Factors Influencing Competition in the Maize Milling Sector in South Africa

Although the maize milling industry in South Africa is highly attractive and profitable, new entrants are unsuccessful. Thus, understanding the factors influencing competition is important for developing strategies which can help new entrants to be more resilient and also succeed. A case study of a very successful organization in the industry was conducted using Porters five forces model, to explore the factors influencing competition in the industry. The selected organization employs a differentiation strategy which enables it to constantly improve and introduce new maize meal varieties to serve a wide range of customers. The findings revealed that the selected organization employs resources, capabilities and knowledge in its business processes to sustain its competitive advantage. Thus, it is recommended that firms entering this industry should harmonize internal resources, knowledge, capabilities and external forces to generate a competitive advantage. Received: 18 November 2021 / Accepted: 30 December 2021 / Published: 5 January 2022

Assessing Disruptive Innovation From the Perspectives of New Entrants and Incumbent Firms

Disruptive innovation (DI) is evolving as a strategically significant innovation type in this current dynamic, volatile, and global competitive business environment. The theory of DI is critical in comprehending entrant-incumbent relationships and elucidating how their interplay affects the nature of the market. The fundamental aim of this study is to assess disruptive innovation from the perspectives of new entrants and incumbents using the empirical reviews approach. The chapter contends that disruption is a phenomenon whose forces are always at work, and incumbents can elude it by putting in place the prerequisite measures and having the right caliber of human resources to pre-empt and avert genuine potential disruptive threats. The study demonstrates the steps taken by upstarts to displace leading firms and the responses that can be provided by the latter against disruption. It extends its scope to significance of DI, reasons for failure of incumbents in DI battle, and barriers to effective implementation of disruptive innovation.

ATTITUDES OF CZECH AND SLOVAK YOUNG PROFESSIONALS TOWARDS POTENTIAL NEW ENTRANTS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY

The automotive industry is changing rapidly. Are these changes what the car customer prefers? This paper gives insights into attitudes towards new automotive brands, the brand image of big tech companies, perceptions regarding the cooperation between car manufacturers and tech companies, purchasing drivers of new brands, and willingness to pay for big tech brands in automotive. In-depth interviews with young professionals in the Czech Republic and Slovakia were conducted with the use of an interview guide.

Accounting Firm Association Membership and Audit Firm Growth

In this study, we explore a topic of primary concern to small audit firms – attracting public audit clients. A potential avenue available to small audit firms to enhance their visibility and legitimacy among potential public audit clients is to join an association of accounting firms (ACAP 2008; GAO 2008). We examine whether small audit firms with accounting association membership have greater public clientele growth than their peer audit firms without association membership. We find that member firms experience public clientele growth as measured by number of clients and revenues audited. We find that this growth is impacted by both gaining new entrants to the audit market and winning over clients from competitors. Further, we find that the reputation of associations positively affects the clientele growth seen by member firms. In additional analyses, we also find some evidence of private client growth of association members using LexisNexis® Company Dossier data.

The current market

There continues to be strong demand for the purchase of high-quality childcare businesses, both in terms of new entrants and existing nursery operators with plans to expand their portfolios. Here we have a snapshot insight into the current market.

The Novelty of Innovation: Competition, Disruption, and Antitrust Policy

We develop a model to capture the novelty of innovation and explore what it means for the nature of market competition and quality of innovations. An innovator decides not only whether to innovate but how boldly to innovate, where the more novel is the innovation—the more different it is from what has come before—the more uncertain is the outcome. We show in this environment that a variant of the Arrow replacement effect holds in that new entrants pursue more innovative technologies than do incumbents. Despite this, we show that the new entrant is less likely to disrupt an incumbent than the incumbent is to disrupt itself, and less likely to fail in the market. We extend the model to allow the incumbent to acquire the entrant postinnovation and show that this reverses the Arrow effect. The prospect of acquisition makes innovation more profitable but simultaneously suppresses the novelty of innovation as the entrant seeks to maximize her value to the incumbent. This reversal suggests a positive role for a strict antitrust policy that spurs entrepreneurial firms to innovate boldly. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.

Impact of PSD2 on The Payment Services Market – General Objectives and Evidence from Polish and UK Legal Systems

Payment Service Directive 2 came into force on 13th January 2018. It has replaced the prior directive and introduces new tools allowing to provide more advanced payment services. New legislation aims to increase competition and allow new entrants into the market. The thesis leads through the different aspects of the Directive, emphasizing an influence the legislation has on the companies providing modern solutions in the payment services market. The legal changes are analysed and assessed following the differences resulting from Payment Service Directive 2. For better understanding the impact of Directive, recent technological accomplishments are briefly described and explained. The overall results of the analysis are concluded on the basis of British and Polish payment services markets. The outcome reveals a contrast between these two countries in a number of new payment services providers as well as they origins. Research shows that the Polish payment services market is less accessible for non-bank financial companies.