Photo courtesy of COEDO

"As any first-year MBA will tell you," Prof. Jesper Edman begins, "differentiation is the key to value-creation and sustained competitive advantage... But what can you do as a company when product quality is not enough, your firm has limited brand awareness and the industry is plagued by over-competition, deflation and consumer indifference?"

This was the situation Koedo, a small Japanese microbrewery, found itself in 2003. The Korea Times picked up and published this case study by Prof. Edman that analyzed how the brewery repositioned its products, company and the entire industry to redefine Japan’s long-fermenting micro-brewery industry.

The full article in The Korea Times can be found here.

Prof. Edman specializes in research on internationalization strategies of Japanese multinationals, the impact of foreign firms on Japanese institutions and business practices, and innovation and change in corporate business practices. His PhD dissertation, "The Paradox of Foreignness: Norm-breaking MNEs in the Japanese Banking Industry" was awarded the Academy of International Business' Farmer Award for Best Dissertation in International Business, as well as the European International Business Association's Gunnar Hedlund Award for Outstanding Dissertation. The work was also selected as Sweden's best dissertation in business administration for 2009.

To read more about Prof. Edman, please click here to go to his profile.