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The article discusses the history of the beer industry in Western U.S. The country's first craft brew was reportedly made by John Collins in Oregon on October 16, 1805 using Pasheco quar mash bread of roots. The great American beer boom is explored as well as the factors that contributed to the beer industry's growth. Also tackled are the brewing process, ingredients of beer, and the beer industry in Germany.

The author reflects on the future of the market research industry. Topics covered include a comparison of the state of the industry to the collapse of film and printing business Kodak caused by its failure to take advantage of the changing business environment brought by digital photography, the problem with the way the industry respond to the changing business and technological environment, and the shortcomings of the way in which the boundaries of the market research industry are defined. Suggestions to broaden the scope and reach of the industry are offered.

Focusing on economic distress episodes in an industry, we estimate the effect of conglomeration on resource allocation. Distressed segments have higher sales growth, higher cash flow, and higher expenditure on research and development than single-segment firms. This is especially true for segments with high past performance, for unrated firms, and in competitive industries. Single-segment firms increase cash holding, and the diversification discount reduces during industry distress. Firms with high past performance acquire their industry counterparts, and firms with low past performance exit the distressed industry. Industries more prone to distress have greater conglomeration. Overall, conglomeration enables segments to avoid financial constraints during industry distress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we present a history-friendly model of the changing vertical scope of computer firms during the evolution of the computer and semiconductor industries. The model is "history-friendly," in that it attempts at replicating some basic, stylized qualitative features of the evolution of vertical integration on the basis of the causal mechanisms and processes, which we believe can explain the history. These factors are identified in the coevolution of capabilities, the size of markets, and the structure of industries. In particular, the basic assumption is that the principal force behind the patterns of vertical integration and disintegration of computer firms was the differential development of capabilities for designing and producing semiconductors among firms. On this basis, the changing boundaries of firms are analyzed in the context of dynamic and uncertain technological and market environments, characterized by periods of technological revolutions punctuating periods of relative technological stability and smooth technical progress. The model illustrates how the patterns of vertical integration and specialization in the computer industry change as a function of the evolving levels and distribution of firms' capabilities over time and how they depend on the coevolution of the upstream and downstream sectors. Specific conditions in each of these markets--the size of the external market, the magnitude of the technological discontinuities, the lock-in effects in demand--exert critical effects and feedbacks on market structure and on the vertical scope of firms as time goes by. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an in-depth study of third generation mobile telephony licenses in the UK, we discuss what makes externally acquired resources more or less valuable for their owners. We find that value is influenced by competitive dynamics, the discourse that surrounds a particular resource, and the development of collaborative networks around the resource. We also find that the value of a resource is determined during the process that leads up to its acquisition and continues to vary in the post acquisition dynamics. Our analysis furthers existing understanding of value within the resource-based view, and bears important implications for firm-level capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit the questions of identification of outlying firms within industries and their impact on the relative importance of firm- and industry-specific factors for firm performance. In response to McNamara, Aime, and Valler (2005), we argue that the key results in Hawawini, Subramnian, and Verdin (2003) are insensitive to the varying methods used to identify firm outliers. Further, we argue that conducting tests on industry outliers are inconsistent to what is indicated by theory and past empirical results on the relative importance of firm and industry effects to firm performance. Firm effects may matter most for outperforming and underperforming firms, while industry effects may be at least as important to firms 'stuck in the middle.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hawawini, Subramanian, and Verdin (2003) examined the relative impact of industry- vs. firm-level factors shaping firm performance. They demonstrated that variance in firm performance attributable to industry-level factors increases, while variance attributable to firm-level factors decreases when 'exceptionally' higher- and lower-performing 'outlier' firms in each industry are excluded. They concluded that previous research underestimated the relative impact of industry-level factors for 'average' firms that make up the bulk of an industry. We take issue with their methods used to identify and exclude outliers as well as their conclusions drawn from such analyses. Rather than excluding true 'outlier' firms, we argue that they incorporated an artificial restriction of within-industry sample variance that almost deterministically led to lower firm and higher industry variance component estimates. We demonstrate this point with a comparable sample of data to which we apply progressively greater restrictions on within-industry sample variance leading to similar results. Finally, we show that exclusion of firms from a data sample based on commonly understood standards of outlier identification leads to little change in industry and firm variance component estimates compared to full-sample estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the center of Schumpeter's theory of competitive behavior is the assertion that competitive advantage will become increasingly more difficult to sustain in a wide range of industries. More recently, this assertion has resurfaced in the notion of hypercompetition. This research examines two large longitudinal samples of firms to discover which industries, if any, exhibit performance that is consonant with Schumpeterian theory and the assertions of hypercompetition. We find support for the argument that over time competitive advantage has become significantly harder to sustain and, further, that the phenomenon is limited neither to high-technology industries nor to manufacturing industries but is seen across a broad range of industries. We also find evidence that sustained competitive advantage is increasingly a matter not of a single advantage maintained over time but more a matter of concatenating over time a sequence of advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we revisit some fundamental questions that are increasingly at the heart of current strategic management discourse regarding the relative impact of industry and firm-specific factors on sustainable competitive advantage. We explore this issue by referring to respective assertions of two major perspectives that dominate the literature over the last two decades: the Porter framework of competitive strategy and the more recent resource-based view of the firm. A composite model is proposed which elaborates upon both perspectives' divergent causal logic with respect to the conditions relevant for firm success. Empirical findings suggest that industry and firm specific effects are both important but explain different dimensions of performance. Where industry forces influence market performance and profitability, firm assets act upon accomplishments in the market arena (i.e., market performance), and via the latter, to profitability. The paper concludes with directions for future research that will seek to integrate both content and process aspects of firm behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we address criticism that performance differences among strategic groups found in past research may be spurious and attributable to firm effects. The Japanese steel industry provides the setting for the study. Our analysis is based on data from the carbon steel sector of the Japanese steel industry for the periods 1980-87 and 1988-93. A one-way ANOVA indicated that the average performance of firms in the two technology-based groups in this industry--the integrated mills and the minimills--were significantly different during the two periods. Subsequently, we performed a regression analysis to examine the residual group effect after controlling for both environment and firm-specific effects. We found that even after controlling for both environment and firm-specific effects, group membership was significantly associated with firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A revisionist view that corporate strategy does not matter has gained considerable influence in recent years. This view largely stems from empirical results of early variance decomposition studies that found negligible corporate effects associated with profitability differences between businesses. Our analysis of the variance decomposition literature shows this view to be incorrect Not only do the studies as a group show that factors at the corporate level of organizations contribute to profitability differences, but also evidence suggests that factors specifically associated with corporate strategy contribute to corporate effects. Corporate strategy in fact does matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most strategic group research has focused on performance implications, we consider the relationship between strategic group membership and reputation. Using strategic group identity and domain consensus concepts, we propose strategic groups have different reputations. We find significant differences exist in reputation across three identified strategic groups of U.S. property/casualty insurers, supporting our contention that reputation is a multilevel concept. Post hoc analyses suggest strategic groups with higher reputation also have higher performance on some critical measures, indicating reputation may be a mobility barrier beneficial to members of certain groups. Practitioner implications include challenges of within-group differentiation in firm reputation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discount retailers and 'category killers' are believed to be so detrimental to the existing retail environment that many communities have fought their entry through zoning and other regulations. However, the authors suggest that the patterns of competition among different types of retailers are more complex than previously believed. To understand this complexity better, they explore the cross-sectional relationship of competition and retail structure for different types of retailers. Contrary to popular opinion, the findings suggest a positive association between the number of larger stores and the number and size of smaller stores. This implies a mutually beneficial relationship among different types of retailers rather than an overwhelming competitive advantage for larger stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author summarizes 11 hypotheses from agency theory, transaction cost analysis, and Ouchi's theoretical approach about the impact of environmental, company, and salesperson characteristics on the design of sales force control systems (outcome- versus behavior-based) and tests them on a data set of 270 German sales organizations. Many of the hypotheses receive empirical support. Sales force size, the only construct for which the author derives two opposing hypotheses, is related negatively to the use of behavior-based control in sales forces. Thus, the hypothesis derived from Ouchi's approach is supported, whereas the contradictory hypothesis from transaction cost analysis is rejected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]