Contextuality within Activity Systems

To further our understanding of creating and sustaining firm competitive advantage, we need to recognize two types of contextuality within firms’ activity systems. First, the benefit of activity configurations can be contextual—while some activity configurations are generically beneficial, others gain their value only as part of particular strategies. Second, interactions among activities can be contextual. While some interactions between activities are an inherent property of the activities themselves, other interactions are determined contextually by other activity choices made by a firm. We argue that competitive advantage is likely to be more sustainable if it is based on activities that are strategy-specific and that have contextual interactions with other activities. Short title: Contextuality within Activity Systems