R. Henderson et I. Cockburn, MEASURING COMPETENCE - EXPLORING FIRM EFFECTS IN PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH, Strategic management journal, 15, 1994, pp. 63-84
Renewed interest in the resource-based theory of the firm has focused
attention on the role of heterogeneous organizational 'competence' in
competition. This paper attempts to measure the importance of these ef
fects in the context of pharmaceutical research. We distinguish betwee
n 'component' and 'architectural' competence, and using internal firm
data at the program level from 10 major pharmaceutical companies show
that together the two forms of competence appear to explain a signific
ant fraction of the variance in research productivity across firms. Ou
r results raise some intriguing questions about the nature of competen
cies and the ways in which they diffuse over time.