Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage

The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difftcult-to- trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has aflopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing retums exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding intemally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Dynamic capabilities and strategic management

This paper focuses on dynamic capabilities and, more generally, the resource-based view of the firm. We argue that dynamic capabilities are a set of specific and identifiable processes such as product development, strategic decision making, and alliancing. They are neither vague nor tautological. Although dynamic capabilities are idiosyncratic in their details and path dependent in their emergence, they have significant commonalities across firms (popularly termed ‘best practice’). This suggests that they are more homogeneous, fungible, equifinal, and substitutable than is usually assumed. In moderately dynamic markets, dynamic capabilities resemble the traditional conception of routines. They are detailed, analytic, stable processes with predictable outcomes. In contrast, in high-velocity markets, they are simple, highly experiential and fragile processes with unpredictable outcomes. Finally, well-known learning mechanisms guide the evolution of dynamic capabilities. In moderately dynamic markets, the evolutionary emphasis is on variation. In high-velocity markets, it is on selection. At the level of RBV, we conclude that traditional RBV misidentifies the locus of long-term competitive advantage in dynamic markets, overemphasizes the strategic logic of leverage, and reaches a boundary condition in high-velocity markets. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Dynamic capabilities, what are they?

In this article we offer a view that suggests that a firm's critical resources may span firm boundaries and may be embedded in interfirm resources and routines. We argue that an increasingly important unit of analysis for understanding competitive advantage is the relationship between firms and identify four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage: (1) relation-specific assets, (2) knowledge-sharing routines, (3) complementary resources/capabilities, and (4) effective governance. We examine each of these potential sources of rent in detail, identifying key subprocesses, and also discuss the isolating mechanisms that serve to preserve relational rents. Finally, we discuss how the relational view may offer normative prescriptions for firm-level strategies that contradict the prescriptions offered by those with a resource-based view or industry structure view.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259056.pdf

The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage

If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers’ behavioral responses should be detectable. Th...

The behavioral consequences of service quality

Summary The paper explores the usefulness of analysing firms from the resource side rather than from the product side. In analogy to entry barriers and growth-share matrices, the concepts of resource position barrier and resource-product matrices are suggested. These tools are then used to highlight the new strategic options which naturally emerge from the resource perspective.

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A Resource-Based View of the Firm

The article reflects on the diffusion of the ‘resource-based view of the firm’ into academic and practitioner thought. The contributions of many people are noted. In closing, I offer some speculations about the future use of these ideas.

The resource‐based view of the firm: Ten years after

We decompose the inter-firm variance in profit rates into economic and organizational components. Using a representative model from each paradigm we find that both sets of factors are significant determinants of firm performance. Further findings are that the two effects are roughly independent and that organizational factors explain about twice as much variance in profit rates as economic factors.

/pdf/determinants-of-firm-performance-the-relative-importance-of-4ungjlz2a2.pdf

Determinants of firm performance: the relative importance of economic and organizational factors

On the basis of Hirschman's exit-voice theory, an economic model of defensive marketing strategy is developed for complaint management. Though many firms strive to reduce the number of customer com...

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Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis:

In this paper we theoretically and empirically investigate the idea that firms diversify in part to utilize productive resources which are surplus to current operations. Knowledge of these resources allows us to make predictions about the direction of a firm's expansion. In particular, we suggest that excess physical resources, most knowledge-based resources, and external financial resources are associated with more related diversification, while internal financial resources are associated with more unrelated diversification.

/pdf/the-link-between-resources-and-type-of-diversification-1gh4p44i2b.pdf

Birger Wernerfelt

Papers

A Resource-Based View of the Firm

The resource‐based view of the firm: Ten years after

Determinants of firm performance: the relative importance of economic and organizational factors

Defensive Marketing Strategy by Customer Complaint Management: A Theoretical Analysis:

The link between resources and type of diversification: Theory and evidence