ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, the study of business strategy and policy has witnessed a relatively quiet revolution loosely organized around the belief that competitive advantage-and the persistence of economic rents-may have relational components that are neither industry nor firm specific (Dyer 1996; Hansen et al. 1997). The effects of this gradual reorientation have remained largely unnoticed because of the (i) rapid diffusion and managerial appeal of resource-based approaches to firm behaviour and performance (Rumelt 1984; Wernefelt 1984); (ii) solid economic roots and indisputable value of more traditional industry-based approaches to competitive strategy (Porter 1980); and (iii) lack of an integrated-let alone coherentframework for exploring the relational basis of organizational structures and processes.
