Nature-Based Tourism Businesses in Colorado: Interpreting Environmental Ethics and Responsible Behavior

Tourism businesses operate from a primarily economic-centric point of view, but nature-based tourism businesses are also acutely aware of the need to sustain the natural resource that attracts the client to their outdoor recreation service. A preliminary qualitative inquiry reveals how nature-based tourism organizations in Colorado view themselves as operating from environmentally ethical positions, what specific actions they take to minimize negative environmental impacts, and how they educate their clients about resource conservation. Findings indicate that too often companies fail to realize opportunities in which they can encourage meaningful bonds between people and nature through the use of education and environmental interpretation. Education is seen more as a means to equip tourists with skills pertaining to a certain sport/activity, rather than as a way to enrich the total experience. Due to the industry’s reliance upon natural resources, a higher level of resource interpretation should be encouraged, promoting natural resource conservation

The strategic relevance of business relationships: a preliminary assessment

The ubiquitous contention within the Industrial Networks literature - that business relationships are one of the firm´s most important resources - has not been, in our viewpoint, thoroughly explored. Hence we argue that the ‘Resource-based View of the Firm’ (‘RBV’) may complement the network-based reasoning on the strategic relevance of business relationships. A theoretical framework is proposed – a competence-based view of the firm – which solves RBV´s terminological and inconsistency problems and, more importantly, assures compatibility with the network perspective´s assumptions. The possibility of cross-fertilizing the Industrial Networks and RBV theories seems not only real, but also conceptually profitable for both theoretical fields.Business Relationships, Industrial Networks, Resource-Based View of the Firm, Competence-Based View of the Firm

Retail positioning through customer satisfaction: an alternative explanation to the resource-based view

Through exploring factors influencing effective retail positioning strategies in an emerging market environment, this paper challenges the role of isolation mechanism and heterogeneous idiosyncrasy argued by the resource-based view theory. By drawing on a sample of 11,577 customers from hypermarkets, electronic appliance specialty stores and department stores in major Chinese cities, we set up ten hypotheses and confirm a nine-item model for customeroriented retail positioning (perceived price, store image, product, shopping environment, customer service, payment process, after-sales service, store policies, and shopping convenience). Our results show that different retail formats achieve success through the implementation of similar positioning strategies, in which case, it is not heterogeneity but homogeneity that contributes to retailers' success greatly at the development stage of retail expansion. Our results challenge previously proved effectiveness of inimitability to success by the resource-based view, and support homogenous idiosyncrasy of retailers in the implementation of customer-oriented positioning strategies in an emerging market

Operations management and the resource based view: another view

This paper evaluates the usefulness of the resource-based view (RBV) to the field of operations management. Based on the seminal RBV articles, we argue that using the RBV does not align with the objectives and activities of operations management researchers in several ways. First, the dependent variable in the RBV is sustained competitive advantage. Using sustained competitive advantage as a dependent variable implies that scholars focus on explaining the differences between the relatively few firms with sustained competitive advantage and all the other firms, ignoring performance variations within the great mass of firms. In addition, competitive advantage exists at the level of the business or the firm and does not directly translate into the normal level of operations management research. Measuring sustained competitive advantage also presents difficulties. Second, the explanatory variables in the RBV are resources that must be rare, valuable and hard or impossible to imitate. Measuring valuable resources or factors firms cannot imitate poses serious problems both in demonstrating value independent of the factor's impact on performance (i.e., avoiding tautology) and in measuring unique or nearly unique entities. Third, under the RBV, prescription is problematic; you cannot prescribe things that firms can readily implement because such things can be imitated. We present the practice-based view (PBV) as a simpler and better alternative for operations management where scholars attempt to explain the entire range of firm and unit performance based on transferable practices

Corporate brands, the British Monarchy, and the resource-based view of the firm

Drawing on the nascent literature on corporate brands, the economic theory of the resourced-based view of the firm and the extensive literature on the British Monarchy, this article examines the branding credentials of the British Crown. This is the first time that this most arcane of institutions has been examined from organizational and management perspectives. The synthesis of these literatures confirmed the branding credentials of the Crown. From this, it is deduced that if the British Crown is a corporate brand then it ought to be managed as such. A conceptual model for the management of the monarchy is introduced and this involves the dynamic orchestration of five elements (Royal, Regal, Relevant, Responsive and Respected.) This is called “The Royal Branding Mix.” The Royal and Regal elements equate to a brand’s identity and have an explicit organizational focus. In contrast, the Relevant, Responsive, and Respected dimension have a public (stakeholder) focus. A “Corporate Branding Mix” is introduced which aims to have a more general utility and represents an adaptation of the “Royal Branding Mix.

The resource-based view of the firm and the labour theory of value

The paper argues that the principal components of the Resource- based view (R-BV) of the firm are not a sufficient basis for a complete and consistent theory of firm behaviour. Two important missing elements are governance arrangements and value theory. Whilst these missing elements have been acknowledged separately in the literature, their complementary interaction with the commonly accepted components of the R-BV has yet to be fully explored. This paper argues that there are significant opportunities to develop a more integrated approach, thereby uniting substantial strands of the strategy and economics literatures to produce a unified view of strategy and move towards a resource based theory of the firm. Specifically the paper argues for the inclusion of labour process theory, asymmetric information and the analysis of risk and the classical labour theory of value. The combination of these elements shows that a resource-based theory must unite the process and content elements of strategy, through the simultaneous interaction of labour management processes, the determinants of sustained competitive advantage (SCA), and relations with capital markets. The argument presented shows how value originates in the productive process and is transmitted as rents to organizational and capital market constituents. The detailed assumptions are sufficient to suggest an integrated resource-based theory of corporate strategy. The principal assertion in the paper is not that the labour theory of value is true per se, only that it is at least as good as competing theories, but that only if it is assumed to be true can we progress to construct a consistent resource-based theory of the firm. Without these links to the labour theory of value and labour process theory, and mechanisms of corporate governance, the R-BV remains merely a view and not a theory, because it lacks a consistent basis for asset valuation. The theory also explains that the roots of SCA lie in the labour process, but with the corollary that maximizing the associated investment in tacit knowledge and associated difficult to replicate assets is fundamentally inconsistent with the objective of maximizing shareholder value

The View from the Top: How Strategic Human Resource Management Affects the Performance of Initial Public Offering Firms

We study SHRM by taking an organizational level perspective on control over all employees. Drawing from agency theory, control theory, and the resource-based view of the firm, we develop hypotheses regarding the differential effects on firm performance of various overarching approaches to human resource management (HRM) control implemented in small, growing firms. We test our hypotheses in a longitudinal study of 342 firms that went public in 1993. Results support the negative effect of bureaucratic HRM control on market-based measures of performance, while firm-specific HRM control and incentive-based HRM control are related to internal measures of firm growth

Amending the Resource-based view of Strategic Management from an Entrepreneurial Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to amend the resource-based view of strategic management from an entrepreneurial point of view. We firstly attempt to make a brief survey of the conceptual framework of the RBV by contrasting it with the competitive forces approach (CFA) presented by Porter (1980). Secondly, we clarify the objectives of corporate strategy through a critical assessment of the RBV from both a static and a dynamic point of view. Finally, we suggest a new perspective of the RBV by amending it from an entrepreneurial viewpoint, and then take some examples to illustrate the new perspective for further empirical studies.resource-based view, entrepreneurship, disequilibrium

What you get is what you need? The role of venture capitalists in managing growth of new ventures

The resource-based view is suggested as a useful concept to shed light on the particular challenges of high potential companies on their way to building a thriving and growing company. In order to be able to apply the theoretical constructs of the resource-based view in the present context, a categorization of resources is elaborated that fits particularly well to high potential companies. Existing literature provides evidence that these companies in general only dispose of a small resource base and that they are characterized by strong resource needs in all relevant resource categories. The role of venture capitalists is assumed to provide high potential companies with financial and non-financial resources that help to create core and non-core competencies. Ultimately, this bundle of core and non-core competencies would allow high potential companies to achieve a sustained competitive advantage. The empirical results of this paper are based on insights from three in-depth case studies on German start-ups, each representing a different investor-investee dyad. It comprises investees from different industries such as software, biotech, and energy as well as investors with an established track record, first fund investors, and semi-government-dependent investors. The cases show that venture capitalists provide a number of resources to their portfolio companies that allow building a competitive advantage. The role of the venture capitalists is thus to help high potential companies to complement existing resources and competences in order to develop their full economic potential. However, there is great variation between the resource provisions of the analyzed venture capital firms. --Entrepreneurship,Venture Capital,Resource-based View