Resources, Firms, and Strategies
Subtitle: A Reader in the Resource-Based Perspective (Oxford Management Readers)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: January 26, 1998
Language: eng
Number of pages: 400
ISBN-13: 9780198781790
First sentence: During the last five years, strategy-both as an aspect of business practice and as a field of inquiry-seems to have been regaining some of the reputation and influence that was lost by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s.
Notes: Contents  
 List of Contributors  xiii 
 List of Illustrations  xv 
 Foreword Birger Wernerfelt  xvii 
   
 I. INTRODUCTION  
1. Resources and Strategy: A Brief Overview of Themes and Contributions Nicolai J. Foss 3 
   
 II. THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS  
2. Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation Philip Selznick Selznick introduces the concept of a firm's 'distinctive competence' in the context of a rich, sociological analysis of leadership . 21 
3. The Theory of the Growth of the Firm Edith T. Penrose In this book, Penrose proposes and elaborates a basic resource-based conceptualization of the firm, according to which the firm is a bundle of hetereogeneous resources and particularly the services these resources may yield. She applies this conceptualization to the related issues of the growth of the firm and its diversification . 27 
4. Strategy and Structure Alfred D. Chandler Chandler describes how resources are organized in an administrative framework, and argues that firm structure follows strategy; for example, diversification normally requires M-form organization . 40 
5. The Concept of Corporate Strategy Kenneth Andrews 52 
6. The Organisation of Industry George B. Richardson Richardson coins the concept of 'capabilities', and demonstrates how it provides insights into the organization of economic activities in inter-firm relations . 60 
7. Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy Harold Demsetz Demsetz sketches an efficiency-based theory of firm growth that in important dimensions anticipates later resource-based thought, for example, the concept of strategic factor markets . 73 
8. An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter Provides a unique analysis of firm routines and the implications of routinization for firm behaviour 82 
   
 III. THE RESOURCE-BASED APPROACH  
9. Economies of Scope and the Scope of the Enterprise David J. Teece Teece combines transaction cost economics and the concept of economies of scope to update Penrose's ideas on diversification . 103 
10. A Resource-Based View of the Firm Birger Wernerfelt Often taken to be the founding contribution to the modern resource-based perspective, Wernerfelt advances a resource-based perspective both on competitive advantage and on growth . 117 
11. Towards a Strategic Theory of the Firm Richard P. Rumelt This paper was published simultaneously with Wernerfelt 's and is equally important. Here Rumelt coins the important concept of the 'isolating mechansim' . 131 
12. Strategic Factor Markets: Expectations, Luck, and Business Strategy Jay B. Barney 146 
13. Asset Stock Accumulation and Sustainability of Competitive Advantage Ingemar Dierickx and Karel Cool A reaction to Barney 's paper, this paper constructs a stock-flow framework for analysing sustained competitive advantage and details mechanisms that may help sustaining competitive advantage . 161 
14. Diversification, Ricardian Rents and Tobin's q Cynthia A. Montgomery and Birger Wernerfelt This paper extends the resource-based theory of diversification and provides a test on American data . 173 
15. The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-Based View Margaret A. Peteraf Probably the best summation of the resource-based perspective, Peteraf demonstrates that the key resource-based insights may be represented by four basic building blocks . 187 
16. The Resource-Based View Within the Conversation of Strategic Management Joseph T. Mahoney and J. Rajendran Pandian The authors argue that the resource-based perspective is uniquely situated to further conversation within strategic management. For example, the perspective links up with industrial organization economics and with transaction cost economics . 204 
   
 IV. THE DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES / CORE COMPETENCIES APPROACH  
17. The Core Competence of the Corporation C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel In this seminal contribution, Prahalad and Hamel argue that the firm's central asset is its 'core competence' . 235 
18. Why Do Firms Differ, and How Does it Matter? Richard R. Nelson 257 
19. Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management David J. Teece , Gary Pisano , and Amy Shuen In this innovative contribution, the authors combine ideas from evolutionary economics and the resource-based perspective to arrive at a more dynamic perspective on strategy, the 'dynamic capabilities perspective' . 268 
20. Transaction-Cost Economics in Real Time Richard N. Langlois By relying on resource-based reasoning, Langlois introduces a dynamic context to transaction cost economics . 286 
21. Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology Bruce Kogut and Udo Zander This paper introduces new dimensions to characterize and analyse organizational knowledge and applies this to the analysis of innovation and technology transfer . 306 
22. Related Diversification, Core Competences, and Corporate Performance Constantinos C. Markides and Peter J. Williamson This paper builds on Prahalad and Hamel 's contribution, extends their framework and constructs an elaborate analysis of the dynamics of diversification . 327 
   
 V. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT  
23. Resources and Strategy: Problems, Open Issues, and Ways Ahead Nicolai J. Foss 345 
 Index  367
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