Chapter 14 Predicting Strategic Actions Across Industry Sectors: The Role of Intangible Dynamics

This chapter examines firm strengths and weaknesses from the standpoint of intangible assets. These are compared within and across industry sectors in order to better understand who might be a potential collaborator (or competitor) in different contexts. Establishing the conceptual basis of a range of intangibles, including data, explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge, and intelligence, the chapter moves to metrics for assessing industry averages and individual firm capabilities. Finally, several sectors in healthcare are examined, specifically identifying what kinds of collaborators would best fit with a technology-driven start-up like Theranos.