Telecommunications in Transition: Unbundling, Reintegration, and Competition

The world economy is experiencing a technological revolution, fueled by rapid advances in microelectronics, optics, and computer science, that in the 1990s and beyond will dramatically change the way people everywhere communicate, learn, and access information and entertainment. This technological revolution has been underway for about a decade. The emergence of a fully-interactive communications network, sometimes referred to as the Information Superhighway, is now upon us. This highway, made possible by fiber optics and the convergence of several different technologies, is capable of delivering a plethora of new interactive entertainment, informational, and instructional services that are powerful and user-friendly. The transition from analog to digital technologies, the expanding bandwidth of the enabling platform, and the shift from regulated to competitive environments have all served to make the 1990s the decade in which the Information Superhighway will be built and used. A true revolution in the delivery of entertainment, information, transactions, and telecommunications services is at hand. This paper outlines these technological changes and explores their implications for competition policy, industry structure, and business organization. Part I introduces competition as an organizational model and discusses the existing structure of the telecommunications industry in the United States. Part II describes recent technological advances that change the conditions underlying the current regulatory structure of the telecommunications industry and challenges the effectiveness and validity of the current regulatory scheme. Part III discusses how innovation impacts what has been considered the natural monopoly of local exchange. Part IV advances five principles that should guide policy modification. Part V explores how eliminating the line-of-business restrictions created by the Modification of the Final Judgment1 between the government and American Telephone and Telegraph Co. will accelerate competition and stimulate the development of the Information Superhighway. Ameritech\u27s Customer First Plan is presented as a viable means to enhance competition, avoid redundant investment, and increase service innovations and technological advances. Part VI discusses the impact of removing interLATA restrictions

Market Sensing, Dynamic Capability, and Competitive Dynamics

This is a research commentary to the following article: Hunt, S. D., & Madhavaram, S. (2019). Adaptive marketing capabilities, dynamic capabilities, and renewal competences: The “outside vs. inside” and “static vs. dynamic” controversies in strategy, Industrial Marketing Management, in press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.07.004

Dynamic capabilities in the upstream oil and gas sector: Managing next generation competition

AbstractThe Dynamic Capabilities Framework, originally developed to enhance understanding of strategic agility in high-tech firms operating in high-velocity markets, is shown to be relevant for the Upstream Oil and Gas sector, in the context of five industry game-changers. Here operational and general managers with key strategic decision-making responsibilities significant challenges created by increased demand for energy resources, new technologies that have opened unconventional plays, increased competition, shrinking global geoscience and engineering talent pools, and the reality and perception of environmental risks. The Dynamic Capabilities Framework is distinguished from other “textbook” strategic methodologies and is applied to today’s upstream strategic context and inflection point. Dynamic capabilities join with strategy to empower an organization’s ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing markets. Dynamic capabilities differ from ordinary capabilities in that they orchestrate clusters of ordinary capabilities, best practices and competencies to gain competitive and performance advantages – capturing opportunities and managing strategic risks. Three dynamic capabilities are described that have particular importance for upstream oil and gas companies in the new business environment: (1) ambidexterity across mature and emerging domains; (2) the ability to manage the upstream business ecosystem; and (3) the ability to manage Health, Safety, Security and Environmental (HSSE) considerations in the multinational corporation and throughout the business ecosystem

Taking ecosystems competition seriously in the digital economy : a (preliminary) dynamic competition/capabilities perspective

This paper discusses digital ecosystems. It first describes the common properties of business ecosystems and the idiosyncrasies of digital ecosystems. It then explains how dynamic capabilities provide a good understanding of ecosystem competition. It closes by exploring how a dynamic capabilities/competition-minded antitrust policy would look like. The paper was prepared for for the OECD hearing on Competition Economics of Digital Ecosystems (3 December 2020)

The Use of Resources in Resource Acquisition

The author considers the processes through which a firm can acquire resources and argues that its current stock of resources create asymmetries in competition for new resources. Two simple models illustrate how this can work through linkages on the demand and/or cost side. The normative implication is that firms should expand their resource portfolios by building on their existing resources; different firms will then acquire different new resources, and small initial heterogeneities will amplify over time