
Mergers & Acquisitions Research Consortium
The last two decades have seen an unparalleled wave of business mergers and acquisitions (M&As) which have shown no signs of abating in recent times; if anything, the size and frequency of M&As has increased even further. The Strategic Management Research Center initiated a research effort aimed at bringing together five major Twin Cities’ corporations with top researchers from the Carlson School of Management to study issues related to M&As. Corporate involvement grounded the research questions in relevant problems faced by top management.
Dynamic Management of Core Competencies
This program was conducted in partnership with six regional companies. Field research was conducted in all of the partner companies on different aspects of competence exploitation, renewal, and sharing. The purpose of the research was to help firms manage their competencies better.
The Flat Panel Display Industry in a Global Context
Principal Investigators: Stefanie Lenway and Tom Murtha
Funded by the Sloan Foundation, this study seeks to analyze the competitive dynamics of the global flat panel display industry (FPD), assess the resource demands and the likelihood that U.S. companies will establish high volume U.S. FPD production facilities. The analysis of the U.S. FPD industry will include tracing government support for FPD manufacturers, and the development of the FPD industry infrastructure, as well as competitive strategies of large and small FPD producers.
Retail Food Industry
Principal Investigators: Alfred Marcus, Diane Rülke, Aks Zaheer and Sri Zaheer
The Strategic Management Research Center played a leading role in founding the Retail Food Industry Center at the University of Minnesota. A major $1.6 million renewable grant from the Sloan Foundation has helped to establish an all-university research center that will create a national center of research competence in the world-wide food service industry and train the next generation of industry scholars.
Interfirm Alliances in the Biotechnology Industry
Aks Zaheer received funding from a leading biotechnology company to study why the success rate of biotechnology alliances has been markedly low.