Theoretical Model And Empirical Analysis On Industrial Synergy Of China’s Large-scale Coal Group

After the rapid development during the so-called "golden decade", from 2001 to 2012, diversified development by group had been achieved by China’s major large-scale coal enterprises. Sustainable development in the future will largely depend on how to take advantage of diversified industrial synergy, to realize synergy at utmost and achieve the connotative development, which is particularly significant, especially today when the coal industry is doldrums. However, according to research status at home and abroad, researches on industrial synergy theory mostly still stay at the stage of concept analysis, some basic hypotheses of industry synergy were not rigorous, analysis on the process of industry synergy was relatively subjective, systemic researches on industry synergy were not mature, theory analysis on a certain specific industry was also rare, which not only limits the development of industry synergy theory, but also goes against the enterprise practice in using industry synergy.According to the problem of theories and reality above, research ideas have been built as follows. Firstly, it has analyzed associated features in coal industry which has showed its property of multiplied industry association and internal opportunities and potential of industry synergy in diversified coal enterprises. Secondly, the general mechanism model of industry synergy has been built and then tested scientifically which indicated the model and path of industry synergy for coal enterprises. Based on this idea, the related contents of this paper have been designed as follows: the opportunities and potentials of industries synergy have been analysed based on the complex input-output relationship between coal, a kind ofprimary resource product, and other industry sectors of national economy; a theoretical model has been constructed by the case of Shaanxi coal chemical industry group, a representative enterprise carrying out diversified development with a comprehensive study of its historical processes and 147 key events focusing on background, motives, means and effects and on the basis of this saturation degree test has been conducted; the index of industry synergy in coal enterprise has been constructed from transverse, vertical and integrated dimensions and the index of synergy in 21 listed coal companies has been evaluated on the basis of their annual reports, which laid a foundation for empirical analysis below; the assumed relationship of diversification, industrial synergy and corporate performance has been established, and has conducted a regression analysis by applying annual data to test whether assumptions is supported by scientific statistical research, which tested the rationality of theory from one side; the mathematical model of industrial synergy, scope economy and scale economy has been established and a regressive test has been conducted to explore whether scope economy and scale economy exist in the theory of industrial synergy and further test this theory model from the other side; the model of industry synergy has been built systemically based on the verified theoretical model and business relationship of coal companies and a simulation analysis has been conducted in the case of Shenhua group in order to discover the internal processes and approaches of their industrial co-evolution and the effectiveness of industrial synergy under different scenarios which provide evidences for the design of policy and the practices of management.Focused on the research contents above, various research methods have been used comprehensively to ensure the rigor of the research process and the reliability of the results. The correlation between coal industry and other industries has been analyzed by the method of input-output, and opportunities and potentials of industrial synergy in diversified enterprises’ interior have been studied via value chain; the process of synergetics of industrial synergy in coal enterprises has been studied by synergetics which showed its evolution mechanism and main order parameter; a systematic and scientific analysis on 147 key events of Shaanxi Coal Chemical Group have been conducted by the grounded theory, and the mechanism model of industry synergy in coal enterprises has been built through open coding, spindle coding, select coding and theoretical saturation test; the objective evaluation of synergy index has been constructed by abandoning solely analytic hierarchy process and ever expert evaluation previously, and the current situation of industrial synergy in coal enterprises has been given panoramically using the data on listed companies accounted; several key prerequisite hypotheses of industry synergy have been proved by regression analysis, and the relationship of industry synergy and economic effect has been tested combining generalized beyond cost function, which has enriched and perfected the theory of industry synergy; finally, the system of industry synergy in coal enterprise has been built via applying system dynamics in order to reflect the associated relationship of its internal complex elements of industry synergy, and the key path has been achieved by simulation analysis.The above analysis shows that there exists a close relationship between the coal industry and other industries which owns the objective advantages of synergistic effect by industry synergy and a wide range of industrial synergy inside enterprises can be achieved through market synergy, production synergy, procurement synergy and so on; diversified industrial synergy model can be described as the framework of "associated mode-synergy approach-synergistic effect". In it the associated mode includes business, function and politics while the synergy approach comprises internal market, recycling, reduced transaction costs, resources sharing, mergers and acquisitions etc., and synergistic effect involves risk diversification, economies of scope, economies of scale, market power and so on. The index analysis of the listed companies shows that industrial synergy of coal enterprises in vertical is still on great potential, and has reached a bottleneck stage in the horizontal and the sheer scale expansion has played little marginal utility. Based on this, the quantitative analysis of industry collaboration on company performance, industrial synergy and economies of scope and economies of scale analysis supports this theoretical model. Furthermore simulation analysis shows that the synergistic effect of each section in coal enterprises is not the same, which railway section makes a larger contribution to and industrial synergy should follow this path, coal-iron, coal-electricity, coal harbour and coal- navigation.This dissertation compares favorably with the existing literature reviews in the following aspects: a systematic industrial synergy model “industrial association-synergy road-degree of synergy” has been established which shows the inside black box of industrial synergy mechanism; a quantitatively empirical test is done to prove the correctness of the mechanistic model of industrial synergy which promotes the further development of the scientific theory and the evolutionary path of industrial synergy is clearly shown by studying the synergistic effect of large-scale coal industry group.