CO SCI 136 Lecture Notes - Lecture 34: Retained Earnings, Customer Switching, Cost Leadership
Document Summary
Information technology and sustained competitive advantage: a resource-based analysis, mis quarterly, vol. 19, p. 487-505. The purpose of this paper is to [] to develop and apply a model that specifies the conditions under which it can, and cannot, be a source of sustained competitive advantage. For this the authors apply the resource- based view of the firm. Traditionally, most strategic it has focused on the ability of it to add economic value to a firm by either reducing a firm"s costs or differentiating its products or services. However, the authors argue that this addition of value through it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a sustained competitive advantage. A sustained competitive advantage occurs when a firm is implementing a strategy not simultaneously implemented by many competing firms and where other firms face significant disadvantages in acquiring the resources necessary to implement this strategy. This paradigm focuses on it-based customer switching costs as a source of sustained competitive advantage.
