Micro-foundations have become an important emerging theme in strategic management. This paper addresses micro-foundations in two related ways. First, we argue that the kind of macro (or “collectivist”) explanation that is utilized in the capabilities view in strategic management ? which...

This paper argues that not only Edith Penrose, but also Harold Demsetz should be seen as a dominant source of inspiration for RBP scholars, that these two crucial influences hold different and even conflicting views of the economic process, and that they helped found different research areas and...

The “knowledge governance approach” is characterized as a distinctive, emerging approach that cuts across the fields of knowledge management, organisation studies, strategy, and human resource management. Knowledge governance is taken up with how the deployment of governance mechanisms...

Organizational routines and capabilities have become key constructs not only in evolutionary economics, but more recently also in business administration, specifically strategic management. In this chapter we explicate some of the underlying theoretical problems of these concepts, and discuss...

Recent research on the differentiated MNC has concerned knowledge flows between MNC units. While linking up with this literature, we extend in two directions. First, we argue that conceptualizing the MNC as a knowledge structure furthers the understanding of intra-MNC knowledge flows. Thus, we...

Over the last two decades the resource-based view (“RBV”) has become dominant in the strategic management field. It has often been observed that the RBV is lacking in the dynamic dimension. For example, processes of building competitive advantages by means of combining existing complementary...

Making links between micro and macro levels has been problematic in the social sciences, and the literature in strategic management and organization theory is no exception. The purpose of this chapter is to raise theoretical issues in developing micro-foundations for strategic management and...

The way in which bounded rationality enters contemporary organizational economics theorizing is examined. It is argued that, as it is being used, bounded rationality is neither necessary nor sufficient for producing the results of organizational economics. It is at best a rhetorical device, used...