Today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous markets force companies to constantly be aware of the contradictory demands and conditions shaping the competitive landscape. In order to cope with this equivocality, companies urge for strategists who not only come up with a predefined action plan, but rather include a holistic as well as adaptable style of thinking. As the procedural processes of strategic thinking exceed the competencies required for memorizing certain terms or theories, they often make conceptual knowledge obsolete while at the same time increasing the necessity of implicit knowledge. The character of implicit knowledge does not allow it to be formalized in an explicate way. Strategic thinking thus, requires to be demonstrated as well as experienced in order to be developed. The so-called mimetic learning process offers an approach to make the know-how of strategic thinking tangible and accessible for learners. Thereby, the learners have the opportunity to observe and imitate the action, make mistakes and experiences, and finally learn strategic management competencies through reflection and repeated practice, directly in the situation. Thus, acquiring a theoretically underpinned, yet practically experienced expertise, by combining inductive and deductive learning approaches; leading to an abductive way of teaching.

The war for talent poses a great challenge to companies as they struggle to attract, employ, and retain talented employees. Simultaneously, employees as a company resource are continuously gaining in importance. Combined, these two developments emphasise the relevance of a suitable and successful Human Resource Management. Employee Experience, defined as “the employee’s holistic perceptions of the relationship with his/her employing organization derived from all the encounters at touchpoints along the employee’s journey” (Plaskoff, 2017, p. 137) offers a new perspective on employees, their management and strategic importance. This Master’s Thesis analyses the potential of a great Employee Experience to be a source of competitive advantage. Results of the literature review and qualitative interviews indicate that successfully creating an outstanding Employee Experience provides several advantages, not only for the employees but also on the firm-level. Among them are improved profitability, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, employer brand, work environment, innovation and stock price which in total could lead to a competitive advantage. However, these benefits can only be realised when implementing Employee Experience holistically and strategically. In this Master’s Thesis such a holistic Employee Experience framework is presented as well as a model explaining the proposed relationship between Employee Experience and competitive advantage.

“The supply chain stuff is really tricky.” – Elon Musk, 2016. A simple, yet precise statement which underlines the growing complexity of globally acting supply chains. Global supply chains are exposed to a vast number of risks of disruption. Whether man-made or natural, foreseeable or unexpected, local or global – disruptions to supply chains have many faces. Supply chains’ operations may be harmed by disruptive events of global magnitude, such as worldwide crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, but also by mere local events – e.g. a shootout at the Mexican border halting the production of the Tesla Model X. Markets do not forgive improper response to disruptions of supply chains. Thus, resilient supply chains are highly valuable strategic assets. This Bachelor’s thesis aims to examine the vulnerability of global supply chains and identify risks imposed to them as well as to discuss strategic approaches to increase resilience. Literature research has shown that supply chain risks can be categorized by supply-side, demand-side, operational and environmental risks. To cope with these risks, firms need to employ a strategic approach to supply chain risk management. This work proposes a four-step supply chain risk management process (SCRMP): Identification, Assessment, Mitigation and Monitoring. Further it is suggested to emphasize and embrace following important supply chain characteristics: Agility, flexibility and redundancy as well as collaboration.

Heutzutage stehen Unternehmen vor der Herausforderung den immer höher werdenden Ansprüchen ihrer Stakeholder für Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) nachzukommen. Unternehmen, die die Anforderungen ihrer Stakeholder nicht erfüllen, können im Wettbewerb nicht überleben. Somit rückt das Thema CSR immer weiter in das strategische Management von Unternehmen. In der nachfolgenden Bachelorarbeit werden die Zusammenhänge zwischen CSR Engagement von Unternehmen und den daraus resultierenden Wettbewerbsvorteilen aufgezeigt. Die Argumentation stützt sich dabei auf die Sichtweisen der positionierungsorientierten und der ressourcenorientierten Perspektive sowie auf eine Kombination beider Sichtweisen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Wettbewerbsvorteile durch strategische CSR mittels vorteilhafter Positionierung, durch Kostenführerschaft und/oder Differenzierung, erreicht werden können. Darüber hinaus können Wettbewerbsvorteile generiert werden, indem die Stakeholderbeziehungen gefestigt werden. Somit können Unternehmen durch CSR das Kundenverhalten positiv beeinflussen, sowie bestehende Mitarbeiter*innen an das Unternehmen binden und neue Mitarbeiter*innen anziehen. Gerade in Zeiten des Fachkräftemangels stellt strategische CSR ein wichtiges Tool dar, um die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit nachhaltig zu sichern. Eine geeignete und zielgruppenadäquate Kommunikationsstrategie ist notwendig, um die Aufmerksamkeit der Stakeholder zu erreichen und deren Wahrnehmung über das CSR Engagement positiv zu beeinflussen. Durch strategische CSR können Unternehmen ihre Wettbewerbsfähigkeit langfristig erhöhen und in Zeiten eines verstärkten Wettbewerbs profitieren.

Digital transformation is no longer a challenge of the future. It has finally reached a degree of influence where it actively changes the ecosystem of industries. Therefore, this master’s thesis analyses the strategic challenges of digital transformation by investigating the root of digital transformative pressure and the strategic process of implementing digital transformation. The results show that digital transformation is built on multiple pillars that involve the company as a whole. All in all, the research results show that digital transformation is subject to continuous and fast development not only on the technological level but also in terms of managerial, organizational, structural and human matters. Moreover, it is clear that digital transformation is a success factor for companies in the future, but the intensity and development speed are highly specific to the business environment a company operates in. To succeed in digital transformation, a balance between circular planning and agility in decision making combined with intensive efforts to develop the workforce are needed, as the end result of digital transformation is not clear yet.

Why do corporations communicate the way they do? Since the rise of the internet and social media, digital corporate communication has become one of the key competitive differentiators of corporations worldwide. This Master’s Thesis introduces a new dimension for analyzing corporate communication strategies by assuming the existence of fundamental differences between organizations with high strategic choice and deterministic companies. To test this assumption, two practically oriented models for analyzing digital corporate communication were introduced based on existing literature: Firstly, a strategic corporate communication framework containing 3 main and 8 sub typologies and, secondly, a continuum model of strategic choice and determinism covering a multitude of micro and macro factors. In this thesis’ empirical part, a content analysis was performed on digital communication channels of 25 of the top 500 Austrian corporations. Consequently, a correlation analysis of the results generated 10 hypotheses in support of this Master’s Thesis assumption: In conclusion, companies with high levels of strategic choice prefer image-based, informational and multi-stakeholder targeted communication strategies compared to deterministic companies, which are more likely to employ customer-focused, expertise-based and persuasive communication strategies.

Dem War for Talents – also dem Kampf um die besten Nachwuchskräfte – müssen sich heute fast alle Unternehmen stellen. Zunehmende Digitalisierung und Globalisierung sowie stark technologieorientierte Märkte fordern hoch qualifiziertes Personal, um im Wettbewerb eine Chance zu haben. Gleichzeitig belastet die Arbeitgeber aber ein durch den demografischen Wandel ausgelöster Fachkräftemangel. Dieser stellt sie zunehmend vor die Herausforderung, talentierte MitarbeiterInnen zu gewinnen und diese langfristig zu binden. Genau hier setzt die vorliegende Diplomarbeit an. Es werden erfolgsrelevante Maßnahmen entlang des 7-Elemente-Modells identifiziert, welche zu einer gestärkten MitarbeiterInnen-Gewinnung und -Bindung führen. Durch unternehmensspezifische Kombinationen dieser Maßnahmen, können Arbeitgeber von einem Vorteil am Arbeitsmarkt profitieren, ihren Bedarf an qualifizierten Fachkräften decken und somit eine langfristige Wettbewerbsfähigkeit sicherstellen.

Der Einsatz von künstlicher Intelligenz hat enormes Potenzial um in vielen Bereichen des Alltags für fundamentale Veränderungen zu sorgen. Immer mehr Unternehmen versuchen daher, durch den Einsatz von künstlicher Intelligenz Innovationen voranzutreiben. Bei kaum einem anderen Thema verschwimmen dabei Realität und Science Fiction so sehr. Es ist mitunter schwierig zu erfassen, welche innovativen Geschäftsmodelle schon existieren, wie vielfältig die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten tatsächlich sind und welche Aspekte künstlicher Intelligenz noch bloße Zukunftsmusik sind. Bei diesem Problem setzt diese Bachelorarbeit an: Sie schafft einen Überblick, welche innovativen Geschäftsmodelle mit künstlicher Intelligenz derzeit existieren und stellt dabei den derzeitigen Stand der Anwendungsmöglichkeiten künstlicher Intelligenz dar.

Due to increasingly complex and dynamic business environments and the growing focus on the integration and accumulation of external resources through networks, the concept of coopetition, which involves simultaneous competitive and cooperative interactions between rivals, has increasingly gained the interest of researchers and business practitioners. Therefore, the main aim of this master’s thesis is to examine and provide meaningful information about the current state of knowledge concerning coopetition capabilities, that organizations need in order to anticipate and manage tensions and paradoxes inherent in coopetitive relationships, by drawing on scientific literature sources. As a result, the identification and examination of coopetition capabilities at the individual, organizational and inter-firm/network level, and the investigation of the development and preservation of three selected coopetition capabilities, provided the basis for the development of a multi-level framework of coopetition capabilities. However, high failure rates of cooperations between competitors demonstrate, that organizations lack coopetition capabilities that especially focus on the management of tensions in coopetition, emphasizing that there is still the need to close the prevailing research gap concerning coopetition capabilities.

In light of the strategic management discipline’s rapid expansion within the past fifty years, the purpose of this work is to explore the field’s structure in the past decade (2008-2017) as well as the key conceptual elements and intellectual foundations of research conducted in this time period. To better understand the field’s nature, the evolution of its structure and the historical development of past decade’s key conceptual elements and intellectual foundations are traced as well. These intents are accomplished by means of bibliometric analyses of articles published in prominent management and strategy journals in the focal period. The results reveal the presence of a large variety of research streams in the strategic management domain with the resource-based view, dynamic capabilities, innovation, knowledge, absorptive capacity, strategic alliances, and governance as central issues, but that the field has begun to consolidate itself within the past ten years. Moreover, the key role of American universities and scholars in strategic management research is highlighted in this thesis as well.

Aufgrund der schnell voranschreitenden Digitalisierung der Wirtschaft, ist es auch für Einzelhändler unverzichtbar sich mit Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie auseinanderzusetzen. Technologische Entwicklungen wie E-Commerce, Social Media, RFID und Data Mining beeinflussen die Geschäftsmodelle, Supply-Chains, Strategien, Transparenz und andere wichtige Aspekte der Einzelhandelsbranche wesentlich. Außerdem haben diese einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Demnach ist es für Einzelhändler von großer Bedeutung, sich den Herausforderungen der zunehmenden Digitalisierung zu stellen und geeignete Lösungen und Strategien zu entwickeln.

„War for talent“ – der Mensch macht den Unterschied. In einer von Veränderungen geprägten Welt dominieren Unternehmen mit talentierten und motivierten Mitarbeitern den Wettbewerb. Demzufolge widmet sich diese Diplomarbeit der Frage „Welche strategischen Aspekte sind für die Gewinnung und Bindung talentierter und motivierter Mitarbeiter relevant und wie sollen diese ausgestaltet sein, um als attraktiv wahrgenommen zu werden?“
Im Kampf um die besten Talente gewinnen demnach jene Unternehmen, die

• das perfekte Gesamtangebot für (potenzielle) Mitarbeiter bieten
• den individuellen Faktor berücksichtigen und
• reine personalpolitische Maßnahmen um eine strategische Betrachtung erweitern.

Aiming to provide meaningful data regarding competitiveness in coopetitive relationships, this Master’s Thesis analyzes contemporary scientific research literature. In globalized and dynamic business environments firms forge dyadic relationships with competitors where cooperative and competitive situations arise simultaneously. Competitiveness as the potential outcome of coopetition is investigated from the knowledge, innovation and firm performance perspective. According to current research results, it is still not clear whether or not coopetition increases competitiveness. Several quantitative research studies are supporting the hypothesis that coopetitive arrangements have positive effects on competitiveness in terms of knowledge, innovation and firm performance. However, there are other quantitative research studies available which have identified otherwise. As a result, there are still more empirical research efforts required to answer that research issue.