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Journal ArticleDOI

The multiple boundaries of the firm

TLDR
In this paper, the authors argue that the evolution of firm boundaries must be understood in the context of decisions on how the firm relates to other actors in its environment and develop the notion of indirect capabilities to highlight how firm boundaries respond to the distribution of capabilities in the economy as well as the modes of access to complementary and external capabilities.
Abstract
The notion of firm boundaries has received considerable attention in theories of the firm that address the problems of investment incentives and mitigation of hold-up problems. In this paper we attempt to develop a different approach to the problem of vertical firm boundaries, based on recent advances in the capabilities view of the firm. Our arguments rely on the pioneering insights of Penrose, Richardson and Loasby to elaborate a view of the boundaries determined by the interaction of the firm's direct and indirect capabilities with other actors. We develop the notion of indirect capabilities to highlight how firm boundaries respond to the distribution of capabilities in the economy as well as the modes of access to complementary and external capabilities. We conclude that the evolution of firm boundaries must be understood in the context of decisions on how the firm relates to other actors in its environment.

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Posted Content

Toward a Model of Strategic Outsourcing

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend transaction cost theory and resource-based view to explain conditions leading to strategic outsourcing in supply chain management, where the role of specialized capabilities as a potential source of value creation in relationships between firms.
Journal ArticleDOI

Toward a model of strategic outsourcing

TL;DR: In this article, the authors extend transaction cost theory and resource-based view to explain conditions leading to strategic outsourcing in the context of supply chain management, where the role of specialized capabilities is examined as a potential source of value creation in relationships between firms.
Journal ArticleDOI

Rise of strategic nets — New modes of value creation

TL;DR: It is argued that the proposed contingency framework captures the complexity and variety of the expanding strategic business nets in a more valid way than the extant classifications of network organizations.
Journal ArticleDOI

1 Constitutional Amendments: “Materializing” Organizational Communication

TL;DR: The communication-as-constitutive principle of organizational communication has been studied in management studies as discussed by the authors, which highlights how communication generates defining realities of organizational life, such as culture, power, networks, and the structure-agency relation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Service innovation in product-centric firms : a multidimensional business model perspective

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate the nature and characteristics of business model elements required for successful service innovation and examine which unique resources and Capabilities and which Capabilities are needed for service innovation.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamic capabilities and strategic management

TL;DR: The dynamic capabilities framework as mentioned in this paper analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change, and suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technology change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm.
Posted Content

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed an evolutionary theory of the capabilities and behavior of business firms operating in a market environment, including both general discussion and the manipulation of specific simulation models consistent with that theory.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Nature of the Firm

Ronald H. Coase
- 01 Nov 1937 - 
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that a definition of a firm may be obtained which is not only realistic in that it corresponds to what is meant by a firm in the real world, but is tractable by two of the most powerful instruments of economic analysis developed by Marshall, the idea of the margin and that of substitution.
Book

The Knowledge Creating Company

TL;DR: The Japanese companies, masters of manufacturing, have also been leaders in the creation, management, and use of knowledge-especially the tacit and often subjective insights, intuitions, and ideas of employees as discussed by the authors.