1、 外文翻译 原文 RETHINKING RESEARCH METHODS FOR THE RESOURCE-BASED PERSPECTIVE: ISOLATINEG SOURCES OF SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Material Source: Strategic Management Journal Author: Michael Porter An exploration of traditional perspectives and contemporary propositions regarding sustainable competi
2、tive advantage points to the conclusion that the locus of advantage is located specifically within organizational effects. The key issue emerges that research investigating sources of sustainable competitive advantage must be done not only on organizations but also in organizations. The fallout from
3、 this conclusion is, however, that the research methodologies traditionally used in strategy research will not unambiguously uncover these sources of sustainable advantage. Using organizational culture as an example of a possible source of sustainable advantage within a resource-based paradigm, a fo
4、ur-step research framework is suggested for isolating these organizational effects. During the last two decades the emphasis in the strategic management literature has shifted from viewing competitive advantage as primarily determined by environmental (industry/market) factors to a resource-based vi
5、ew (RBV) (Wernerfelt,1984) that highlights how the deployment of unique and idiosyncratic organizational resources and capabilities can result in sustained superior performance (Lado, Boyd, and Wright, 1992). Underlying this shift is a recognition that sustained competitive advantage grows out of th
6、ose valuable, rent-generating, firm-specific resources and capabilities that cannot easily be imitated or substituted. The very nature of such variables suggests that large sample, multi-industry, single time-period samples using secondary sources of data will not help disentangle the key factors th
7、at may provide sustainable advantage. To overcome this limitation, we propose a general approach for revealing sources of sustained competitive advantage. Firn performance, organizational factors and sustained competitive advantage Competitive advantage continues to provide the central agenda in str
8、ategy research. The industrial organization model, contingency theories and most recently, the RBV in a move from external factors, to fit perspectives, to internal elements highlight the range of factors important to superior performance. Despite evidence that study of valuable resources is needed,
9、 few, if any, have been studied in detail from a sustainable competitive advantage perspective. Rumelts (1991) study, partitioning the variation in performance between industry, corporate, and business unit effects, emphasizes that research seeking to explain an important portion of the observed dis
10、persion in business unit profit rates must use the business unit as the unit of analysis and must focus on the sources of heterogeneity within industries. Similarly, Hansen and Wernerfelt (1989) attribute over 30 per cent of the total variation in 5-year average of return on assets to organizational
11、 factors, with industry-level factors explaining a substantially lower percentage. The most recent study of this kind, McGahan and Porter (1997), corroborates that there are significant stable business segment-specific effects (32% vs. 19% stable industry effects on firm profitability defined as rat
12、io of operating income to identifiable assets). While these studies provide a broad direction for future research, they do not indicate or identify the specific organizational factors that account for the major variations of firm performance. The focus of research in the RBV is probably best restric
13、ted to those differences between firms that competitors cannot (or do not) duplicate for whatever reason, or that competitors cannot duplicate closely enough to eliminate the advantage. Even with such a restricted focus, measurement of any competitive advantage remains problematic. As a result, the
14、presence of competitive advantage is normally inferred from sustained periods of above-average performance. It is to firms with performance that is consistently above the industry average (Reed and DeFillippi, 1990) that strategists and scholars must look for the sources of sustainable competitive a
15、dvantage. This selection criterion will, by definition, severely restrict sample sizes, which goes against the trend of mainstream strategy research. Yet, as we shall argue below, this is precisely what must occur if researchers are to isolate the sources of sustainable advantage that are theoretica
16、lly predicted by the RBV. Studies of competitive advantage using the RBV require a different approach. Firstly, since only firms with unique resources and competencies are assumed to have the potential for competitive advantages, the use of large-sample, cross-sectional analyses is unlikely to be ab
17、le to disentangle the variety of effects associated with time, industry, environment, strategy, and the resource/capability of interest. Secondly, systematic methods for obtaining information are generally available to all competitors and new techniques diffuse rapidly (Barney, 1986). Hence, most co
18、mpetitors are likely to react quickly to actions/resources/competencies discernible from secondary sources (annual reports, proxy statements, industry association newsletters, trade journals, etc.) and these could not form the basis of sustained advantage. Valuable but commonly held resources and ca
19、pabilities are sources merely of competitive parity (Barney, 1995). Methodology We propose an approach to stimulate and guide future studies of resource-based competitive advantage and sustainability issues that extends, complements, and builds upon methods that have dominated strategy research, but
20、 adds richness of detail with the potential to reveal the differences, strengths, and sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Such an approach, we maintain, would be needed to determine the comparative advantage from organizational factors (or synergistic combinations) predicted by the RBV to
21、be advantage producers. One of those factors, and the example we use here for illustrative purposes, is organizational culture. The framework begins with a four-step firm selection process. The first step involves the selection of an industry and generating performance data and rankings from seconda
22、ry sources. The selection of a single industry2 is important (Miller, Greenwood, and Hinings, 1997). Firms within an industry share strategic factor markets (Barney, 1986a), and industry attributes affect strategy decisions and organizational factors such as culture (Gordon, 1991). The second step i
23、s to cluster firms by strategic type or group within the industry selected. Shared strategies, communal strategic resources (such as mobility barriers), between group and within-group rivalry, and strategic group commonalities, including strategic group-level cultural attributes, can all be controll
24、ed for by clustering firms into strategic groups. A number of strategic group typologies have been developed (Herbert, 1987, provide a comprehensive review). Strategic groups must be validated, however, using more than one variable since groupings made on the basis of a single variable, such as size
25、, or innovation and R&D, do not hold up when other variables are used in their place. The third step in firm selection is to compare performance indices within strategic groups. The expectation is that firms within each strategic group will demonstrate performance variation (Cool , 1988). The final
26、step in the selection process is to identify those firms within each strategic group that are the high and low performers. The procedure of selecting out the central cluster of firms (perhaps one or more standard deviations on either side of the mean) should allow a more stark comparison of differen
27、ces between high and low performers. Pettigrew (1990) proposes this same decision rule for the study of change. These firms would be selected as research subjects using in-depth fieldwork or ethnographic study methods. Given our contention that sustainable advantages are organizational in origin, ta
28、cit, highly inimitable, socially complex, probably synergistic, embedded in process, and often driven by culture, there can be no other way to obtain the data of interest. Fieldwork which takes the researcher into the organization is essential, in our view, to gain an in-depth knowledge and understa
29、nding of the organization and its processes. Indeed, in foreshadowing much of what was to become the resource-based view of the firm, Penrose (1960) conducted research inside the Hercules Powder Company and used that more in-depth knowledge to illustrate the main arguments of her Theory of the Growt
30、h of the Firm (Penrose, 1959). Conclusion Until now, only the lack of a theoretically appropriate research framework has prevented testing of culture/advantage (and other resource-based, complex, highly inimitable, firm-specific/ advantage) relationships. In testing these relationships, the privileg
31、ed use of large sample, multiindustry, single time-period samples using secondary data sources exacerbates the search for key factors, such as organizational culture, that may provide competitive advantage. The RBV is fundamentally an enactment-based view of strategy formation and implementation (La
32、do and Wilson, 1994) in which firms are seen to proactively manage and shape their environments and not simply to respond to exogenous uncontrollable forces. By shifting the focus from adapting, to leveraging and developing resources for sustainable advantage, managers can reconceptualize what their
33、 businesses are, do, and can be. Similarly, by restricting their data collection to external views of organizations, researchers cannot hope to disentangle the ways firms are trying to make and have made themselves different from their competitors. This can only occur from inside organizations using
34、 a detailed, fieldwork-based comparison of carefully selected firms. This change in research approach may necessitate a new tolerance for alternative formats of reporting research results (Beyer, 1997) one that matches the change in theoretical perspective that has recently occurred in the strategy
35、field. Strategic management research has done an excellent job of sorting out a myriad of strategic variables, but an integrative perspective actualized in fieldwork-based or ethnographic-type research would, we think, point to valuable, strategically important factors and social synergies in organi
36、zations. Zahra and Pearce (1990) concur that indepth case studies offer a promising approach to developing such perspectives. By combining the traditional methods and strengths of strategic management theory and research with the methods and insights of organizational culture, future research may es
37、tablish the value of theoretically proposed resources and yield other important sources of sustainable competitive advantage. Building on the foundation of previous studies such as Collis (1991) and Henderson and Cockburn (1994), and the call from Mahoney (1995) to understand and develop the resourc
38、es in RBV theory, the procedures prescribed above provide a model for the study of sources of superior performance highlighted by a resource based view. This, in turn, may provide the empirical data needed to justify perceptions that the resource-based view has . . . momentous potential as a paradig
39、m in our field. As strategy scholars, we need only add to our proven methods of inquiry from the outside those of inquiry from the inside that have the potential to help disentangle intraorganizational sources of superior performance. The message from the resource-based view is clear. Factors inside
40、 organizations are a primary source of sustainable advantage. The discovery and evaluations of those advantages must, therefore, be done in organizations. 译文 对资源基础研究方法的再思考：可持续竞争优势的来源 资料来源：战略管理杂志 作者：迈克尔波特 探究传统观点与同时期有关持续竞争优势的建议得出了这样的观点，基因的优势主要是在于对组织的影响。主要的问题存在于研究调查的持续竞争优势的资源必 须不仅仅是有关于组织的，而且是存在于组织中的。然而
41、这个结论的附带结果是，用于战略研究的传统的研究方法将不会明确的揭示这些具有可持续优势的资源。以组织文化为例，将它作为一个可能具有可持续优势的基于资源模式的资源，那么建议建立一个四步的研究框架以隔离这些组织性的影响。在过去的二十年中，战略管理文化的重点已经从竞争优势主要取决于环境（行业 /市场）因素的观点转变为基于资源的观点（资源基础理论）（ 沃纳菲尔特 ，1984），该观点着重强调了独特的部署、独特的组织资源和能力会导致持续的卓越业绩（拉多，博伊德和赖特， 1992）。这种转变的基础是认识到可持续竞争的优势是来自于对那些有价值的，会产生裂缝的，企业特定资源和不能轻易被模仿或替代的能力。这种变量
42、的本质表明大样本，多行业，利用二次数据资源的单一时间周期样本不会有助于解开可能会提供持续优势的关键因素。 公司业绩，组织因素和可持续竞争优势 竞争优势还可以提供战略研究中的中心议题。产业组织模式，应急理论和最近的资源基础理论 以 “ 适合 ” 的视角，从外部因素转移到内部元素 强调了对卓越业绩至关重要的因素的范围。尽管有证据表明对宝贵资源的研究是有必要的，但这种资源很少，如果有的话， 也已经从持续竞争优势的角度被详细研究过了。 罗曼尔特 1991的研究，划分了产业界、企业和事业单位动产的业绩变化，强调试图解释观察到的存在于业务单位利润率中的分散的一个重要部分的研究必须以业务单位为分析单元，并且
43、必须着眼于行业内的异质性资源。类似的，汉森和 沃纳菲尔特 （ 1989）将过去五年内的资产报酬率总变化的百分之三十以上归因于组织性因素，而行业水平因素只有相当低的百分比。在这一类的最近的研究中，麦加汗和波特（ 1997）证实存在显著稳定的部分具体业务的影响（为 32%，相比于稳定于 19%的行业对企业盈利的影响，这 一百分比是以营业收益与可确认净资产的比率来定义的）。 虽然这些研究提供了广阔的未来研究方向，它们却并未表明或定义具体的能够说明企业效益的主要变化的因素。 资源基础理论的研究重点可能最好是限于各企业之间的不同，这种不同是竞争者无论以何种理由都不能够（或不会）复制的，或者竞争者无法完全
44、复制从而排除掉他人的优势的。即使限于这一重点，对任一竞争优势的测量仍然是有问题的。因此，是否存在竞争优势通常是从一段持续时间的总体平均业绩来推断出的。对那些业绩始终高于行业平均水平的企业（里德和 DeFillippi,1990），战略 家和学者们必须寻找的持续竞争优势的来源。根据定义本次选择标准将会严重限制样本大小，这是与主流战略研究的趋势相违背的。接下来我们会论证，按照资源基础观（ RBV）理论上预测的什么将会明确发生如果研究者们分离持续优势的来源。 利用资源基础理论（ RBV）来研究竞争优势需要不同的方法。首先，因为只有那些拥有独特资源和能力的公司才能够被假设为具有竞争优势的潜力，大样本的
45、适用、截面分析是不可能解开与时间、行业、环境、战略和资源 /收益能力有关的财物变化。其次，获得信息的系统方法通常适用于所有的竞争者，并且新技术扩散是十分迅 速的（巴尼， 1986）。因此，大部分的竞争者对行动 /资源 /二次资源（年度报告，代理声明，行业联合通讯，贸易杂志等等）的可识别能力会做出快速反应，然而这些并不能形成持续优势的基础。有价值但是被普遍掌握的资源和能力仅仅是同等竞争的资源（巴尼， 1995）。 方法 我们提出了一个方法去激励和引导未来有关基于资源的竞争优势的研究，以及延伸、补充和依赖于支配战略研究的方法的可持续问题的研究，但是增加了细节的丰富性从而更具有潜力去揭露差异、优势和
46、持续竞争优势的来源。我们坚持这种方法将被需要去确定被 RBV 预测为优势产生者的 组织因素（或协同组合）的相对优势。这些因素其中之一，也是我们此处为举例说明而使用的是组织文化。 该框架始于一个四步的公司选择过程。第一步包括行业的选择、能够得看出业绩的数据和二次资源得出的排名。对单一的第二行业的选择是很重要的（米勒，格林伍德和 ,1997）。具有行业内战略因素市场份额（巴尼， 1986a）以及行业属性影响战略决定和类如文化的组织因素 (戈登， 1991)的公司。第二步是通过战略类型或者所选行业内的组别来聚集企业。共享战略，公有的战略资源（比如移动障碍），组间和组内竞争，战略组群共用，包括战略组级
47、的 文化属性，这些都能够通过将公司战略聚集而被掌控。一些战略组群类型学已经很成熟了（赫伯特， 1987，提供一个全面的评审）。战略群组必须是被确定有效的，然而使用超过一个变量时，因为群组是基于单一变量而形成的，比如说大小或创新和研发，当其他的变量被用于它们的位置上时就不能够支撑这种群组。企业选择的第三步是在战略群组内比较业绩指数。我们期望的是每一战略群组内的企业将能够展示业绩的变化（库尔 ,1988）。 选择过程的最后一步是确定每一战略群组中各企业为高或低绩效。选择企业中心群的过程 (可能一个或更多的标准偏差存在于平 均数的任一侧 )应当允许更为严格的比较高业绩与低业绩企业之间的差异。 佩蒂格
48、鲁（ 1990）提出了同样的决策规则用于改变的研究。这些企业将会被选中作为研究对象适用深入的实地调查或者人种学研究方法。鉴于我们的论点是可持续优势是组织因素在起源上的、心照不宣的、高度独特的、社会复杂性的、可能协同的、嵌入式过程的并且常常是由文化驱动的，没有其他办法可以获得 感兴趣的数据。 将研究者带入组织的实地调查是必要的，在我们看来这是为了获得深入的知识和对组织及其过程的理解。事实上，也预示了什么必将成为企业基础资源性的观点，彭罗斯（ 1960）进行的大力士粉末公司内的研究，使用了这种更为深入的知识为例说明她关于企业成长的主要论点（彭罗斯， 1959）。 结论 到目前为止，只有一个在理论上
49、缺乏合适性的研究框架被阻止进行文化 /优势（和其他基于资源的、复杂的、高度独特的、公司特色的 /占优势的）联系的测试。在这些联系的测试中，大样本、多行业、使用二次数据资源的单一时间周期样本的优先采用加剧了关键因素的研究，比如说组织文化，这种能够提供竞争优势的因素。基础资源理论（ RBV）根本上是一种基于法规的有关战略形成和实施的观点（拉多和威尔逊， 1994），其中企 业被认为是主动管理和塑造其环境的，而不是简单的应对外来的不可控制势力。通过把重点从适应上转移到借助和开发可持续优势资源上，管理者能够重新思考他们的业务是什么、做什么并且可以成为什么。同样的，通过限制他们的对来外来的有关组织的观点的数据采集，研究者不能够期待解开企业尝试努力并使得自己与其他竞争者不同的方法。这只能出现于详细的、基于实地考察比较后精心挑选出的公司的内部组织。研究方法上的改变也许会迫使出现新的对报告研究结果二选一模式的忍耐（拜尔， 1997） 理论上预测的相匹配的这种改变最近已经出现在战略领域。 战略管理研究已经完成了一个精彩的给无数战略变量排序的工作，但在实地考察基础上的综合角度的实现或者人种型学类别的研究将会指向有价值的、战略性的重要因素和社会组织中的
