Knowledge that Transforms

This article analyzes the role of top management as a key resource in obtaining sustained, competitive advantage for thefirm. The nature of managerial skills is examined and linked to isolating mechanisms and firm rents. The article aims to refocus attention on the importance of managerial expertise as a rent-generating firm resource and implies greater alignment of top management-shareholder interests than in many applications of agency theory to the firm.

Previous organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) research (a) has not demonstrated that extra-role behaviors can be distinguished empirically from in-role activities, and (b) has not examined the relative contributions of components ofjob satisfaction a nd organizational commitment to the performance of OCBs. Factor analysis of survey data from 127 employees' supervisors supported the distinction between in-role behaviors and two forms of OCBs. Hierarchical regression analysis found two job cognitions variables (intrinsic and extrinsic) to be differentially related to the two types OCBs, but affective variables and organizational commitment were not significant predictors. The link between the present findings and previous research is discussed, as are directions forfuture research.

Theory suggests that synergy is an essential ingredientfor value creation to occur as a result of acquisitions. This dominant theory often argues for similarities among resources in the acquiring and targetfirms. However; it is argued here that uniquely valuable synergy might be created where differences (versus similarities) exist between resources in the acquiring and target firms. Tests of these competing hypotheses confirmed that differences contributed significantly to performance in the mergedfirm. Thisfinding may suggest that traditional distinctions between related and unrelated mergers may not be as useful as once thought. A focus on specific resources rather than strategy types in the merger and acquisition research may better explain firm performance.

Understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage has become a major area of research in strategic management. Building on the assumptions that strategic resources are heterogeneously distributed acrossfirms and that these differences are stable over time, this article examines the link betweenfirm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Four empirical indicators of the potential of firm resources to generate sustained competitive advantage-value, rareness, imitability, and substitutability-are discussed. The model is applied by analyzing the potential of severalfirm resourcesfor generating sustained competitive advantages. The article concludes by examining implications of this firm resource model of sustained competitive advantage for other business disciplines.