Where do resources come from? The role of idiosyncratic situations

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Where do resources come from? The role of idiosyncratic situations

Gautam Ahuja, Riitta Katila. Strategic Management Journal. Chichester: Aug/Sep 2004. Vol. 25, Iss. 8/9; pg. 887, 21 pgs


Abstract (Summary)

In this paper, we examine the emergence of resources. Our analysis of technological capability acquisition by global U.S.-based chemical firms shows that the emergence of resources is inherently evolutionary. We find that path-creating search that generates resource heterogeneity is a response to idiosyncratic situations faced by firms in their local searches. Two such idiosyncratic situations--technology exhaustion and expansion beyond national markets--trigger firms in our sample to create unique innovation search paths. We also find that along a given path firms experiment in order to find the correct investment--in fact, some organizations seem to take a step backward for two steps forward--further demonstrating the evolutionary nature of the resource creation process. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.