Positioning Strategies for a New Company in Established Market: The Case Of A Steel Industry Spin Off in Brazil [ ]

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1 1 Positioning Strategies for a New Company in Established Market: The Case Of A Steel Industry Spin Off in Brazil [ ] Carlos Alberto Gonçalves, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil Daniela Ferro de Oliveira, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil

2 2 Abstract Most of the firms born are dead in about a five-year-existence in Brazil. Entrepreneurship has long been an interesting subject not only in the academic field, but also in the professional mind. The process of creating a company at the basis of another existing one is safer, quicker and less risky. Spin offs have been an intelligent way of building new business platforms with an already constructed knowledge, with a good Learning Curve about markets and processes. The case of this article is about a steel cutting and drilling Service Center company, which has just been born from a bigger company established in Brazil for 23 years. The challenge it faces is how to establish itself in the highly competitive market it is about to enter, and what positioning strategies it should perform. The case presents the links between strategies of Marketing, Industrial Plant and Business Plan. Introduction Many authors begin their papers mentioning their concern about the large numbers of firms that don t survive much time after birth. Of course that in the free and competitive market, operations under scarce resources and competitive logic will never allow that unsuccessful organizations and their actions survive together in their same environment. There used to be some kind of belief that it was very easy to start up businesses and live happily ever after. These kind of believers didn t see that the harsh market is not for amateurs. Many situations could lead to the death of enterprises, like reactions of environment components, bad or misleading projects, mistakes in concepts, etc. It is somewhat sad what occurs with most of the small businesses in Brazil. According to studies from the Brazilian Support System to the Micro and Small Firms (SEBRAE, in Portuguese), unfortunately, 50% die within the first two years, what contrasts with rates from 20% to 40% in developed countries (GIANNI, 2004). This is a highly dangerous and unacceptable index, which represents a waste of around 10 billion dollars. Companies have always struggled to survive in any turbulent environment; however, it s known that, nowadays, competitiveness has reached a very high level, imposing hard and never seen before market rules. It is the age of entrepreneurship, of managers who love challenges, of dynamic staffs, and of less and less hours to sleep. This scenario implies that new companies should always work with good plans and strategic guides from the very beginning. In the process of strategic planning, firms need both diversity and order in their strategic actions to maintain their viability (BURGELMAN, 1983). Diversity, to the author, results mainly from autonomous strategic initiatives of members at the operational level. Imposing a concept of strategy on the organization can come to an order. Managing diversity requires an experimentation-and-selection approach. In the unstable market, how to manage this diversity and how to reach different consumers at the same time? The answer has been out there since the 1950s with the work on segmentation by Smith (1956), who also stated some distinctions between product differentiation and market segmentation. Another special feature that is vital for any spin off success is to define the positioning strategy. Positioning, for Ries and Trout (1987), starts with the product, inserting it in the

3 3 mind of the consumer, or the prospects. Divulging its product or service, trying to be heard by the enormous market out there, is one of the biggest challenges a new company may face. The case this paper presents is about a spin off from a steel distribution company, which has been in action for 23 years in Brazil, having a story of a good and tranquil journey in this aggressive market. This article intends to show how specialized knowledge, entrepreneur character, and the correct strategic planning in advance can lead to a more confident market entrance. The Steel Market in Brazil The Brazilian steel industry consists nowadays of 24 industrial plants, run by 11 companies. Privatization in the sector has brought an expressive capital flow, along with bigger diversity in stock options. Thus, many productive companies have started to integrate industrial and/or financial groups, whose interests in the steel market have spread to correlate activities, or of logistical support, seeking to reach scale economy and competitivity. (IBS, 2006). Brazilian s steel industrial plant is relatively new, and has been through a technological upgrade. It is able to deliver to the market any kind of steel product in case its production justifies itself economically. World steel demand has increased progressively since 1999, but this scenario has been accelerating since 2002 and represents around 50 million additional tons per year. In 2003, world steel consumption increased by around 6.6% compared to 2002, and further increases by 6% in 2004 and 5% in 2005 were expected. According to OECD (2006), this strong surge in steel consumption is the result of the increasing domestic steel demand in China, where steel consumption showed a growth by an average 2.6% a year over the period 1995 to 2000 has increased by some 25% a year since In comparison, steel consumption in the rest of the world declined by 4.2% in 2001; however, since then, it has grown at an annual rate of 2.1%. In the OECD area, steel consumption declined by 0.5% in 2003 compared to 2002, reflecting an 8.9% decrease in North America that offset a 2.6% increase in Europe and a 4.5% increase in the Asian-Pacific area. It is expect an increasing trend of growth for this year. TAB. 1 shows some results in Brazil, in its internal market, divided by the different kinds of steel. PRODUCTS TABLE 1 Sales in Internal Market Unit.: 10 3 JAN./DEC. 2005/2004 DECEMBER 2005/ (%) (%) Hot and Cold-Rolled Steel , ,5 ( 9,5) 1.155, ,0 ( 9,1) Flat 9.614, ,8 ( 8,7) 707,2 862,1 (18,0) Long 5.856, ,7 (10,7) 447,8 408,9 9,5 Strips 191,0 239,9 (20,4) 18,1 15,3 18,3 Blocks 399,0 449,0 (11,1) 23,7 29,9 (20,7) TOTAL , ,4 ( 9,7) 1.196, ,2 ( 9,1) SOURCE: IBS Instituto Brasileiro de Siderurgia

4 4 The figure below presents data from the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries, illustrating the year-on-year changes in steel consuming sectors, with the forecast for this year s market in Europe. FIGURE 1: Steel Consuming Sectors SOURCE: European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries ( Having presented a little bit of this industry in Brazil and around the world, and having in mind it is dynamic and complex, with high worldly competition, the doors are open to present the case study s theoretical foundations. Entrepreneurship: concepts and status The knowledge basis of entrepreneurship research studies has been generated by three basic disciplines: psychology, starting with McClelland (1961), economics, with Schumpeter (1934), and sociology, along with Weber (1904). Each of these disciplines asks particular questions, employs different principles, focusing at different levels of analysis. Social firms and market construction is a useful concept to suggest ways to contextualize organizational foundation, in accordance with Thornton (1999). Companies often engage in entrepreneurship actions to try to strengthen performance and further growth through strategic renewal and the creation of new opportunities (Guth and Ginsberg, 1990). There are various theoretical studies proposing mental and organic models, and also behavioral and managerial entrepreneurial theories. Several entrepreneurs have acted isolated or in networks. It is possible that in the isolated way it is harder and harder to exist, due to reduction of rationality and difficulty in competence functional division. Acting with the right firm members or partners diminishes costs of implementation and accelerates the learning curve.

5 5 In the entrepreneurial studies, there are some characteristics easy to find, or qualities, talking about an individual, for example: a) Vital strength characterizes the individual s energy, in order to totally dedicate to the business, demanding, some times, much mental and physical efforts combined; b) Motivation Motivation is the propulsive element, keeping the entrepreneur in the right direction, with a good vision to make his project work; c) Perseverance The quality to persist keeps the entrepreneur in the right path to the desired goals, no matter what the environment resistances are for the business implementation; d) Knowledge and learning Knowledge acts like the directing aspect of the decisions, minimizing the mistakes. Acts also like the element which accelerates the learning curve; e) Resources It is inevitable not to allocate resources. Until a certain point it is possible to implement things without this allocation; however, from some moment on, alterations only occur with the help of resources; f) Sense of organization and simultaneous management. Along with the innovations, there are management and operational actions that demand time from the entrepreneur. This dimension consists of capacity and sense of organization. The literature on Spin Offs It is known that companies are born because of some motivational factors as the ones described below: a) Psychological pressure on individuals and as the only way to produce opportunities; b) People s desire to command their own destiny and resources; c) The desire to accumulate personal, grouping, familiar and institutional resources; d) The desire to act riskily, as a player; difficulties to deal with structures and power in the organizations in a job, and others. Now it is the time to ask how to create a new company, and what can be the fomenting locus of its birth. A company can be born from: a) Incubators firms that support companies birth. In this group there are, for example, the technological fields; b) Spin offs groups of people that come out from inside the organization; c) Personal attitude or of groups of people to create companies; d) Split some companies divide themselves by function, products or geographical area; e) Fusion two or more companies come to be another one; f) Associations in joint ventures when they become an agglomeration, franchising networks, and when organizations migrate to a network format. The spin offs can happen in three ways: by coming out from a incubator; by pre-incubation, inside the organizations; and by expansion and dissociation from the business strategic units regarding the products, functions and geography. Literature on spin-offs is still sparse, receiving much heterogeneous contributions. There is still a lack of a common typology in the field. Until now, corporate spin-offs have been analyzed with rather focused approaches that have not taken into account their wide range of several aspects (TUBKE, SAAVEDRA and GONZALEZ, 2004).

6 6 Lately, the special characteristics of these kinds of enterprises have received growing interest, especially with regard to corporate strategy, entrepreneurship and their role within the innovation system. Corporate spin-offs merge, by one side, the rapid growth of new firms when well planned and implemented with a considerably lower collapse rate than other types of start-ups. These kinds of companies are usually small technologically based firms, created by researchers (sometimes from the public sector), in the industrial sector, or by university teachers, whose activities rely on research results that benefit from an exploring license (GUSMÃO, 2002). The company of this case study is none of these cases, but, instead, was born with ideas from entrepreneurs from inside the bigger company or the mothercompany. In general, countries have become aware of the fact that creation or the enhancement of the commercialization environment, and of R&D atmosphere, favor the creation of new spin offs. On the other hand, according to analysts (GUSMÃO, 2002), the true question to be asked is to know until when public power is able to invest in something that favors only a specific group of companies, putting aside other things that favors firms creation in general. In contrast, some countries experience reveal that there are certain specific obstacles to the spin offs creations, that can only be solved by reforming, promoted by the public power. Strategies in the New Market In this creative era, different paths to guide an strategic orientation in new companies are combined, in order to optimize the results, heading towards a successful career. Everyone knows what a competitive strategy is, knows that it should be sustainable, feasible and clear to all the company members. Two strategies are especially important to a new company: positioning and differentiation. Ries and Trout (1987) say that positioning has become a popular word within the propaganda industry, sales and marketing, not only in the United States, but all over the world. Nowadays, it is the comparison that matters, not being always the first one on the billboards. Hence, it is important that the company establishes its position according to its main competitor in the field what not implies that no one should picture being the industry s leader. Success, for Ries and Trout (1987), can only be reached if the company adopts a rational posture. All it matters after all is the reality from the companies prospects minds. Positioning should align the existing connections in consumers minds. Firms need to concentrate efforts and expenses on their main objectives, aligned with their vision, mission and business definitions. Along with the correct positioning strategy, every company wants to obtain a good return on their investments, as quickly as it can. Once there are so many options in the market, it is hard for spin offs to choose arbitrarily which ones to adopt. Porter (1986) affirms that there are three generic strategies that are internally consistent, also able to create and maintain a defensible position in the long run: 1) leadership in total cost; 2) differentiation; and 3) Focus. In the case study below it is shown what strategies the company decided to follow, according to its scenario.

7 7 Methodological Approaches This paper work follows essentially the descriptive type of study, according to Malhotra (2001), once it seeks to describe the characteristics of relevant events in a market or within groups of people. The strategy is fundamentally qualitative, having the authors analyzed the actions and the marketing plan of the company. The case study was the method chosen, once the authors intended to study a particular situation in a specific context, going deeper in the data analysis. According to Yin (2005), the case study method is used to comprehend complex social phenomena. This method is useful when the researches seek to understand how the relationships and perceptions in the organization investigated work out. To Yin (2005), the techniques related to this method are those already used in historical researches; however, two other evidence sources are added: direct observation and interviewing people involved in the research. Laville and Dionne (1999) help to build the case study definition, saying that it provides researches with direct explications of the case and also the most attractive elements of its context. This is the time to go deep into the information given and collected, with no comparison restrictions to other cases, being more flexible. A great disadvantage of the case study method is that it does not allow the researchers to generalize the results found. Nevertheless, if the case was the chosen one, it might be typical and characteristically found in a bigger context, contributing to the phenomena comprehension (LAVILLE e DIONNE, 1999). The two evidence sources chosen are shown in TAB. 2. TABLE 2 Strong and weak points of the evidence sources Evidence Source Strong Points Weak Points Direct Observations Participant Observations Reality events in real time Contextual context of the event The same mentioned to direct observation Perceptive in relation to behaviors and interpersonal reasons SOURCE: Adapted from Yin (2005) Consume much time Selectivity but wide covering Reflexibility the event might happen differently because it is being watched Cost hours needed by the human watchers The same mentioned to direct observation Biases due to the manipulation of the events by the researchers

8 8 Other method that also helped the researches was the action-research, in which they have some autonomy in the process as a whole (THIOLLENT, 1997). The activities towards the beginning of this new company as a spin off from the bigger steel distribution firm started with contacting experienced consultants, and putting them in touch with the company s entrepreneurs. The directors invited the consultants to aid them, initially in a marketing plan, and they were concerned with making the company be born and grow strongly. One of the directors said that: We wish the company to be born in the most perfect way. The socio-technical team consisted of five people: one sales management, two directors and two consultants. The frame of the reunions was free to try to obtain ideas from the best practices from the delimiting theoretical foundations, and in the end, the final production of a marketing plan. The initial idea was to build the theoretical structure with the directors, in an advising process within the positioning theory; besides assistances to the construction of the marketing plan. The process evolved; thus, there appeared to be the need to analyze some marketing interfaces with strategy and operations. One of the directors used the software MS Project, from Microsoft, as a path to manage the phases of the marketing plan for implementation. The process chosen was the participant observations, consisting of weekly encounters, of around five or six hours each, gathering all the team cited above. The themes were emerging from the different minds involved in the task, and were mainly related to marketing orientation, entrepreneurial models, strategic positioning, and market segmentation. The Case Study It is essential to care about three important aspects before heading towards a new market with a new company: 1) managerial skills; 2) entrepreneurship capacity; and 3) operational logistics (SEBRAE, 2004). These are the key factors that will definitely lead the firm to a safe journey and success. It is interesting to notice that both directors from the new company demonstrated explicitly most of the personal characteristics showed before in this article. Noticeably one of them presents the biggest sense of organizations, contrasting with the other one in the perseverance intensity. Talking about the company s features, it is a steel cutting and drilling Service Center company, which has just been born from a bigger company, which has been established in Brazil for 23 years. After making the decision to actually go into the commercialization phase, the challenge it faces is how to establish itself in the highly competitive market it is about to enter, and what positioning strategies it should perform. Benchmarking The company is not at all original, in world terms. In the United States, there are service centers specialized in steel cutting to satisfy the needs of the producer clients and project producers. The company brings this idea to Brazil as its specialty and differentiation.

9 9 A Porter s Orientation The company has an original characteristic of being, at the moment, the only one in the national market, being know as a cutting and drilling service center for industrial steel plates. The choice for the positioning strategy happened because of its target market. In the positioning strategies brainstorming, the company found that it is in the strict focus and in the differentiation part (see FIG. 2). Differentiation High Low Premium Death Zone World Beater Commodity High Low Relative cost of Production FIGURE 2: Cost x Differentiation SOURCE: Porter (1985) Differentiation is a competitive advantage that, if staying in the oligopoly format in the market, may be lasting. The firm, in this market, will seek to aggregate value to its clients, mainly in three factors: velocity in operations, in cutting and drilling the pieces; attending to the great volumes in tonnages in these operations. In a previous research with prospects opinions, the results show a good rate of acceptance to the beginning of the operations together with the clients. These will identify the company as one which can increase its volume of production, and a business partner as a B2B supplier. The company says it is completely against the competition with steel pieces producers, who also cut and drill. This new firm will neither operate in assembling, nor in solder, competences that the producer will still possess, without seeing this new company as a new competitor in the field. Concerning the new company s barriers, it has some peculiar characteristics. From the producer s point of view, there is no reason to worry, once there is a steel industry that follows a traditional market. In the clients dimension, there is a strong communication and ideology not to threat the client s position with verticalization. The company wants to position itself in the condition to support the producer and the project producer in their productive process. While it stays in this logic, without migration, bargain with clients will be simplified.

10 10 Once this new company is a first mover in Brazil, it is possible that it positions its brand and goes forward, if its directors have the opportunity to create some barriers to the new competitors. It will actually do it also when selling the products it cuts and drills. This reality will allow more velocity and holding a portfolio that is independent from seasonality; rolling bridges; bridges over obstacles, etc. the substitute products are not a concerning question to this new company, because it is positioned in the middle of the production chain, and there is an entire industry of steel makers and dealers pushing it, through communicating the steel use advantages in construction, and a whole chain of producers pulling. Once it is the only one in the sector, it must wait patiently for its closest competitors moves in order to implement similar activities, that are, by the way, its clients, the producers and the project producers. On the other hand, for the new company to do it, they will probably have to create other companies and enter in direct competition with them. The entrepreneurs will have to avoid doing it with its own brands and registration names, for some simple reasons: having to show their clients that they won t conquer their final consumers; having to work in two managerial logics: only cutting and drilling without producing; and produce, for being ashamed of imitating. Segmentation One of the worst preoccupations of managers, in any industrial or commercial sector, is to make their business different and keep up to the strategic positioning of their competitors, building a sustainable competitive strategy of their own. Understand the market has become essential to any company has always been and that means comprehending the environment and its customers. Conhecer a necessidade dos seus consumidores pode até ser considerado um clichê do Marketing atual, mas é a partir dessa ação que se planeja melhor a sobrevivência no mercado. Market segmentation has emerged as a way to identify the profiles of different groups of buyers who have diverse preferences. In accordance with Tynan e Drayton (1987), market segmentation is clearly a crucial marketing strategy, once it allows the marketing managers to divide the entire demand into relatively homogeneous segments, identified or by geographical variables, behavioral or psychological, which are called the bases of segmentation. These can also be by beneficial aspects, psychographics, socioeconomic, by consumption patters of economic characterization, as in Frank, Massy and Wind (1972). Business and Marketing Plan: an essential tool All of the company issues were considered from a Marketing Plan point of view. This type of document has some intrinsic objectives: 1) Evaluate the surrounding market status; 2) Demonstrate how the resources are being allocated; 3) Explain who are the clients and how to get to them; 4) Describe the company s promotional plan. From now on, each part of the analysis as a whole will be fragmented in smaller topics, in order to better explain the process of the company birth:

11 11 Central ideology supporting Marketing of Market-Oriented Companies: central definitions like: vision, mission and its main values. Fixing the market-orientation philosophy and positioning to aggregate value to clients. (DAY, 2001; HITT, IRELAND and HOSKISSON, 2002, COLLINS and PORRAS, 1994). Clear characterization of the service center, with a distinct clients identification and also producers: competitive ambiguity reduction to establish clearly the scope of services and competition of the company. Segments definitions: by products worked, by geography, including mainly the two most important states of the country, and by competence. Segmenting to act with a resource economy and reach with more perfection the target market. Situation Analysis tendencies, fads, and market needs should be analyzed and even written down in a report, so that the whole staff can see what is going on out there, and bear in mind that they are not alone, and have to do their best internally and externally. Macro environment analysis: the entrepreneurs decided to perform a SWOT Analysis evaluation of its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and the result is positive, having the whole team knowing what they are good at and what they should take care with; another relevant tool in this situation is listing the Critical Success Factors. Positioning: the company adopted strategic positioning tactics as those held by Porter s theory (PORTER, 1985). They wanted to be differentiated by high costs and high differentiation. Marketing communication: site construction, in a modern language; folders, free gifts, digital media, pattern scrip for sales. The Brand: strengthening the brand in the company s launch to position its image and its communication signs. Build a lasting reputation. Prospect identification: listing of every single possible client, and scratching the ways to approach them, trying to avoid new competitors and bargain reduction. Share dimensioning: studying the dimension of the market share is vital to estimate the growth perspective and market elasticity. Alignment with the production system: strengthen the delivering services as essential, working simultaneously with the logic of fast answering and flexible industry. Sales team training: creating a homogeneous Sales discourse is better to establish good and lasting relationships. Marketing Mix: their product is their service, and they have always to analyze their service mix or maybe even expand it; the promotion will be discussed according to each client and their volume demand; the price is the next topic in this section; and the place is also defined by segmentation approaches.

12 12 Strategic Price formulation: Strategic price formulation: not based on market price, once there is no such price in Brazilian market yet. They are going to be the pioneers in this kind of equipment. Care has to be taken in respect to taxes and tributes. This formulation should be aligned with the transaction costs and differentiation strategies, in order to reduce the bargain. Logistics: partnership is the best word to describe the course of action of this kind of activity. Fortunately, their industry plant is located side by side with a transportation company, which might be a valuable partner. Control e Direction: continuous researches and talks with several people involved in the producing chain are sources of rich information about the company s status. Implementation: the actual implementation of the ideas in the marketing plan. Final Considerations and Conclusions The case study in this article contributes to solidify the various researches in the organizations point of view, their birth and different opportunities that come along the way. The main contribution, however, is the idea of following the structure of a marketing plan, and identifying, step by step, all the most important aspects to build a strong company and a concise brand, being prepared to face competition. Managerial Implications As a strong recommendation, the authors think that the action-research is somewhat a way to gain rationality. Managers should be aware of what consultants and academic researchers are able to do for them, in a game which everybody wins. It is always healthy to bear in mind that entrepreneurship is not available for every kind of person. It is not everyday and in every corner that we can find someone with an entrepreneurial character. These people can really trigger on actions in the companies, but not always are recommended for every function. The steel market is dynamic and important in Brazil. Steel companies in this country and all over the world should take a look at themselves and see whether they are good to move on or even if they have interesting ideas to a spin off. Suggestions for Future Research Managers, policymakers and scientists can use the typology and the framework of factors for embedding spin-off phenomena into their full scope, understand the process of their creation and develop successful spin-off strategies. Further, this article can provide a source of inspiration for the development of new research approaches and policies not only directed at spin-offs but all sorts of entrepreneurial activities.

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