Institutional settings in emerging markets pose challenges for multinational corporations (MNCs). We argue that information technology (IT) can be used to develop strategic flexibilities to complement organizational capabilities in emerging markets. We explore how MNCs and local firms compare in leveraging their IT enabled strategic flexibilities and organizational capabilities to improve perfo...

The business values of intellectual capital (IntC) and innovation capability (InnoC) are enduring research questions, especially for high-tech firms. Although each one has been recognized as a critical factor for firm’s competitiveness, few studies discussed the influence of IntC and InnoC on firm performance in one integrated framework. Moreover, the moderating effects of environmental dynamis...

For too long, marketers have not been held accountable for showing how marketing expenditures add to shareholder value. As time has gone by, this lack of accountability has undermined marketers’ credibility, threatened the standing of the marketing function within the firm, and even threatened marketing’s existence as a distinct capability within the firm. This article proposes a broad framewor...

Achieving sustained business performance is a challenge for many firms. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the food and packaged goods domain where manufacturers are significantly affected by globally aggressive competitors and retailers. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm this study of 173 food manufacturers finds that the NPD process is a capability enabling the translation of a...

It is well touted that embedding information technology (IT) capabilities in supply chain processes would allow firms to derive competitive advantage. Yet the outcomes of such embeddedness vary greatly across companies. Investigating how a firm configures appropriate IT capabilities with supply chain integration (SCI) to achieve superior performance is of significance. Drawing upon the dynamic ...

Researchers and practitioners regard information technology (IT) as a competitive tool. However, current knowledge on IT capability mechanisms that affect firm performance remains unclear. Based on the dynamic capabilities perspective and the view of a hierarchy of capabilities, this article proposes a model to examine how IT capabilities (i.e., flexible IT infrastructure and IT assimilation) a...

A retrospective review of participants in a SPICEbased process improvement program is currently underway. The objective of the review is to consider the long-term impact of the program on small firms. After establishing the need to evaluate the long-term effects in small firms, this paper presents a detailed account of the experiences of two small firms. These firms participated in a software p...

This paper addresses a process gap in economic theories of firm-boundaries by explaining switching costs during governance change in the case of outsourcing. Three perspectives on firm boundaries are considered: modern property right theory, modern transaction cost theory, and evolutionary theory. The first explains firm boundaries by the optimal allocation of residual decision rights to physic...

Unstable market conditions caused by innovation and increasing intensity and diversity of competition have resulted in organizational capabilities rather than served markets becoming the primary basis upon which firms establish their long-term strategies. If the strategically most important resource of the firm is knowledge, and if knowledge resides in specialized form among individual organiza...