Linking resource-based view with business economics of woodworking industry: earlier findings and future insights

Abstract

The business environment and sources of competitiveness in the woodworking industry have changed notably since the 1990s. Wood products are traded globally, and with the increase of trade, abundant forest resources are no longer the main source of sustainable competitiveness. Competition within the woodworking industry is increasing both between European and non-European enterprises, as well as within the EU. Capability to create value-added, making rational strategic choices, and creative usage of intangible and tangible resources have been emphasized as crucial for sustaining woodworking industry competitiveness in higher cost-level countries. Resource-based view (RBV) defines the availability of intangible assets, capabilities and tangible resources, and their heterogeneous combination to form the basis for company success. The objective of this review is to examine the possibilities to employ the RBV to the study of the woodworking industry by combining existing empirical results of the factors of companies' competitiveness with assessment of the RBV. In the existing literature, strategies implemented in woodworking companies have been approached rather widely, while the role of intangible and tangible resources in building firm-level success has received less focus. In addition, a significant gap exists in linking firms' financial accounting information with empirical data on their resource-usage and business strategies. In future studies, more information of the effects of these strategic elements on the actual business success of the firms would be needed.

Network co-operation as a source of competitiveness in medium-sized Finnish sawmills

“…Similar findings have also been reported in the forest industry, although the number of empirical studies is low, even in an international context (see Niemelä and Smith 1997, Lähtinen 2007, Bonsi et al 2008. The deficiency of the previous research related especially to the Finnish sawmilling sector is the lack of information on the business network formation processes, their functioning and the perception of company managers of the strategic usefulness of co-operation in seeking SCA.…”

“…However, understanding how co-operation is formed and managed requires the study of the actual processes within networks (Barringer and Harrison 2000). Despite the results on the potential benefits of networking, so far there has been very little research assessing the competitive benefits of the network co-operation of Finnish sawmills, and only a limited amount of research on the creation of competitive advantages in the forest sector has been undertaken internationally (Niemelä and Smith 1997, Lähtinen 2007, Bonsi et al 2008.…”

Self-Positioning of International Tourist Hotels in Taiwan

“…To emphasize the relation to this positioning process, it is strategically important for firms to achieve an alignment with the corporate branding that they consider to be as an ideal situation (Balmer & Greyser, 2003;Fombrun & Rindova, 2000). In the resource-based view of strategic management, for instance, corporate branding is an intangible resource or asset of a firm that, when adequately exploited, leads to sustained competitive advantage and superior financial performance as stakeholders value associations and transactions with high-reputation firms (Barney, 1991;Deephouse, 2000;Rindova & Fombrun, 1999;Roberts & Dowling, 2002;Lähtinen, 2007).…”

“…8, No. 17;2013 firms have heterogeneity when we use the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, then the estimator will show bias. The panel data can resolve this problem by controlling an individual firm's heterogeneity.…”

“…8, No. 17;2013 'reputation of the hotel' are all important variables that impact ITHs' revenue. Therefore, we employ these variables to examine how they affect hotels' positioning strategy.…”