indicating that fixed effects are preferred (Hausman 1978). Therefore, all sample companies have the same slope but
have different intercepts, indicating the nature of differentiation across firms. The result of the fixed effect model is
presented in Table 1.
Results show that the financial indicators related to resource configuration explain 75 percent of the ROIC
variation within the semiconductor industry. The largest effect on ROIC is from indicators related to knowledge
management, R&D/sales (–0.60) and SG&A/sales (–0.57). This outcome shows the importance of the R&Dintensive
and knowledge-based features of the semiconductor industry. The second largest influential factors are
those that are related to supplier relationships, CGS/sales (–0.78) and inventory turnover (0.004), denoting the
important role of supply chain management in gaining competitive advantage in this industry. However, the other
two relationship-related indicators, accounts receivable turnover and accounts payable turnover, do not show
significant effects on the ROIC, which finding may indicate that most semiconductor companies have fair
bargaining power against their suppliers and customers in this highly competitive industry. The two indicators
related to assets management capabilities, fixed assets turnover (0.004) and depreciation/sales (–0.400), also have
significant impact on ROIC. This result indicates that “light” asset operation (Tang, Liou and Huang, 2007) is
important management ability in this capital-intensive industry. Finally, the fixed assets show a significantly positive
influence on ROIC, indicating the influence of economy of scale in this industry. The interactive analysis shows that
the effects of factors other than R&D/sales and SG&A/sales (knowledge management related indicators) on ROIC
are not significantly different between markets that are trending downward and those that are trending upward. When the market is in a downward trend, R&D/sales (–0.54=–0.67 + 0.13) have less influences on ROIC than they
do in an upward trend. On the other hand, the SG&A/sales have a greater effect (–0.65=–0.45–0.20) on ROIC when
the market is in an upward trend than when it is in a downward trend.