CAPABILITY-BASED PERSPECTIVE TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES OF THE FIRM: THEORETICAL REVIEW AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCES FROM US AND JAPANESE CORPORATE FIRMS
Main Article Content
Abstract
This paper reviews the theory of competitive advantages of the firm from the capabilitybased perspective. This perspective is originated from the resource-based one. It inherits the resource-based perspective in the respect that it focuses on the exploitation of firm-specific assets (core competence) that are difficult if not impossible to imitate, but complements the explanation of how firms renew competences to response to shifts in business environment. Within the framework of capability-based perspective, the competitive advantages of the firm is firstly specified from its coordination mechanisms and incentive mechanisms, then moved to organizational learning processes, and then capabilities and competences. We have demonstrated this framework via the cases of the evolution of US corporations and Japanese corporations from various sources of empirical literatures.
Article Details
Keywords
Capability-Based Perspectives, Competitive Advantages, Firm
References
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38. Teece, D.J., G. Pisano and A. Shuen (1997), ‘Dynamic capabilities and strategic management’, Strategic Management Journal, 18, 509-33.
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2. Argyris, C. and D. Schon, 1978. ‘Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective’, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
3. Argyris, C. and D.A. Schön (1996), Organizational Learning II. Theory, Method, and Practice, Reading, Mass. USA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
4. Barney, J.B. (1986), ‘Strategic Factor markets: Expectations, Luck, and Business Strategy’, Management Science, 32, 1231-1241.
5. Barney, J.B. (1991), ‘Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage’, Journal of Management, 17, 99-120.
6. Best , M. (1990), ‘The new competition: institutions of industrial restructuring’, Cambridge Polity Press.
7. Chandler, A. (1962), Strategy and Structure, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
8. Chandler, A. (1977), The Visible Hand: the Managerial Revolution in American Business, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
9. Chandler, A. (1990), Scale and Scope: the Dynamics of Industrial Competition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
10. Chandler, A. (1992), ‘Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 6(3): 79-100.
11. Cohendet, P., Llerena, P., and L. Marengo (2000), ‘Is There a Pilot in the Evolutionary Firm?’, in Foss, N. and V. Mahnke (eds), Competence, Governance, and Entrepreneurship: Advances in Economic Strategy Research, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12. Dierickx, I. and K. Cool (1989), ‘Asset stock accumulation and sustainability of competitive advantage’, Management Science, 35, 1504-1511.
13. Dosi, G., R. Nelson and S.G. Winter (eds) (2000), ‘The Nature and Dynamic of Organizational Capabilities’, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
14. Foss N. (1997) (ed), Resources, Firms, and Strategies: A Reader in the ResourceBased Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15. Fransman, M. (1999), ‘Vision of Innovation : the Firm and Japan’, Oxford University Press.
16. Grant, R.M. (1996), ‘Toward a knowledge-based theory of the firm’, Strategic Management Journal, 17 (Winter special issue), 109-122.
17. Kogut, B. and U. Zander (1992), ‘Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology’, Organizations Science, 3, 383-97.
18. Kogut, B. and V. Zander (1996), ‘What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity and Learning’, Organizational Science, 7, 502-18.
19. Langlois R. (1991), ‘Transaction-Cost Economics in Real Time’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 1(1):99-127.
20. Lazonick W. (1990), ‘Competitive advantage on the shop floor’, Cambridge, Mass. London, Harvard University Press.
21. Levinthal, D. (2000), ‘Organizational Capabilities in Complex Worlds’, in G. Dosi, R. Nelson and S.G. Winter (eds), The Nature and Dynamic of Organizational Capabilities, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
22. Mahoney J., Pandian J. (1992), ‘The Resource-Based View Within the Conversation of Strategic Management’, Strategic Management Journal, 13, 363-380.
23. Marengo, L. (1992), ‘Coordination and Organizational Learning in the Firm’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2, 313-326.
24. Marengo, L., G. Dosi, P. Legrenzi and C. Pasquali (2000), ‘The Structure of Problemsolving Knowledge and the Structure of Organizations’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 9, 757-788.
25. Nelson, R.R. (1991), ‘Why do Firms Differ, and how does it matter?’, Strategic Management Journal, 12, 61-74.
26. Nelson, R.R. and S.G. Winter (1982), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.
27. Nonaka, I. and H. Takeuchi (1995), The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28. O’Sullivan, M. (2000), Contests for Corporate Control: Corporate Governance and Economic Performance in the United States and Germany, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
29. Penrose, E. (1959), The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, New York: Wiley.
30. Peteraf M. (1993), ‘The Cornerstones of Competitive Advantage: A Resource-based View’, Strategic Management Journal, 3, 179-191.
31. Porter, M., (1980), Competitive Strategy, Free Press, New York.
32. Prahalad, C.K. and G. Hamel (1990), ‘The Core Competence of the Corporation’, Harvard Business Review, May-June, 79-91.
33. Richardson, G.B. (1972), ‘The organization of industry’, Economic Journal, 82, 88396.
34. Rumelt, R. P. (1984), ‘Toward a Strategic Theory of the Firm’, In R. Lamb (ed.), Competitive Strategic Management, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 556-570.
35. Selznick (1957), Leadership in Administration, Harper and Row. Extracted chapter in Foss N. (1997) (ed), Resources, Firms, and Strategies: A Reader in the ResourceBased Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press..
36. Senge, P.M. (1990), The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, New York: Doubleday.
37. Simon, H.A. (1991), ‘Bounded Rationality and Organization Learning’, Organization Science, 2, 125-134.
38. Teece, D.J., G. Pisano and A. Shuen (1997), ‘Dynamic capabilities and strategic management’, Strategic Management Journal, 18, 509-33.
39. Von Hippel, E. and M.J. Tyre, (1995), ‘How learning by doing is done. Problem identification in novel process equipment’, Research Policy, 24, 1-12.
40. Wernerfelt B. (1984), ‘A Resource-Based View of the Firm’, Strategic Management Journal, 5, 171-180.
41. Wernerfelt B. (1995), ‘The Resource-Based View of the Firm: Ten Years After’, Strategic Management Journal, 16, 171-174.