Constructing competitive advantage: the role of firm–constituent interactions

Violina P. Rindova and Charles J. Fombrun

Strategic Management Journal, 1999, vol. 20, issue 8, 691-710

Abstract: Current models of competitive advantage emphasize economic factors as explanations for a firm’s success but ignore sociocognitive factors. This paper integrates economic and cognitive perspectives, and shows how firms and constituents jointly construct the environments in which firms compete. We argue that competitive advantage is a systemic outcome that develops as firms and constituents participate in six processes that entail, not only use and exchange of resources, but also communication about and interpretations of those exchanges. The interpretations that firms and constituents make of competitive interactions affect decisions about how to exchange and use resources. As interpretations and evaluations of a given firm fluctuate, so do the resources the firm has access to and its competitive advantage in the marketplace. The actions and interpretations of constituents and rivals produce the shifting terrain on which competition unfolds. We illustrate these dynamics with a discussion of IBM’s changing competitive advantage in the computer industry in the 1980s. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (49)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0266(199908)20:83.0.CO;2-1

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:stratm:v:20:y:1999:i:8:p:691-710

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0143-2095

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Strategic Management Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().