A Resource-Based Theory of Hyperspecialization and Hyperscaling

Digital “is” Strategy: The Role of Digital Technology Adoption in Strategy Renewal

“…they are more likely to be strategic in Agarwal and Helfat's (2009) terminology. The fact that digital technologies are often highly modular and can support many existing processes in the firm (Cardona et al, 2013) and can be reproduced at virtually zero marginal cost enables, and even stimulates, wide-ranging deployment and scalability (Giustiziero et al, 2021). Moreover, customer-facing digital technologies permit completely new way of interacting with consumers, including product co-creation (Claussen and Halbinger, 2020) or targeted advertising (Morozov et al, 2021).…”

The origins of capabilities: Resource allocation strategies, capability development, and the performance of new firms

“…Given their resource constraints (Lichtenstein and Brush, 2001;Sirmon et al, 2007), new ventures must make trade-offs between breadth and focus in resource allocation. With a "broad" resource allocation strategy, the new firm simultaneously builds functional capabilities in R&D, production, and marketing, whereas with a "focused" strategy, it initially builds only one functional capability (Haeussler et al, 2012;Giustiziero et al, 2020). Both strategies have potential benefits and drawbacks.…”

“…On the other hand, the complexity of managing a broad range of functional capabilities increases coordination costs across functions (Leiponen and Helfat, 2010;Oxley and Sampson, 2004). In contrast, a narrow functional scope may enable the new venture to achieve economies of scale in a chosen function more rapidly (Giustiziero et al, 2020;Collis and Montgomery, 1997). However, specialization may decrease its flexibility to adapt to environmental changes, compromising its survival (Burns and Stalker, 1961;Sine et al, 2006).…”

“…This is for two reasons. First, capability learning is more efficient when specializing in a single functional capability, because the venture benefits more quickly from path dependence in capability learning and asset mass efficiencies (Dierickx and Cool, 1989;Collis and Montgomery, 1997;Giustiziero et al, 2020). Second, specialization enables the new venture to gain recognition for its distinctive strengths (Echols and Tsai, 2005) and to more rapidly reach the legitimacy threshold required to ensure further resource acquisition (Zimmerman and Zeitz, 2002).…”