Unternehmensinterne Standortbewertungen stehen häufig in Widerspruch zu externen Wettbewerbsfähigkeitsanalysen. Während letztere
mit wissenschaftlichen Methoden intersubjektiv nachvollziehbare Ergebnisse erzielen, sind erstere Ausdruck einer subjektiven
Sichtweise der Unternehmen. Die Wirtschaftspolitik kann beide Verfahren als Quellen komplementärer Information nützen: externe
Wettbewerbsfähigkeitsanalysen zur Ermittlung der "harten Fakten", unternehmensinterne Studien als pointierte Form der Erkennung
von Standortdefiziten.
Keywords:Benchmarking volkswirtschaftlicher Rahmenbedingungen auf Unternehmensebene; Benchmarking of Economic Framework Conditions
at Company Level
Forschungsbereich:Industrie-, Innovations- und internationale Ökonomie
Sprache:Deutsch
Benchmarking of Economic Framework Conditions at Company Level
Ongoing work to analyse a country's competitive standing has led to the application of the benchmarking method to comparative
sectoral and national assessment. The method involves a comparison in terms of performance which explicitly looks for the
best process, the "best practice". The use of benchmarking in analysing competitiveness has introduced a new quality to the
discussion of locations because it relentlessly measures (individual) location factors of one country against the best practices
of competitors (i.e., other countries). A survey of top-level executives at 11 major companies engaged in multinational activities
has shown that benchmarking is used throughout as the method of choice for internal location assessment. Benchmarking of economic
framework conditions, on the other hand, is interesting to companies only when they actually refer to the operative level.
Intra- and inter-company benchmarking at the operative level is regularly used by all companies within the scope of continuous
internal improvement, whereas location benchmarking is performed by just two out of three companies surveyed, and its use
restricted to cases of concrete investment decisions. Internal location assessments yield the subjective view that a company
has of a location. They are valuable for economic policy in that they clearly indicate the shortcomings of a location and
thus complement external location analyses. Currently, internal and external benchmarking are pursued more or less separately
from each other. Economic policy should aim at a closer match between them. Policy initiatives towards this end thus would
be: • an image campaign for Location Austria which should emphasise the locational qualities offered by the country; • continuing
the WIFO location report as a set of benchmark indicators, which could then be used to furnish arguments for the image campaign
and to support location marketing with a view to attracting new businesses to locate in Austria; • an annual benchmarking
forum, organised to present the results of external location benchmarking for Austria; • an independent ombudsman office created
for problems that occur at the interface of companies and public administration.