| Abstract |
Thermax as a business enterprise has evolved with fifty years of value creation under three generations of top managers and leaders. The firm is well reputed for sound stakeholder management and seeks to blend shareholder value maximization with sustainability of benefit to its stakeholders. The company faced a top management succession crisis together with business downturn that eroded its shareholder value and tested its core vision and values severely in the 1990s. It could recover, however, and grow. Design and marketing emerged as strength areas but steps towards participation in international value chains were halting and hesitant. Barriers (internal and external) that the company faced and the challenges to design and implement gateways through exports, foreign commercial presence abroad, licensing and contracting, technical servicing, linking products with services, leveraging proprietary technologies in new markets abroad, and diffusion of foreign technologies through innovative partnerships in Kenya, U.K., Russia and the Baltics and in Scandinavian Europe. The problems and issues provide an understanding of resource based views of the company, and conflicts between stakeholder perspectives and shareholder value. |