An asymmetry‐based view of advantage: towards an attainable sustainability
研究了约二十家企业如何通过发现和利用不对称性（竞争对手无法复制的技能、流程或资产）来构建可持续能力，克服资源基础观中可持续资源难以获得的困境。
Abstract The resource‐based view of the firm postulates that sustainable abnormal rents can accrue to firms having valuable, rare, inimitable, non‐substitutable resources and capabilities. Given these criteria, sustainable resources are hard to attain. Our study of some two dozen firms shows how some of them were able to overcome this dilemma by building not so much on resources and capabilities as on asymmetries. Asymmetries are typically skills, processes, or ‘assets’ a firm's competitors do not and cannot copy at a cost that affords economic rents. They are rare, inimitable and non‐substitutable, although not connected to any engine of value creation, and, in fact, often act as liabilities. By discovering and reconceptualizing these asymmetries, embedding them within a complementary organizational design, and leveraging them across appropriate market opportunities, many firms were able to turn asymmetries into sustainable capabilities. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.