In this article we offer a view that suggests that a firm's critical resources may span firm boundaries and may be embedded in interfirm resources and routines. We argue that an increasingly important unit of analysis for understanding competitive advantage is the relationship between firms and identify four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage: (1) relation-specific assets, (2) knowledge-sharing routines, (3) complementary resources/capabilities, and (4) effective governance. We examine each of these potential sources of rent in detail, identifying key subprocesses, and also discuss the isolating mechanisms that serve to preserve relational rents. Finally, we discuss how the relational view may offer normative prescriptions for firm-level strategies that contradict the prescriptions offered by those with a resource-based view or industry structure view.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259056.pdf

The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage

Leveraging the recent research interest in emerging economies, this Perspective paper argues that an institution-based view of international business (IB) strategy has emerged. It is positioned as one leg that helps sustain the “strategy tripod” (the other two legs consisting of the industry- and resource-based views). We then review four diverse areas of substantive research: (1) antidumping as entry barriers; (2) competing in and out of India; (3) growing the firm in China; and (4) governing the corporation in emerging economies. Overall, we argue that an institution-based view of IB strategy, in combination with industry- and resource-based views, will not only help sustain a strategy tripod, but also shed significant light on the most fundamental questions confronting IB, such as “What drives firm strategy and performance in IB?”

/pdf/an-institution-based-view-of-international-business-strategy-b2jah8hc81.pdf

An institution-based view of international business strategy: a focus on emerging economies

One size fits all?: Towards a differentiated regional innovation policy approach

Over the past decade, there has been growing interest in local industrial agglomeration and specialization, not only by economic geographers but also by economists and by policy-makers. Of the many ideas and concepts to have emerged from this new-found focus, Michael Porter's work on ‘clusters’ has proved by far the most influential. His ‘cluster theory’ has become the standard concept in the field, and policy-makers the world over have seized upon Porter's cluster model as a tool for promoting national, regional, and local competitiveness, innovation and growth. But the mere popularity of a construct is by no means a guarantee of its profundity. Seductive though the cluster concept is, there is much about it that is problematic, and the rush to employ ‘cluster ideas’ has run ahead of many fundamental conceptual, theoretical and empirical questions. Our aim is to deconstruct the cluster concept in order to reveal and highlight these issues. Our concerns relate to the definition of the cluster concept, its theorization, its empirics, the claims made for its benefits and advantages, and its use in policy-making. Whilst we do not wish to debunk the cluster idea outright, we do argue for a much more cautious and circumspect use of the notion, especially within a policy context: the cluster concept should carry a public policy health warning.

/pdf/deconstructing-clusters-chaotic-concept-or-policy-panacea-3llok2hcsw.pdf

Deconstructing clusters: chaotic concept or policy panacea?

Introduction: Towards the knowledge-based economy Knowledge creation Limits to learning Regional capabilities, institutions and localised learning. Enhanced knowledge creation: industrial districts

/pdf/localised-learning-and-industrial-competitiveness-4kb7ltjyob.pdf

Localised Learning and Industrial Competitiveness

Tourism destination competitiveness: a quantitative approach

Recent conceptual work on tourism destination competitiveness has proposed a comprehensive approach that adds industry-level competitiveness attributes to more conventional tourism destination attributes. This study builds on these ideas by generating sets of both attributes, developing a methodology for assessing their relative importance and examining the degree to which their relative importance varies across locations. Survey data were gathered from tourism industry practitioners in three closely competing destinations in Asia Pacific and were subjected to statistical testing. The results provide strong empirical support for the inclusion of both industry-level and destination attributes in studies of tourism competitiveness. The results also question approaches to competitiveness that assume that the relative importance of attributes is common across locations, suggesting, rather, that the importance of competitiveness attributes may vary across locations, depending on product mix and target market s...

Determinants of Tourism Destination Competitiveness in Asia Pacific: Comprehensiveness and Universality

Interest in regional clusters and their role in economic development has grown substantially over the last several years among academics, economic development professionals, and firm managers. The main reasons have been the increased intensity of interregional and international competition in the world economy, the apparent shortcomings of traditional regional development models and policies, and the emergence of successful clusters of firms and industries in many nations around the world. One result has been a proliferation of cluster-based economic development policies. Another has been a veritable explosion of literature on regional clusters and regional clustering. In this paper, I will highlight some of the results of research on regional clusters, identify some of the gaps in our present knowledge of the clustering phenomenon, and suggest an agenda for further research. The particular set issues covered is idiosyncratic rather than exhaustive, reflecting my own research interests and drawing on results, preliminary results, and stylized facts that have emerged in my own research as well as the literature. The purpose is to summarize at least a portion of what we know about regional clusters and to suggest areas for future investigation.

Regional Clusters: What We Know and What We Should Know

This paper studies a new frontier in the understanding of International Strategy (IS). To explore it, we propose the analogy of the ecology of firms and places as a way to emphasize that the real problem is the colocation of different places with different types of firms. Locations are in fact the distinctive content of International Business Strategy. We deal with this problem with four different perspectives. First, differences across countries must be addressed with integrative frameworks able to represent the multidimensionality of ‘semiglobalization’, or intermediate states between total localization and total integration. Second, differences in the development of intermediary markets in a particular place influence firm positioning and industry structure in that place, but their impact also crosses different places, and it is endogenous to the ecology of places and firms in a systemic, integrative way that makes simplifications extremely risky in the design of competitive strategy in an international context. Third, places, firms, and strategies form a complex ecology that can be studied with a framework focused in understanding the geography–strategy link that incorporates different levels of analysis, new economic actors, and a set of primitives. Finally, firms around the ecology of places face the challenge of developing strategies and business models to serve the majority of humanity today excluded from world trade. It is a fundamentally different way to think about the ecology of places and firms. Overall, we present an intriguing New Frontier, with the capacity to impact both research and practice in the field of international strategy, based in understanding the interplay among firms and places.

/pdf/new-frontiers-in-international-strategy-1l20t9je9e.pdf

Michael J. Enright

Papers

Tourism destination competitiveness: a quantitative approach

Determinants of Tourism Destination Competitiveness in Asia Pacific: Comprehensiveness and Universality

Regional Clusters: What We Know and What We Should Know

New frontiers in international strategy

Regional clusters and firm strategy