Surrendering control to gain advantage: Reconciling openness and the resource-based view of the firm

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Alexy, Oliver; West, Joel; Klapper, Helge; Reitzig, Markus
• 署名单位: Technical University of Munich; Claremont Colleges; Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; University of Vienna
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.2706
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1704-1727
• 关键词: COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE; complementary assets; resource value; resource-based view; strategic openness

摘要

Research Summary: Strategic openness-firms voluntary forfeiting of control over resources-seemingly challenges the premise of the resource-based view (RBV), which posits that firms should control valuable, rare, and inimitable (VRI) resources. We reconcile this apparent paradox by formalizing whether and when firms-consisting of resource bundles and deriving competitive advantage from exploiting selected VRI resources-may maximize profitability by opening parts of their resource base. As such, our article refines RBV-related thinking while supporting the theory's core tenets. Notably, we illustrate how a common-pool resource can become a source of competitive advantage and how firms may use openness to shape inter-firm competition. Managerial Summary: Conventional wisdom holds that firms must control scarce and valuable resources to obtain competitive advantage. That being said, over the past decade, many firms-among them Computer Associates, IBM, and Nokia-embarked on open strategies and made parts of their valuable resources available for free. These decisions pose an obvious conundrum, which we solve in our article. We use a mathematical model, grounded in principles of the resource-based view, to show why and under what conditions open strategies will succeed. Firms significantly improve their performance when (a) opening resources reduces their cost base while (b) strongly increasing demand for their still-proprietary resource(s). We also explain how openness can reshape markets by weakening competitors, particularly in highly rivalrous environments.