Competitive advantages of the firm based on geographical embeddedness : a case study / F.Xavier Molina-Morales -- Competence-based management and strategic alliances / J. Rajendran Pandian, Peter McKiernan -- Developing alliance capabilities in a new era / Geert Duysters, Koen Heimeriks --...

This volume explores ways in which an organization's existing competences can be enhanced as sources of competitive advantage - either enduring or intendedly transitional. Competence enhancing activities considered include political lobbying to extend the lifetime and value of a firm's...

Many industries are now evolving new kinds of competitive environments which are not adequately explained by traditional strategy theory. This article introduces a movement to make strategy theory more relevant to contemporary forms of competition by rethinking both the content and process of...

This focused issue (Volume 6) of Research in Competence-Based Management provides a number of research papers – both theoretical and empirical – on what we have characterized in the volume title as “new industry dynamics.” It also contains papers that might just as accurately be...

In this paper we examine some fundamental epistemological issues in building theory for applied management science, by which we mean theory that can be usefully applied in a scientific approach to management research and practice. We first define and distinguish “grand theory” from...

The competence-based perspective shares with the resource-based view the notion of the fundamental importance of an organization's resources in its competitive outcomes. In his paper “Probing into the nature of resources: Sustainable advantages and appropriable rents in the U.S. motion picture...

Firms can (and often do) learn from each other. Benchmarking has become an accepted and increasingly widely practiced initiative for interfirm learning. Benchmarking specific capabilities and processes in one firm against another can help both firms’ managers identify strategic gaps in their...

In their paper “Fractals, stories, and the development of coherence in strategic logic,” Janice Black, Frances Fabian, and Kim Hinrichs explore key communication dynamics that drive the emergence of a coherent strategic logic in an organization. Using a longitudinal study of a non-profit...

Part I of this issue begins with a paper by Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann on “Competences, distinctive competences, and core competences.” Eden and Ackermann draw on their extensive work with top management teams in workshops focused on identifying the competences of an organization. They...