Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
9 - 10 November 2015, Shinjuku Washington Hotel, Tokyo, Japan, ISBN: 978-1-922069-88-7
Strategic Failures: Business Failure Case´s Analysis in
the Ceramics Industry in Portugal
Vitor Hugo dos Santos Ferreira*1 and Ana Rita Antunes Mendes**
This paper attempts, through a qualitative methodology, to identify the causes
that led to the failure of companies in the ceramics industry in the district of
Leiria. This research focuses on the analysis of the strategy and its potential
failures. In a context of crisis, when many companies go bankrupt but some
seem to thrive, seems vital the study strategic failures as a way of learning,
thus avoiding the widely used analysis of successful case studies, often skewed
by single events in the life of each company. After several years of
development and prosperity many companies lose sight of the competitive
advantage that allowed them to grow and differentiate. Porter (1985), on this
issue, stated that the strategy failure of many companies is due to the inability
to turn a competitive strategy in general specific action steps thereby obtaining
competitive advantage. In this context, we will briefly revise the concept of
strategy, and address issues such as resource based theory of the firm and
other recent theories of strategy, competencies and competitive advantage. In
our empiric analysis, we investigate companies that are in the verge or went
bankrupt, through a qualitative methodology, using interviews with their
respective directors and managers. The poor definition of a marketing strategy,
the consequent lack of capacity to analyze foreign competition, and the
imperfect reasoning of managers that is often skewed led to the decline of
business. In the discussion of results we address these causes, as well as
other conclusions reached and that were instrumental in the decline of the
companies analyzed.
JEL Codes: L25, M10, L61
Keywords: strategy, competencies, competitive advantage, causes of failure.
Track: Management
1
*School of Technology and Management, CDRsp – Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Leiria,
Portugal, Email:vitor.ferreira@ipleiria.pt,
Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, School of Technology and Management, Portugal