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In today's turbulent environment, customers are playing a more important role in competition, which can be reflected by customers as co‐producer, value co‐producer, or co‐developer of knowledge and competencies, etc. Accordingly, business priority should be given to what customers really value. Unlike previous studies, which emphasize market performance mainly from the internal or firm's perspective, this paper proposes that firms should prioritize customer‐focused performance, defined totally from an external perspective of targeted customers. The paper examines the important role of customer‐focused performance and its interactive relationships with other dimensions of the overall performance system, and goes further to analyze the components and dynamics of customer‐focused performance. Finally, attention is given to the dynamic competence building and leveraging process and its key elements, which determines the customer‐focused performance in perspective of resource‐based views. Important propositions are presented and future implications discussed.

Highlights that although the idea that competences are underlying sustainable competitive advanta ges is central, there has been no thorough investigation into the very nature of competences in the strategic management literature. Uses theories on the sociology of knowledge to advance the resource‐based perspective of the firm into a coherent perspective of competences. Discusses the implications on sustainable competitive advantages by focusing on the processes of imitation of competences in different social contexts. Proposes that the emergent competence‐based perspective of the firm has several important implications for management research and theory building.

This paper aims to investigate the moderating dynamics of social competence in the relationship between intangible resources and the performance of women businesses from an emerging market context. Developed economy literature provides ample evidence of a positive relationship between intangible resources and the performance of women business ventures. Little is known of the complexity of this orthodoxy in developing markets such as Ghana. In particular, this paper investigates the moderating role of social competence in the relationship between intangible resources available to women entrepreneurs and performance.

An exploratory sequential mixed method research design was used. First phase involved qualitative data collected through interviews, and the second phase was quantitative data collected from 264 participants. Content analysis and multiple regression analysis were used.

Social competence is important to the success of women businesses as it influences the outcome of entrepreneurial interactions and communications. Also, it positively moderated the relationship between organisational reputational capital (RC) and women business growth. On the flip side, it negatively moderated the relationship between human capital, social capital, individual RC and women business growth.

To sustainably grow their businesses, women entrepreneurs must ascertain the right level of social competence needed. The utilization of social competence at higher rather than lower levels could mean more costs and more training for which the business may not have immediate use.

This paper advocates the need to improve the content of entrepreneurial training packages to include the reinforcement of social competency skills in terms of relationship management as this may be the key to the facilitation of access to resources for innovation and growth.

Prior research on business analytics has advanced substantially our understanding of how social media analytics affect business performance. However, the specific value of social media analytics to product innovation has not been fully explored and appreciated. To address this important issue, the present study draws on the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view to examine (1) whether the use of social media analytics strengthens radical product innovation to a greater extent than it does incremental product innovation and (2) how knowledge-exploration competence and knowledge-exploitation competence mediate the influence of social media analytics on radical and incremental product innovation.

This study tested the proposed model using data collected from 205 manufacturing firms. Structural equation modeling was applied to test the research hypotheses using LISREL 8.80 software program.

The statistical findings provide compelling evidence that the use of social media analytics is more likely to lead to radical product innovation than to incremental product innovation. In addition, knowledge-exploration competence only partially mediates the relationship between social media analytics and radical product innovation. Knowledge-exploitation competence not only partially mediates such a relationship, but also fully mediates the link between social media analytics and incremental product innovation.

This study contributes to the social media analytics and innovation literature by offering novel theoretical and empirical insights into how firms can leverage the value of social media analytics to create superior product innovation.

Determining the strategic thrust of the firm, it may be argued, is the principal task of top management. This task is aided by recent theories of business and marketing strategy, including the normative imperatives based on industry factors, resource factors, competences, market orientation, and relationship marketing. Choosing wisely from among the various theories of strategy requires an accurate understanding of the contexts of competition. This article argues that resource‐advantage theory, an evolutionary, disequilibrium‐provoking process theory of competition, provides that understanding. That is, resource‐advantage theory grounds theories of business and marketing strategy.

Effective competence-based management (CBM) requires in the first instance an ability to identify an organization’s competences and the sources of those competences. Identifying competences can be especially challenging in the context of not-for-profit organizations, which have often been characterized as being “different” from for-profit organizations. In this paper we argue that not-for-profit organizations have fundamentally the same systemic requirements for survival and success as for-profit organizations – and therefore that not-for-profits ought to be amenable to competence identification and analysis through use of CBM concepts and theory in essentially the same way as for-profit organizations. We support this basic proposition through a case study of competence identification and analysis in a humanitarian relief organization (HRO), an increasingly important kind of not-for-profit organization.

This paper aims to develop a methodology for lean implementation that reduces the risk of damaging a company's key resources and abilities through the application of core competence theory.

Academic literature provided background conceptual understanding of lean and core competence theory for an industrial working party of domain experts from 15 major aerospace companies in the UK to develop a methodology for lean implementation that would not damage firm's competences. The methodology was trailed through cooperative inquiry in a business unit of a leading global aerospace company using a case study approach.

An accessible definition of core competence that captures academic theory was proposed through an industrial working group. Further a methodology for lean implementation, drawing upon core competence theories was developed. The method comprised four tools: market analysis, the visible value stream, customer value analysis, and financial modelling. Tools drew upon established practice and their joint application is intended to safeguard a company's key resources and capabilities from loss or impact during lean implementations. Application in a single case study company and the effects observed over a number of years indicated the methodology, though developmental, was capable of significant positive effects.

The paper provides a practical definition of core competence and application of theory within a lean implementation, trailed and validated in an industrial setting. Competence theory has previously been described as “lack‐lustre” due to the abstract nature of the ideas.

Unlike previous studies which emphasize market oriented performance from the perspective of firms or customers, but mainly internally, the paper proposes that firms should prioritize customer‐focused performance defined totally externally from the perspective of targeted customers, which are the fundamental drivers of purchasing or repurchasing behaviors of customers and consequently the key to successful competition in the customer‐centered era. Then, the role of customer‐focused performance in the overall business performance system is examined. After the components and dynamics of customer‐focused performance are analyzed, much attention is given to its key determinants in perspective of a resource‐based view, which aims mainly at bridging the current gaps between strategic management and service management. In addition, important propositions are presented and future implications are discussed.

This study aims to present the conceptualization and measurement of knowledge generation competence (KGC) as the fundament for firm's internal knowledge generation. Furthermore, it seeks to assess different antecedents of a firm's KGC and its potential for improving a firm's innovativeness.

Data were collected by nationwide mail survey in the German automation and the consulting industry. The final sample consists of 110 respondents (response rate of 32.9 percent). The measurement model was tested by using structural equation modeling applying partial least squares (PLS) estimation. PLS was also used to investigate the relationships between KGC, its antecedents and innovativeness.

The findings support the conceptualization and measurement of knowledge generation competence (KGC). The included dimensions explained 47.6 percent of the variance of knowledge generation competence. Furthermore, most of the relationships included in the research model were supported by the empirical data.

The data suggest that firms which want to increase their innovativeness can develop their knowledge generation competence by providing learning orientation culture and investing in human resource practices.

The paper aids in uncovering the relationship between organizational learning, human resource practices, knowledge generation competence, and innovativeness of a firm.

During the 1990s, new theories emerged in the field of strategy. In particular, the resource-based and competence-based views of the firm developed in reaction to Porter and the entire current derived from the industrial economy. However, these approaches have their own limitations: they are difficult to put into practice and are partially similar to the industrial approach.

This article has two aims: (a) to make a clearer distinction between the classical approach on the one hand, and the resource- and competence-based approach on the other hand; and (b) to overcome the opposition between these two models in order to grasp their complementarities. First of all, a critical analysis of the literature is presented, in order to understand how these two approaches fit into thinking. This theoretical framework is then illustrated by a case study of Air Liquide, which, in some of its activities, adopted a competence-based strategy and structure. The case study clearly identifies the points of divergence such as the complementarities between the two approaches, thereby showing how one can overcome their oppositions as well as their respective limitations.