The sources of heterogeneity in firm performance: lessons from Italy1
提出一个整合资源基础观和制度经济学的分析框架，认为企业绩效异质性源于外生因素（供需条件）与内生因素（企业特定解读和资源能力）的互动，并用意大利制造业1990年代至2000年代初的数据验证了该框架。
Abstract An extensive body of literature documents large and persistent within-industry heterogeneity of firm performance. While some authors explain such evidence in terms of input misallocation, we provide an alternative analytical framework that integrates insights from resource-based and institutional approaches. We interpret firms’ behaviour as the result of the interaction among exogenous and endogenous factors. Exogenous factors, both supply and demand related, define the opportunity set that is available to firms. Endogenous factors reflect instead firm-specific interpretations of such set, which, combined with the available resources and capabilities, determine a firm’s strategic responses, which can be markedly heterogeneous. Whenever the diversity of firm conducts is associated with relatively small profit differentials, firm heterogeneity can persist. Evidence based on the evolution of labour productivity and profit dispersion in the Italian manufacturing sector between the 1990s and early 2000s provides support for our interpretative framework.