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Peripheral Corporations
,. \I._ -. Yx - ,.~

John Sk&r
Professor in Business Administration Bad@ Graduate School of Business, Norway

ohn Sk& argues that peripheral companies, in their efforts to expand into centralized markets (and the European Community is taken as the case study), must move away from traditional strategies like the export of products. Using a typology of strategic modes, and drawing from a database of expanding Nordic corporations in the 198Os, Sk& states that peripheral corporations can only expand into centralized markets in the future by the use of greater collusion and co-operation.

position in the European market, i.e. the Common Market as it looked like at the end of the eighties. A mixed industrial organization-finance-strategic analysis view is taken as a basis for the discussion.

Some Expansion Patterns

The best example of expansion behaviour of peripheral corporations is, of course, the international market penetration of Japanese firms. This expansion has been a continuous empirical act for 40 years. During this period Japanese products have achieved a remarkable growth. During the same time many product areas like home electronics and cameras have experienced an almost total substitution between Japanese products and American and European products. The pattern of expansion for this period was production of high quality products in Japan and world-wide export. This pattern is now partly being replaced by Japanese controlled production in the large markets in the USA and in Europe. The car production plants planned by some Japanese producers are striking examples. The Japanese expansion is to some extent countered by American and European firms in their attempt to place production of, for instance, home and office electronics in countries considered to be low labour cost countries. This, of course, is an interesting derived expansion for the peripheral firms in question. Another example in this area is the earlier movement of the textile industry in Sweden to Portugal, Finland and some far east countries. This is the puIling factor. One may as suggested in economic theory and

lntroductjon
This article addresses the problem of what strategies peripheral corporations should use to expand into centralized markets - into the European Common Market in particular. A peripheral corporation is one which is located away from attractive markets and opportunities. The use of peripheral corporation as a label connotes some of the basic problems of such corporations: they want to connect themselves to markets from which a stable cash flow can be generated. Obviously a driving factor in its extended expansion is lack of - usually related - profitable expansion opportunities in its home market. There are other drivers as well. It is the purpose of this article to discuss expansion strategies of peripheral corporations and to offer some suggestions for revised strategies. The concept of expansion is often used synonymously for diversification which has many meanings (Salter & Weinfield 1979). However, in this study the dominating characteristic is related diversification in space, i.e. across national borders. Hence expansion is defined as the obvious economic activities in establishing or reinforcing a market

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will be more concerned with structural configurations than accurate fit. An important point is that some vital information is controlled by other actors (allied or nonallied). The structural mode can be seen as a framework for creating new structures within which to seek efficiency while the operation mode will seek a structural form that provides an extention of the existing framework. In the former case information for comparison and evaluation may not exist while one in the latter case is benign to rely on the value of expostinformation. Strategies in these two modes are different as will be discussed below.

summarized by Schwalbach (1987) - expect to find several expansion patterns due to differences in economic conditions, industry and business structure and cultural differences. In this article we will try to focus on the expansion patterns of peripheral corporations which are stretching out for a position in central markets in contrast to peripheral corporations which are being reached (pulled) by centrally located corporations. Sometimes a peripheral corporation may be the carrier of real innovations in its trade and gradually gain an established position in central markets. A good example is IKEA which was first developed in Sweden and later diffused in Europe and in the USA. The traditional form of expansion by peripheral corporations is to export its products. The export of pulp and paper is one example. This form of expansion relies on markets and contracts. Efficient markets will minimize transaction costs and thus bring about more or less stable product and income flows. However, markets are becoming at least partly internalized by vertical integration downstream. This is done in order to capture some of the value created close to the final markets. The capture of this value is an important expansion driver. The nature of expansion is thus changed on to a resource control stream and mergers and aquisitions are entered as fast working options into the strategic opportunity sets of the peripheral corporations.

Environmental Complexities and Strategic Choice

The set of strategic modes may be related to the environment by using the typology of Butler & Camey (1986). This is a dichotomized typology of task complexity or ambiguity. Peripheral corporations may - following the typology - be said to either know very well - and this may be true or not - what to do in an expansion case or they may not know because it is objectively difficult to know due to constraints sometimes controlled by others. In the first case, if the task is correctly known, the task ambiguity is low. It is high in the other case. A firm pursuing an operation mode strategy in a simple task environment should have a reasonable chance of being successful. However, pursuing the same strategy when complexity and ambiguity is high, is indeed risky. The reason is that the structure in which the firm wants to operate efficiently, is not known and hence its information is not reliable. However, if the firm can afford to make mistakes by doing this, then, of course it may learn to avoid this kind of behaviour. It would be better, however, to identify the situation and use the strategic mode which is appropriate. The problem is to know when a given strategy will give the best return (for a given risk), Cool, Dierickx & Jemison (1989). Thus task complexity and ambiguity is an important dimension in strategic identification efforts. This dimension can, of course, be operationalized. Some elements of task complexity and ambiguity as seen from the point of view of the peripheral corporations, are the following: markets are not well known because the actors are not identified communications are different also semantically trade requirements are different institutional aspects such as taxes, financing, etc are different competitive behaviour is different

The Strategic Duality

It seems that strategic development in corporations follows either one of two modes, an operational mode and a structural mode. These modes differ by means of focal issues and information relied upon when deciding and evaluating. Operational mode is characterized by making decisions within an environment which is believed to be one in which the entering firm use skills carried over from developing market positions in other types of environments. Thus operating efficiency is a leading notion for management which will rely on traditional reporting on cost prospects and market forecasts. Decision to expand is really seen in terms of volume increases, product line extension and coordination (synergy), production and distribution capacity, etc. Structural mode is characterized by an enlargement of the set of choice. This set will contain items from which the management has less experience, little information, and not very much reporting. In evaluation, management relies more on hunches and beliefs than they would like to admit. In this mode management

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structural dynamics are different (an example is industrial groups in France, Bauer & Cohen (1981)
etc.

The peripheral corporation may see such elements as barriers which can be surmounted by increasing its own efforts. It is very much a question of information and market intelligence work. The corporation may increase its skill in market research, employ people with proficiency in foreign languages, contract external experts and advisors, train its own management for negotiation in foreign cultural settings, etc. This will, of course, take time and the direct consequence is an increase in the transaction cost. The competitive position of the peripheral corporation may thus become improved due to the increased efforts and at the same time become deteriorated because of increased transaction cost. If the cost factor dominates this balancing act, then only possible economies of scale or the presence of a strong learning function will justify the expansion. Or in other words, the increase in transaction costs will be seen as a driver of expansion. A collorary is that if the corporation cannot surmount the barriers and transaction costs, its expansion will, if anywhere at all, be channelled into unrelated domestic diversification (cfr. conglomeratization) of which there is ample evidence. The dimension of task complexity and ambiguity may be measured and the effects on transaction costs can be established. For the purpose of discussion we may dichotomize the dimension in low and high complexity as related to transaction cost. This is a step further in strategic analysis than Butler & Camey (1986) did in their article. The dichotomized dimension together with the strategic modes are shown in Table 1. Continuation means simply an extention of the current practice in the operational mode in an environment in which the corporation perceives - correctly or not the task complexity as being low in terms of transaction This situation may be characterized as costs. competitive. The corporation will feel that it can generate the desired cash flow by expanding literally Table 1 Task Complexity and Strategic Modes

speaking in a linear expansion. This does, of course, not exclude expansion in new plants and the acquisition of old ones in the new environment. The point to be made is that the peripheral corporation intends to carry its own and known technology to the new environment and from there carry on business as usual. If task ambiguity is high and management is in the operational mode, the corporate expansion behaviour may be very much the same as above. There is, however, more uncertainty and the corporation may therefore expand in steps and gain experience from experiments which if they fail, can be written off without anyone making any fuss about it. This will not be the case under the structural mode. In this mode there is an emphasis on the structural features. The need to do known things differently is as Butler & Carney (1986) also point at, a question of innovation. Innovations are, even in a setting characterized by low task complexity, considered as a high risk venture. As a consequence the expectance is low (while the experience in production and distribution is high). Hence the management is likely to make public announcements even about small structural increments which is a tactic often used to make committments. If, however, task complexity is high, the management will be careful to define the risk area by introducing the proper organisational forms to frame the experiment. This is really the domain of cooperation, joint ventures, strategic alliances, etc. A large corporation will not confine its strategic behaviour to only one of these boxes as a small corporation is likely to do, but will have a portfolio of strategies at any time. Thus it seems obvious that there are economies of scale in expansion: A large corporation can put together a set of strategies from a much wider choice set than a small one. Hence it can expand in many directions at the same time. An interesting question is whether there is some threshhold value which a corporation will have to reach in order to exploit this advantage. A qualification may, however, be in place: By large corporation one should not always understand large in an absolute sense. It seems that management determination, a high degree of concentration, a high degree of experience, and a fairly high market share are all factors which can be traded off for absolute size.

Strategic Operational (OW Task complexity Low Continuation of existing operations (Pure OM) Creating parallel or identical structures (Extended OM)

modes Structural (SW

High

Need to fit known things together in known ways (Administrative SM) Need to fit new things together (Entrepreneurial/ cooperative SM)

Characteristics Corporations
For peripheral

of Centrally Located
expansion into Europe

corporations,

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EMJ VOL. 8 NO. 1: March 7990 members belonging to a given group. Sometimes groups are blocking each other as the case with Air France and Inter, also France. These airlines are competing with each other increasingly, a fact which may explain some of the very recent technical alliance between Lufthansa and Air France. These characteristics lay the foundation of cooperative strategic behaviour (Taylor, 1987). Group structures are slowly changing in Europe. New groups have grown into considerable size and power, cf. the European group controlled by de Benedetti. The implication of this is that task complexity and ambiguity is increasing also for centrally located corporations. New group members are sought across the borders, cf. the Siemens-GEC raid on Plessey. Because of the domains controlled by sets of centrally located supporters peripheral firms will sooner or later have to become accepted if they want to expand into areas controlled by members of a supporter set. The peripheral firm will have to belong, that is become an insider. Sometimes this can be done by appointing national members of the corporate board. In fact this is rare. Another manner is to acquire a related business. Such acquisitions will have to be friendly at least yet and probably for any years to come. In a case mentioned below, a peripheral corporation bought itself into a supporter set by acquiring a loss making national corporation controlled by three important members of a government related supporter set.

definitely means expansion into a more complex and ambiguous task environment. Doing extended business from its present location such a corporation will find that transaction costs increases will have to be covered by higher volume. Price increases would perhaps help but only for a very short time if at all. The reason is that completition will rise in the internal market due to the fact that suppliers will expand across the present national and from a trade point of view unimportant national borders. Concentration and industrial group structures are two important characteristics of continental industries, in particular Spain, France and Italy. Cross-ownership is in spite of rules to the contrary, a normal characteristic. Up to recently these cross- holdings have been national, see Bauer & Cohen (1981) for a number of examples. Lately, and partly as a result of the Common Market and partly in anticipation of the internal market, cross-border holdings are increasing in number. Examples are found in European banking, insurance, and in many other industries. Another characteristic is the national socio-cultural and These are changing, but only political networks. slowly. Interlocking board memberships, strong liaisons between government and industry, state ownership of large firms (banks, manufacturing, etc in France), rule of public provision, etc are all other characteristics making entries into national industries difficult for peripheral corporations which are outsiders. The centrally located corporations are usually favoured by these socio-cultural features. They will, due to their location, enjoy lower transaction costs. However, things are changing. Restructuring of industries from national to pan-european industries seems to be an irreversible process. Since new investments in many cases would create excess capacity, corporations are pursuing new and more uncertain growth opportunities. In industries facing decline in total demand restructuring is important from all points of view and acquisitions and mergers may be efficient ways to achieve this. Butler & Carney (1986) introduced the concept of supporters into strategic analysis. Supporters could be seen as a set of nodes in a network. They all presupposes the existence of each other. A new node would change the old structure. A corporation may, however, not always become a node - something which may be beyond its reach. Instead it can associate itself with one of the nodes and thus be able to share some of its influence. All supporters have expectations In return for something a and mutual claims. governmental agency will expect something in return now or later. Thus loyalties are created among

Strategic Identification Evaluation

and

In spite of the differences among peripheral corporations and centrally located corporations it seems clear that the strategic identification is in a process of change for both categories. The PC can, of course, try to prusue a traditional OM-mode strategy and the CCs continental corporations can continue with group strategies, but both will have to seek new identification although for different reasons. The PCs run the risk of adapting themselves to a task complexity which when expansion plans are implemented, will be something of the past. Thus the PCs will have to anticipate and forecast changes in task environments. The CCs will also have to adapt because of the increasing cross-border expansion - and competition. However, expansion implies a change in the use of resources. These resources are controlled and held by the corporation prior to the expansion move or expected to come under control once the expansion plans are launched. In the latter case the corporation may use the capital market and its institutions or it may

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expect to generate resources/revenues from reselling acquired assets. It seems that this is not unusual for some experienced corporations to do so, cf. Electrolux which has acquired more than 300 companies since 1970 and sold as many. Resource control is, therefore, an important element in strategic identification. Under the OM-mode resource control is high and, of course, higher when task complexity is low than when it is high. Under the SM-mode, resource control is often a considerable problem and the corporation will strive to increase resource control by finding the appropriate organizational design. This is, perhaps, the most single important reason for cooperation to emerge in the context of expansion. In OM-mode expansion means change of resources within the given structural framework. Sources of payoff can usually be identified within this framework. Since the risk is considered to be low, the stakes could be fairly high. When task complexity is high, the expected stake would be lower and perhaps experimental in nature were it not for the fact that some investments for economic reasons cannot be made stepwise. An example: Nearly all new paper mills are installed with a capacity of about 200000 tonnes per year. In SM-mode the corporation would expect synergies to appear, but the estimation of these synergies are difficult as stated above. nevertheless, the perceived low risk in low task complexity, could lead the corporation to undertake high stakes. The synergy definition by Husson (1987) fits the situation very well. According to Husson synergy is the value added following from a regrouping of resources and which could not have been achieved otherwise (translated from Husson, p. 19). The merger of the Swedish ASEA and the Swiss BBV into ABB fits the definition. Synergies from SM-strategies in the environmental context of low complexity would basically be financial. Synergies in high complexity are themselves ambigous but the corporation(s) involved will strive to improve control and hence the basis for financial synergy by choice of organizational design.

At the same time synergies under OM would - as expected - be operational. The strategies under SM would be collusive and cooperative. The emerging of cooperative synergies follows from the increase in task and environment complexity and ambiguity. By choosing to cooperate in various expansion ventures the parties are able to reduce some of the task ambiguity but not so much that there would be a move into another box, see Table 2. These strategies, however, would due to managerial unfamiliarity with cultural and political features of the task environment in question, often be seen as cumbersome and too indirect in their approach. The management may be aware of such features but nevertheless choose the lonely-raider-route-of-expansion, i.e. the OM-one. Expansion also in addition to deployment of resources, often means an increase in the total amount of resources controlled by the corporation. However, it is nevertheless consistent to say that expansion can take place within zero-sum resource growth (even negative). Expansion in one field thus implies growth in size in that particular area. From increasing size a number of expected consequences may follow. Size increase by expansion is expected to increase bargaining power the expected effect of which is higher revenues either by price increases in marketing or reduced prices when provided inputs (in the markets or by vertical integration). Size also implies a larger scale and the exploitation of economies of scale or Table 3 Expansion and Expected
Strategic OM

Effects

modes SM

LOW Task complexity HIGH

economies of scale economies of scope Traditional strategies for PC

bargaining power economies of scale economies of scope and skill New for the peripheral corporations

Table 2

Task Complexity,

Strategic

Modes and Synergy

Strategic modes gerational)

Low Task complexity High Synergy Synergy Operation from cost control from extention synergies

fZra tegic)
Synergy Synergy from combining from venturing synergies Financial Information synergies synergies

Collusive/cooperative

Total synergies

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7990 European corporations. A considerable number of friendly acquisitions have been made by this group during recent years. The gaining corporations are advancing from a position characterized by some previous expansion abroad. They are represented in a number of ways in many central markets. The emerging corporations are making their first or second major investment abroad. These corporations are definitely making experiments. Expansion is sometimes by investment in a new plant and usually by acquisitions. Merger is rarely attempted. The nationalities in Table 5. The distribution experience and Table 6. of the objects of expansion are shown

scope. This creates a governing structure which in many respects will be different from the one which initiated the expansion process, Williamson (1985). The dynamics of this process is in itself an important driver of expansion. As said above, the large corporations have a larger set of opportunities to choose from. An important consequence of expansion is increased presence in the markets which is expected to lower transaction costs.

Data - Some Particular Observations

A sample of 48 corporations was drawn from a data base created for the project. The data base contains a number of financial and other variables. Financial data in cases of cross-the-border ventures, i.e. investment, merger, take-over, acquisition, are not very reliable as a foundation of evaluation. Hence other supplementary variables are important. The cases were observed during the period of 1985-1989. The sample is used to illustrate some of the points made above. The expanding corporations in the sample are all from the three countries Finland, Norway and Sweden. The sample was grouped into three categories according to experience in international expansion. There are three classes of corporations as shown by Table 4. The distribution shows that Sweden is overrepresented in the category of established but this reflects the reality. Sweden has a fairly large number of known multinationals compared to Finland and Norway. The table also shows that Skveden has a new set of aggressive corporations extending their activities into the main countries on the Continent and to the UK. The established corporations have been acting on the international scene for a considerable time. Some of them are even quoted on the stock exchanges in London, New York and Paris. Still they are mainly peripheral corporations and have only rarely nonnational citizens on the boards. These corporations have, however, taken some important steps to become Table 4 The sample of Scandinavian/Nordic expanding corporations Countries Norw. Swed. 2 6 1 9 14 4 11 29

of the sample over expansion task complexity is shown below in

The distribution reveals the fact that most peripheral corporations are operating in environments that are perceived to be fairly well known and controlled. The question which strategies were chosen is partly answered by the figures in Table 7. As is shown corporations in the established category make use of the SM-strategy more frequently than do the emerging and this is, of course, as expected.

Table 5 Nationalities of expanding and objects of expansion

corporations

Nationality of exp. objects France WGerm. Ital. UK Others Exp. Corp. Finland Norway Sweden Total 1 3 6 10 2 1 10 13 21 1 3 6 4 3 7 14 48

1 4 6

Table 6 Distribution and task complexity

over expansion

experience

Finl. Established Gaining Emerging Total 4 3 3 10

Total 20 13 15 48 Established Gaining Emerging Total

Task complexity Low-Medium Medium-High 12 8 13 33 8 5 2 15

Total 20 13 15 48

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one plant each in northern France and there competing for the same raw materials. Strategic modes (Stri-i-Gal) 4 4 4 1 2 0 The corporations in the sample produce over a broad range of products. The importance of transaction costs vary. The incremental transaction costs from traditional expansion (mainly export) would nevertheless be considerable. Thus it seems that an important driver of expansion is either the possibility or necessity of reducing transaction costs and the strategy is to produce where the market is. The present structuring in the soft paper industry and the competition for control is a good example.

Category

Task compl. Low High Low High Low High

(Ope2onal) 10 2 5 3 a 5

Established Gaining Emerging

It should be noted that some of the established corporations have already obtained some of the features of a membership in a supporter set, see above. Thus Norsk Hydro known in centralized markets mainly as a producer of fertilizers and aluminimum, took over a fertilizer producer, Cofaz, France, in 1985. The acquisition was the admission ticket to the French market and was later followed by investment in a new plant at the cost of about 800m. FF. In this lowmedium case of task complexity the peripheral corporation in question did only partly know what to do. The question was if-and-when-and-how-much and the answers were held by the French government and the three loss making owners of Cofaz. The strategic mode and task complexity is correlated thus showing that peripheral corporations usually choose to expand in known areas and in known ways. It also shows that peripheral corporations continue the go-it-alone strategy which they have exercised in the past, in increasing the industrial concentration at home by horizontal mergers and acquisitions, and the practice of expanding in the USA. This strategy may follo\v from past experience and from culture. Group strategies and cooperative strategies are not common neither in Scandinavia nor in the USA. An example may be taken from the expansion of Nordic producers in the pulp and paper industry. This industry is dominated by a handful of large corporations in Finland and Sweden and one producer in Norway (after recent mergers of 3-4 into the corporation Norske Skog). They compete in the product markets in Europe. Several of them are implementing large investment plans. However, without any coordination, that is they do not have any group strategy of the kind which can be found in France, Italy, or German. As a consequence there is a considerable risk of overcapacity. A Swedish corporation in this industry, SCA, which had a liaison with a French corporation, withdraw plans for a new plan in France while at the same time Norske Skog and the Finnish corporation, UFM, are going to establish

Limits of Traditional Strategies

A number of observations from the sample seems to strongly indicate that peripheral corporations start from a strategic position in OM-mode and a perceived low task complexity. This traditional strategy - to continue to do what has been done, perhaps on a larger scale - is the preferred strategy. Whether this is the strategy that has the best return, is difficult to assess. There are as Chakravarthy (1986) pointed out, a number of problems in measuring strategic performance. Identification of relevant strategies and sets of numbers is only one dimension. By dichotomizing the strategies in OM and SM mode it was, however, possible to see what kind of information management makes use of in strategic analysis. A conclusion is that managements by overly relying on OM-type strategies thereby introduce their own constraints on strategic development and thus on expansion. The history of the established corporations - with respect to expansion in Europe - shows that it takes a long period of time to adapt and to implement expansion plans from investment in new plants. Some corporations have learnt to acquire old plants from which they build up a new one in all but name. By coordinating production over a larger number of plants in Europe these corporations are sometimes able to achieve economies by both scale and scope. The observations from the sample - which cannot be presented in detail in this article - seems further to indicate that peripheral corporations are likely to experience diminishing returns from the traditional types of strategies discussed in this paper. The findings of this study indicate that there are clear limits of the OM-strategies when approaching complex environments. The findings further indicate that there are dynamic interdependencies among the four classes presented above. Peripheral corporations in general seem to believe that

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1990 model not necessarily does. Table 3 above shows the relationships between strategic modes and synergy and it seems that these can only be achieved by starting from an overall strategic view. For lack of a better name this view is here denoted the strategic cooperative stance - SCS. The SCS-model may be perceived as an umbrella model. Its rationale is in reducing the complexity and the ambiguity of task and environment and thereby simplify the rational execution of plans under the OMmode. Thus OM-mode is really not an alternative to the SACC-model in spite of the fact that most of the corporations in this study go for it as the first choice. Rather this strategy should be a derived part. Sometimes this is as simple as having a corporate strategic vision. To have an OM-mode vision only would, however, make you myopic.

the low task complexity prevails to a much higher extent than their counterparts and main competitors, the centralized corporations. This difference could also be due to the fact that the latter are much more used to observe and understand group structures and are therefore more aware. This does not necessarily mean that the CC-type are more in SM-mode than the PCtype. The recent jockeying around by many continental and UK-firms to find partners and establish alliances, indicates that the centralized corporations are beginning to move over to a more broadly defined SM-mode. This also indicates that there are some strategic dynamics at play and which indicate an increasing interdependence among the strategic types discussed in this paper. This also indicates that there are limits on the traditional strategies.

The Evolution of New Strategic Models

Empirically it seems that strategic development whether it is a planned development or a rationalization is as discussed in the literature, see Johnson & Kevan (1988) - in contexts of expansion starts with the present situation and its history. Thus organizational and managerial learning up to the present time seems to be both a driver of expansion and a barrier. Several of the observed corporations have been successful in expanding into centralized markets: Once they had consolidated an expansion step they could plan for the next. However, it was also found that several of these corporations made some heavy losses due to lack of insights into their task environments. In ex post reconstructions it has been possible to demonstrate that a different strategic point of departure than the traditional one, would have produced a higher return (and eliminated the losses). The most important gap in the insight referred to, seems to be the ability to understand and read the environment . This is not only a semantical question although such questions are increasingly becoming relevant. (Note the German-Spanish joint venture in which the partners have decided to carry out all negotiations in English.) It is, however, much more a question of being able to construct the relevant choice set and to understand the interdependencies among Actors, Acts, and Actions. By knowing more about the three As, the management may from the very first moment anticipate and proact. By starting from a broad point of view - here illustrated by the cell of high task complexity and SM - management may be able to derive strategies and to design and later to protect strategic moves. This approach model implies interaction with other actors which the traditional

Conclusions
From the discussion above it follows that peripheral corporations which to a great extent have been expanding successfully into centralized markets nevertheless may be approaching limits of the traditional strategies. Thus these corporations may find that further expansion will require more collusion, more cooperation, more participation in order to maintain cashflows and economic returns. This strategic move or transition will be needed to overcome expected increases in transaction costs. Another consequence seems to be that peripheral corporations are likely to become more European by becoming less peripheral. The most important driver of expansion is the attraction of the economic values downstream. In order to gain an increasing share of values created, the peripheral corporations may also have to move a considerable part of their investment and operative control downstream and that means expansion.

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Copeland, Thomas E. & Weston, J. Fred: Financial Theory and Corporate Policy, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1988, 3rd ed. Hannah, Leslie: The rise of the corporate economy, Methuen, London, 1976 Husson, Bruno: La prise de controle dentreprises, Puf, Paris, 1987 Johnson, Gerry & Scholes, Kevan: Exploring corporate strategy, Prentice Hall, New York, 1988

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