Resource based theory (RBT) has become increasingly popular in operations management research. The development and current application of RBT to the study and understanding of operations management problems and phenomena are reviewed and articles in the recent six plus years across nine journals are evaluated. Based on this review and evaluation, we identify several issues in the overall research and highlight some exemplary research themes in the use of RBT in operations management. Our research suggests that further application of RBT can add richness in operations management research, and has the potential to produce multiple contributions for this field and adjacent fields.

Using resource–based logic, we integrate and extend theory and research on familiness and innovation in family firms. Supporting our efforts to do this is the suggestion that recent mixed results regarding the ability of family firms to innovate are at least partially accounted for by the failure to fully consider the importance of resource bundling processes as a mediator of the relationship between familiness as a unique organizational resource and innovation. Specifically, we suggest that the individual components of the resource bundling process—stabilizing, enriching, and pioneering—each mediate the relationship between familiness and innovation, and that these mediation effects account for at least part of the previously reported inconsistent results. Using theory and by integrating insights about familiness, innovation, and resource bundling, we seek to provide a more complete model of conditions affecting family firms’ ability to innovate.

Research summary: Past inquiry has found that implementing complex competitive repertoires (i.e., diverse and dynamic arrays of actions) is challenging, but firms benefit from doing so. Our examination of the antecedents and outcomes of complex competitive repertoires develops a more nuanced perspective. Data from 1,168 firms in 204 industries reveal that complexity initially harms performance, but then becomes a positive factor, except at high levels. We use agency and tournament theories, respectively, to examine how key governance mechanisms—ownership structure and executive compensation—help shape firms' competitive repertoires. We find that the principals of agency theory and the pay gap of tournament theory are both important antecedents of competitive complexity, and an interaction exists wherein firms build especially complex repertoires when both influences are strong. Managerial summary: In boxing, the fight does not always go to the bigger or stronger person, or even to whomever throws the most punches—the fight is sometimes won by the boxer who is unpredictable, such as throwing an uppercut when the opponent expected a right hook. Similarly, when companies compete in the marketplace, advantage is afforded not only to those with more resources or who engage in more competitive activity, but also to those whose actions are unpredictable. In this study, we develop the notion of “competitive complexity,” which describes the diversity and changing nature of a company's competitive moves. Implementing complex competitive repertoires can be painful in the short term but, if done correctly, can help company performance in the long run. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The fungibility of organizational slack provides firms significant latitude in addressing both internal and market pressures. A vast literature suggests that slack influences firm performance; however, the empirical record is mixed, and the underlying mechanism linking slack to performance remains ambiguous. We address these issues by theoretically expanding the slack–performance model to include mediation. Specifically, we develop and test a model in which a firm’s competitive behaviours direct the utilization of slack toward the realization of firm performance. Our meta‐analytic‐based structural equation model supports partial mediation, showing that competitive behaviours provide some resolution to the conflicted understanding of how slack affects performance. Further, we provide value to the slack literature by consolidating the evidence for the effects of various types and forms of organizational slack. Beyond providing robustness to our theoretical model, doing so offers a more complete understanding of how operationalizations of slack and performance outcomes matter.

Innovation is an important outcome for firms across all life-cycle stages, though challenges to this goal vary by a firm's stage of development. In this study, we integrate resource orchestration with contingency theory to theorize how managers differentially orchestrate their firm's resource portfolio and capabilities to develop innovation based on the firm's life-cycle stage. Empirical tests using primary data collected from 189 managers of U.S. and Italian firms based on the policy capturing method provide support for our hypotheses. Overall, this research contributes to our understanding of how firms manage their resources to create innovation over the firm's lifecycle.