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Question 1

What are resources?

Answer 1

A productive input or competitive asset that is owned or controlled by a company.e.g., cash, buildings…

Question 2

What are capabilities?

Answer 2

The organisational and managerial skills necessary to orchestrate a diverse set of resources and to deploy them strategically.
Capabilities are by nature intangible.
Capabilities find their expression in a company’s structure, routines, and processes.

Question 3

What are core competencies?

Answer 3

Unique strengths, embedded within a company.
Allow firm to differentiate its products and services from those of its rivals.
Is a well performed internal activity that is central to a firm’s strategy and competitiveness.

Question 4

What are activities?

Answer 4

Enables firms to add value by transforming inputs into outputs.

Question 5

What are physical resources?

Answer 5

• Access rights to natural resources (such as mineral deposits)
• Manufacturing plants, equipment, distribution facilities and their location
• Real estate and land.

Question 6

What are financial resources?

Answer 6

• Cash and cash equivalents
• Marketable securities
• Other financial assets, e.g. borrowing capacity.

Question 7

What are organisational resources?

Answer 7

• IT and communication systems
• Planning, coordination and control systems
• Organizational design and reporting structure

Question 8

What are the types of tangible resources?

Answer 8

Physical, financial, and organisational resources.

Question 9

What are the types of intangible resources?

Answer 9

• Brands, company image and repetitional assets
• relationships
• company culture and incentive system
• technological resources
• human assets and intellectual capital.

Question 10

What is dynamic capability?

Answer 10

An organization’s ability to achieve new and innovative forms of competitive advantage to sustain its strategical superiority.

Question 11

What is the basic assumption of the resource-nased view?

Answer 11

A firm ́s competitive advantage is a result of its resources and combinations
of resources.

Question 12

What are the basic requirements of the resource based view?

Answer 12

Resource heterogeneity: bundles of resources and capabilities differ across firms.
Resource immobility: resources tend to be sticky and don’t move easily from one firm to other firms.

Question 13

What is the result of resource-based view?

Answer 13

Firm ́s resources can lead to enduring competitive advantages, which, in turn, should lead to superior economic success.

Question 14

What is the VRIO framework?

Answer 14

Valuable, rare, inimitable, organised to capture value.
Only resources and capabilities that fulfill all of the four VRIO criteria can add the development of core competencies that may translate into a sustainable competitive advantage.

Question 15

What is the value chain concept?

Answer 15

Identifies the primary internal activities that create customer value and the related support
activities.
Permits a deep look at the firm’s cost structure and ability to offer low prices.
Reveals the emphasis that a firm places on activities that enhance differentiation and support higher prices.

Question 16

What are the types of linkages?

Answer 16

Types of linkages:
- Linkages within the value chain: between activities
- Vertical linkages: between firm’s value chain and the value chain of suppliers and
channels (value network)

Question 17

How can linkages lead to competitive advantage?

Answer 17

Reducing costs or increasing differentiation.

Question 18

What are relational capabilities?

Answer 18

Are interorganizational capabilities needed for firms to be able to “jointly manage interorganizational resources, capabilities, and processes in ways that allow the partners to both generate relational rents and appropriate abnormal returns”.

Question 19

What is relational view of competitive advantage?

Answer 19

Critical resources and capabilities are embedded in strategic alliances that span firm boundaries.

Question 20

What are strategic alliances?

Answer 20

Voluntary arrangements between firms.

Question 21

What is the aim of strategic alliances?

Answer 21

Sharing knowledge, resources, and capabilities.

Question 22

Why do firms enter strategic alliances?

Answer 22

• Strengthen competitive position
• enter new markets
• hedge against uncertainty
• access to complementary assets
• learn new capabilities.

Question 23

What are the different governance forms of strategic alliances?

Answer 23

Equity modes, joint venture, non-equity modes.

Question 24

What are the equity modes?

Answer 24

Minority, 50/50, majority.

Question 25

What is joint venture?

Answer 25

Creation of new entity by two or more patent firms.

Question 26

What are the two non-equity modes?

Answer 26

informal cooperative alliances, formal cooperative alliances.

Question 27

What are strategic networks?

Answer 27

Strategic networks are a social structure composed of multiple organizations.
Networks achieve goals that cannot be done by only one firm.

Question 28

What are the two types of strategic networks? Explain them?

Answer 28

• Network nodes: the organizations
• Network ties: the links between organizations

Question 29

What is network centrality?

Answer 29

Firm A is in the most central network position.

Question 30

What is knowledge broker?

Answer 30

Firm B is in key position to span a structural hole.

Question 31

What is outlook?

Answer 31

Creating a strategic fit to leverage a firm ́s internal strengths to exploit external opportunities.