An asymmetry-based view of advantage: Towards an attainable sustainability

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Miller, D
• 署名单位: Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal; University of Alberta
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.316
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 961-976
• 关键词: RESOURCE-BASED VIEW; DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES; firm asymmetries; organization design

摘要

The resource-based view of the firm postulates that sustainable abnormal rents call accrue to firms having valuable, rare, inimitable, non-substitutable resources and capabilities. Given these criteria, sustainable resources are hard to attain. Our study of some two dozen firms shows how some of them were able to overcome this dilemma by building not so much oil resources and capabilities as on asymmetries. Asymmetries are typically, skills, processes, or 'assets' a firm's competitors do not and cannot copy at a cost that affords economic rents. They are rare, inimitable and non-substitutable, although not connected to any engine of value creation, and, in fact, often act as liabilities. By discovering and reconceptualizing these asymmetries, embedding them within a complementary organizational design, and leveraging them across appropriate market opportunities, manY firms were able to turn asymmetries into sustainable capabilities. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.