| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 管理學院高階經營碩士學程在職專班 === 107 === Abstract
As a traditional industry in Taiwan, plywood industry was one of the top three exporting sectors in the early 1970s. In the late 1970s, Taiwanese plywood manufactures began to shift businesses to countries of origin (i.e., Malaysia and Indonesia). Having been exploited for more than 60 years, however, the natural resources in said countries of origin have substantially been depleted. As Wang Yung-ching, a renowned Taiwanese entrepreneur known as God of Management, stated, “There is no sunset industry, only sunset enterprises,” this study aimed to examine the development of Malaysia-based Taiwanese wood companies and to explore strategies enabling these companies to achieve sustainable management, transformation, or diversification management under the circumstances with limited resources and environmental problems.
Several business theories and models were adopted to analyze the existing Taiwanese plywood manufacturers in Malaysia. 1) Porter’s five forces analysis and SWOT analysis were conducted to discuss internal–external competition, market growth potential, and problems faced with said manufacturers. 2) Qualitative research was implemented through in-depth interviews with numerous companies involved in this study to reveal the process of diversification management. Resource-based view was also applied by exploring business resources to determine factors that essentially affected diversification outcomes of studied businesses. 3) Suggestions were provided for future management and development of diversification strategies.
Findings of this study were as follows. 1) The success of related diversification depended on suitability between resources and competence, whereas that of unrelated diversification was determined by the target industry as well as the thought and vision of business managers. Successful examples were usually seen in companies capable of leveraging tangible and nontangible resources and companies with low technology requirements. 2) Two factors determining the outcomes of business transformation and diversification were business partners and talents. Therefore, businesses managers should prioritize the establishment and management of a talent asset system as the developmental direction for business diversification. 3) By reviewing cases that failed, this study discovered that businesses should pay attention to environmental factors such as political, regional cultural, and economic factors in addition to their own resources and core competence. Failure of international or regional transformation or diversification was mostly caused by undesirable business–environment fit. The result of industrial analysis indicated that the development of plywood industry currently focuses on environmental protection and plantation forests raw-material. Future management will center on development of raw materials and new products, vertical integration, and intraindustrial informatization and automation. Despite different external problems, the studied companies, mostly family businesses, had encountered similar internal difficulties, namely 1) business reform, 2) creation of business culture, 3) ownership transition between the first- and second-generation owners, and 4) business transformation and diversification. The second- or even third-generation owners must solve the aforementioned problems. After problems are solved, plywood companies can change with times and attain sustainable management.
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