A Resource-Based Lens on Value Creation, Competitive Advantage, and Multi-Level Issues in Strategic Management Research

Multi-level issues (Klein, Dansereau, & Hall (1994). Academy of Management Review, 195–229) are critical to both strategic management research and practice, and yet, we have few approaches for dealing with them both systemically and systematically. In this chapter, I take a resource-based approach to exploring multi-level linkages, suggesting that such an approach has wide applicability. A resource-based view (RBV) of competitive advantage and value creation illustrates the multi-level nature of these concepts and shows how the RBV is itself linked to the external market environment. The RBV also provides a way to link a variety of types of levels of analysis. These include different organizational levels of analysis, content and process linkages, and linkages across time.