Causation,counterfactuals, and competitive advantage

Causation is still poorly understood in strategy research, and confusion prevails around key concepts such as competitive advantage. In this paper, we define epistemological conditions that help dispel some of this confusion and provide a basis for more developed approaches. In particular, we argue that a counterfactual approach—one that builds on a systematic analysis of ‘what‐if’ questions—can advance our understanding of key causal mechanisms in strategy research. We offer two concrete methodologies—counterfactual history and causal modeling—as useful solutions. We also show that these methodologies open up new avenues in research on competitive advantage. Counterfactual history can add to our understanding of the context‐specific construction of resource‐based competitive advantage and path dependence, and causal modeling can help to reconceptualize the relationships between resources and performance. In particular, resource properties can be regarded as mediating mechanisms in these causal relationships. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multimarket Contact and Rivalry over Knowledge‐based Resources

Research summary: Research shows that multimarket contact (MMC ) reduces rivalry involving downstream activities. Yet, studies showing that MMC can increase the threat of imitation suggest a need to better understand how MMC affects upstream rivalry over knowledge‐based resources. In this study, we argue that MMC increases rivalry over knowledge‐based resources since the deterrent threat of retaliation that typically leads to mutual forbearance in downstream activities will not be sufficient to restrain firms from protecting their knowledge from imitation in upstream activities. In support of these arguments we find that MMC increases the likelihood that a firm initiates patent litigation against a rival. This study suggests the relationship between MMC and rivalry may depend on the competitive domain and the type of resources over which firms are competing . Managerial Summary: How does market overlap or MMC affect rivalry between two competitors? Prior studies have largely found that an increase in market overlap decreases rivalry in less knowledge‐intensive context because of the deterrent threat of retaliation. However, in this paper, we argue that an increase in market overlap may not reduce rivalry in more knowledge‐intensive context because of heterogeneity in capabilities to protect knowledge. We find that a firm is more likely to initiate patent litigation against a rival as market overlap increases. Our findings suggest that the incentive to protect value across multiple product markets may surpass the motivation to cooperate with rivals and that managers should have a more nuanced view of how market overlap with competitors affects rivalry in more knowledge‐intensive contexts . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial decision making and firm performance under a resource‐based paradigm

A framework is presented that connects managerial decision making to resource building and firm performance. The framework takes a behavioral view of decision making and distinguishes two distinct decision‐making processes. First there is the creative conceptualization of new resource configurations that are intended to deliver competitive advantage. Then there is the painstaking development of resources required to implement strategy. We argue that heterogeneity in the resources of rival firms arises from the interplay of these two processes: resource conceptualization and resource development. Heterogeneity spawns performance differences that can be explained ex ante from characteristics of managerial decision‐making processes. We illustrate the approach in a simulated decision‐making environment representing a highly competitive and dynamically complex industry. Results from repeated simulation experiments conducted with executive and MBA students show vast differences in performance among firms, even when they started with identical resource positions. In a departure from traditional resource‐based literature, we explain how these differences stem from path dependent accumulation of resources and spontaneous variety in the way rivals conceptualize resources. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Playing dirty or building capability? Corruption and HR training as competitive actions to threats from informal and foreign firm rivals

Research summary : We examine why a firm takes specific competitive action in nonmarket and resource‐market spaces, particularly when it perceives threats from informal and foreign competitor groups, respectively. We address this question by combining insights from competitive rivalry, strategic groups, and nonmarket strategy literatures in an emerging economy context. Specifically, we theorize how threats from informal and foreign rival firms in an emerging market influence a firm's engagement in corruption activities and its investments in HR training, respectively. We also argue that the likelihoods of such focal firm actions against competitor group threats differ, contingent on the focal firm's market and resource profiles. Results from the empirical analyses, with survey data from the Indian IT industry, provide broad support to our hypotheses. Managerial summary : Based on a World Bank dataset on the Indian IT industry, this study finds that corruption and HR training are pursued by firms in emerging economies as mindful strategies against specific types of rivals—informal and foreign firm rivals, respectively, and are not pursued simply as culturally‐based practices. Multinational companies may need to understand that domestic firms in emerging countries will engage in corruption strategically to reduce their costs and time to market of their products/services. Therefore, multinational firms may need to devise suitable strategies other than corruption to reduce their costs and time to market if they wish to compete with firms in emerging economies for customers who don't care about ethical issues and will buy a cheaper product/service that is delivered quickly. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Market frictions and the competitive advantage of internal labor markets

Research summary : We show that frictions in labor and capital markets can be a source of competitive advantage for affiliates of corporate groups over stand‐alone firms in environments where benefits from internal markets' flexibility are high. We argue that the advantage of flexibility in changing labor inputs is related to how difficult it is to change capital inputs. We predict that if substituting labor with capital is difficult, the group advantage of flexibly changing labor would be stronger in countries with high levels of financial development. Consistent with this prediction, we find a stronger competitive advantage for group affiliates in countries with rigid labor markets but flexible capital markets. In these environments, group affiliates are more prevalent and outperform stand‐alone firms in terms of growth and profitability. Managerial summary : This research shows that the capacity to redeploy workers across internal units of the firm can be a source of competitive advantage in countries that impose strict employment protection laws. We show that the strategic advantage of labor flexibility is affected by how difficult it is to change capital inputs and that labor flexibility is a stronger source of competitive advantage in countries where developed financial markets allow for more flexible capital adjustment. In these settings, strategies designed to lower costs of internal mobility (e.g., locations of greater geographic concentration between units and in regions with less competitive external markets), development of corporate culture supportive of frequent change, and personnel development through internal rotation can result in substantial financial payoffs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An examination into the causal logic of rent generation: contrasting Porter's competitive strategy framework and the resource‐based perspective

In this study we revisit some fundamental questions that are increasingly at the heart of current strategic management discourse regarding the relative impact of industry and firm‐specific factors on sustainable competitive advantage. We explore this issue by referring to respective assertions of two major perspectives that dominate the literature over the last two decades: the Porter framework of competitive strategy and the more recent resource‐based view of the firm. A composite model is proposed which elaborates upon both perspectives' divergent causal logic with respect to the conditions relevant for firm success. Empirical findings suggest that industry and firm specific effects are both important but explain different dimensions of performance. Where industry forces influence market performance and profitability, firm assets act upon accomplishments in the market arena (i.e., market performance), and via the latter, to profitability. The paper concludes with directions for future research that will seek to integrate both content and process aspects of firm behavior. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resources as dual sources of advantage: Implications for valuing entrepreneurial‐firm patents

Why and how do resources provide sources of competitive advantage? This study sheds new light on this central question of resource‐based theory by allowing a single resource—entrepreneurial‐firm patents—to play distinctive roles in different competitive arenas. As rights to exclude others, patents serve a well‐known role as legal safeguards in product markets. As quality signals, patents also could improve access and the terms of trade in factor input markets. Based on the financing activities of 370 venture‐backed semiconductor start‐ups, we provide new evidence that patents confer dual advantages in strategic factor markets, improved access and terms of trade, above and beyond their added product‐market protection. The study has important implications for empirical tests of resource‐based theory and the measurement of resource value. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Taking industry structuring seriously: A strategic perspective on product differentiation

Given legal impediments to consolidation and collusion, firms often resort to product differentiation to attain market power. This paper provides a formal analysis of product differentiation as a tool for such industry structuring at both the firm and industry level. We examine: how industry structure differs when firms collaborate on their differentiation decisions, and when the profitability of such collaboration is greatest; how an individual firm's differentiation decisions affect subsequent market outcomes under price competition, such as margin, market share, and profit; how mere differentiation differs from a ‘differentiation advantage’; and how changing a firm's differentiation affects its rivals through both positive externalities (by restraining rivalry) and negative externalities (by shifting competitive advantage). Our results have implications for empirical research, strategy theory, and pedagogy.     

Comparing the resource‐based and relational views: knowledge transfer and spillover in vertical alliances

We compare resource‐based and relational perspectives to examine competitive advantages within the context of vertical learning alliances. Previous research has shown that through such alliances suppliers acquire knowledge to forge new capabilities and attain performance improvements. We ask whether such improvements are exclusive to the learning partnership, or are available in other average partnerships of this supplier. We posit that the extent to which such performance improvements are partnership exclusive depends on whether the newly forged capabilities lie entirely within the supplier firm's boundaries, or at the learning dyad level. As such, we untie two forms of performance improvements arising from learning dyads. While the resource‐based view helps explain the performance gains learning suppliers deploy across average partners, the relational view reveals the additional performance edge that remains exclusive to the learning partnership. Based on empirical evidence from a survey of 253 suppliers to the equipment industry, we find that partnership exclusive performance (i.e., ‘relational performance’), the true source of learning dyads' competitive advantage, is a function of suppliers acquiring know‐how within the dyad, developing dyad‐specific assets and capabilities, and structuring buyer‐supplier relational governance mechanisms. We discuss implications for research and practice. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competitive advantage and performance: the impact of value creation and costliness of imitation

We create an industrial organization type model to relate resources to the spread between product market demand and marginal cost. We define competitive advantage as the cross‐sectional differential in this spread, and performance as the longitudinal differential between what a firm appropriates in the product market and what it paid in the factor market. With factor markets imposing different costs on the innovator and potential imitator(s), competitive advantage, performance, and high resource value do not necessarily coincide. Also, the interaction between resource value and the cost of imitation is complex and affected by the number of firms in the industry. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pricing process as a capability: a resource‐based perspective

Strategists following the resource‐based view argue that firms can generate rents through value creation. To create value, firms develop and use resources and capabilities that other firms cannot imitate, trade for, or substitute other assets for. Even a firm that has created value, however, may not capture the potential rents associated with that value. To capture rents, a firm must set the right prices for what it sells. Most views of pricing assume that a firm can readily set appropriate prices. In contrast, we argue that pricing is a capability. To develop the ability to set the right prices, a firm must invest in resources and routines. We base our argument on a study of the pricing process of a large Midwestern manufacturing firm. We show that pricing resources, routines, and skills may help or inhibit a firm in setting the right price—and hence in appropriating value created. Our view of pricing as a capability contributes to the resource‐based view because it suggests that strategists should consider the portfolio of value creation and value appropriation capabilities a firm uses to create competitive advantage. Our view also contributes to economics because it suggests that strategic decisions about pricing capabilities have important implications for a fundamental economic action, determining prices. Managers in firms without effective pricing processes may be unable to set prices that reflect the wishes of its customers, so the customers may misuse their resources. As a result, resources may be used ineffectively. Our view of pricing as a capability therefore takes the resource‐based‐view straight to the heart of what is perhaps the central economic question: the best use of resources. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time delays,competitive interdependence,and firm performance

Research summary: Competitors' experiences of prior interactions shape patterns of rivalry over time. However, mechanisms that influence learning from competitive experience remain largely unexamined. We develop a computational model of dyadic rivalry to examine how time delays in competitors' feedback influence their learning. Time delays are inevitable because the process of executing competitive moves takes time, and the market's responses unfold gradually. We analyze how these lags impact learning and, subsequently, firms' competitive behavior, industry profits, and performance heterogeneity. In line with the extant learning literature, our findings reveal that time delays hinder learning from experience. However, this counterintuitively increases rivals' profits by reducing their investments in costly head‐to‐head competition. Time delays also engender performance heterogeneity by causing rivals' paths of competitive behavior to diverge. Managerial summary: While competitive actions such as new product launches, geographical expansion, and marketing campaigns require up‐front resource commitments, the potential lift in profits takes time to materialize. This time delay, combined with uncertainty surrounding the outcomes of competitive actions, makes it difficult for managers to learn reliably from previous investment decisions. This results in systematic underinvestment in competitive actions. The severity of the underinvestment grows as the time delay between an investment and its positive results increases. Counterintuitively, however, competitors' collective underinvestment increases profit‐making opportunities. In industries with large time delays, companies that do invest in competitive actions are likely to enjoy high returns on investment. It is also likely that rivals' paths of competitive behavior bifurcate. Together, these mechanisms generate large differences in competitors' profits. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Value,rareness, competitive advantage,and performance: a conceptual‐level empirical investigation of the resource‐based view of the firm

The resource‐based view of the firm (RBV) hypothesizes that the exploitation of valuable, rare resources and capabilities contributes to a firm's competitive advantage, which in turn contributes to its performance. Despite this notion, few empirical studies test these hypotheses at the conceptual level. In response to this gap, this study empirically examines the relationships between value, rareness, competitive advantage, and performance. The results suggest that value and rareness are related to competitive advantage, that competitive advantage is related to performance, and that competitive advantage mediates the rareness‐performance relationship. These findings have important academic and practitioner implications which are then discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Human capital and learning as a source of sustainable competitive advantage

This paper seeks to identify the sources of wide and persistent variations in learning performance in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. In the resource‐based view of the firm, human capital is frequently assumed to contribute to competitive advantage due to its inimitability based on its intangible, firm‐specific, and socially complex nature. Consistent with this view, we find that investments in firm‐specific human capital have a significant impact on learning and firm performance. More specifically, human capital selection (education requirements and screening), development through training, and deployment significantly improve learning by doing, which in turn improves performance. However, we find that acquiring human capital with prior industry experience from external sources significantly reduces learning performance. We also find that firms with high turnover significantly underperform their rivals, revealing the time‐compression diseconomies that protect firm‐specific human capital from imitation. These results provide new empirical evidence of the inimitability of human capital. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The routine may be stable but the advantage is not: competitive implications of key employee mobility

We extend our theoretical understanding of the effect of key employee mobility on organizational performance. We find that when an organization with an advantageous set of routines loses a key employee to a competitor, the advantaged organization's competitive position is reduced vis‐à‐vis the hiring competitor. What is more interesting is that we also show that the diffusion of an advantageous set of routines through the mobility of key employees may affect competitive advantage in at least two additional ways. Our findings result from an analysis of 412 competitive events between the San Francisco 49ers and all other teams in the National Football League during the 24‐year period when the San Francisco 49ers perfected the routines of a strategic innovation that has become known as the West Coast Offense. First, we find that there is a loss of advantage for the organization when competitors increasingly compete against additional organizations that hired key employees from it. Second, we find that there is a loss of advantage for the organization when competitors expect future competition against additional organizations that hired key employees from it. Our results challenge the traditional argument that socially complex routines create sustainable competitive advantages because they are not easily imitated and do not rely on any single individual. Instead, we show that routines are stable to the loss of key employees, but the advantages derived from them are not. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making the most of what you have: managerial ability as a source of resource value creation

The current study investigates a central premise of the resource‐based view of the firm—that managers are a potential source of value creation for the firm. Using data from professional sports teams, we test theory regarding the effects of managerial ability, human resource stocks, and managers' actions on resource value creation. While results indicate managerial ability affects resource productivity, this effect is less pronounced with increases in the quality of firm resources. Further, we investigate the extent to which managerial actions that synchronize resource bundles account for the influence of managerial ability and resource context on a firm's performance advantage. These results contribute to our understanding of resource management and provide empirical evidence for the importance of managerial ability in the resource‐based view. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The leveraging of interfirm relationships as a distinctive organizational capability: a longitudinal study

In this paper we present a study of the structure of three lead firm‐network relationships at two points in time. Using data on companies in the packaging machine industry, we study the process of vertical disintegration and focus on the ability to coordinate competencies and combine knowledge across corporate boundaries. We argue that the capability to interact with other companies—which we call relational capability—accelerates the lead firm’s knowledge access and transfer with relevant effects on company growth and innovativeness. This study provides evidence that interfirm networks can be shaped and deliberately designed: over time managers develop a specialized supplier network and build a narrower and more competitive set of core competencies. The ability to integrate knowledge residing both inside and outside the firm’s boundaries emerges as a distinctive organizational capability. Our main goal is to contribute to the current discussion of cooperative ties and dynamic aspects of interfirm networks, adding new dimensions to resource‐based and knowledge‐based interpretations of company performance. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymmetric rivalry between strategic groups: response,speed of response and ex ante vs. ex post competitive interaction in the spanish bank deposit market

The objective of this study is to examine asymmetric rivalry between strategic groups in a given industry. Two research hypotheses argue for the existence of asymmetric rivalry in the sense that strategic groups of small companies have a greater degree of response but a slower speed of response to the actions of strategic groups of large companies, than vice versa. To test this, we use an ex post approach that examines the news releases published on the strategic actions and reactions of firms. A third hypothesis compares ex ante competitive expectations with ex post asymmetric rivalry between strategic groups. To test this, we compare ex post news on actions/reactions with an ex ante approach that estimates conjectural variations. The empirical application carried out on bank deposits in the Spanish market defines strategic groups in terms of size due to the historical and institutional conditions of the industry (deregulatory change). The results obtained show that rivalry patterns between strategic groups in terms of company size can be predicted as asymmetric in the sense that smaller bank strategic groups have a greater degree of response (Stackelberg ‘leader–follower’ competitive interaction), and a slower speed of response to the actions of larger bank strategic groups than is found the other way around. Moreover, ex ante expectations of aggressiveness on the part of larger strategic groups characterize greater ex post reactions from the smaller‐size strategic groups. Therefore, the size distribution of strategic groups is valuable to research on complex industries with deregulation changes. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

RESOURCE AND MARKET BASED DETERMINANTS OF PERFORMANCE IN THE U.S. BANKING INDUSTRY

This paper explores the implications of studying industry competitive patterns at the level of resource accumulation and the relationship between resource endowments and firm performance outcomes in the U.S. banking industry. It uses the strategic group framework to evaluate two models of rivalry and performance and concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for competitive analysis, strategic group theory and the banking industry.     

Strategic factor markets,scale free resources,and economic performance: The impact of product market rivalry

This paper analyzes how scale free resources, which can be acquired by multiple firms simultaneously and deployed against one another in product market competition, will be priced in strategic factor markets, and what the consequences are for the acquiring firms' performance. Based on a game‐theoretic model, it shows how the impact of strategic factor markets on economic profits is influenced by product market rivalry, preexisting competitive (dis)advantages, and the interaction of acquired resources with those preexisting asymmetries. New insights include the result that resource suppliers will aim at (and largely succeed in) setting resource prices so that the acquiring firms earn negative strategic factor market profits—sacrificing some of their preexisting market power rents—by acquiring resources that they know to be overpriced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.