sábado, 2 de fevereiro de 2013

The RBV of The Firm



The Resource Based View of the firm
Da Cruz Rocha, Alex Daniel

On the last few decades, traditional strategic tools have been increasingly discredited as a framework for creating and sustaining competitive advantage. In response, new theories of the firm have been developed, emerging Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm as one of the most influential paradigms in which the sources of competitive advantage are examined by focusing on internal analysis of organisational strengths and weaknesses. Barney (1991) suggests that strategic resources, which are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable, characterize a firm’s competitive advantage. Furthermore, firm resources are its assets and strengths such as information or organisational processes that are controlled by a firm, enabling it to plan and implement strategies that improve its organisational efficiency (Barney 1991).
The central focus of the RBV theory lies on the resources and capabilities controlled by a firm that underlie persistent differences among firms (Peteraf & Barney 2003). Barney (1991) points out that there are systematic differences across firms within an industry in relation to the resources they control, and that the resources are relatively stable across firms, assuming that resources are heterogeneous and immobile. Accordingly, resource-based view is a strategic management tool that examines how firms use valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable resources and capabilities to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, arguing that the heterogeneity of resources and capabilities, combined with their degree of immobility, can have positive effects on performance superiority over competitors. In fact, resources whether tangible or intangible, regarding a firm’s competitiveness, are strengths that enable firms to form a unique strategic position. RBV studies have acknowledged the particular value of intangible resources, since they are the only kind of resources potentially capable of meeting the resources based criteria of being valuable, rare and costly to imitate (Michalisin, Kline & Smith 2000).
In the networked new economy where knowledge means production (Drucker 1993), managers are facing challenges that are more complicated than before and firms are confronted with not only ‘hyper-competition’ from strong competitors (D’Aveni 1994), but also rising financial and social issues connected to stakeholders. Halal (2001) mentions stakeholders as partners who cooperate with the firm and encourage knowledge sharing to generate both economic and social values.
In this view, stakeholder interactions offer both challenges and opportunities to an organisation, as multiple stakeholders demand more meaningful participation, while having the potential to contribute to creative solutions to complex issues (Svendsen & Laberge 2005). Following this line of thought, if stakeholders can influence organisations with their cooperation as well as their threats, the managing stakeholders strategy plays an important role in the process of value creation by maximizing their cooperative potential and minimizing their potential threat.
According to Harrison, Bosse and Phillips (2010) firms, which share value with their stakeholders and involve them in their strategic decisions, could gain benefits, which would further become sources of competitive advantage. Regarding to engaging stakeholders relationships, stakeholder management is vital to mobilise both physical and human resources through social relationships. Besides, the proactive approach that advocates the use of the term stakeholder engagement, instead of stakeholder management, has been increasingly emphasized to highlight the importance of partnership between the firms and its multiple stakeholders (Lozano 2005).
Considering that organisations can receive benefits from cooperation with multiple stakeholders, including communities and civil society, stakeholder engagement, supports firms in acquiring or generating valued resources and capabilities. In addition to influence resources, stakeholders can also impact on firm’s cost advantage as well as on its differentiation, consequently affecting its positional advantages.
In accordance with the stakeholder perspective, the manager’s task is to develop and implement a strategy that integrates various relationships and balances different interests in a multi-stakeholders context (Hitt, Freeman & Harrison 2001).
Finally, from the point of view of RBV theory, stakeholders are catalysts or hindrances that may facilitate or impede generation of valued resources, so that they can be categorised by their potential of contribution or threats. RBV explains the source of competitive advantage through the lens of internal attributes of the firm, but it only tells a part of the story, as competitive advantage comes from a mix of various sources, internal and external.





















References
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D’Aveni, R.A 1994, Hyper competition: Managing the dynamics of strategic maneuvering, 2nd edn, Free Press, New York.
Drucker, P. F 1993, Post Capitalist society, Harper Business, New York.
Halal, W.E 2001, ‘The collaborative enterprise: A stakeholder model uniting profitability and responsibility’,  The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, vol. summer, pp. 22-47,  Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 August 2012.
Harrison, J. S, Bosse, D. A, & Phillips, R.A 2010, ‘Managing for stakeholders, stakeholder utility functions and competitive advantage’, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 31, pp. 58–74, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 August 2012.
Hitt, M.A, Freeman R.E & Harrison J.S 2001, The Blackwell handbook of strategic management, Blackwell Publishers, Malden.
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Michalisin, M.D, Kline D.M & Smith R.D 2000, ‘Intangible strategic assets and firm performance: A multi-industry study of the resource-based view’, Journal of Business Strategies, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 93-117, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 August 2012.
Peteraf, M.A & Barney, J.B 2003, ‘Unravelling the resource-based tangle’, Managerial and Decision Economics, vol.24, no. 4, pp. 309-323, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 August 2012.
Svendsen, A. C & Laberge, M 2005, ‘Convening stakeholder networks: A new way of thinking, being and engaging’, The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, vol. 19, pp. 91–104,  Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 August 2012.