Strategic Suppliers' Technical Contributions to New Product Advantage: Substitution and Configuration Options

Current theory lacks clarity on how different kinds of resources contribute to new product advantage, or how firms can combine different resources to achieve a new product advantage. While several studies have identified different firm‐specific resources that influence new product advantage, comparatively little research has explored the contribution of strategic supplier resources. Combining resource‐based and relational perspectives, this study develops a theoretical model investigating how a strategic supplier's technical capabilities impact focal firm new product advantage and how firms combine different resources to gain this advantage. The model is tested using detailed survey data collected from 153 interorganizational new product development projects in the United Kingdom within which a strategic supplier had been extensively involved. Empirical results support our research hypotheses. First, supplier technical performance is shown to have a significant positive impact on new product advantage. Next, we show that while supplier technical capabilities have a positive influence on supplier technical performance, the a priori nature of the supplier's task moderates the relationship. Finally, our data support our hypotheses related to the positive relationship between relationship‐specific absorptive capacity and new product advantage, and the proposed negative moderation of supplier technical capabilities on this relationship. Based upon these findings, we encourage managers to recognize that strategic suppliers' with greater technical capabilities perform better regardless of the degree of creativity required by their task; but that strategic suppliers with lower technical capabilities may partially compensate (substitute) for their lack of technical capabilities, if they are able to respond to high problem‐solving task requirements. Furthermore, we suggest that the firm's development of relationship‐specific absorptive capacity is much more important when a strategic supplier is less technically capable. A buying firm's relationship‐specific absorptive capacity can, according to our data, substitute for low supplier technical capabilities. On the other hand, where the supplier has strong technical capabilities, investments in relationship‐specific absorptive capacity have no effect on new product advantage. Our findings reinforce recent calls for research on how firms can combine different resources and capabilities to achieve superior performance.     

Developing e-commerce marketing capabilities and efficiencies for enhanced performance in business-to-business export ventures

This study builds on resource based view (RBV) theory by examining the effects of e-commerce on exporting performance. Specifically, a framework is developed and tested to determine the e-commerce resources/capabilities–marketing efficiencies–performance relationship. To explore the impact of e-commerce on exporting, a two-stage methodological approach was employed. Results from 15 depth interviews with exporters were used to gain insight into types of e-commerce resources and capabilities and their impact on export marketing efficiencies and performance. Next, the framework was empirically tested using a sample of 340 exporters. The evidence shows that specialized e-commerce marketing capabilities directly increase a firm's degree of distribution and communication efficiency, which in turn leads to enhanced export venture market performance. Overall, the analyses provide support for the need to incorporate e-commerce constructs into existing RBV theory in export marketing. Theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed and directions for future research are offered.     

Strategic planning: valuing and managing portfolios of real options

This article presents a value-based strategic planning framework suitable for valuing and managing portfolios of corporate real options. The proposed framework combines insights from strategic management theory with novel quantitative valuation tools from finance. Strategic planning is viewed as a process of actively developing and managing portfolios of corporate real options in the context of competitive interactions. As such, the expanded valuation framework recognizes that future growth opportunity value deriving from the firm's resources and capabilities must explicitly account for uncertainty, adaptability, and competitive responsiveness. The resulting expanded valuation framework is able to capture the value of the adaptive resources and capabilities that enable a firm to adapt and re-deploy assets, develop and exploit synergies, and gain competitive advantage via time-to-market and first- or second-mover advantages. We show how two basic metrics in this value-based framework, current profitability of assets in place and future growth option value, can be obtained from financial market data and how they can be used in active portfolio planning.     

Production frontier methodologies and efficiency as a performance measure in strategic management research

The measurement of corporate performance is central to strategic management research. A common objective of this research is to identify top performers in an industry and their sources of competitive advantage. Despite this focus on best firms and practices, most researchers utilize statistical methods that identify average effects in a sample, and they assess a single performance dimension while ignoring other relevant dimensions. Emphasis on purely financial measures can overlook the fact that a firm's efficiency in transforming resources has been shown as a major source of competitive advantage. In this article we demonstrate how frontier methodologies, such as Data Envelopment Analysis and the Stochastic Frontier approach, can address these challenges. We provide an illustration based on longitudinal data from U.S. and Japanese automobile producers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate responsibility and financial performance: the role of intangible resources

This paper examines the effects of a firm's intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm's intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE CORPORATE SOCIAL PERFORMANCE–FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE LINK

Strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them. Recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management, rather than traditional arenas of strategic management. Using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance, this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance. Corporate social performance (CSP) is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance, supporting the theory that slack resource availability and CSP are positively related. CSP is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance, supporting the theory that good management and CSP are positively related.© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd     

Resources and capabilities driving competitive advantage in export markets: guidelines for industrial exporters

In the context of the quest for the factors that determine competitive advantage, this study adopts a resource-based view and applies it to industrial goods' manufacturers engaged in exporting activities. The notion of organizational process is used as a filtering mechanism for the development of a classificatory scheme for firms' sources of competitive advantage in export markets. Different combinations of export-related resources and capabilities are identified as drivers of cost, service, and product advantage. Nonetheless, the capability to build enduring relationships with customers emerges as essential in achieving all three types of export competitive advantage. The findings of this inquiry have important implications for business practitioners in export manufacturing firms of industrial products. Limitations of the study are considered, and future research directions are identified.     

企业环境绩效与经济绩效的动态关系模型

企业环境绩效与经济绩效的关系是企业战略管理研究领域里一个比较新的研究对象。现有的研究除方法和数据方面的缺陷外,主要问题是理论模型的解释力不强。本文认为组织能力是企业环境绩效与经济绩效之间内在联系的纽带,一个基于企业组织能力的环境绩效评估体系能够对企业改善环境绩效产生持续的激励作用。据此提出“基于组织能力的企业环境绩效”的理论模型,旨在从环境管理能力建设的角度来讨论企业环境绩效评估的基础方法和原则。     

企业慈善捐赠行为影响因素的实证分析——以广东省民营企业为例

以利益相关者理论为基础,从企业内部的资源和能力、外部的政府行为两个角度出发来考察广东省民营企业慈善捐赠行为的影响因素。运用Logistic回归模型,通过对273份有效问卷的实证分析,发现民营企业慈善捐赠行为与企业现金流的多寡没有显著关系,但企业形象、企业慈善决策机制、企业规模大小、企业所处的生命周期阶段对民营企业是否进行慈善捐赠有显著影响。我国民营企业应结合其资源能力和外部环境。开展战略性慈善捐赠,这是关乎其健康持续成长的重要要素。     

The impact of third-party logistics providers' capabilities on exporters' performance

Third-party logistics (3PL) services have experienced unprecedented growth. However, we are not aware of any study that explores the relationships among logistics outsourcing, competitive advantage, and business performance. We study the mediating role of logistics outsourcing as a strategy to develop firms' capabilities in the strategy-performance relationship. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, we develop a research model grounded in the outsourcing-competitive advantage-performance paradigm. We apply structural equation modeling to empirically test the model using data collected from 150 exporters in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region of China. The results show that there are positive relationships among exporters' strategic orientation towards third-party logistics (3PL) providers, 3PL providers' basic and augmented capabilities, exporters' competitive advantage, and exporters' export performance. We also find that 3PL providers' augmented capabilities and exporters' competitive advantage are strong mediators, supporting the theorized model underpinned by RBV.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance: The Role of Executive Compensation

This article examines the relationship between corporate governance and corporate sustainability by focusing on an essential component of companies' governance structure: executive compensation programs. We propose an original empirical strategy based on a large set of the biggest capitalizations in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 2004–2018, with explicit measures of how companies integrate into executive managers' remuneration precise criteria of corporate social responsibility, an incentive scheme called corporate social responsibility (CSR) contracting. Our results show that proposing executive compensation programs including CSR criteria has a negative impact on financial performance, and a large positive impact on extra-financial performance based on the following dimensions: relationship with customers and suppliers, and community involvement. Second, we explore the moderating role of the corporate governance model by distinguishing the impact between firms with a shareholder or stakeholder corporate governance model and reveal significant differences in the impact of CSR contracting. For firms with a stakeholder corporate governance model, CSR contracting is no longer associated with a fall of financial performance and has a large positive impact on human resources, environmental, and human rights performance. On the other hand, CSR contracting has a negative impact on financial performance but no impact on extra-financial performance for firms with a shareholder corporate governance model.     

Effects of collaborative communication on the development of market-relating capabilities and relational performance metrics in industrial markets

Research in marketing suggests that collaborative communication is important for firms to sustain competitive advantage, especially in industrial markets. This study integrates relational and resource-based views to articulate how collaborative communication influences different relational performance metrics. Based on a survey of 167 marketing executives in Taiwan's electronics industry, empirical findings indicate that market-relating capabilities (i.e., market-linking and marketing capabilities) completely mediate the collaborative communication–financial performance relationship, while market-relating capabilities partially mediate the collaborative communication–customer-focused performance relationship. In addition, collaborative communication directly influences customer cooperation performance instead of indirectly affecting it through the development of market-relating capabilities. The results of this study provide new insights into the role of collaborative communication as well as important theoretical and managerial implications.     

Integration,knowledge creation and B2B governance: The role of resource hierarchies in financial performance

Knowledge is a critical competitive resource for firms that increasingly exploit resources and capabilities combined with those of channel partners to create new knowledge. However, the opportunism risks inherent in any B2B relationship require firms to employ governance mechanisms to protect their interests. These tensions call for further study of how B2B partners exploit combined resources to produce new knowledge. This research employs a Resource Hierarchy View of resource bundling to describe the ways that firms integrate internal and external processes to achieve financial performance through knowledge creation, and the role that relational governance approaches play in enabling those resource combinations. The study finds that normative and formalized governance forms both enable complex combinations of knowledge creation and integration resources in a way that affects financial performance more than either resource could in simpler combination. However, there are differences in how knowledge is created through internal and external process integration.     

Intellectual capital and corporate value in an emerging economy: empirical study of Taiwanese manufacturers

Competitive success now is based less on the strategic allocation of physical and financial resources, and more on the strategic management of intellectual capital. Although intellectual capital is intangible and cannot be accurately measured, companies must develop methods of increasing corporate value by proactively focusing on intellectual capital management. This study examines the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate value in an emerging economy.
This study employs an intellectual capital perspective, resource-based view and a financial perspective, and investigates how to apply the concept of intellectual capital to value creation. After reviewing the relevant literature, this study identifies human capital, organizational capital, innovation capital and relationship capital as four constructs of intellectual capital. Corporate value is measured using three selection methods: (1) Market/Book value, (2) Tobin' Q and (3) Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™). Through a questionnaire survey and secondary data collection, this study applies the Structure Equation Model to analyze the relationships among four constructs of intellectual capital, as well as the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate value.
From the empirical findings, for Taiwanese manufacturers, a positive relationship exists between intellectual capital and corporate value. This study visualizes and mobilizes intellectual capital to articulate eight value creation paths.     

Product Innovativeness Dimensions and Their Relationships with Product Advantage,Product Financial Performance,and Project Protocol

A considerable body of research informs the relationship of product innovativeness with firm and environmental variables as well as the impact of product innovativeness on product financial success. While providing significant insight, the extant literature exhibits conflicting findings that raise questions as to how, specifically, product innovativeness contributes to product financial performance. This study ties together several streams of research related to the product innovativeness construct to enhance understanding of the product innovativeness—product financial performance relationship. The product innovativeness construct is deconstructed by conceptualizing the relationships among three dimensions of product innovativeness: technological discontinuity, marketing discontinuity, and customer discontinuity. Product innovativeness is distinguished from product advantage, and the relationships among product innovativeness dimensions, product advantage, and product financial performance are empirically tested. The results reveal that, indeed, product innovativeness consists of three separate dimensions that exhibit no or moderate correlations with product advantage. Furthermore, product advantage positively and marketing discontinuity negatively influence product financial performance. Finally, the study also examines how project protocols impact the product innovativeness dimensions. Project protocols, also known as product definitions, describe the general parameters a new product should exhibit (i.e., target segments, product functions and features, base technology, pricing, communication and distribution channels, and required resources) as well as the priorities of the general parameters. Because they guide product design and set priorities and have been found to be a dominant driver of product financial performance, project protocols are important. The present study enhances understanding of how project protocols influence the dimensions of product innovativeness, finding that project protocols positively impact product financial performance indirectly through product advantage and marketing discontinuity.     

A resource-based approach to the multibusiness firm: Empirical analysis of portfolio interrelationships and corporate financial performance

The resource-based view of the firm has provided important new insights into corporate strategy (Barney, 1991; Peteraf, 1993); however, there has been only limited empirical research linked to the theory (e.g., Farjoun, 1994). Although a great deal of work has been done on Corporate diversification, the measures and data typically have a weak connection to resource-based theory. Empirical research on resource-based corporate strategy has been particularly dificult because key concepts such as tacit knowledge or capabilities resist direct measurement. This study is an effort to narrow the gap between theory and empirical research on the multibusiness firm. It develops a resource-based approach to modeling interrelationships among businesses and applies it to the analysis of corporate economic performance. This approach proves to be significant in explaining the financial performance of large manufacturing firms, and it promises to be an important source of insight into corporate strategy.     

Marketing capabilities and innovation-based strategies for environmental sustainability: An exploratory investigation of B2B firms

While emerging literature on sustainability shows that environmentally responsible strategies can contribute to competitive advantage and enhanced financial performance, little is known about specific marketing capabilities that lead to sustainable consumption behavior, and whether implementing such strategies leads to firm competitive advantage. Using the case method approach, this study explores marketing-related strategies and practices pertaining to sustainable consumption as reported by leading sustainable firms in the B2B context. We examine case studies of forty seven B2B firms and identify key marketing capabilities that tie to innovation-based sustainability strategies, sustainable consumption behavior and firm performance. We use our findings to develop a conceptual framework linking marketing capabilities to innovation strategies for firm sustainability, sustainable consumption behavior and firm competitive advantage, and put forward propositions for future research.     

Performance of Global New Product Development Programs: A Resource-Based View

Gaining a competitive edge in today's turbulent business environment calls for a commitment by firms to two highly interrelated strategies: globalization and new product development (NPD). Although much research has focused on how companies achieve NPD success, little of this deals with NPD in the global setting. The authors use resource‐based theory (RBT)—a model emphasizing the resources and capabilities of the firm as primary determinants of competitive advantage—to explain how companies involved in international NPD realize superior performance. The capabilities RBT model is used to test how firms achieve superior performance by deploying organizational capabilities to take advantage of key organizational resources relevant for developing new products for global markets. Specifically, the study evaluates (1) organizational NPD resources (i.e., the firm's global innovation culture, attitude to resource commitment, top‐management involvement, and NPD process formality); (2) NPD process capabilities or routines for identifying and exploiting new product opportunities (i.e., global knowledge integration, NPD homework activities, and launch preparation); and (3) global NPD program performance. Based on data from 387 global NPD programs (North America and Europe, business‐to‐business), a structural model testing for the hypothesized mediation effects of NPD process capabilities on organizational NPD resources was largely supported. The findings indicate that all four resources considered relevant for effective deployment of global NPD process capabilities play a significant role. Specifically, a positive attitude toward resource commitment as well as NPD process formality is essential for the effective deployment of the three NPD process routines linked to achieving superior global NPD program performance; a strong global innovation culture is needed for ensuring effective global knowledge integration; and top‐management involvement plays a key role in deploying both knowledge integration and launch preparation. Of the three NPD process capabilities, global knowledge integration is the most important, whereas homework and launch preparation also play a significant role in bringing about global NPD program success. Tests for partial mediation suggest that too much process formality may be negative and that top‐management involvement requires careful focus.     

Knowledge‐based resources,entrepreneurial orientation,and the performance of small and medium‐sized businesses

While theory suggests that management has discretion in manipulating resources in order to build competitive advantage, resource‐based research has focused on the characteristics of resources, paying less attention to the relationship between those resources and the way firms are organized. In explaining performance, entrepreneurship scholars have focused on a firm's entrepreneurial strategic orientation (EO), leaving its interrelationship with internal characteristics aside. We argue that EO captures an important aspect of the way a firm is organized. Our findings suggest that knowledge‐based resources (applicable to discovery and exploitation of opportunities) are positively related to firm performance and that EO enhances this relationship. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Strategy,human capital investments,business‐domain capabilities,and performance: a study in the global software services industry

Research summary : In knowledge‐based industries, continuous human capital investments are essential for firms to enhance capabilities and sustain competitive advantage. However, such investments present a dilemma for firms, because human resources are mobile. Using detailed project‐level operational, financial, and human capital data from a leading multinational firm in the global IT services industry, this study finds that deliberate investments in improving general human capital can help firms develop superior capabilities and maintain high profits. This paper identifies two types of capabilities essential for success in this industry—technological and business‐domain capabilities—and provides empirical evidence justifying such investments. Theoretical and practical implications of capability‐seeking general human capital investments are discussed. Managerial summary : The primary managerial implication of this research is that capability‐seeking investments in developing general human capital through strategic learning (training and internal certifications) can enhance firm performance. Although investing in general human capital is risky, the firm considered this a strategic necessity in order to thrive in the fast paced IT services industry. By leveraging general technological skills in combination with business‐domain knowledge to address customer's business problems firms can earn and sustain higher profits. Our study also demonstrates how a developing‐country firm responded to strong competitive challenge from global rivals possessing superior capabilities by upgrading the capabilities of its employees through internal development. In doing so the firm was able to narrow the capability gap vis‐à‐vis its foreign peers and expand its business globally. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.