A Study On The Core Competence Of Asset Management Companies

The explosion of global financial crisis caused by US'Sub-prime Crisis'has drastically impacted the global economy. China, as one of the member in global economy, can not work on its own and Mainland China's developments of real economy and virtual economy both have been influenced dramatically. The asset management industry is unlike industries in traditional real economy. The virtual attribute of the product, the high correlation with the real economy, and the complexity and multiplicity of business risk all determine the importance to enhance the construction of the asset management company's core competence. The bankruptcy of Baring, a 233-year Scotland bank, and the bankruptcies of three Wall Street investment banks in 2008, both sound the alert bell of the long-term development and business risk of the asset management companies. Therefore, the thesis focused on the research of the virtual economic entity-the construction issues of the asset management company's core competence.Formal theoretical research on core competence in western countries only has a 20-year history. However, its cerebration has a historical review for hundred years. After comparing the concepts of core competence among different western schools and reviewing the concepts from the perspectives of economics and management, the thesis combined the particularity of the asset management industry and addressed its composition and characteristics of the asset management company's core competence. The asset management company is engaged in the capital fiduciary business without tangible output. Hence, its core competence is embodied in a particular composition of knowledge and skills and is the ability of an asset management company, which is accumulated in the process of long-term business development and can not be enhanced in a short time. The core competence can not be easily imitated by competitors, remarkably achieves the value demands from clients to take the lead, and brings the extra profit and competitive advantage of its own. The core competence of the asset management company has clear-cut characteristics-value, unity, uniqueness, and un-duplicity. Besides, it also owns the interconnected characteristics of ductility, knowledge, radiation, dynamical, non-tradability, and irreplaceability.Based on the logic of dissertation research, the thesis, on the basis of thesis review and comprehensive analysis, addressed the constitution of the asset management's core competence given the globalization of economy and financial internationalization and constructed the evaluation system of the asset management company's core competence. According to the implicit characteristics of the core competence theory and the research of the core competence, combined with Resource-Based theory point of view, via VRIO analysis frame and value chain to identify asset management company valued resource and compentence, the thesis classified the industry attribute of the asset management company and the characteristics of the company business risk distribution and categorized the asset management company's core competence into 8 aspects and 3 dimensions:(1) the capability of the fund manager, (2) the system and culture of the asset management company, (3) the ability of tactical management, (4) the ability of product innovation, (5) marketing ability, (6) the ability of risk control, (7) the ability of organization optimization, (8) the ability of human resources management. Among the 8 aspects, the capability of the fund manager and the system and culture of the asset management company are subject to the first dimension. The ability of tactical management is subject to the second dimension and is the tangible reflection of the capabilities of the asset management company and the fund manager. The ability of product innovation and marketing ability determines the effectiveness of the tactic implementation and is the final reflection of the core competence. The ability of human resources management, the ability of risk control, and the ability of organization optimization are the support and guarantee of the core competence. On the basis of the composition model of the asset management company's core competence proposed by the author, the thesis researched the cultivation mechanism and the ladder to enhancement of the asset management company's core competence from the four perspectives of the abilities of product innovation, risk control, organization optimization, and marketing.The innovation of the thesis is to combine the particularity of the asset management industry to propose the research topic of the asset management company in the background the international financial crisis. From the economics (finance) and management points of view, the thesis cross-field researched the topic of cultivating the asset management company's core competence, proposed the elements of the asset management company's core competence, and systemized and modeled the evaluation system of the asset management company's core competence. Due to the limited access to data, the deficiency of the thesis is the inability to develop case studies and to apply the evaluation model of the asset management company's core competence on China asset management companies'management practices. This is expected to be complemented in the future via work experience and researches.