| dc.description.abstract | Purpose - The world is facing an energy transition where it is imperative that companies with experience and unique offshore technology from the oil & gas industry contribute with their expertise into the emerging offshore wind sector. In order for this diversification to be successful it is important to research how to utilize the synergistic benefits that can emerge from related diversification. Prior research has indicated that related diversified companies outperform single-business companies and unrelated diversified companies, but the literature on how to utilize relatedness is in need of further attention.
Approach - This in-depth observational case study focuses on how offshore technology companies that has performed, or is about to perform, related diversification from oil & gas sector to offshore wind can utilize relatedness in order to unlock the synergistic benefits that can emerge from related diversification.
Findings - The findings uncovered that utilizing the same resources, both human and physical, is a source of synergistic benefits as well as the importance of management’s role in complementing dissimilar resources to create value for the company. Furthermore, the ability to redeploy resources back to the core business can limit the risk of entry and is dependent on management’s ability to apply cross-training and ensure a sharing of knowledge across the product lines in order to succeed.
Implications – This research study can be considered a first step in applying the relatedness framework by Lüthge (2020) to the offshore technology industry and can be useful tool for decision-makers within offshore technology companies who is diversified. Furthermore, it has contributed to enrich the literature on the relatedness aspect within related diversification. However, there is a need for further research in order to generalize the findings in this research study into a larger context.
Keywords – diversification, management, strategy, relatedness, competitive advantage, resource-based theory | |