(A) the transition from market structure theory to resource-based theory
Since the middle and late 1980s, the basic logic of enterprise competition has changed significantly. Before that, the market competition was in a relatively stable state, and the enterprise strategy could remain unchanged for a period of time. The key for enterprises to gain competitive advantage is how to choose the right competitive industry and give it a correct positioning. With the rise of knowledge economy, global economic integration and the intensification of international market competition, the life cycle of products is shortening day by day, and the success of enterprises depends on market forecasting and rapid response to changes in customer needs. Therefore, the core of enterprise strategy is no longer the product and market structure of the enterprise, but its behavior ability; The goal of strategy is to identify and develop heterogeneous capabilities, which is the main symbol for consumers to distinguish enterprises from competitors. Enterprise resource-based theory emphasizes that the focus of enterprise management practice should shift from external conditions to internal conditions, and holds that key resources are the basis and source of enterprise competitive advantage.
The emergence of enterprise resource-based theory is due to the limitations and shortcomings of Porter's industrial structure strategy theory. According to Porter's industrial structure theory, it is suitable for the relatively stable stage of industrial structure in the industrial economy era. In the era of knowledge economy, the limitations of this theory are gradually exposed. In the era of knowledge economy, emerging industries emerge one after another, and the relative relationship between industries is constantly changing. The difference in profitability between enterprises in the same industry is much larger than that between enterprises in different industries. This difference is obviously not determined by the market structure, but by the internal factors of the enterprise.
In this context, since the 1980s, researchers have shifted the focus of exploring the competitive advantage of enterprises to the enterprise level, and many theories have emerged: resource-based theory, core competence theory, knowledge-based theory, enterprise dynamic competence theory and so on. Although these theories have different concepts, they all think that compared with the external conditions of enterprises, the internal conditions of enterprises have a decisive role in gaining market competitive advantage, which is the so-called endogenous theory of enterprise competitive advantage. Theoretical circles are collectively called enterprise competence theory, including static endogenous theory and dynamic endogenous theory.
(B) Resource-based theory
Resource-based theory is a major breakthrough in the enterprise theory of neoclassical economics. In neoclassical economics, enterprises are "black boxes" and there is no difference between enterprises. Porter's theory did not break through the enterprise theory of neoclassical economics, but the enterprise theory based on resources did. This theory not only breaks the traditional "black box theory of enterprise", but also challenges the modern enterprise theory that has dominated for decades. It organically combines economics and management, not only understands and analyzes enterprises in essence, but also is rooted in the internal affairs of enterprise management.
There are at least the following important differences between neoclassical economics and resource-based enterprise hypothesis theory. Neoclassical economics believes that the supply of resources and capabilities (that is, factors of production in neoclassical economics) is completely elastic. When the demand for a certain resource or capability increases, its price will rise and the supply in the market will increase accordingly. Although the resource-based enterprise theory does not deny that the supply of some production factors is indeed completely elastic. However, they think that the supply of some resources and capabilities is inelastic because of their path dependence, causal ambiguity and social complexity (Barney, Law Firm, 199 1). This means that those enterprises with inelastic supply resources or capabilities will get excess profits, and inelastic supply will become a source of sustainable competitive advantage for enterprises (Peteraf, 1993). Ricardo also studied this kind of problem more than 200 years ago. Under the condition of limited supply of fertile land, Ricardo analyzed the profitability of the farm and studied how the production factors with inelastic supply affected the profit of the farm. Ricardo only thinks that only a limited number of production factors have the characteristics of inelastic supply, while the resource-based theory of enterprises thinks that all resources and capabilities that meet the above characteristics have the characteristics of inelastic supply, that is, more production factors besides land also have the characteristics of inelastic supply.
Neoclassical economics has made great contributions to the development of enterprise resource-based theory. From 65438 to 0986, Barney perfected the core content of enterprise resource-based theory on the basis of neoclassical economics and formed the famous "strategic factor market" theory. According to this theory, under the condition of perfect competition, price can reflect all information; However, under the market conditions of imperfect competition, the inflexible supply of resources and capabilities can absorb all the profits. In order to obtain economic rent, enterprises must obtain resources and capabilities in the imperfect competitive strategic factor market. But neoclassical economics can't be used to explain all enterprise viewpoints based on resource theory. It may be more helpful to think about the problem from another angle.
Evolutionary economic theory and resource-based enterprise theory have many similarities. For example, the rules in evolutionary economics are a kind of resource or ability. If the ability is defined as the ability of an enterprise to use resources to produce competitive advantages, there is almost no difference between rules and abilities. In addition, both agree that the heterogeneity of resources and capabilities is the source of excess performance and sustainable competitive advantage. In these two theories, fundamentally speaking, it is the dependence path of enterprises, that is, the knowledge ownership of enterprises makes enterprises different from other enterprises in many aspects, so that they can formulate rent-obtaining strategies different from other enterprises. In addition, both the resource-based theory and the evolutionary economic theory of enterprises have a basic theory about enterprise performance.
Different from the starting point of Porter's strategic management theory, the resource-based theory opens the "black box" of enterprises, thinking that enterprises are composed of a series of unique resources, most of which cannot be accumulated quickly in a short time, so there will be differences between enterprises; It is pointed out that the competitive advantage of an enterprise comes from the resources it owns or can control.
Wernefelter pointed out in his classic paper "Resource Basis of Enterprises" that resources generally include brand names, technical knowledge owned by enterprises, skilled employees, trade contracts, efficient working procedures and so on. Cullis and Montgomery think (collis &; Montgomery, 1997), resources can exist in many forms; It may be a general factor input that is widely existing in competitive transactions and easy to buy, or it may be a highly differentiated resource that needs to be accumulated for many years and is difficult to copy, such as a brand. He divided resources into three categories: tangible assets, intangible assets and organizational capacity. According to the resource-based theory, these resources must be "strategic resources", and only strategic resources are the realistic source of sustainable competitive advantage. Strategic resources must have four basic characteristics: value, scarcity, unrepeatability and irreplaceable.
The resource-based theory has two assumptions: first, the enterprises in an industry are heterogeneous according to the resources they control; Second, the resources controlled by enterprises cannot flow completely, and the heterogeneity of resources lasts for a long time. Barney believes that if the resources and capabilities of enterprises are valuable, scarce and difficult to imitate, then they are very important for creating and maintaining competitive advantages. Therefore, some representatives of resource-based theory believe that enterprises must "isolate" or "isolate" the possible imitation behavior of competitors in order to further obtain a sustainable "resource heterogeneity". That is to say, an "isolation mechanism" has been formed. By setting up various forms of time delay, information asymmetry and barriers that can organize or alleviate market competition and effectively protect scarce resources, we can obtain static competitive advantage.
American scholar Jay Barney is one of the most famous representatives of resource-based theory. He defined resources as assets, knowledge, information, capabilities, characteristics and organizational procedures of an enterprise, and divided them into financial, physical, personnel and organizational resources. Barney believes that if the resources and capabilities of enterprises are valuable, scarce and difficult to imitate, they are very important for creating and maintaining competitive advantages: the value of resources is determined by the available opportunities for developing resources, which sometimes change, making resources from valuable to worthless; Important resources related to competition are scarce. If competitors have the same or similar resources and capabilities, enterprises will lose their competitive advantage. Another criterion of competitive important resources is that it is difficult to imitate. Barney believes that many material resources are easy to imitate, while resources and abilities based on teamwork, culture and organizational procedures are difficult to imitate. These resources are usually caused by the complex history and numerous small decisions of the enterprise itself over a period of time, which contribute to the development of unique capabilities.
(C) the core competence theory
The theory of core competitiveness is developed on the basis of resource-based theory. According to the theory of core competence, the concept of resource-based enterprise has been completely divorced from the human factors in the enterprise, and the source of competitive advantage is no longer defined in the specific resources as things, which leads to the separation between resources and resource allocators. In fact, the effectiveness of objective material resources depends entirely on the people who use it, and behind the heterogeneity of resources is the heterogeneity of people. The root of enterprise's competitive advantage has changed from concrete and objective resources to the ability to allocate, develop and protect resources.
Although the resource school makes up for the deficiency of traditional competitive strategy theory to some extent, not all resources can be the source of competitive advantage and high profit, and there can be no causal relationship between competitive advantage and most resources. In view of the deficiency of resource-based theory, some scholars began to analyze the source of competitive advantage from the aspect of enterprise's ability to allocate and utilize resources through the superficial phenomenon of resources, and found that the core ability of developing, utilizing and protecting resources hidden behind resources is the deep source of enterprise's competitive advantage. The root of enterprise competitive advantage has changed from concrete resources to abstract core competence, that is, the theory of enterprise core competence.
1990, C.K.Prahalad and hamel published the article "enterprise core competence" in Harvard business review, which set off a research upsurge around enterprise core competence (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). It is believed that core competence has three main characteristics: first, core competence has enough user value, which can create value and reduce costs; Second, the core competence is unique and difficult to be imitated by competitors; Third, the core competence has certain extensibility, which can provide support for enterprises to reach multiple markets. In the process of gaining competitive advantage, the cultivation of internal ability and the comprehensive application of various abilities are the most critical factors.
According to the theory of core competitiveness, the accumulation, maintenance and application of core competitiveness are the decisive factors for enterprises to open up product markets. The difference of its core competence leads to the difference of efficiency among enterprises, and then makes different enterprises produce different benefits; The key for enterprises to gain competitive advantage is core competitiveness, which comes from the organic integration of various skills accumulated by enterprises in the long-term development process.
The general logical reasoning theory of enterprises based on resources can also be used to express the core competence analysis related to sustainable competitive advantage. Core competence should have:
(1) value. Core competence should be able to improve the efficiency of enterprises, or core competence can make enterprises do better than competitors in creating value and reducing costs, thus bringing new value or providing fundamental benefits to end users. The change of enterprise environment will threaten the value of core competitiveness.
(2) Heterogeneity. Core competence is not a sufficient condition for creating value, and the creation of value is based on the fact that enterprises use different kinds of other resources more effectively than their competitors.
(3) It cannot be copied. Core competence prevents imitation through two independent mechanisms. One is related to the special nature of resources (such as social complexity and fuzzy causality). ); The other is to protect its precious resources by adopting various strategic measures (such as patents, brands, protective contract terms, trade secrets, etc.). ). Once the core competence is copied, the competitive advantage of the related enterprises will be reduced or even disappeared.
(4) it is difficult to replace. Substitutes often threaten the core competitiveness of enterprises and reposition the competitive advantage among enterprises.
Knowledge-based theory
Enterprises with core competence will have core rigidity (LeonardBarton, 1992). Core rigidity means that in the rapid environmental changes, the core competence can not be changed, and the original core competence of an enterprise can not become its competitive advantage, but become the shackles of its competitive development. Therefore, many scholars have further studied the integration and evolution of enterprise capabilities and environment, and on this basis, they have produced the enterprise knowledge theory.
The core competence referred to in competence-based theory mainly refers to the ability of enterprises to allocate, develop and protect resources. These abilities can be summarized as the ability of continuous innovation. The differences in the utilization degree of various resources and the innovation ability of enterprises are all determined by the existing knowledge stock of enterprises. Behind the difference of ability is actually the difference of knowledge stock, and ability is the obvious performance of knowledge stock.
According to the theory based on knowledge, the knowledge owned by enterprises should be difficult to imitate, that is, tacit knowledge of enterprises, which has three characteristics: first, it is process, and it is difficult to experience the existence of this knowledge if competitors do not participate in this process, and imitation is even more difficult; Second, integrity, the explicit knowledge in enterprises is combined with tacit knowledge, and competitors can only imitate explicit knowledge but cannot realize tacit knowledge; Third, it is not clear. In the process of imitation, competitors always hope to find and imitate the core factors, but tacit knowledge often plays a key role, making those enterprises who want to imitate not know what to imitate and how to imitate. The basic theory of enterprise knowledge also holds that knowledge has path dependence or historical dependence.
According to the theory of core competence, the competitive advantage of an enterprise comes from its ability to allocate, develop, utilize and protect resources. But what is hidden behind the enterprise's ability? Research shows that what lies behind the ability and determines the enterprise's ability is the knowledge that the enterprise has mastered. With the development of knowledge economy and society, knowledge plays an increasingly prominent role in the development of enterprises. According to the knowledge-based theory, an enterprise is an organization or a collection of knowledge, and the difference of performance among enterprises comes from the asymmetry of knowledge and the difference of enterprise capabilities. Knowledge-based theory holds that the realization of enterprise scale effect depends on the knowledge and management ability of enterprise managers, so the knowledge of the organization and the corresponding enterprise ability are important factors for enterprises to gain competitive advantage. The knowledge stock of an enterprise determines its ability to cultivate innovative activities such as resources, thus reflecting its competitive advantage in its final output and market power. Knowledge is difficult to imitate and path dependence is strong. Therefore, knowledge is an important reason and the root of enterprise's sustainable competitive advantage. Enterprise cognitive learning ability determined by enterprise knowledge is an inexhaustible source for enterprises to develop new competitive advantages.
(5) Dynamic capability theory
When core competence is defined as "knowledge accumulated within an organization", it is emphasized that core competence is formed in the long-term development of an enterprise, and once it is formed, it is relatively stable, and so is enterprise knowledge. However, the environment faced by enterprises is dynamic, and the core competence and knowledge they have now may not meet the needs of future competition. The change of environment and the emergence of new technologies may make the core competence carefully cultivated by enterprises become worthless overnight. The contradiction between the stability of core competence, the rigidity of enterprise resources and knowledge and the dynamic environment leads to the dilemma of core competence and knowledge theory.
In this context, Otis, Pizarro and Schon put forward the concept of dynamic capability. Dynamic capability is defined as "the ability to integrate, build and reset the internal and external capabilities of a company to adapt to rapid environmental changes". "Dynamic" refers to constantly updating one's own abilities, organizational skills, resources and functional abilities inside and outside the company, and making adaptive adjustment, integration and reset to keep up with the needs of environmental changes. The theory of dynamic capability aims to cultivate the ability of enterprises, pay more attention to the changes of business environment, and make the resources and capabilities of enterprises to create competitive advantages constantly upgrade and update with the changes of business environment. It is a "dynamic endogenous theory" of competitive advantage.
According to the theory of dynamic capability, the key for enterprises to gain sustainable competitive advantage lies in: firstly, developing existing capabilities; The second is to develop new capabilities. The unique ability of an enterprise is hidden, which exists in the advantages of technology and knowledge, the processing flow of daily affairs and enterprise practice. This hidden ability is difficult to copy and imitate. Developing new capabilities requires enterprises to face the changing market environment, quickly integrate and reconstruct internal and external resources and capabilities, and form new competitive advantages.
Looking at the various viewpoints of resource-based theory, they all study enterprises with resources as the center, and pay full attention to the position of enterprises as active subjects in the competition system. The four schools of enterprise resource theory, core competence theory, knowledge-based theory and enterprise dynamic competence theory are relatively independent and complementary. They all believe that the growth of enterprises is closely related to the accumulation of knowledge and ability that enables enterprises to expand production areas. Abstract: There are many theoretical schools about enterprise development, forming a theoretical jungle. Taking the development and change of business environment as a clue, we can clearly understand the evolution law of enterprise development theory by clearly combing these theories. From market structure theory to resource-based theory, from resource-based theory to core competence theory, and later knowledge-based theory and dynamic competence theory, they all evolved and developed with the change of enterprise operating environment.
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