Strategy

This papers introduces a market-based typology of corporate strategy, which builds on previous typologies (Rumelt 1974, 1982). We argue that, because different markets require different skills for success, firms which concentrate in one market area (consumer or industrial), at given levels of diversification, should achieve superior performance. Empirical tests with a sample of manufacturing firms support this proposed relationship between diversification strategy and financial performance.

This paper considers general (single facility) queueing systems with exponential service times, dealing with a finite number J of distinct customer classes. Performance of the system, as measured by the vector of steady state expected sojourn times of the customer classes (the performance vector) may be controlled by adopting an appropriate preemptive priority discipline.

We present an exact solution method for a single-server queueing system which alternates between periods in which service can be provided (on-periods) and periods in which the server is out of operation (off-periods). The arrival process is Poisson, on-periods are assumed to have a phase-type distribution, and service times and off-periods are assumed to be arbitrary.

We consider the polymatroidal flow network model which incorporates two important extensions of the standard maximal flow problem: general concave objective functions of the vector of supplies to a collection of sinks, as well as polymatroidal capacity restrictions on sets of arcs emanating from or pointing to a common node. A number of important applications are reviewed.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that dividends are the primary means of transferring cash from the firm to its shareholders, nondividend cash payments surpassed dividends in the two most recent years for which data are available, 1984 and 1985 (Shoven 1986). This development challenges the "trapped-equity" cost of capital models 'which equate the cost of retained earnings to the after-tax yield of the alternative considered, namely, dividends.

We consider general queueing models dealing with multiple classes of customers and address the question under what conditions and in what (stochastic) sense the marginal increase in various performance measures, resulting from the addition of a new class of customers to an existing system, is larger than if the same class were added to a system dealing with only a subset of its current customer base.

Heuristic solution methods for combinatorial optimization problems are often based on local neighborhood searches. These tend to get trapped in a local optimum and the final result is often heavily dependent on the starting solution. Simulated annealing methods attempt to avoid these problems by randomizing the procedure so as to allow for occasional changes that worsen the solution. In this paper we provide probabilistic analyses of different designs of these methods.

A model for the systematic evaluation and management of a company's technological resources is proposed as a first step to developing an integrated corporate marketing-technology strategy. The proposed framework raises 4 issues: 1. technology identification, 2. technology additions, 3. technological commercialization, and 4. treatment of individual technologies as interdependent elements making up an integrated, coherent plan. The technological decision nexus involves decisions related to the firm's development and commercialization of its technology.

An analysis of the environments of leading manufacturing firms operating in the United States and in Australia produced a series of hypothesized differences in the strategies, organization structures, and market environments of firms in the two countries. Parallel hypotheses about differences between domestic Australian firms and subsidiaries of foreign multinationals operating in Australia were also developed. The hypotheses were by and large supported when tested on data obtained from leading corporations in the two countries.