FORMS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
Forms of Industrial Organization
Introduction
According to McConnell and Brue “Economists group industries into four distinct market structures: pure competition, pure monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. These four market models differ in several respects: the number of firms in the industry, whether those firms produce a standardized product or try to differentiate their products from those of other firms, and how easy or how difficult it is for firms to enter the industry” (McConnell & Brue, 2005, chap. 21). As part of the MBA/501 course the learning team is tasked with identifying a company for each market structure, and describe the pricing and non-pricing strategies the companies identified use. As a team we have identified the cash crop coffee, AT&T, Toyota Motor Corporation and British Waterways. As part of the assignment the team was also tasked with providing a brief explanation of how the industry evolved using the “Market Structure” simulation.
Pure Competition
According to McConnell and Brue, “Pure competition involves a very large number of firms producing a standardized product (that is, a product identical to that of other producers, such as corn or cucumbers). New firms can enter or exit the industry very easily…. In a purely competitive market individual firms exert no significant control over product price. Each firm produces such a small fraction of total output that increasing or decreasing its output will not perceptibly influence total supply or, therefore, product price. In short, the competitive firm is a price taker” (McConnell & Brue, 2005, chap. 22). Coffee is a cash crop whose price varies in the world market depending on the supply and demand. According to the International Coffee Organization (ICO) in 1990 Vietnam produced 1.39 million bags (Each bag weighs 60 kg’s) of coffee in 2006. Vietnam produced 15 million bags of coffee that is an increase in production of over 10 times in the span of 17 years. According to the ICO in 1990 Vietnam exported 1.16 million bags of coffee and in 2006 their exports were 14.5 million bags of coffee. In 1994 the trade embargo was lifted by the United States on Vietnam, at the same time Brazil, the worlds largest coffee producer, was expanding its plantations this resulted in increased supply pressures. Because of the efficient production of coffee Vietnam was able to sell coffee at a lower price in the international market than the other coffee suppliers. This lower price was sometimes lower than the cost of production of suppliers in countries like Colombia, Nicaragua, Brazil and Ethiopia resulting in closing down of plantations.
This organization belongs to the oligopoly market structure. The oligopoly market structure involves a few sellers of a standardized or differentiated product, a homogenous oligopoly or a differentiated oligopoly (McConnell, 2004, p. 467). In an oligopolistic market each firm is affected by the decisions of the other firms in the industry in determining their price and output (McConnell, 2005, P.413). Another factor of an oligopolistic market is the conditions of entry. In an oligopoly, there are significant barriers to entry into the market. These barriers exist because in these industries, three or four firms may have sufficient sales to achieve economies of scale, making the smaller firms would not be able to survive against the larger companies that control the industry (McConnell, 2005, p.
Market structure is classified according to the degree of competition firms encounter in their industry (Baker College, 2016). There are four main market structures: pure competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and a pure monopoly. Pure competition is where fir...
Topic A (oligopoly) - "The ' An oligopoly is defined as "a market structure in which only a few sellers offer similar or identical products" (Gans, King and Mankiw 1999, pp.-334). Since there are only a few sellers, the actions of any one firm in an oligopolistic market can have a large impact on the profits of all the other firms. Due to this, all the firms in an oligopolistic market are interdependent on one another. This relationship between the few sellers is what differentiates oligopolies from perfect competition and monopolies.
Firms may be categorized in a variety of different market structures. Perfectly competitive, monopolistically competitive, oligopolistic,
The coffee bean supplier market is made up of mostly a few large suppliers, which would suggest suppliers have significant bargaining power. This power is limited by the sheer size of Starbucks which continues to grow, which mitigates supplier power as achieving such a large contract as with Starbucks is very lucrative. Furthermore, Starbucks has engaged in backward vertical integration, purchasing coffee farms in China and Costa Rica, to ensure their supply of high quality beans at a reasonable price, regardless of the increasing demand of high quality beans and the limited suppliers.
There are many industries. Economist group them into four market models: 1) pure competition which involves a very large number of firms producing a standardized producer. New firms may enter very easily. 2) Pure monopoly is a market structure in which one firm is the sole seller a product or service like a local electric company. Entry of additional firms is blocked so that one firm is the industry. 3)Monopolistic competition is characterized by a relatively large number of sellers producing differentiated product. 4)Oligopoly involves only a few sellers; this “fewness” means that each firm is affected by the decisions of rival and must take these decisions into account in determining its own price and output. Pure competition assumes that firms and resources are mobile among different kinds of industries.
Coffee is a worldwide cash crop of which demand has exponentially increased over the years. “Coffee is (after oil) the world’s second most important traded commodity” (Cleaver 61). Competing coffee brewing companies wage war on offering the freshest, best tasting coffee the market has to offer. With such stiff competition there must be enough coffee beans deemed to be good enough in quality to supply the increasing demand. Starbucks can be considered one of today’s top competitors if not thee top coffee manufacturer presently in business. This successful company has had a huge impact on the coffee industry as well as the world. They have gone through great length to provide consumers with an excellent product as well as create a legacy that shows how to best go about running a massive corporation while keeping the environment clean and healthy.
There are four major market structures; perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Perfect competition is the market structure in which there are many sellers and buyers, firms produce a homogeneous product, and there is free entry into and exit out of the industry (Amacher & Pate, 2013). A perfect competition is characterized by the fact that homogeneous products are being created. With this being the case consumers have no tendency to buy one product over the other, because they are all the same. Perfect competitions are also set up so that there is companies are free to enter and leave a market as they choose. They are allowed to do with without any type of restriction, from either the government or the other companies. This structure is purely theoretical, and represents and extreme end of the market structure. The opposite end of the market structure from perfect competition is monopoly.
A perfectly competitive market is based on a model of perfect competition. For a market to fall under this model it must have a number of firms, homogeneous products, and easy exit and entry levels into the market (McTaggart, 1992).
An article in the Seattle Post, describes the alliance that Starbucks is making to ensure that a sustainable supply of high quality of coffee is produce in Latin America. "Starbucks President and CEO Orin Smith said the alliance is partly his company's effort to pass on the "high price" of a cup of coffee to farmers." (Lee, 2004). He states that the high price enables them to pay the highest price to the farmers. Though the high prices to suppliers can demonstrate that money get to farmers with being diverted. Starbucks overall goal with this alliance is to buy 60 percent of its coffee under the standards agreed upon by 2007. "The agreement reflects the growing power of the premium coffee market and efforts to exploit it for the benefit of small farmers" (Lee, 2004).
Markets have four different structures which need different "attitudes" from the suppliers in order to enter, compete and effectively gain share in the market. When competing, one can be in a perfect competition, in a monopolistic competition an oligopoly or a monopoly [1]. Each of these structures ensures different situations in regards to competition from a perfect competition where firms compete all being equal in terms of threats and opportunities, in terms of the homogeneity of the products sold, ensuring that every competitor has the same chance to get a share of the market, to the other end of the scale where we have monopolies whereby one company alone dominates the whole market not allowing any other company to enter the market selling the product (or service) at its price.
In conclusion, market structure is important because it leads to strategic decision making. Having a working knowledge of market structure impacts decision making because organizations will learn the characteristics of their competition and how the market will response to changes. This report discussed the four different types of market structures: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and pure competition. It went into detail about what each market structure was and gave every day examples of them. Additionally, it will outlined the type of market structure AutoEdge fits into, how that market structure impacts the level of competition, elasticity of demand, price, and position in the industry.
Perfect competition is likely to exist in the supply of sugar cane stalks to mills. There are a large number of farmers (the seller) and buyers. Information about competitors’ prices are easily accessible and the sugar cane stalks supplied are perfect substitutes.
The second market structure is a monopolistic competition. The conditions of this market are similar as for perfect competition except the product is not homogenous it is differentiated; thus having control over its price. (Nellis and Parker, 1997). There are many firms and freedom of entry into the industry, firms are price makers and are faced with a downward sloping demand curve as well as profit maximizers. Examples include; restaurant businesses, hotels and pubs, specialist retailing (builders) and consumer services (Sloman, 2013).
There is increased competition- This is a consequence of capitalism. Increased competition leads to improvement in terms of quality and efficiency of production. It also leads to low prices of products in the market, as producers want to have a larger share of the consumer market. In a capitalistic perspective, businesses that produce high quality products at a low price enjoy a larger market share.