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Porter's activity‐based view of the firm is a comprehensive strategic framework which analyzes firm‐level competitive advantage. Although Porter's activity‐based view is widely cited by academics, taught to students, and applied by practitioners, little is known about its intellectual roots. Given that a framework's intellectual antecedents not only determine its current content, but also its future development, this paper aims to examine the intellectual roots of Porter's activity‐based view and the value chain.

The paper examines Porter's writings in an effort to document his influences while developing the activity‐based view and value chain. Porter's and other scholars' explanations are found to be lacking, so the paper ventures further down paths first suggested by Porter and others.

Whereas Porter's five forces framework built on the existing industrial organization paradigm, the activity‐based view is not derived from any existing paradigms. While consultants of the 1970s impacted Porter's development of the value chain and the activity‐based view, its deeper roots lay in operations research, particularly activity analysis; and the work of Arch Shaw, who was the first to teach a business policy course at Harvard Business School. Porter's contribution is to bring the diverse threads together into a coherent whole which managers can apply to analyze and improve their competitive positions.

Following Porter, the authors argue that activities are a key link between resource holdings and strategic positions. Therefore, it is only when the activity‐based and resource‐based views are integrated that they provide a comprehensive explanation of firm value creation.

The paper is the first to critically examine the intellectual antecedents of the activity‐based view.

Makes the case that the classical theory of production, as developed primarily by Adam Smith, should be seen as a precursor of the modern capabilities view of the firm (Penrose, Richardson, Nelson and Winter, Teece, Langlois and others). Furthermore, based on an empiricist epistemology, Smith developed ideas that are close to modern notions such as routines and bounded rationality. Shows that his emphasis on knowledge, specialization and learning is characteristic of the capabilities view, but not of the contractual view. Discusses the intellectual link from Smith to other classicals, such as Babbage and Marx, to Marshall and such post‐Marshallians as McGregor, Andrews, Downie, Penrose, and Richardson. Argues that the classical‐capabilities view of the firm can be seen as a theory of firm boundaries. States that the make‐or‐buy decision may in fact hinge on production‐cost considerations, contrary to the spirit of standard transaction‐cost economics.

Almost since the inception of the resource‐based view (RBV), critics have complained that the view is weak in the prescriptive dimension. A recent statement of this critique is by Priem and Butler, who argue that the RBV does not address value creation. One aspect of this is that the link between resources and value creation is black‐boxed. The paper aims to argue that a Porterian activity analysis with a focus on activity drivers can remedy this weakness, and how it brings into focus important implementation issues that are neglected in the RBV.

The study extends Priem and Butler's critique of the RBV by examining the RBV literature in light of Porter's activity‐based framework.

The resource‐based logic has been gainfully applied in many fields other than strategy. However, because it lacks the concept of activities, the paper argues that it has not reached its full potential in the field of strategy. Formally including the concept of activities and activity drivers addresses the prescriptive shortcomings of the RBV.

Porter's activity drivers are “levers” that managers can manipulate to improve firm value creation in two ways: The first method involves using activity drivers to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of individual activities. The second method involves improving the fit at the level of the firm's activity set. Managers may identify potentially rewarding competitive positions and then use competitive data regarding rivals' activities and drivers to gauge how successful their firm may be in capturing these positions.

This is one of the first attempts to address the prescriptive shortcomings of the RBV using a Porterian activity lens.

This paper draws on ideas in economics and game theory to develop a new theory of marketing in the emerging network economy. The paper argues that in a network economy, firms and consumers will confront “coordination problems”. With the emerging network economy all this becomes urgent because the availability and cost of information decreases. Also, timing issues become urgent as millions of people get access to the same information simultaneously. That explains why events where masses of viewers simultaneously participate in the same events become so important. The paper introduces a simple game theoretic model and discusses marketing applications and possible strategies. These strategies imply considerable use of communication resources in order to fulfil the common knowledge requirements.

Past decades have witnessed significant contributions to theories of the firm, innovation and economic growth from two closely related paradigms, namely, the Capabilities School and National Innovation Systems Approach. Unlike the neoclassical models of the firm and growth, these two paradigms place emphasis on the knowledge and learning process in understanding economic development. Despite being closer to reality in their treatment of economic issues than their neoclassical school counterpart, the two paradigms have not put human agency in the forefront of their analysis. This paper constructs a theory of national capabilities in the subjectivist perspective, which is then extended to understand firm and national capabilities and competitiveness. While this paper recognizes the influence of institutions on firms' decision making, unlike contemporary evolutionary literatures, the subjectivist perspective highlights the fact that all institutions are the coordinating effort of human actions which attempt to interpret external events or make sense out of social or economic interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implementation of risk management as a tool for internal audit activities, focusing on unexpected effects or uncertainties generated during its application.

Public and confidential documents as well as semi-structured interviews are analysed through the lens of actor-network theory to identify the effects of risk management devices in a Finnish municipality.

The authors found that risk management, rather than reducing uncertainty, itself created unexpected uncertainties that would otherwise not have emerged. These include uncertainties relating to legal aspects of risk management solutions, in particular the issue concerning which types of document are considered legally valid; uncertainties relating to the definition and operationalisation of risk management; and uncertainties relating to the resources available for expanding risk management. More generally, such uncertainties relate to the professional identities and responsibilities of operational managers as defined by the framing devices.

The paper offers three contributions to the extant literature: first, it shows how risk management itself produces uncertainties. Secondly, it shows how internal auditors can assume a central role in the risk management system. Thirdly, it develops Callon's framing/overflowing framework with the notion that multiple frames are linked and create unexpected dynamics, and applies it to the study on the effects of risk management tools in an internal audit context. It shows how, despite recurring attempts to refine risk management, further uncertainties are continuously produced, thus providing an empirical illustration of how reframing and overflowing intertwine in a continual process.

The purpose of this study is to critically examine and review the extant research on corporate entrepreneurship champions in the broader area of corporate entrepreneurship and to uncover the avenues for advancement of the scholarship with the purpose of engaging CE champions towards the upliftment of organisations in particular, and younger workforce in general.

In this study, authors employ bibliometric analysis through a review of 274 papers fetched from Web of Science and Scopus databases.

The authors set the agenda for future research and policy by elucidating research themes and potential research questions by bringing out twelve themes classified into five basic themes, three niche themes, three motor themes, and one key theme, while also providing the methodological inputs for carrying out this agenda.

This study adopts a unique lens of investigation in contextualising the role of self-efficacy, employee engagement, and career choice for the younger workforce.

Smart connected products (SCP) are the new archetype of products evolving. SCP are subtly changing the product-centric business to system-centric. Development and monetization of new SCP is an uphill task, it necessitates unique market orientation and business models. The purpose of this study is to establish a framework of variables influencing new smart connected products performance (NSCPP) at the market place, suggest methods to operationalize the framework.

The study identified key variables influencing NSCPP from existing literature. Conceptualized unique theoretical frameworks of these variables and empirically validated structural relationships. The study performed structural equation modeling using the data collected from 163 respondents having managed the development and monetization of 138 new SCP launches.

The study established structural relationships among selected variables proactive market orientation (ProMO), new product development proficiency (NPDPro) and business model innovation (BMoI). It revealed that the effect of ProMO is manifested through NPDPro. BMoI and NPDPro significantly influence NSCPP.

The study presented “ProMO Canvas” to plan and operationalize ProMO integrated with new product development (NPD) stage-gate activities. The study suggested the practitioners to execute ProMO activities preceding NPD activities and execute NPD, business model development activities in parallel to attain superior NSCPP.

This study is a novel effort to derive a unique empirical framework of variables ProMO, NPDPro and BMoI to attain superior NSCPP.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the international business strategy, key driving factors and the major barriers that may hinder the internationalisation progress of Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Based on the aims of the study, the paper encompasses both quantitative and qualitative data. For quantitative data, structured questionnaires were used, and a total of 216 SMEs that engaged in international business participated using purposeful sampling, covering all the states in Peninsular Malaysia. For the collection of qualitative data, the study involved in-depth interviews with 25 owners/managers of SMEs.

The findings indicate that the motives of SMEs for international expansion are varied, and that SMEs still face many institutional challenges, which have prevented them from making a greater contribution.

Due to lack of resources, firms from West Malaysia were included. West Malaysian firms may well possess characteristics concerning the challenges and issues to internationalisation that are unique to their region.

The paper addresses a knowledge gap in respect of the internationalisation process of SMEs in the context of Southeast Asia. The findings of this paper will have relevance for policymaking and supportive measures at the government level to create an environment that will stimulate the competitiveness of SMEs in their attempts for internationalisation.

There is evidence for major positive effects of knowledge transfer and innovation diffusion on economic growth. Much research has addressed schooling, training, and other aspects of human capital accumulation, but less emphasis has been placed on the interaction between firms and other organizations as a key driver of the development of new knowledge and its economic use. There is an extensive body of literature that discusses various aspects of knowledge transfer and innovation diffusion between firms, and this literature may serve as a microfoundation for understanding the role of knowledge in the growth process. However, we need to understand the role of the entrepreneur as a missing link between knowledge and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to outline some foundations of endogenous (externally driven) growth models, and uses the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship to propose a new model of latent and emergent entrepreneurship.

The paper uses the method of conceptual analysis to structure the literature and its assumptions. The authors review in broad terms what we know in the space of knowledge and growth, and what we still need to know. The authors curate informed views on the topic of knowledge and the way that entrepreneurs contribute to innovation diffusion.

The paper develops a new perspective on knowledge. Starting from the role of knowledge as a core element in the microfoundations of endogenous growth models, it uses the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship to propose a new model of latent and emergent entrepreneurship.

The paper uses knowledge spillover theory to lay out a more complete and more realistic process through which knowledge gets converted into realized innovations, and as such, it makes the intervention points through which people management can facilitate organizational effectiveness through innovation more transparent.

The paper provides guidance for future researchers on knowledge and innovation diffusion. It encourages innovation in our thinking about the role of knowledge, and allows scholars to combine perspectives more flexibly both across levels of analysis (macro and micro), and across disciplines (economy and management).