摘要：Strategic management of resources at firm level balances the trade-offs required between long-term planning and short-term problem solving. Chandler (1962), Ansoff (1965) and Andrews (1971), after studying the evolutionary patterns of several firms, developed frameworks for strategy formulation that emphasized a goal-oriented approach to how firms source, allocate and manage resources by balancing the trade-offs that the environmental context presents itself to each firm. Thus, longitudinal performance of firms is largely determined by how firms source, allocate and manage resources. However, it is also acknowledged in strategy literature that firm performance is not just a matter of firm level decisions on sourcing, allocating and managing resources. External environmental factors impact firm performance and firms continuously adapt to external forces impinging upon them, making the patterns of resource management highly variable dependent on rate of change in external environment (Mintzberg, 1978, 1987 and 1990; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; Whittington, 1996 and 2001). Thus, the continuous alignment with the external environmental forces gives rise to significant variability in firm performance (Slevin and Covin, 1997; Burgelman and Grove, 1996) as firms differ in their capacity to understand the external changes and also in their capabilities to respond appropriately. And yet, we find that some firms consistently grow ROE (Return on Equity which is one measure of firm performance) and some firms consistently decline in ROE. Furthermore, even within consistently growing ROE firms and within consistently declining ROE firms, there is significant variability exhibited. To what extent the behavior of firms in sourcing, allocating and managing resources explains such variance across and within these two patterns of longitudinal performance? That is the crux of our inquiry in our empirical study presented here.
