Strategies of Gaining Competitive Advantage at the Generic and Business Unit Level: A Study Comparing American, Japanese and German Companies Operating in the United States
研究了在美国经营的美国、日本和德国公司在波特通用战略和业务层面战略上的差异，发现不同国家公司即使在同一市场也采用不同战略来获取竞争优势。
This study investigates the differences in Porter's generic and business level strategies of U.S., Japanese, and German companies operating in the United States. The study found that even though the companies from the three different countries were selling their products in the same market (U.S), they followed different generic and business level strategies in order to achieve competitive advantage. INTRODUCTION Scholars have been very interested in the differences in behaviors of different companies with different country of origin. However, researchers have not studied differences in generic strategies and business unit level strategies of U.S., Japanese, and German companies operating in the U.S. The objective of this study is to overcome this shortcoming. LITERATURE REVIEW Strategy has been considered as a course of action consciously, and deliberately taken by top management, and as an analytical exercise by staff strategists (Porter 1985). Porter's Generic Strategies Porter's (1985) book, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance stimulated many scholars to study how companies gain competitive advantage and formulate competitive strategy. According to Porter (1985), a firm can gain competitive advantage if it is able to create value for its buyers. Companies can provide this superior value by offering products/services that are lower in prices than that of their competitors, or by offering benefits that are so unique that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for them. The former generic strategy is called the strategy of -cost leadership while the latter is labeled the strategy of differentiation. The third strategy: focus, is when a firm chooses a narrow segment within its industry and tailors its offerings (strategy) to that segment. Finally, Porter labels firms that follow each generic strategy, but do not achieve any of them as stuck in the middle. If a firm wishes to pursue the strategy of cost leadership, it has to be the low cost producer. A firm may gain cost advantage through economics of scale, proprietary technology, cheap raw material, etc. The strategy of differentiation involves offering a different product, a different delivery system, or using a different marketing approach. And it is up to the management of the company to decide which factors it wants to emphasize in order to gain competitive advantage (Porter, 1985). A study of European, Japanese and U.S. companies by Arora and Gambardella (1997) found that in comparison to U.S. industries, European and Japanese industries have greater competitiveness if the underlying competencies are not product specific. Similarly, the study by Doyle, Saunders, and Wong (1986) found that Japanese companies had a long-term perspective. They were much more interested in growth and long term strategies to capture market share (volume) at the expense of immediate short term profits, and subsequently they report having lower profits than their American counterparts (Haar, 1989). Even though the Japanese are seen as great performers, they do not make a lot of money (Johansson and Yip, 1994). Japanese firms spend far more than their European and American counterparts in R&D activities, and this may explain their superiority over them when marketing in other countries on issues like product and process innovation. The Japanese have learned to cut product adaptation since it results in lower profitability and lower market share. Japanese companies increasingly emphasize product standardization since it results in economies of scale in marketing and production (Kotabe, 1990). Japanese companies have also been known to pursue globally integrated strategies so that they can benefit from cost reductions, improved product quality, and higher customer preference in order to gain competitive advantage (Hout, Porter and Rudden, 1982). The Japanese have also been known to be very flexible and quick to strategically adapt to changes. …