The Competitiveness of Multinational Firms: A Case Study of Samsung Electronics and Sony

Abstract

Recently Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC) has made headlines in the mass media for its outstanding performance. Reputable international newspapers and magazines have said that it was a shock to see SEC transform from low-cost and often unreliable into high-quality and sophisticated. SEC is often compared with Sony Corporation and some say that it has already caught up with the Japan-based giant. The purpose of this paper is to give answers to two questions: Is the media talking about the whole picture of competitiveness; is SEC really as competitive as Sony? Here we try to clarify the issue of competitiveness using the generalized double diamond model (Moon, Rugman, and Verbeke 1995, 1998), which was extended from Porters (1990) diamond model. Also, we will suggest the main factors that determine the competitiveness of multinational firms in the global market.