The Strategic Relevance of Business Relationships: A Preliminary Assessment

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Business Relationships, Industrial Networks, Resource-based View of the Firm, Competence-based View of the Firm

JEL Classification: M31