超級競爭環境的組織嬗變學習

Abstract

隨著科技創新的腳步加速、顧客偏好快速變動、產業環境的劇變以及全球化的衝擊，企業欲建立鞏固的持久性競爭優勢越加困難，暫時性競爭優勢的年代似乎已經來臨。對於如何獲取及保有持久性的競爭優勢以永續生存，自古以來各派學者各執一詞，也一直是策略管理領域熱門的議題；對於暫時性競爭優勢的現象，也有不同的解釋。競爭優勢理論認為分析產業結構能幫助企業找到持久性的競爭定位；資源基礎理論認為企業若能專注於培養內部的核心競爭力、擁有獨特的策略性資產與資源配置能力，則仍能保有持久性的競爭優勢；超級競爭理論則認為產業環境為動態競爭，競爭對手的競爭定位很容易被模仿，主張企業應採取一連串的短暫創新行動來建立一系列的暫時性競爭優勢，從而形成持久性的競爭優勢，也因此產生主張協調內部與外部管理能力的動態能力理論。然而，有一派學者卻認為市場處於均衡狀態，沒有任何一家企業能正確的預期市場方向；企業績效的走勢呈現隨機漫步的情形，因此沒有一家企業能夠擁有持久性的競爭優勢，強調機會事件的衝擊與運氣也能造就企業的高績效，產生暫時性競爭優勢的現象。

從上述可知，爭議點在於如果是單純的隨機性因素，是否代表管理與策略已經無用武之地? 過去企業的行為表現是否能預測未來的行為表現，也就是競爭優勢是否具有持久性?造就企業績效的異質性原因究竟為何?本研究將從組織學習理論的觀點，把北美161家企業過去二十年的財報資料重新檢視，實證結果顯示企業績效的走勢並非呈現隨機漫步的情形，因此企業培養卓越管理能力仍有助於其獲取持久性的競爭優勢。此外，本文也從各產業中之企業嬗變學習能力與分布情況，描繪出產業所屬的特性與競爭程度，實證結果發現越追求創新技術與服務的產業其平均嬗變學習能力也越高，說明了企業增進嬗變學習能力將有利於其執行有效的創新策略，也進一步證實企業增進嬗變學習能力可以提高其獲取持久性競爭優勢而永續生存的機率。

With the rapid emergence of new innovation of technology, change of consumer`s preferences, a dramatic change in industrial environment and impact of globalization, it is more difficult for a firm to consolidate the sustainable competitive advantages. Thus, it has led to the appearance of temporary competitive advantages. Nowadays, there are a number of theories that have been devised for this hottest strategic management issue concerning how to obtain and sustain competitive advantages and also various explanations on temporary competitive advantages were given by many scholars. Competitive Advantage theory suggests that a firm can benefit from analysis of industry structure to achieve sustainable competitive position. Resource-based theory puts forward the idea that the possession of particular strategic resources and capabilities enables a firm to generate sustained competitive advantages. Hypercompetition theory contends that in a dynamic competitive environment a firm can easily imitate opponent's position. It also contends that a firm should take a stream of actions to establish a series of temporary advantages and thereby obtain sustainable competitive advantages. Thereafter, dynamic capability theory which argues that a firm is required to coordinate the internal and external resources emerges. However, some scholars reckon that due to the existence of market equilibrium, no firm can exactly predict the market direction. The pattern of firm performance is a random walk, and thereby no firm possesses sustainable competitive advantages. They even emphasize that chance or luck also can bring about the superior performance.

Does it mean that any strategy is useless if it is a result of chance or luck? Do sustainable competitive advantages exist? What causes firm performance heterogeneity? We reexamine these issues from organizational learning theory by using 20-year financial data. Our results indicate that the pattern of firm performance is not a random walk. Thus, a firm is able to achieve sustainable competitive advantages by managing well. We also describe the characteristic and competition-level of industry by distribution of transmutative learning ability of firm. We found that a firm in more innovative industry possesses higher transmutative learning ability, which implicates that a firm enables to execute an effective strategy by enhancing a firm transmutative learning ability. Besides, we prove that a firm can increase its probability of sustaining competitive advantages by enhancing its transmutative learning ability.