George S. Yip

Measuring Organizational Performance: Towards Methodological Best Practice

Organizational performance is one of the most important constructs in management research. Reviewing past studies reveals a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational performance related predominately to stakeholders, heterogeneous product market circumstances, and time. A review of the operationalization of performance highlights the limited effectiveness of commonly accepted measurement practices in tapping this multidimensionality. Addressing these findings requires researchers to (a) possess a strong theoretical rationale on the nature of performance (i.e., theory establishing which measures are appropriate to the research context) and (b) rely on strong theory as to the nature of measures (i.e., theory establishing which measures should be combined and the method for doing so). All management research on performance should explicitly address these two requirements. The authors conclude with a call for research that examines triangulation using multiple measures, longitudinal data and alternative methodological formulations as methods of appropriately aligning research contexts with the measurement of organizational performance.

Total global strategy : managing for worldwide competitive advantage

How can managers cope with the forces of globalization? Which companies need a global strategy? What is a successful global strategy? How can business organizations implement worldwide initiatives? These are some of the most challenging questions facing multinational companies today. Executives need to recognize that the traditional multinational approach--in which country subsidiaries design, produce, and market products tailored to local needs--is being made obsolete by falling trade barriers, costly and quickly changing technology, and the growing similarity of international customer needs. Companies now need a total global strategy that combines a successful core strategy in the home market with effective international adaptation and global integration. George Yips Total Global Strategy is the definitive work on how companies can manage for worldwide competitive advantage. This work is based on a five-year research program in which Dr. Yip interviewed over fifty senior executives at twenty-three of the worlds largest American, European, and Japanese multinational companies, as well as on his twenty years of involvement with multinational companies as a manager, consultant, and educator in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Yip provides the first systematic, comprehensive, balanced, and practical approach to developing a global strategy: diagnosing industry globalization potential, achieving global market participation, designing global products and services, locating global activities, creating global marketing, making global competitive moves, building the global organization, and measuring the use of global strategy. The final, highly innovative, chapter of the book provides astep-by-step guide, with worksheets, on how to conduct a global strategy analysis. The book is also filled with examples and case studies of American, European, and Japanese companies to illustrate and support key points. Total Global Strategy is essential reading for both inter

Developing Global Strategies for Service Businesses

This article provides a framework for developing global strategies for service businesses. It integrates existing, separate frameworks on globalization and on service businesses, analyzes how the distinctive characteristics of service businesses affect globalization and the use of global strategy, and diagnoses which aspects favor globalization and which do not. It then applies the new framework to numerous industry and company examples, with particular emphasis on the role of information technology.

The Role of the Internationalization Process in the Performance of Newly Internationalizing Firms

A study of 68 recently internationalized U.S. firms, using structural equations, shows that newly internationalizing firms do not on average follow a highly systematic approach. Some firms make use of a systematic sequence of steps, and the more systematic the approach, the better is the performance.

Global account management: the new frontier in relationship marketing

Explains the concept of global account management and the forces driving it. Provides a framework to help managers to recognize why and when to use it and how to implement it successfully. Discusses examples from the advertising, computer, telecommunications, electrical component and banking industries and provides an in‐depth case study from one of the leading practitioners of global account management, the Hewlett‐Packard Company. Concludes with a guide to successful implementation.

Regional follows global: strategy mixes in the world automotive industry

The authors posit the question of whether companies should formulate their strategies according to a global or regional corporate mindset. In this study, they explore the strategic responses of multinational automotive companies embedded in a simple framework of interdependent industry forces, total globalisation barriers, and competitive regionalisation advantages. Regional strategies could be viewed as alternative, potentially superior solutions vis-a-vis fully globally integrated or locally responsive approaches. The presented evidence suggests that there are some valid reasons for companies to follow an eclectic course of regionalisation as well as globalisation. Such an approach involves clustering countries that exhibit similar market conditions and addressing homogenised regional consumer tastes, while minimising adaptation costs. In the context of the automotive industry, however, the preliminary findings suggest that a car producer should first become a global company, in order to efficiently and selectively regionalise in a second step. Overall, regional strategies could be associated with later, rather than earlier, stages in the evolution of a companys global strategy.

Measuring Organizational Performance as a Dependent Variable: Towards Methodological Best Practice

Organizational performance is one of the most important constructs in management research. We review the contexts that frame organizational performance as a dependent variable with specific emphasis on how it is operationalized and measured. The research contexts of past studies are firmly anchored around a multidimensional conceptualization of organizational performance related predominately to stakeholders, heterogeneous market circumstances, and time. The review of the operationalization and measurement of performance highlights the limited effectiveness of commonly accepted measurement practices in tapping this multidimensionality. By synthesizing the literature, the foundations are laid for the improved measurement of performance in management research. We conclude with a call for research that examines the effectiveness of triangulation utilizing multiple measures, applies longitudinal data and brings to bear alternative methodological formulations as means of appropriately aligning research contexts with the measurement of organizational performance. Validating these measurement approaches is an important agenda for further research. Previous Title: Measuring Organizational Performance in Management Research: A Synthesis of Measurement Challenges and Approaches

Patterns and determinants of global marketing

This paper discusses the patterns and determinants of global marketing, based on a contingency framework of industry globalization drivers, company position and strategy, organizational factors, and parent company characteristics. These patterns and determinants are examined in a sample of 64 businesses belonging to very large American, European and Japanese multinational companies. The study finds that these businesses mostly use global branding and global packaging but make much less use of global uniformity in other elements of the marketing mix. Several factors, including nationality, explain the use of global marketing.

Global Strategy in the Internet Era

This article examines the joint effects on business strategy of the Internet and globalization. It develops a framework for evaluating how the Internet affects the globalization potential of individual industries and the global strategies that companies should adopt. The impact of the Internet will not be uniform. Not only do its direct effects vary from one industry to another, but also it speeds up globalization at different rates in different industries. The article shows how to use the Internet to support five types of global strategy: market participation, products and services, activity location, marketing, and competitive moves.

A Note on Return on Foreign Assets and Foreign Presence for UK Multinationals

Within the context of the international business literature on multinationality and performance we develop new data on the foreign presence and performance of large UK multinational enterprises (MNEs). There are 32 UK MNEs for which we can obtain data on both their degree of multinationality (measured by the ratio of foreign to total (F/T) sales) and their performance. Here, in addition to the traditional overall performance of the firm, shown as return on total assets, we use new data on the return on foreign assets (ROFA). We conduct analytical work to show the positioning of the UK MNEs in the ROFA and F/T sales space and provide regression results showing a linear relationship between multinationality and performance, using the new ROFA metric.