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Resource configurations, generic strategies, and firm performance: Exploring the parallels between resource‐based and competitive strategy theories in a new industry

Olivier Furrer (Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
D. Sudharshan (Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA)
Howard Thomas (Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK)
Maria Tereza Alexandre (University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA)

Journal of Strategy and Management

ISSN: 1755-425X

Article publication date: 22 August 2008

2170

Abstract

Purpose

This paper, anchored in the resource‐based view of the firm, attempts to develop linkages between firm‐level resources, Porter's competitive strategy space and firm performance and explores them in the context of a new industry – the marketing technology industry.

Design/methodology/approach

In the marketing technology industry the authors classify resource configurations (generalists, specialists, innovators) which group firms with distinctive competences on similar resource dimensions. They then map these firm‐level resource configurations onto their respective optimal strategies in the industry's competitive strategy space.

Findings

The major findings are: some firms that are close together in strategy space vary in performance; some firms that are close together in strategy space belong to quite different resource configurations; firms that belong to the same resource configuration (i.e. are close together in resource space and distant from others) vary in performance; given the origin (i.e. resource configuration) of a new entrant there exists an optimal strategy that can be theoretically defined; and corresponding to each resource configuration there seems to exist a unique optimal region in strategy space.

Originality/value

It is one of few attempts to empirically explore the parallels between firm level resource‐based and industry level competitive strategies.

Keywords

Citation

Furrer, O., Sudharshan, D., Thomas, H. and Tereza Alexandre, M. (2008), "Resource configurations, generic strategies, and firm performance: Exploring the parallels between resource‐based and competitive strategy theories in a new industry", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 15-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/17554250810909400

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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