Enterprise Resource Strategy Group, The Impact On Corporate Performance

Explaining the variance of profitability among firms, or, why different firms having different performance, is one of main topics that strategic management tries to study. At present, there are two kinds of popular ideas to explain the variance of profitability among firms in the field of strategic management—the school of industry structure and resource-based view.The origin of the school of industry structure is the traditional industrial organization economics. The paradigm followed by the industrial organization economics is S—C —P. Its means is that industry structure determines the conduct of firm, and then the conduct of firm determines the performance of firm. Because the object studied by the industrial organization economics is industry and it emphasizes on industry performances and the performance differences among industries, so, it lacks of studying on the differences among firms and can not effectively explains the variance of performances among firms in the same industry. To overcome the disadvantage of the industrial organization economics, the school of industry structure, which based on the paradigm of the industrial organization economics, takes the theory of strategic groups to analysis the variance of performances among firms in the same industry.As the definition of Porter's, a strategic group is a set of firms which perform same or similar strategy. The theory of strategic groups thinks that different strategic groups obey different strategies, and then they face different competition environments, so, different strategic groups should have different performances. Because of the moving barriers between strategic groups, the variances of performances among different strategic groups are sustainable. Because strategic groups extend the studying on the variance of firm performance to the inner of industry, it can to some extent explain the variance of performances among firms in the same industry. But, currently, the empirical researches of the strategic groups don't completely support the hypothesis that there are different performances among strategic groups in the same industry. Moreover, the theory of strategic groups takes strategic groups as the basic unit to study, so, it is lack of the study on the variance of performances among firms in the same strategic groups. Therefore, the relation between strategic groups and performances of firms still needs search further.To explain the variance of performances between firms, resource-based view turns its eyes into the inner of firms. Resource-based view thinks that different firms have different firm resources, so they should have different levels of profitability.Resource-based view concludes the characters or conditions of firm resources to generate sustained competitive advantage to rareness, instability and substitutability, etc... Just because it is difficult for a firm to imitate one another firm's resources, etc., they keep firms resources from moving freedom between firms, and then they guarantee firms resources to generate sustained competitive advantage for firms having such resources. But, similar to the theory of strategic groups, resource-based view also can not get enough support of empirical researches. Moreover, because it is difficult to define firm resources, etc., there have not many empirical studies on resource-based view, and, the studies on resource-based still mainly stay around the theories. The actual state of the studies on resource-based view also shows we need study resource-based view further.Aiming at the states of the researches on the school of industry structure and resource-based view, this thesis mainly steers the search to three subjects. First, we verify the basic assumption of the school of industry structure and resource-based view. The second, we extend the research on strategic groups to the inner of strategic groups, and study the variances of performances among firms in the same strategic groups. The third, we combine the school of industry structure and resource-based view together, and study whether their interaction can impact on firm performances.To research on the three subjects mentioned above, this paper choices the large and medium-sized bus industry in china to study. Based on the literatures and talking about with some specialists on bus industry, this paper initial defines the strategic and resources variables of the large and medium-sized bus industry in china. This paper concludes the strategic variables of the large and medium-sized bus industry in china to twenty-one variables, such as, product standardization, etc., and concludes firm resources to six variables, respectively: provide finance services to customers, firm scale, employee skills, brand reputation, marketing ability and comprehensive management ability.After the variables are definite, this paper surveyed the firms of the large and medium-sized bus industry in china, and the contents of survey mainly include the strategies choice of firms and their resources conditions in the past several years. Through surveying, this research gets thirty-eight valid samples totally. Based on the strategies choices of firms and Porter's competition strategy theory, and using the tool of cluster analysis, this paper defines the thirty-eight samples collected through survey into four different strategic groups—respectively: Differentiation strategic groups, focus strategic groups, low-cost strategic groups and stuck in middle strategic groups. As to the variables of firm performances, we choice three performance indexes and data which provide by Chinese Automobile Industry Year Book. The threeperformance indexes are respectively the average amount of profit and tax per employee, ratio of current asset turnover and ratio of per-tax to capital.Founding on the above-mentioned operations, this paper studied the impacts of strategic groups, firm resources and their interaction on firm performances. The results show that there are different performances among strategic groups, and this demonstrates that strategic groups can really impact firm performances. The performance differences are very obvious among firms from the same strategic groups, and this differences can not be explained by the theory of strategic groups, so, it is limited if we study the performance differences only at the level of strategic groups. The impacts of firm resources on firm performances don't have united conclusion, and the impacts have relation with performance index and special firm resources. Among the six kinds of firm resources, only the interactions between marketing ability and strategic groups have impacts on some performance indexes, and this demonstrates that the impacts of interactions between firm resources and strategic groups on firm performances are not very significance.As a whole, the impact of strategic groups, firm resources and their interactions on firm performances is a field that need be studied further. In the future, we can extend such study to other industries, and so we can compare the conclusions obtained from different industries. We can also join the factor of time in the study to research the dynamics impact of strategic groups, firm resources and their interactions on firm performances, etc...