Digital Business Strategy responds to the need for clarification of the increasing, but fragmented, knowledge of digital business strategy. It systematically presents topical knowledge by reviewing previous research and developing frameworks for the content of digital business strategy and its relationships with relevant factors. In addition, the book analyses issues encountered by individual companies when implementing digital business strategies.

The volume identifies key categories of digital business strategy, in particular, strategy scope and direction, competitive advantage, and resource and capability reliance. It then explores relationships with antecedents such as digital experience, relationships with obstacles and enablers of strategy implementation, and relationships with operational and financial outcomes. The author demonstrates that strategy content and relationships differ among manufacturing companies, retailers, digital content providers, and digital platforms and also presents ways to cope with issues of implementation.

In summary, the book provides readers who wish to know more about the growing field of digital business strategy with up-to-date and systematic knowledge. It will be of great value to students at an advanced level, researchers, and reflective practitioners in the fields of technology management and strategic management in particular.

A firm implementing a competitive international strategy needs to balance global standardization and responsiveness to individual host country markets. In order to balance in an appropriate way, the firm needs to answer two central questions: (1) how can sharing of knowledge relevant to any market support a foreign subsidiary’s competitive strategy? and (2) how should local competition and other local matters be handled? However, despite the fact that the issue of balancing is largely relevant, in practice, strategy literature does not pay enough attention to the issue. Therefore, this chapter initially elucidates corporate support of a subsidiary’s competitive strategy and the strategy expresses the degree to which the firm implements global standardization and local responsiveness at the same time. After that, the chapter highlights implementation of a competitive international strategy in terms of upgrading a subsidiary’s scope of value adding. The upgrading is triggered by incoming knowledge stemming from the corporate strategy and by market experience accumulated by the subsidiary itself. An analysis of two subsidiaries shows how it may work in practice. Both belong to Swedish parent firms and operate in the United States.

Realization of synergy between related business units, such as a foreign subsidiary and the corporate core business, is crucial to successful implementation of a competitive international strategy. Exploitation of relatedness facilitates the sharing of knowledge relevant to competitive advantage across the corporation. This chapter explores the role of managerial cognition and biases that may appear when managers specify relatedness among business units. Understanding the impact of such obstacles facilitates realization of the synergy potential of relatedness. Without sharing resources, each business unit would work separately, resulting in risks for sub-optimization and a difficulty to achieve competitive advantage by means of extending corporate efficiency. The extent of cost-reduction, or increase of revenues, manifests synergy realization. This chapter contributes to the understanding of managerial cognition in the context of implementation of competitive international strategy. The chapter shows that biases arise when individual managers judge similarities, and the biases are linked to the specification of relatedness in terms of the choice of business units to compare and the choice of relatedness dimensions. Furthermore, for both choices, conflicting views of managers may appear that may cause cognitive dissonance. 

Contemporary businesses are exposed to global competition enhanced by new information technology and liberalized cross-border transactions in many industries. This introduces a new competitive dynamic, influenced by actors in developed and emerging markets. The dynamic puts major demands on executives as they consider future moves that support strategic initiatives. The context of intensified global competition requires attention from practicing (and aspiring) leaders in international business organizations.

Drawing on contemporary research, Competitive International Strategy: Key Implementation Issues addresses international business strategy formulation and implementation in the global competitive market. It captures the essential strategy components by elaborating on the implementation of corporate integration and local responsiveness. This is considered a vital dichotomy in the development of international business strategies. Essential components include competition context, firm’s resources, strategy directions and competence, implementation issues, and competitiveness. The book includes several detailed company cases.

Bridging the strategy formulation and implementation is crucial for the ultimate success of international business firms. This book will be of great value to students at an advanced level, academics, and reflective practitioners in the fields of strategic management, leadership, and international business.

This chapter presents the resource-based model for competitive international strategy and its components. The first section presents competition context in terms of competition barriers that make it complicated for the firm to establish itself firmly in a host country market and then competitive dynamics follow. The second section clarifies the meaning of resources and capabilities, whereas the third discusses strategy formulation and, in particular, strategy directions and strategy competence. The fourth section captures implementation of competitive international strategy in terms of phases of a firm’s establishment in a host country, establishment modes, local value adding, and corporate control of strategy implementation. The final section discusses outcome in terms of sustainable international competitiveness.

Contemporary businesses are exposed to global competition enhanced by new information technology and liberalized cross-border transactions in many industries. This introduces a new competitive dynamic, influenced by actors in developed and emerging markets. The dynamic puts major demands on executives as they consider future moves that support strategic initiatives. The context of intensified global competition requires attention from practicing (and aspiring) leaders in international business organizations.

Drawing on contemporary research, Competitive International Strategy: Key Implementation Issues addresses international business strategy formulation and implementation in the global competitive market. It captures the essential strategy components by elaborating on the implementation of corporate integration and local responsiveness. This is considered a vital dichotomy in the development of international business strategies. Essential components include competition context, firm’s resources, strategy directions and competence, implementation issues, and competitiveness. The book includes several detailed company cases.

Bridging the strategy formulation and implementation is crucial for the ultimate success of international business firms. This book will be of great value to students at an advanced level, academics, and reflective practitioners in the fields of strategic management, leadership, and international business.

The core message of this volume is that each firm needs to align its international strategy carefully with competition. In particular, consciousness to potential obstacles to strategy implementation simplifies a firm’s efforts to cope with changing landscapes of international competition. The model for competitive international strategy draws on resource-based theory of strategy. Essentially, the theory predicts that tangible and intangible resources constitute a viable ground for strategy, and alignment leads to competitiveness. The model contributes to the theory in four major ways. First, the model shows that strategy implementation mediates the effect of strategy on sustainable competitiveness, and implementation activities need to fit the strategy. Second, competition needs to be incorporated explicitly in a resource-based model as a moderator of direct relationships between model components. Third, knowledge-based theory complements resource-based theory regarding resource foundations of strategy. Fourth, additional theories complement the applications of resource-based theory and knowledge-based theory, including contingency theory, the theory of industrial organization, and competitive dynamics theory.

Realization of synergy between related business units, such as a foreign subsidiary and the corporate core business, is crucial to successful implementation of a competitive international strategy. Exploitation of relatedness facilitates the sharing of knowledge relevant to competitive advantage across the corporation. This chapter explores the role of managerial cognition and biases that may appear when managers specify relatedness among business units. Understanding the impact of such obstacles facilitates realization of the synergy potential of relatedness. Without sharing resources, each business unit would work separately, resulting in risks for sub-optimization and a difficulty to achieve competitive advantage by means of extending corporate efficiency. The extent of cost-reduction, or increase of revenues, manifests synergy realization. This chapter contributes to the understanding of managerial cognition in the context of implementation of competitive international strategy. The chapter shows that biases arise when individual managers judge similarities, and the biases are linked to the specification of relatedness in terms of the choice of business units to compare and the choice of relatedness dimensions. Furthermore, for both choices, conflicting views of managers may appear that may cause cognitive dissonance. 

This chapter reveals changing patterns of competition in the telecommunications industry due to liberalization and technology innovations. Starting around 1980, governments in many countries took initiatives to liberalize the industry in order to move away from the dominance of monopolies and allow other firms to compete in markets for operations of telecommunications networks. The UK belonged to the forerunners and allowed entrant firms to challenge the previous monopoly. Among others, City of London Telecommunications (COLT) recognized the opportunity and developed a competitive international strategy relying on an innovative technology for fiber networks. This chapter analyzes the way in which COLT implemented the strategy under the influence of competition in the initial phase (1992-1996) and throughout the worldwide geographic expansion (1997-2019). The necessity of getting operating licenses and access to customers, and need for capital were the major barriers in the initial phase when COLT executed a strategy of customer responsiveness and exploited the network advantage. During the worldwide expansion, COLT broadened its range of services and strived towards standardization. The barriers of getting licenses and financing the expansion remained. The necessity of low costs became another major barrier because price competition became intensive. 

This chapter presents practical guidelines regarding the application of the model for competitive international strategy. Guidance relates to general steps to develop a strategy, operationalization of the model components, and how to develop competitive international strategy based on the example of the COLT case. Management of a firm is advised to formulate a competitive international strategy following these principal steps: (1) specify the current competitive international strategy and lessons from the past; (2) formulate relevant strategy alternatives and pay attention to competition (focused or global standardization, focused or global responsiveness, or combinations?); and (3) choose a competitive international strategy. For the last step, it is important to evaluate to what extent the strategy relies on sustainable competitive advantages, consistency among items of the strategy, whether it is explicitly formulated, enabling communication within the firm and with stakeholders, and whether it is possible to adjust the strategy under the influence of competition.