strong price leadership (in this case the positive relationships with companies' success are weaker). The results of presented research brought an interesting observation of rather weak interdependence between the strategy type and the economic results of the Polish INVs. This conclusion may be explained by some macroeconomic factors, e.g. low labor costs, favorable exchange rate of Polish currency, etc., which heavily contributed to the success of Polish INVs and overweighed the shortcomings of strategy formulation.