Positioning firms in a new business performance space: an empirical study design on Euronext listed companies

Abstract

Purpose - This research was designed to shed light on what is the role played by intellectual capital within firms for the achievement of leadership positions, according to two main perspectives: (i) intellectual capital commitment and (ii) financial/market performances. Design/methodology/approach - An exploratory study design, involving 10-year data about 45 firms listed on Euronext 100, was devised. Firstly, firms were rated according to their intellectual capital commitment and their financial performances, by gathering indicators from a literature analysis; then, it was developed a new tool, was developed the Positioning Matrix, which is a new business space, where firms can be placed according to the rates received in the first phase. Finally, the authors analyzed all the changes that the sample firms experienced all over the ten years considered. Findings - Findings showed how companies can get the market leadership by using strategies based on their intellectual capital commitment. It was empirically found that intellectual capital should be considered as a necessary, but not sufficient condition to be recognized amongst the market leaders. Research limitations/implications - The main limitation of this study is that it is based on an empirical standpoint; therefore, it could be interesting to verify the findings by using quantitative approaches. Since there are no standard ways to disclose intellectual capital information, some companies had to be excluded from analysis. Originality/value - This work was especially designed for practitioners who could use the Positioning Matrix to (i) figure out how intellectual capital could contribute to get a better position within the market and (ii) have a better understanding of the investments into intellectual capital made by other firms (i.e., competitors, partners, etc.) to get the market leadership. Keywords: intellectual capital; business performances; financial performance evaluation, Euronext. JEL Classification: 034, L1

Assortment Portfolio Price Positioning of a Transnational Corporation in the Ukrainian Market

“…In current market conditions, the statement that two key factors determine the choice of competitive strategy of the company remains relevant: the profitability of the industry and the positioning of the company within one or another industry [3,5]. Depending on the company's positioning relative to other market participants, its revenues will be higher or lower than the average level in the industry.…”

“…In foreign and domestic scientific literature, some problems of price positioning of transnational corporations considered many authors [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In these works, the definitions of the key concepts of strategic management that form the basis of the positioning concept are given: 1) positioning related to the long-term strategy of the company since it takes time to create the desired position; 2) positioning occurring in the minds of consumers; 3) positioning based on obtaining the benefit; 4) the product's position in the mind of one buyer may differ from the same product's position in the mind of another buyer.…”

AHP-Driven Knowledge Leakage Risk Assessment Model

“…At the same time, external parties can also take advantage of the usefulness of this model and one of them is the credit risk analyst of a financial institution which lends money to companies for running their businesses. At present, the credit risk analyst adopts the established practice for the credit risk assessment of loan applicants by mainly making use of the financial reports (Iazzolino, Migliano, & Gregorace, 2013). However, any knowledge leakage can potentially affect the competitive advantage significantly, putting its earning capacity in doubt.…”

“…Finally, this important numeric risk score can be fed into the credit risk analysis system of the lending company as part of the regular input data, making it a strong candidate to be one of the independent variable with the potential to enhance the credit risk analysis results. Earlier work by Iazzolino et al (2013) showed that the use of intellectual capital related data (knowledge leakage is in this category) can benefit credit risk analysis. Further modelling work on the credit risk analysis software is required to realise this perceived advantage of the model.…”