text:
E-GOST TSER Contract of the European Union HPSE-CT-2002-50026 (Thematic Network) 1st workshop : April 3rd –4th, 2003 (Strasbourg) RESOURCES AND COMPETENCES PERSPECTIVES ON STRATEGY OF THE FIRM: A discussion of the central arguments F. Amesse, A. Avadikyan, P. Cohendet Introduction: In 1994, Wernerfelt received an award for the best paper of the decade in Strategic Management Review (A resource-based view of the firm, 1984). Considering the fortune of the article among practicing managers (Wernerfelt, 1995), he admitted that such a fortune had been leveraged by the 1990 article of Prahalad and Hamel in Harvard Business Review ("The Core Competence of the Corporation"). Directly addressed to people in management and strategy, this article was clearly prescriptive as to the best way to set winning strategies for the firm, especially as to diversification and the abusive use of SBUs (Strategic Business Units) in highly decentralized profit centres. "In the 1990s, top executives will be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible". Since the 1990s, the resource based view (RBV) and the core competence approach (CCA) became very attractive for many researchers and consultants. Such interest was well supported by what seemed to be a clear and superior way of setting strategies by large Japanese groups which frequently served as a benchmark case of core competence management. The strong and pervasive trends for continuous technological innovation and for technological alliances created also a rich context for the use of RBV and CCA to strategy. Analysis and theory were tempted to move from transaction costs to resources or competences or capabilities sometime in a fuzzy way in interpreting strategic moves in the context of alliances and technological changes. Although attractive, the resource based view and core competence approach fell out of becoming a substantive theory for the strategy of the firm as many researchers ascertained. Very convincing criticisms challenged the perspective of RBV and CCA as a substitute for the more classical industrial organization-based framework (I/O) in developing strategies for firms: 1) the lack of clarity of the concept of competence; 2) the incapacity of competence to serve as a basis for strategy and 3) the lack of connection between competence and an existing industry. The objective of this paper is to examine more closely those criticisms and develop basic arguments in order to enrich the perspective of the competence approach. What is the place of the resource-based and competence approaches to strategy is always a very important question. With time going, many see the RBV and CCA more as a complement to the I/O approach. Such a position 1 has strong theoretical implications both as to the theory of the firm and the theory of strategy. As Porter pointed out "any effort to understand success must rest on an underlying theory of the firm and an associated theory of strategy" (1994, p.423). So we would like to consider those key issues in the perspective of the knowledge based economy. The discussion of the key issues will be focused on the need for a comprehensive view of the RBV and CCA; the fundamental differences as to the theory of the firm underlying both the I/O approach and the RBV and CCA approach and the nature of positioning and competition in the resource and competence perspective. - In the first part of the paper we will consider the main criticisms formulated toward RBV and CCA in their capacity to contribute to defining strategies. We will focus here on three of such criticisms viewed as central and expressed and repeated especially by Porter and Williamson. - In the second part of the paper we will stress the need for a comprehensive view of the competence based approach by revisiting the maze of concepts and sub- categories associated with the RBV and CCA. - In the third part we will discuss and contrast the underlying theories of the firm behind the I/O approach and the RBV and CCA and derive the consequences of those theories as to the basic unit of analysis ( activity and competence or resource) - In the forth part we will consider how RBV and CCA are connected to the industry and the environment by revisiting the basis of positioning and competing in a knowledge based economy. 1. Resource based view and core competences under criticism. It would be difficult to open perspectives of the resource based view and the core competence approach on strategy without first trying to synthesize the main criticisms made over the last ten to fifteen years by many scholars: Three of those criticisms seem to be central and have to be carefully discussed before turning to the development of the key arguments. The first one is the tautological and the fuzziness content of the basic concepts underlying RBV and CCA. The second one is the incapability of RBV and CCA to serve as a basis for strategy and, at best, its complementary role of the current I/O framework. The third one is its inward orientation and lack of connection with the environment and the industry. 1.1 Tautological and fuzzy concepts Whether we refer to resources, competences, capabilities, strategic assets, dynamic capabilities, routines etc., the resource based view and the core competence approach show the use of fuzzy concepts as to the basic unit of analysis. Are all those words synonymous or are they depicting different processes have not been made clear. For sure they are the result of different and complementary streams of thought. 2 Above that fuzziness the concept of resource or competence is seen by many as being tautological. Priem and Butler (2001) argue in that way. Williamson"s judgement (1999) is laud and clear "obscure and often tautological definitions of key terms; and failure of operationalization" … "this is very nearly circular, in that it comes perilously close to saying that a core competence is a competence that is core" (p.1093). Porter"s comments in 1994 goes along the same line "at its worst, the resource-based view is circular. Successful firms are successful because they have unique resources. They should nurture these resources to be successful. But what is a unique resource? What makes it valuable?" (p.445). The tautological and fuzzy character of RBV and CCA is reinforced by the absence of clear reference to the environment, the industry and the market. The approach have been described by many as essentially "inward". Such absence induces circularity in the definition of the concept. At last as many analysis of resources and competences of firms refer explicitly to competitive activities or products of the firms as an indicator of such resources or competences, it did not help in defining clearly how resources or competences are concepts different from activities or final products. As works in the economy of knowledge is evolving such criticisms on the unit of analysis and the tautological character of the RBV and CCA approaches have to be revisited. 1.2 A substitute or a complement M.E. Porter is, among others (Spannos and Lioukas, 2001) the one who has seen important limitations to the RBV and CCA, and, at best, considers it as a complement to the basic I/O framework. "To date, the most attention paid to the integration of the two perspectives has been by Michael E. Porter in Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, (1985) and, in the dynamic context, in his article Towards a Dynamic Theory of Strategy (1991)" (Collis and Montgomery, 1995, pp. 61- 62). We could add to those two basic contributions the new introduction to the book Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance in 1998 where Porter clearly reformulates his thoughts on the fortune of I/O and competence approach. The basic tenets of the Porterian approach to strategy is well known and could be summarized in a few key words: the superior performance of a firm is explained by its competitive advantage derived by its unique positioning in the industry whether it is on costs or on differentiation. Such positioning is based on activities performed by the firm and systematized in a value chain. As Porter will stress it in the new introduction to its book " the book"s core is an activity-based theory of the firm" (1998, p.xv) In 1994, Porter set clearly that the resource-based view could not be a substitute to the I/O framework but could complement such an approach. In order to arrive to such conclusions Porter first makes a distinction in its theory of strategy between the cross- sectional problem of strategy ("linking firm characteristics to market outcomes" (1994, p. 424) and the longitudinal problem of strategy ("the dynamic process by which positions are created" (1994, p. 424). Looking to the resource based view he comments "the promise of the resource based view for the strategy field is its effort to address the longitudinal problem, or the conditions that allow firms to achieve and sustain favourable 3 competitive positions over time […]. The resource based view cannot be an alternative theory of strategy […]. It cannot be separated from the cross-sectional determinants of competitive advantage or from the conception of a firm as a collection of activities" (1994, pp. 445-446). Such longitudinal perspective shed light on some kind of learning and accumulated capabilities over time that could explain why a firm is better able to perform some activities. "Activities involve human resources, purchased inputs and a technology for performing them broadly define to include organizational routine […]. Performing an activity, or a group of linked activities also creates assets in the form of skills, organizational routines and knowledge" (1994, pp. 435-436). We could find almost the same reasoning in Williamson (1999) as to learning. In fact Porter will come to conclude that resources are intermediate between activities and competitive advantage. In the 1998 new introduction to Competitive Advantage he will move a little bit further by stressing: "Is a firm a collection of activities or a set of resources and capabilities? Clearly, a firm is both. But activities are what firms do and they define the resources and capabilities that are relevant. Activities provide the connections between factor markets and product markets positions" (1998, p. xix) Clearly in the Porterian view the resource-based or competence approach could not be an alternative theory for strategy but a complement to the I/O framework shedding light on how firms learn over time by performing activities and accumulate competences and resources. The firm is a nexus of both activities and resources but activities come first, define resources and capabilities and shape strategy. 1.3 An inward looking approach The inward looking perspective of RBV and CCA is probably the most challenging and is at the basis of the tautological and circular reasoning identified by many scholars as indicated previously. Such inward looking was well described by Collis and Montgomery (1995): "With the appearance of the concepts of core competence and competing on capabilities, the pendulum swung dramatically in the other direction, moving from outside to inside the company […] The external environment received little, if any, attention, and what we had learned about industries and competitive analysis seemed to disappear from our collective psyche" (pp. 59-60). Those comments point to key limitations of the RBV and CCA. The first one and the most pervasive is the explicit absence of the environment of the firm. In such a situation RBV and CCA are viewed as being essentially focused "inward". How to set a strategy without a strong reference to the industry, the market, competition forces etc. This is the locus of opportunities and threats in the language of strategists. How to assess and value strengths and weaknesses without any benchmark? The second one, which is indirectly connected to the absence of a clear link to the environment and to the market is the issue of value. If resources are not valuable by themselves, how to maintain that one resource is valuable and could lead the firm to a dominant position. Either managers, by some miracle, define the vision and the strategic intent, select and value resources or the industry and the market do it. How to consider the industry and the competition in the 4 RBV and CCA perspective and even more importantly how to define strategic positioning In the three next part of the paper each of those three criticisms and limitations will be addressed. 2. The development of the RBV and CCA approaches hampered by the fuzziness of concepts: the need for a comprehensive view The first criticism toward the RBV and CCA approaches is the lack of clarity of the concepts. And, it is undeniable that the difficulty with these new approaches is that their heterogeneity yields a plethora of terms and concepts such as strategic assets, resources, competencies, capabilities, that seriously need clarification, not least because each concept carries a different intellectual baggage. Without denying the difficulty to deal with these concepts, the aim of this section is to contribute to clarify the different conceptual approaches. Our view is that these approaches share a clear common denominator, which is the central role played by knowledge in the strategic vision of the firm. These approaches underline the production aspect of the firm, with the recognition of knowledge as the key productive resource. They focus on knowledge issues, such as the question of how knowledge is generated, maintained, replicated, and modified (and possibly also lost) - i.e. the question of learning and its nature. They tend to agree that competitive advantage is more likely to arise from the intangible firm-specific knowledge which adds value to incoming factors of production in a relatively unique manner (Spender, 1996). They all emphasize concepts of strategy based on knowledge by focusing on how a firm chooses to compete rather than on where it chooses to compete. However, the ways to look at knowledge differs between these new visions of the firm, and this to us is the main cause of heterogeneity and fuzziness. Schematically, we consider that the different approaches belong to two main intellectual streams: 1) the strategic management approaches (which includes the RBV and the CCA), and 2) the evolutionary approach (which includes the dynamic capabilities approach and to which most of the organisational learning approaches can be related). Each stream brings forward a specific vision of knowledge, promotes a specific jargon, gives priority to particular learning processes within the firm, reveals sub-streams with theoretical nuances, and thus contributes to an overall impression of fuzziness. We examine briefly these intellectual streams of research in the following paragraph (2.1). However, the main point we emphasise is that, beyond the diversity, these streams bring complementary visions of regarding knowledge in the firm. In this perspective we propose a coherent framework to place these different visions in order to bring some clarity in the debate (2.2), and to contribute to give answers to one of the main criticisms on these approaches. 2.1 The different challenging approaches a) Strategic management approaches 5 According to these approaches, the delimitation of the competence domain of the firm is essentially the privilege of the manager who designs an "ex ante" vision of the management of knowledge within a firm. Managers thus endeavour to design specific incentives to align the behaviours of members of the firm to the vision of the firm they wish to promote: The resource-based view of the firm (Wernerfelt 1984, Barney 1991), inspired by Edith Penrose"s work in industrial economics distinguishing tangible resources from the services these resources provide, aims at explaining and predicting why some firms are able to establish positions of sustainable competitive advantage and earns superior returns. A firm's resource at a given moment of time can be defined as those assets (tangible and intangible) which are tied semi-permanently to the firm (Caves, 1980). The firm is viewed as a bundle of idiosyncratic resources. The resources that lead to competitive advantage (e.g. brand names, in-house knowledge of technology, employment of skilled personnel, trade contracts, machinery, efficient procedures, etc.) must, by definition, be scarce, valuable and reasonably durable (Barney, 1991), and unlikely to be available from others (Rumelt, 1987). The claim that resources (that are difficult to imitate and only imperfectly substitutable) create sustainable advantages challenges the standard microeconomic argument that firm differences should erode over time due to imitative mechanisms. The strategic competence-based approach relies on strategic management concepts suggested by Prahalad and Hamel and centres around "collective learning of the organisation, especially how to co-ordinate diverse production skills, and integrate multiple skills of technology". The firm is viewed as a social institution, the main characteristic of which is to know (well) how to do certain things. Competences are coherent sets of capabilities used in an efficient way. Some of the competencies are strategic ("core-competencies" according to Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) and constitute the main sources of the competitiveness of a firm ("what a firm does well and better than the others"). They are the products of a selection process both internal and external to the firm. How these competencies are constructed, combined, protected and managed is critical for understanding the boundaries of the firm as well as the co-ordination and incentive structure of the firm. Core competencies are firm specific skills and cognitive traits directed towards the attainment of the highest possible levels of customer satisfaction vis-à-vis competitors. The focus of the competence based approach is, as Drejer and Riis (1999) summarise, on "what are the effects caused by a competence" (its functional characteristics), much more than on its structural characteristics. For Prahalad and Hamel as well as for most of the authors of this stream of research, top managers play a key role in identifying, developing and reinforcing core competences. Since these latter are cross-functional, "the change process can"t be left to middle managers. It requires the hands-on guidance of the CEO and the active involvement of top line managers" (Stalk, Evans, and Schulman, 1992). b)The evolutionary economic theory. 6 For evolutionary economists such as Teece, Pisano and Schuen (1991), Dosi and Marengo (1994), the determination of a competence domain within the firm is essentially the result of the process of evolution of routines. Knowledge is stored in routines, seen as the regular and predictable behavioural pattern of the firm, and innovation is an inherently unpredictable mutation of routines that cannot be guided by the vision of a sole manager. As Von Krogh and Grand (2002, p. 170) argue, "Whereas the resource-based view sees strategy as having a strong intentional element (Barney, 1986, 1991; Porter, 1991; Hamel and Prahalad, 1993, 1994), evolutionary theories are traditionally more pessimistic about the possibilities of significant, managerially led, proactive change (see also Witt, 1994)". Along the same lines, Langlois (1994) adds, "knowledge in an organization is not something that resides in the head of managers; rather, the organization"s knowledge is nothing other than its complex of routines, including routines for co-ordination among routines and routines for changing or creating routines. This repertoire of routines is what defines the conditional states of readiness on which messages from the environment operate. To put it another way, the complex of routines that make up an organization not only determines what an organization can do well but also conditions how the organization will interpret messages; how information from the environment will alter the organization"s existing repertoire of routines. That is to say, the organization"s routines are in a broad sense its cognitive apparatus, its "map". They determine what information the organization recognizes as meaningful, and they strongly influence how the organization learns and how it perceives opportunities". In this vision, knowledge is not mobilised in separate domains of the firm, and the formation of a domain of competence is just an "ex post result" on a continuous process of evolution of routines1. The evolutionary approach promotes the concept of dynamic capabilities, which stresses "the firm"s ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments. Dynamic capabilities thus reflect an organisation"s ability to achieve new and innovative forms of competitive advantage given path dependencies and market positions" (Teece et al., 1996). The capabilities of the firm rest on processes (organisational and managerial, integration, learning, reconfiguration and transformation), positions (in business assets, difficult to trade assets, and assets complementary to them such as reputation assets), and paths (path dependency, technological opportunities). However, distinctive organisational capabilities can provide competitive advantage and generate rents only if they are based on a collection of routines, skills, and complementary assets that are difficult to imitate. 1 As Nelson (1994) underlines, "successful firms can be understood in terms of a hierarchy of practised organisational routines, which define lower-order of organisational skills and how these skills are co- ordinated, and higher order of decision procedures for choosing what is to be done at lower level. The notion of organisational routines is a key building block under our concept of core organisational capabilities. At any time, the practised routines that have to be built into an organisation define a set of things the organisation is capable of doing confidently. If the lower-order routines for doing various tasks are absent, or if they exist but there is no practical higher-order routine for invoking them in the particular combination needed to accomplish a particular job, then the capability to do that job lies outside the organisation's extant core capabilities". 7 2.2 Towards a synthesis of the challenging approaches The different streams of the RBV and CCA approaches that have been examined, might be seen as different theoretical vantage points to look at the formation and use of knowledge assets by the firm. However, a logical question that follows is whether there is a fruitful way of putting these different theoretical pieces together2. In this perspective, we propose to use a recent typology proposed by Kusonoki, Nonaka and Nagata (1998), that offers a complementary way of looking at the interactions between the different theoretical positions on the formation and use of competences. According to these authors, the organisational schemes of the firms related to knowledge creation can be categorised in three types: Knowledge base (distinctive individual units of knowledge, functional knowledge, elemental technologies, info-processing devices, patents), Knowledge frames (capture linkages of individual units of knowledge and their priorities), Knowledge dynamics (interaction between knowledge base and knowledge frame). Based on the previous discussion, our view is that the resource based theory deals with the first category (knowledge base), the core-competence approach deals with the second category (knowledge frames), while the dynamic capability approach deals with the third category (knowledge dynamics). Thus, each approach brings a specific insight on the organisation of knowledge in the RBV and CCA approaches of the firm (Figure1). And, it follows that all these challenging approaches should be essentially considered as complementary ways of dealing strategically with knowledge within the firm. Resources and other Competences strategic Dynamic (knowledge assets Capabilities (knowledge frame) (knowledge base) dynamics) 2 An interesting perspective on the interaction between these approaches is offered by Andreu and Ciborra (2002), through the model of the "learning ladder"(Figure 3.2). They link the generation and transfer of knowledge to a variety of internal learning processes within a given organization. According to them, "core capabilities develop through a series of transformations, by which standard resources available in open markets (where all firms can acquire them), are used and combined within the organizational context of a firm to produce capabilities, which in turn can become the source of competitive advantage especially if they are rare and difficult to imitate or substitute." (Andreu and Ciborra, 2002, p.576). 8 Domain of the resource based theory Domain of the evolutionary approach Domain of the strategic competence approach Figure 1: The respective roles and domains of the theoretical subsets of the RBV and CCA approaches of the firm The respective domains of relevance of each of the approaches, and the nature of their interactions can thus be clarified. A problem that remains as a locus of friction or even conflict between the strategic competence approach and the evolutionary approach relates to the ways selection mechanisms operate on routines/capabilities to shape the core-competencies of the firm. According to the strategic competence approach, it is the manager"s vision that shapes the domain of core-competencies, while for the evolutionary approach the driving force remains the external environment of the firm. It is certainly on the agenda of research to reconcile these two ways of looking strategically at knowledge in the firm, but despite this real problem, it seems to us that the RBV and CCA approaches have much less fuzziness that what their critics loudly claim. 3. The I/O framework of strategy: the traditional theories of the firm, viewed as a "processor of information" versus the vision of the firm as a "processor of knowledge". The second main lines of critics on the RBV and CCA approaches is the incapacity of competence to serve a basis for strategy, especially when compared to the notion of "activities". Our vision is that statement is perfectly true within the theoretical traditional framework of the firm (as the transactional approach of the firm), when the firm is viewed as a pure processor of information. However, we consider that this statement is severely questioned when the firm is viewed as a processor of knowledge (which is precisely the vision promoted by the RBV and CCA approaches). 3.1 The firm as a processor of information Consider Porter"s strategic analysis. It relies on the traditional contractual approaches of the firm - transaction costs theory in particular - that are not designed to accommodate the fundamental characteristics of knowledge. As underlined by Fransman (1994), these traditional approaches consider the firm as a "processor of information", the behaviour of which can be understood as an optimal reaction to external signs and factors which are detected3. In the Porterian framework, the main result of the processing of information by 3 The behaviour of the firm as a rational information processing machine signifies that the same signals will give rise through time to the same pattern of action, provided that the technical conditions (as expressed by the production function) remain unchanged. The neo-classical theory of the firm, in particular principal/agent theory, have basically reduced the co-ordination principles to a bundle of bilateral contracts which are meant to achieve co-ordination by devising appropriate incentive schemes in order to align self interested individual action with the common organisational goals. The transaction cost approach, despite 9 firms are precisely those activities that emerge from the positioning of an end product within an industry structure. For Porter, once activities are shaped and defined by processing information, then these activities may drive competencies (accumulation of collective knowledge and learning in the firm). Processing information is thus the core of the economic decisions of the traditional firms, while creating and exchanging knowledge is just a by-product of the current activities. There is, however, a condition for the above hypotheses (first focus on information processing, then consolidate knowledge by-products) to be valid: the economic environment is supposed to be stable (in particular, the industry structure is considered as given). In innovative environments, characterised by the development of hyper- competition, globalisation, and knowledge based economy, the hypothesis is severely questioned. As Bierly and Chrakrabati (1996) underline: "We believe the development of a dynamic knowledge strategy typology or taxonomy will offer more insight than the basic static strategy typologies such as Porter"s (1980) which rely on the basic assumptions that are not valid for many industries to-day. Specifically, they assume that a) the primacy focus of strategy is about the positioning of an end-product within an identifiable industry structure, and b) the industry structure is relatively stable and changes to the environment are mostly incremental, linear changes that do not redefine the product or industry. However, other researchers have observed the preponderance of boundaryless industry structures, hyper-competition, increazing globalization, an increasing rate of technological change and diffusion and a tremendous increase in access to information through the advance in computer and communications (Bettis and Hitt, 1995; D"Aveni, 1994; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). The "static" generic strategy typologies offer little practical value to top managers in determining how to develop a competitive advantage, which is the primary purpose of strategy". In order to face these challenges, Williamson advocated (1999), that there is room in the traditional vision of the firm to implement some of the characteristics of knowledge. It is true, for instance, that the focus on the best reactions to imperfect information signals coming from the environment does not imply that the contractual approaches are unable to cope with some aspects of knowledge and to incorporate some cognitive dimensions of economic agents (in particular, their abilities to experience learning processes). The transaction cost approach is based on the hypothesis of bounded rationality, that precisely admits the existence of cognitive constraints on individuals, and the analysis of key learning processes such as learning by doing is present in traditional theory. However, the scope of such analysis is extremely narrow, for the simple reason that in such perspectives, the cognitive capabilities of agents are given. Bounded rational agents are not seen to change their representation of the world through time, they do not differ in their perception of the environment, they do not pay attention to the definition and evolution of common sets of rules, codes and languages within the boundary of the its different angle and its specific focus on the boundaries of the firm, comes to a similar fundamental conclusion: the firm could be seen as a "nexus" of contracts. Its very reason of existence is to correct market failures, when the functioning of market mechanisms in terms of information processing are too costly. Transaction cost theory agrees with the principal/agent vision that information is imperfect and that the existence of potential asymmetries of information authorises unproductive rent-seeking behaviour. The firm is thus conceived as an institutional mechanism creating a governance structure to solve the problem of misaligned incentives attendant on imperfect information. The focus is thus on the process of allocation of resources needed to cope with such adaptation. 10 organisation. This is a restricted conception of knowledge-reduced-to-information (or "tight-coupling" between information and knowledge as Fransman (1994) suggests) that assumes there is no cognitive dynamics at stake. Thus, the assumption is that the way to manage knowledge can be derived from information is managed. Knowledge is just considered as a stock resulting from the accumulation of the flux of information4 For these reasons, following Fransman, we consider that the actual innovative economic environment invites to reconsider the foundations of the theory of the firm. In such environments, firms should be viewed in primis as processors of knowledge. As Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) note, "when organizations innovate, they do not simply process information from outside in, in order to solve existing problems and adapt to a changing environment. They actually create new knowledge and information, from the inside out, in order to redefine both problems and solutions and in the process, to re-create their environment". We consider that the competence-based approaches of the firm are the challenging theories in such a perspective, that try to bring forwards the vision of the firm as a processor of knowledge. This perspective implies an in-depth reconsideration of the strategy of firms, by suggesting that: first firms select their domain of competencies, and then they manage their activities. Competencies are thus driving activities, reversing the Porterian order of priorities. b) The firm as a processor of knowledge One of the main characteristic of the RBV and CCA approaches is that, within these approaches, the firm is conceived as "a processor of knowledge", as a locus of setting up, construction, selection, usage and development of knowledge. These theoretical streams envisage a completely different point of view than the traditional theories: the firm is more sensitive to the sharing and distribution of knowledge than it is to the distribution of information. "It is not so much the saturation of its abilities to deal with information which concerns the firm, as the risk of becoming too confined by inefficient routines" (Cohendet et al., 1997). In fact, considering the firm as a processor of knowledge leads to the recognition that cognitive mechanisms are essential, and that routines play a major role in keeping the internal coherence of the organisation. In other terms, the governance of the firm is not focused on the resolution of informational asymmetries but on the co-ordination of distributed pieces of knowledge and distributed learning processes. The focus of the theory thus falls clearly on the process of creation of resources. This perspective on the firm has been taken foreward, among others, by Cyert and March (1963); Cohen, March and Olsen (1972); Cohen (1991); Loasby (1976, 1983); Eliasson (1990); Dosi and Marengo (1994); Marengo (1994, 1996). In a knowledge intensive dynamic perspective, the competence-based approach sees the firm in primis as a processor of knowledge, for which the focus of attention is the key limiting factor5. The firm fixes its attention first on a closed subset of activities that define the "core" domain of competencies, and then rank other activities (the 4 As Frahey and Prusak (1998) suggest, "if knowledge is not something different from data and information, then there is nothing new or interesting in knowledge management". 5 Following Simon (1982), it is attention rather than information that is becoming a rare resource as screening and selection of information become important functions. 11 "periphery") along a decreasing index of attention from the core domain 6. Such an order implies that the firm manages competencies and transactions simultaneously, but as it does so according to a specific lexicographic order of priorities. First, within its set of competencies, the firm functions as a knowledge processor giving full priority to the creation of resources. The firm"s domain of competencies is not considered to be tradable on the market: activities belonging to the domain of competencies are "disconnected" from the make-or-buy trade-off suggested by transaction-cost theory. More precisely, two subsets can be distinguished in this domain: the zone of core competencies which correspond to the sets of activities with the higher focus of attention, that the firm aims to be ahead of the competition, and the zone of competencies that encompasses the activities which the firm "knows well how to do", but which are not necessary for a competitive advantage over others. Second, once the set of activities that belong to the set of competencies has been chosen, the other activities that do not belong to the core (the "periphery" or "non core activities") are then managed under traditional methods which may rely on the transaction cost approach7. These activities are necessary to support core activities, and they generally correspond to the larger number of activities and employment positions in the firm. These activities do not require by definition a strong commitment in terms of knowledge management. The firm just needs to "be informed" of best practice among other firms and of organisations that can offer equivalent support services and if it appears that these activities are too costly to be run within the firm compared to market mechanisms (according to transaction costs criteria), they will be outsourced. To sum-up, in this part we have tried to show that the new economic environment calls for a reconsideration of the foundations of the firm as a processor of knowledge (instead as a processor of information ). This in turn implies a reconsideration of the principles of strategy. In this perspective, activities and competencies are the key building blocks of strategy, but they must be determine and manage according to a renewed framework, in which priority is given to the constitution and development of competencies. The competence-based approach, clearly suggests a reverse order of focus between activities and competencies, when compared to the traditional vision. The building and management of competencies drive the management of transactions, and thus shape the structure of activities of the firm. 4. Co-construction of competencies and positioning of firms The previous part of our paper put the concept of competencies at the heart of a dynamic analysis of knowledge accumulation and renewal at the firm and industry 6 For further developments on the definition of the core domain and the periphery see Amesse and Cohendet (2001) 7 In other words, in the domain of competences, low-opportunism conditions prevail, and allow more valuable knowledge to be applied to the firm"s activities. In the periphery domain, meanwhile, the risk of opportunism is high and leads to the situation described by the classical transactional approach. As (Langlois and Foss, 1996) claim, "as firms move increasingly from their core businesses, they confront increasing adverse selection and moral hazard, since management becomes increasingly unable to efficiently monitor employees or to evaluate their human capital. Agency costs rise correspondingly, producing the net profitability disadvantage associated with further integration" 12 levels. We showed that the primacy given to competencies can allow us to grasp in a different way the management of activities of a firm and the definition of its frontier according to a distinction between core competencies and peripherial ones. We furthermore insisted on the importance of combining the complementary competence- based approaches, in order to build a unified theoretical vision of the firm as a knowledge creating entity. The present section will further investigate the issue which relates to the way the competence based approaches deal with competitive analysis and the strategic positioning of firms at the industry level. It has been underlined that one critical difference between the Porterian approach and the competence based approach is that the former gives priority to the analysis of strategic positioning issues by developing a vision where industry conditions are the main drivers of firms" strategic activities for creating competitive advantage. As for the latter approach it has been criticised for having given to much emphasis to the internal environment of the firm by focusing on concepts such as resources, core competencies and capabilities without taking into account precisely enough the external environment and how these concepts are inherently linked to competitive advantage and strategic positioning issues (Collis and Montgomery, 1995). We will show that such criticism is not necessarily valid. However, within this approach, the strategic positioning of firms within and across industries derives primarily from the division of knowledge (competencies) rather than the division of labor (activities). Our main argument rests on the assumption that the knowledge and competence construction dynamic at the firm (distinctive competencies) and industry level (common competencies) is a dialectic process (4.1.). By referring to this dialectic process, we will underline its organizational implications at the industry level through the concept of "loosely coupled" systems (4.2.). Finally, we will show that strategic positioning in this context derives from a process of co-construction of distinctive and common competencies by appropriately managing the tension between cooperation and competition (4.3.). 4.1 The dialectic process between distinctive and common competencies One of the crucial questions in evolutionary approaches to the firm is the link between the diversity and heterogeneity of competencies between firms at the micro-level and the emergence of common patterns of behavior or common characteristics at the meso- and macro levels (Nelson, 1991; McKelvey, 1998). The aim is to better understand how one level influences the other and how learning results from a co-evolutionary process of competence building at the individual firm level and knowledge diffusion and accumulation at the industry level. By focusing on knowledge characteristics such as tacitness, cumulativeness, path dependency, the evolutionary approach focuses on the localized and non-transferable dimension of firms" knowledge bases. Such characterization of knowledge has also been put forth in order to explain the idiosyncratic structuring of internal routines and selection procedures on which firms' rely to determine their possible technological options and innovation opportunities. On the other hand, evolutionary theory has emphasized the industry-wide aspects of 13 knowledge by referring to the 'generic' body of knowledge (Nelson, 1987) as the common features of technology, understanding of problems, problem-solving heuristics, beliefs widely shared among firms in the industry or even a group of industries. Dosi (1982) used the technological paradigm and technological trajectories concepts in order to underline the fact that such generic knowledge bases are highly structured, and tend to evolve along structured trajectories. This collective aspect of knowledge refers mainly to general knowledge, in the sense that it is applicable to many situations, codified knowledge and common knowledge which can easily be shared among a large set of firms in a sector (i.e. engineering or technical communities within or across industries). By emphasizing the idea that certain aspects of knowledge are unique to individual firms (tacit knowledge, routines) whereas other aspects are shared among a larger group, evolutionary theories have raised the question of the way these two dimensions interact and co-evolve. They principally underlined the importance of better understanding the two way knowledge flow that characterize this co-evolution. On the one hand, aggregate and structural forces, such as sectoral level variables (Pavitt, 1984; Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt, 2001) or technological regime characteristics (Orsenigo and Malerba, 1996; 2000) influence and offer guidelines to the actions of individual firms. In turn, what individual (or group of) firms learn influences the common patterns of behavior to the extent that knowledge is diffused and accepted as relevant by the industrial system. Put in another way, "when knowledge and problem-solving approaches are shared in a larger group, macro dynamics of learning influence micro decisions". However, by internalizing shared knowledge firms rely on their idiosyncratic competencies in order to try to make such knowledge "more and more their own and doing so, either make codified knowledge into tacit and/or use codified to improve tacit" (McKelvey, 1998). The co-construction of distinctive and common competencies can be analyzed by the knowledge creation and conversion spiral at the onthological dimension proposed by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). Processes of socialization and externalization contribute to the emergence of common knowledge at the group and inter-organizational levels which in turn through a process of combination and internalization of such knowledge create distinctive competencies. The dialectic process between distinctive and common competencies can also be explicited at the industry level through the "discovery cycle" proposed by Noteboom (2000) which combines exploitation and exploration dynamics. Noteboom presents the discovery cycle as an interactive process between consolidation, generalization, differentiation and reciprocation stages. Consolidation of knowledge is based on two rationales at the industry and organizational levels. The first is to improve efficiency through standardization, codification and better coordination between systemic linkages. The second is to favor generalization that is the expansion and transfer of knowledge to new contexts: "consolidation serves as a platform for expansion and new applications". Both consolidation and generalization have to do with convergence of competencies, variety reduction, and dissemination and diffusion of the same knowledge base in varied settings (different products, organizations and industries). Furthermore, through generalization, the use of knowledge in new contexts favors different degrees of exploration and variety generation leading to differentiation, 14 reciprocation and recombination/transformation processes which are based on and strengthen or exacerbate distinctive competencies leading to a new stage of consolidation in order to maintain systemic efficiency and coherence. Although, evolutionary approaches has been quite successful in better understanding how firms and industries evolve through interaction with their external environment, they have been less consequential in giving a comprehensive answer to the strategic and organisational foundations of competence building, variety and novelty generation. As noted by Nooteboom (2000) "the notion of co-evolution from biology is useful, up to a point, but in the context of human systems it is also seriously misleading. Perhaps it does make sense to say that the selection environment of markets and (other) institutions co- evolves with firms or routines or competencies. However, in socio-economic evolution the influence of firms on selection by competition is of an entirely different, non- biological, cognitive and linguistic order. Here we are dealing with invention, communicative interaction, social construction of selection conditions, alliance formation, mergers and acquisitions, and political manoeuvring. To put it more precisely, in biological co-evolution the environment sets the selection conditions for the species, and the species affects the selection conditions for its environment. In human systems, however the species (a form of organisation, or routine, or competence) not only affects the selection conditions for the institutions in its environment, but by cognitive and communicative ingenuity may dodge or directly affect the selection conditions that the environment sets for it". Furthermore, in co-evolutionary approaches, the convergence to ordered or structured settings is often seen as an emerging property of self-organisational dynamics. At the end what differentiates one structure (organisation, network or industry) from the other is highly sensitive to the external conditions which shape the evolutionary path. There is no doubt that self-organisation is an important feature in the structuring of large complex systems and networks but it fails to take into account an important factor which is related to the intentionality of decision makers8 which determines authority, entrepreneurship, strategic choice or intent, but also the modalities of collective action, interaction and governance, which in turn may not only determine positioning within industry but also alter positioning conditions9. 4.2 Co-construction of Competencies: an organisational perspective 8 Most of the recent research directions within the evolutionary paradigm have tried to challenge this weakness by a better understanding of the internal determinants of firm"s behaviors through, for instance, an emphasis on learning procedures within the firm and on its ability to select information from its environment (Dosi and Marengo, 1994). But the firm still remains a re-acting agent to its environment. 9 By adopting a macro-level view, both the Porterian and evolutionary approaches insist principally on the determinants of industry level factors on individual firm behaviors. In fact the positioning view adopted by Porter derives from the "structure-conduct-performance" perspective in industrial economics which has been criticized from the competence perspective for its neglect of "strategic choice". We would rather say that the Porterian approach adopts a somewhat static viewpoint to "strategic choice" and that the competence based approach works in a more dynamic perspective. 15 Firms" organisational capabilities and the capabilities of the network in which they are embedded contribute in a critical way to the enhancement of their combinative capacity (Kogut and Zander, 1992). From an organisational perspective co- construction of competencies refers to co-ordination imperatives between actors and firms which although characterised by their idiosyncratic paths are embedded in a web of complex and multilateral relationships in the process of knowledge production and application. We will argue that in rapidly changing environments where interactions within and across industries are organised less in relation to stable products per se but in relation to technologies and knowledge bases that products (might) mobilise in unpredictable ways, co-construction of competencies becomes a priority of organisational and industrial dynamics. The increasing complexity of products, design and production processes (Baldwin & Clark, 1997), the systemic nature of innovations (Chesbrough and Teece, 1996), the broader range of technological competencies that must be mobilised for mastering such systemic interdependencies (Granstrand et al., 1997) and the speed with which technological opportunities must be integrated in new products due to competitive pressure have led firms to adopt more flexible forms of product innovation and knowledge management strategies. It is in this framework that the platform concept has attracted an increasing attention as a flexible and malleable form of co-ordination and governance mode. By insisting on the structural aspect of platform organisations Ciborra (1996) notes "a platform is a meta-organization, a formative context that molds structures, and routines shaping them into well-known forms, such as the hierarchy, the matrix, and even the network, but on a highly volatile basis…[It is] a chameleonic organisation […] conceived as a laboratory for rapid structuring". Purvis et al. (2001) on the other hand refer to knowledge platforms and link them to the ability of firms to integrate and combine in a dynamic way specialized knowledge bases dispersed across firms and generated in the course of practice and reflection by individuals or firms working on specific projects, products, processes and disciplines in different locations at different times. In a similar manner Nonaka and Konno (1998) propose the concept of Ba (place)10 as a generic organisational form and link it to the knowledge creation spiral mentioned above11. By returning to our co-construction argument we can underline the fact that the platform concept reflects the inherent tension that must be managed between maintaining distributed, varied and evolving sources of distinctive knowledge bases on the one hand and ensuring the development of knowledge forms that guarantee co- ordination and adaptation between these different sources on the other within and across firms at the industry level. 10 Ba conceptualizes the dynamic contexts of interaction in places where knowledge is concentrated and relationships emerge. It provides a platform where different subjects participate in the process of knowledge creation. 11 Corno et al. (1999) apply the concept of Ba to industrial districts. They write "Just as companies have been analyzed from the perspective of ba, in the same way we have analyzed districts as constellations of ba on a meta-level…which we can call district ba. We can define it as the dynamic context of interaction between the different enterprises, which facilitates the transfer and the creation of new knowledge. In other words, districtual ba is a meta-platform that offers to districtual enterprises opportunities for linking with other ba … [such] as "industrial ba"" 16 The concept of "loose coupling" to which refer Orton and Weick (1990) can be useful in order to better understand the process through which such tension can effectively be managed. Their definition of loosely coupled systems relies on how at the organisational level, firms manage the link between distinctiveness and responsiveness between knowledge bases. Distinctiveness gives priority to knowledge creating activities which favour exploration, diversity, autonomy, local learning processes. Responsiveness is in turn related to knowledge creating activities which favour co-ordination, interaction, exploitation, collective processes of innovation, building of common cognitive frameworks. According to the authors organisational systems can be characterized by their degree of responsiveness and distinctiveness: "If there is neither responsiveness nor distinctiveness, the system is not really a system and it can be defined as a non-coupled system. If there is responsiveness, without distinctiveness, the system is tightly coupled. If there is distinctiveness without responsiveness, the system is de-coupled. If there is both distinctiveness and responsiveness, the system is loosely coupled". Aldrich and Whetten (1981) study for instance the qualities of loosely coupled systems in terms of their flexibility and stability. They show how a loosely joined system provides short-run independence of subsystems and long-run dependence only in an aggregate way. According to their characterization, the overall industrial system can be fairly stable, due to the absence of strong links between elements and subsystems, but individual subsystems can be free to adapt quickly to local environmental conditions. In a certain sense, loosely coupled systems can be interpreted in terms of absorptive capacity. Generally, research on absorptive capacity defined as the ability of companies to successfully integrate external knowledge or competencies has focused to the individual firm level (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). As Meyer-Krahmer and Schmoch (1998) underline, a not less critical issue is what they call "structural absorptive capacity" depending as well on micro level factors as on meso-level characteristics. Such structural absorptive capacity depends on the organisational proprieties of networks and the way they tune and monitor distinctiveness and responsiveness. Loosely coupled systems can be an effective way to promote structural absorptive capacity and maintain in this way the flexibility and stability of networks and industrial systems. In this framework industrial platforms can be interpreted as contexts where distinctiveness and responsiveness can be tuned more or less flexibly according to the changes required by the organisational system or its elements. The necessity of common competence building can lead to organisational forms favouring tight coupling. In contrast when we are in presence of completely decomposable systems, organisations can become completely de-coupled. On the other hand when there is more or less a need for frequent mutual adjustment between distinctive and common competencies loose-coupling can become the appropriate organisational form. An interesting case of co-construction of distinctive and common competence dynamics through such loosely coupled systems is open source software (OSS), i.e. GNU/Linux operating system and the Apache web server. A specific feature of OSS is to combine in a very flexible way distinctiveness and responsiveness. An important feature of OSS is that it is a freely extensible public good. The "source code" used to generate the standard software can be modified freely by its users and these individual modifications are 17 themselves integrated into the source code and shared within the community of users. Such a process allows to develop in a very malleable way highly customized and complex software products which benefit not only the private users but all the community. How can we interpret OSS in terms of the characteristics of a loosely coupled system and in terms of co-construction of competencies? The improvements brought to OSS by its users depends on their specialized and heterogeneous needs. In this sense, the modifications integrated to the software benefit from the distinctive competencies of each user in relation to the localized nature of their learning processes and experience. What makes OSS preferable to other standardized software packages is than their capacity to allow for distinctiveness. On the other hand, the fact that many of the private improvements are shared within the community and incorporated in new versions of the product creates responsiveness in the system. The use of the most recent version allows users to access to a common knowledge base developed through time by the whole community and assimilate it in the process of customisation. Such a dynamic and flexible interaction between distinctive knowledge (customized but not proprietary) and common knowledge (public but highly customisable) is what makes OSS similar to a virtual knowledge platform. In terms of supplier-user relationship, the logic of OSS is based on the innovation toolkit approach used by suppliers facing highly heterogeneous users as studied by von Hippel (2001). Innovation toolkits appear to be an efficient way to co-ordinate and value highly distinctive and local competencies ("sticky information") by building a common platform which allows to redefine and reconfigure the division of labour among suppliers and users according to the evolution of their respective knowledge bases12. The dynamics of co-construction in relation to loose coupling can be further explicited from the industry perspective in the context of modularity management (Sanchez and Mahoney, 1996; Baldwin and Clark, 1997; Langlois, 2002) under different environmental and technological conditions. Since modularity is based on system decomposition, the appropriate level of distinctiveness and responsiveness in system design depends whether innovations are modular or architectural and systemic. When interdependencies between modules are based on a given architecture, fixed interfaces and standards, the organisational system can be considered as de-coupled (modular and decomposable). In this case, modular innovations which are based on distinctive competencies do not require an adaptation of common competencies once their appropriate level has been established and the need for co-construction vanishes. However, when changes at the 12 As noted by Franke and Von Hippel (2002) "Toolkits for user innovation in the software field include four important capabilities. First, and most important, they incorporate enable users to carry out complete cycles of experimentation and learning during the process of designing their custom product or service…. Second, toolkits must be "user friendly". This means that users should be able to operate them using their existing skills and customary design languages. Third, they must contain libraries of designs for useful components and modules for custom products that have been tested and debugged. These allow users to adopt what they can, and focus their design efforts on the truly novel elements of the custom design being developed. Fourth and finally, toolkits must contain information about the capabilities and limitations of the production process that will be used to manufacture the product. This ensures that a user"s design will in fact be producable". The first and second capabilities favor the emergence of distinctive competencies, while the second and fourth capabilities focus on the establishment of a common knowledge setting. The interactive process between these capabilities creates the co-construction dynamic. 18 module level introduce unpredictable interdependencies at the system level and need architectural redefinition, loose coupling becomes necessary in order to favour learning processes which combine flexibly responsiveness and distinctiveness to support co- construction of competencies. Langlois (2002) suggests that loosely coupled teams may be set up in a dynamic setting when "defining boundaries of encapsulation" between knowledge bases, disciplines or organisational units leads to dysfunction due to unpredictable changes13. Furthermore, as Brusoni et al. (2000) argue, in presence of a combined high rate of change of modules and unpredictable systemic interdependence (i.e. radical innovation), organisations can be forced to move from de-coupled or loosely coupled systems to tightly coupled ones. In this case, common competence building becomes the priority and distinctiveness is inhibited. The authors illustrate their argument by focusing on hierarchically structured networks through the example of the automobile industry "Carmakers increasingly rely on suppliers for the development and design of components. Within a given product family, suppliers are allowed (and encouraged) to introduce improvements at component level. Distinctiveness pays a premium, while responsiveness is achieved by respecting the limits set by the existing product architecture. However, carmakers do maintain in house competencies also on those components whose production they have fully outsourced. The system remains loosely coupled, rather than de-coupled. Indeed, only carmakers have the capabilities to design and develop a new product family. When that occurs, carmakers (i.e. systems integrators) have to step in and re-organize the network (or establish a new one altogether) around the new product. Loose coupling gives way to tighter coupling, to be then loosened again once the new regime is achieved". If we situate our analysis at a more general level, governance modes at the industry level can evolve according to the magnitude of the macro-environmental changes and create a cycle of loose and tight coupling. Under systemic and radical innovations, the industrial platform can progressively become tightly coupled. Superstructural elements14, such as industry councils, technical committees, trade associations and professional societies but also collective invention modes such as consortia or tight inter-firm networks which can be interpreted as a way to pre-determine the standards and the division of competencies and labour within the future emerging industry, can play a pivotal role. Once innovations are largely diffused and interfaces are standardized, the industrial system can become de- coupled or loosely coupled. Less centralized collective action forms can then be developed through for example bilateral alliances, informal know how sharing, a growing independence of subsidiaries or industrial districts (loosely coupled networks). 13 Following Von Hippel (1990) he notes that "the tasks in an innovative development project cannot be partitioned in advance, since knowledge is continually changing. In such a case, […] the modularization at any point has to take into account the inevitability of re-modularization as learning takes place. In routine project, […] it may be possible to predict which tasks will become the sources of information; but in genuinely novel projects, predication becomes all but impossible" 14 For Lynn et al. (1996) an innovation community consists of a substructure and a superstructure. The former includes organizations producing the innovations or its technological complementarities. The latter provides "collective goods to its members, often specializing in coordinating flows of information or coordinating the activities of substructure organizations. Many superstructure organizations are thus linking organizations". 19 4.3 Co-construction of competencies: the tension between co-operation and competition. How can we link the organisational perspective presented in the previous section in terms of co-construction of distinctive and common competencies through loosely coupled systems to the tension between competitive and co-operative forces between firms and to the governance modes regulating these forces? In a rapidly changing environment and in a context where firms increasingly rely on varied, distributed and interdependent knowledge bases which reside beyond their frontiers, the way they manage this tension becomes a critical source of competitive advantage. In this perspective, what seems relevant to understand is less how firms erect entry barriers in order to protect their positions and create sustainable competitive advantage, but rather how they position themselves to elaborate in a dynamic way rules of the game to determine the rights of entry to the knowledge creation process and to choose what knowledge bases to share and with whom to pool or not their competencies. Sanchez and Heene (1997) assert that "In prior strategy research, the "success" of collaborations has often been judged by the longevity of joint ventures and other forms of interfirm alliances. Competence theory, however, suggests that in a dynamic market context, longevity of interfirm relationships may not be an essential characteristic of successful collaborations. Networks of firms functioning as competitive alliances may find it mutually advantageous in the long-term to enter into successive short-term arrangements that allow firms to quickly configure short-lived chains of resources in response to transitory market opportunities". However their contribution does not tackle with the implications of such a shift in terms of governance of linkages and the organisation of transactions between firms (Williamson, 1985)15. Their assumption challenges the Williamsonian transaction costs theory in the sense that it does not refer to the issue of specific investments, the switching costs associated with them and the issue of frequency of transactions. In the traditional transaction cost approach, high level of uncertainty, frequency of transactions and asset specificity leads to governance modes favouring either vertical integration or long term contractual mechanisms. In order to be able to mobilise the transaction cost theory in the case of loosely coupled systems it is important to return to the three categories on which transactional analysis is based. In a context where knowledge bases evolve rapidly and in unpredictable ways, high uncertainty remains a pivotal assumption. However, facing a situation where knowledge bases are highly distributed and interdependent, multiplicity of interactions (in terms of variety of actors but also variety of forms) becomes as critical as frequency of transactions (Nooteboom, 1999a). Finally, concerning asset specificity, insofar as we consider knowledge assets, we can incorporate here our reasoning on co-construction dynamics of competencies. First, the very characteristic of knowledge is that it can be 15 Although having the ambition to present an "integrative strategy theory that incorporates economic, organizational, and behavioral concerns" Sanchez and Heene (1997) do not mention, in their discussion on networks and alliances, the transaction cost theory whose aim is also to incorporate the same three concerns in a framework where the firm is however viewed as an information processing rather than knowledge creating entity. 20 redeployed. Even if some costs may be incurred by the re-coordination of this knowledge with others, the value of the knowledge accumulated within a particular relation is never totally lost. In other words we can assert that knowledge bases are more flexible16 then the specific materials or products in which they are incorporated (this is also the main justification of knowledge platforms). Second, due to the multiplicity and variety of knowledge sources, as we broaden the set of actors interacting with each other (as in the case of a network or more globally an industry), co-ordination and synergy lead respectively to the constitution of common and collective knowledge bases (a knowledge infrastructure) which transcends the distinctive (specific and local) competencies of particular actors or upon which actors rely to further improve or re-deploy their distinctive competencies. In this sense alliances and networks more then being investments in specific assets may represent an appropriate way to leverage distinctive competencies by having access to the knowledge infrastructure. In our point of view inter-firm relationships in presence of high uncertainty, multiplicity and flexibility of knowledge sources, and a strong dialectic between common and distinctive competencies should lead to the adoption of loosely coupled governance modes favouring as well competition (distinctiveness) as cooperation (responsiveness) among firms. Several authors have already emphasised the co-existence at the network or industry level of competitive and co-operative forces between firms. Van de Ven and Garud (1989) and Van de Ven (1993) have shown the importance of generic competitive strategies which involve both competition and co-operation among actors in emerging industries17: "there is an ongoing tension for each industry participant to organise its own proprietary functions and distribution channels as opposed to contributing to the creation of the industry"s resources and institutional arrangements. Although the former may advance the firm"s position as a first mover in the short run, the latter provides the infrastructure that ultimately influences the collective survival of the emerging industry". Von Hippel (1987) has in turn illustrated and defined economic conditions under which rival firms can develop informal proprietary know-how sharing based on reciprocity. Such know- how sharing mechanisms are particularly underlined by studies on communities of practice which often transcend organisational boundaries. Know-how sharing favours mutual learning processes by confronting local and distinctive experiences of individuals belonging to different firms which through time become community knowledge. Kogut (2000) on the other hand refers to the evolution of relationships in horizontal networks shifting progressively from transactions governed by market mechanisms to interactions based on problem solving, co-ordination, and mutual know-how exchange. By referring to Uzzi (1996), he notes that the advantage of such a shift is based on the co-existence of "flexibility to explore new relationships and opportunities […] by allowing new entrants" 16 Nooteboom (1999b) differentiates between flexible and inflexible technologies. 17 They represent industry infrastructure as composed of three subsystems. The first subsystem, dealt within the Porterian and transaction cost approaches, encompasses the mechanisms through which firms manage their established proprietary activities and transactions. The second subsystem, concerns the knowledge infrastructure which support the emergence and diffusion of innovations. Finally, the third subsystem refers to the institutional dimension within the industry. It includes not only governmental action for establishing innovation and competition policies but also collective actions from the industry. 21 [competition] and of a "high density of relationships among firms […] that support long- term trust [co-operation]". A similar proposition is made by Nooteboom (1999a) in terms of innovation policy who suggests to "establish a reconciliation between co-operation (durable linkages) and competition in the sense of multiplicity of relations, and of a greater ease of entry and exit in networks, due to relations being sufficiently durable but no more than needed to recover the specific investments needed for high quality of products and collaboration in innovation". Nooteboom (1999b) presents this model as a "third way" corporate control mode based on "informal" and "multiple" relations which derives from the combination of two generic governance modes: mode A based on "formal" and "multiple" relations favoring radical innovations and mode B based on "informal" and "exclusive" relations favoring incremental innovations. A characteristic of these loosely coupled governance modes is that their viability rests on two critical variables: trust (particularly emphasized by Nooteboom due to informal relations) and knowledge infrastructure. Variabes that might be considered as closely tied-up and self-reinforcing each other. As noted by Kogut (2000) "the preservation of co-operation is maintained because exclusion to the club deprives the defecting member from sharing the group rents". As a firms" capability can be considered as more than the sum of the knowledge or competencies of its members, in a similar way capabilities at the platform, network or industrial levels could be assumed to be more then the sum of the knowledge of the members or firms being part of them. The difference generates what we can call the knowledge infrastructure rent and can dissuade members from adopting an opportunistic behavior at the risk of loosing access not only to the knowledge infrastructure but also the opportunity to value and further develop their distinctive competencies. Through which mechanisms can then trust and knowledge infrastructure be built within a loosely coupled governance system? A first possibility is to consider that both factors are an emergent property of self-organizational dynamics at the network and industry levels. Given multiplicity of actors, rapidly evolving knowledge sources and the necessity of flexibility, under such a possibility the system can hardly reach stability and it can take a long time to built the appropriate level of trust and knowledge infrastructure (if we have in mind relationships within a group and not only bilateral relationships). A second possibility is to design explicit and dedicated collective governance structures and methods through which responsiveness (co-operation) is promoted by maintaining distinctiveness (competition). We will illustrate our argument by insisting more particularly on the link between organizational/knowledge platforms and intellectual property rights in order to illustrate how flexibility of knowledge creation and exploitation can be maintained between competitive actors within appropriate institutional and collective settings. The fact that knowledge bases are more and more distributed and rapidly evolving, have created a profound need for more interaction and knowledge sharing between firms. The growing number of alliances and licensing strategies illustrates this need. At the same time, the necessity to protect and avoid hold-up of knowledge resources has led firms to adopt more "aggressive" knowledge protection strategies through intellectual property rights 22 (i.e. patents). These tendencies can be viewed as closely related in the sense that knowledge sharing goes hand in hand with strong intellectual property rights in order to not loose control of proprietary technologies. However, in a context where innovations and standards setting have an increasing systemic character, meaning that their success relies on overlapping technologies and knowledge bases (like in the case of architectural innovation), an excessive protection of fragmented knowledge bases can have detrimental effects on innovative activity. Heller (1998) referred to the anti-commons tragedy in order to underline the fact that by opposition to the commons tragedy where the absence of property rights leads to overuse of resources, the former situation is characterized by under-utilization of resources. The argument rests on the idea that if property rights are justified for preventing the tragedy of commons, an excessive fragmentation of property rights can deter or delay innovations and discoveries (Heller and Eisenberg, 1998). In other words, property rights create incentives for distinctive competence building and allow firms to protect their competitive advantage by preventing imitation from competitors. However, the exacerbate parcelization and protection of knowledge bases leads also to slow down their dissemination and their exploitation due to transaction costs. This in turn has direct implications on the development dynamics of the knowledge infrastructure (and consequently of distinctive competencies) because it hinders co-ordination, synergies and complementarities between over-partitioned knowledge pieces. It is then useful to confront our reasoning in terms of organizational and knowledge platforms in the previous section with the tragedy of anti-commons. The smooth functioning of such platforms depends actually on institutional arrangements which allow actors to flexibly co-operate in presence of new innovation opportunities. This has to do with mechanisms which allow to bundle, re-bundle, combine, recombine property rights in a transaction cost minimizing way according to emerging synergies and complementarities between distributed and proprietary knowledge bases (Langlois, 2002). The increasing importance of knowledge pooling has in fact created a growing interest on institutional arrangements based on patent pooling mechanisms (Shapiro, 2000) and collective patenting mechanisms (Cassier and Foray, 2001). Members of such platforms can in fact decide through the creation of an independent collective entity to negotiate property rights and license royalties in a coordinated way. As pointed out by Brousseau (2000b) such institutions could be considered as an intermediary co-ordination mode of contractual relationships (loosely-coupled governance mode) between general and public institutions (tightly coupled governance system) and bilateral governance structures (de-coupled governance systems). Conclusions The resource-based view and the core competence approach have been, for the last fifteen years, heavily questioned as to their capacity to be a legitimate theory of strategy. Clearly, such an approach to strategy is the result of many streams of thought not always well integrated and sometimes contradictory especially, for example, as to the key role of top management and the influence of the environment and the market (the strategic competence-based approach versus the evolutionary competence-based theories). 23 The resource-based view and the competence approach, because of their inward orientation, are more or less clearly differentiated from the mainstream thought in strategy and namely the I/O framework as developed by Porter in the 80s. It is not always clear what differentiate an activity from a resource or a competence as the basic unit of strategic planning. RBV and CCA have been seen more and more as a complement to the standard framework enlightening the cumulative learning process of the firm in performing activities. Recalling the premises of Porter that a theory of strategy is framed by a theory of the firm, we tried to demonstrate that the I/O framework and the RBV and CCA approaches do not refer to the same theory of the firm: The I/O framework refers clearly to the firm as a processor of information as theorized by the transaction cost theory. Such an approach is not designed to accommodate the basic characteristics of knowledge. The RBV an CCA approaches refer to the firm as a processor of knowledge as theorized in the literature on the knowledge based economy. In such a case, it is not activities that shape and drive competences or resources. Competence comes first and shapes activities and products. In such a perspective, the RBV and CCA approaches are not basically "inward" and disconnected from the industry and the environment. Such connection is not done on the basis of the division of labor in a stable environment as in the I/O framework but on the basis of knowledge in a dynamic environment. The positioning of the firm in the market is the result of a co-evolutionary and dialectic process. The firm is both contributing to the development of a common knowledge base for the industry and differentiating and positioning itself through the development of its own knowledge base. The firm is managing a dialectic process through which she compete and cooperate with other firms in loosely coupled systems. The perspective developed here (i.e. RBV and CCA as a theory of strategy based on a vision of the firm as a knowledge processor and connected to the environment through a co-evolutionary process by which the division of knowledge is done and the positioning of the firm is defined) is very well adapted to the type of environment we are living in. Most scholars point to RBV and CCA in an environment of technological change, continuous and disruptive innovations, blurred industry frontiers, and emerging markets. But how fast and flexible RBV and CCA are as an approach to strategy is another fundamental question. We frequently, especially by referring to routine, see construction and reconfiguration of competences as being slow and difficult. Recent contributions in a series of article in Harvard Business Review on the theme of "Corporate Strategy in the New Economy" shed some doubts on the capacity of RBV and CCA to cope with rapidly changing and ambiguous markets and technologies. Such doubts are expressed, among others by Eisenhardt (2001) contrasting strategy based on activities and positioning in stable industry structure, strategy based on competence and resources in moderately changing but well structured markets and strategy based on simple rules in chaos and 24 very rapidly and ill defined markets. Simple rules focus on a few basic rules as a process to cope with unpredictable change. Such questioning on the ability of RBV and CCA to cope with fast change bring us also to some interesting questions on the type of co- evolution of firms within the industry and especially to the recent trend observed of moving from alliances to mergers and acquisitions in very fast changing markets. Références Amesse F. Cohendet P., Technology Transfer revisited from the perspective of the knowledge-based economy, Research Policy, 2001 Argyris C., Schön D., (1978) Organisational Learning: a Theory of Action perspective, Addison-Wesley, Reading. Baldwin Y. & K. Clark (1997): "Managing in an age of Modularity", Harvard Business Review, september-october, pp. 84-93. Barney J.R., Is the resource-based "view" a useful perspective for strategic management research? Yes. Academy of Management review, vol.26,no 1, January 2001 Barney J., Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage, Journal of Management, vol 17, no 1, 1991 Boissin O., La construction des actifs spécifiques: une analyse critique de la théorie des coûts de transaction. Revue d"économie industrielle, no. 90, 1999. Brusoni S., A. Prencipe & K. Pavitt (2000) : "Knowledge Specialisation & the bounderies of the firm: why do firms know more than they do", Brusseau (2000) "What Institutions to organize electronic commerce: Private institutions and the organisation of markets", Economics of Innovation and New technology, Vol. 9, N° 4, July-September, pp. ???. Cassier M. D. Foray (2001) "Public knowledge, private property and economics of high- tech consortia: case studies in bio-medical research", in B. Bellon, Industrial Cooperation, Diversity and Synthesis, London, Edward Elgar. Chesbrough H., Teece,D., (1996)When Virtual is Virtuous: Organizing for Innovation, Harvard Business Review. Ciborra U. (1996): "The Platform Organization: Recombining Strategies, Structures, and Surprises", Organization Science, Vol. 7, N° 2, pp. 103- Cohen M.D., March J.G., Olsen J.P., (1972), A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 17. Cohen M.D., (1991) Individual learning and organizational routines: emerging connections, Organization Science, 2. Collis D.J., Montgomery C.A., Competing on resources, Strategy in the 1990,s, Harvard Business Review, vol 73, 1995. Conner K.R., A historical Comparison of Resource-based theory and five schools of thought within Industrial Organization Economics: Do we have a New theory of the Firm? Journal of Management, vol 17, no 1, 1991. Corno F.; P. Reinmoeller & I. Nonaka (1999): "Knowledge Creation within Industrial Systems", Journal of Management and Governance, Vol. 3, pp. 379-394. Cyert R., March J., (1963), A behavioral Theory of the Firm, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,. 25 Doz Y., Les dilemmes de la gestion du renouvellement des competences clés, Revue française de gestion, 1995 Dosi G., Marengo L., (1994) Some elements of an evolutionary theory of organizational competences, in R. England (ed) Evolutionary Concepts in Contemporary Economics. Un. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Eliasson G., (1990), The Firm as a Competent Team, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization, 13. Eisenhardt K.M., Sull D.N., Strategy as Simple Rules, Harvard Business Review, January 2001. Franke & Von Hippel (2002) "Satisfying Heterogeneous User Needs via Innovation Toolkits: The case of Apache security Software", MIT Sloan School of Management, Working Paper # 4341-02. Fransman M., (1994) Information, knowledge, vision and theories of the firm, Industrial and Corporate Change, 3 (3). Granstrand O., P. Patel & K. Pavitt (1997): "Multi-technology Corporations: why they have "distributed" rather than "distinctive core" competencies", California Management Review, Vol. 39, N° 4, pp. 8-25. Kogut B (2000): "The network as knowledge: generative rules and the emergence of structure", Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 21, pp. 405-425. Kogut B., Zander U., (1992), Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the reprication of technology, Organization Science,3. Langlois R. (2002): "Modularity in technology and organization", Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 49, pp. 19-37. Langlois R., Foss N., Capabilities and Governance : the Rebirth of production in the theory of Economic Organization , Working Paper, Un. Of Connecticut/Copenhagen Business School. 1996. Lin D. (2002) "Research versus development: patent pooling, innovation and standardization in the software industry", John Marshall review of Intellectual Property Law, 274, pp. 273-309. Lynn L., M. Reddy & J. Aram (1996): "Linking technology and Institutions: the innovation community framework", Research Policy, Vol. 25, pp. 91-106. Loasby B.J. (1976), Choice, Complexity and Ignorance, Cambridge Un. Press, Cambridge. Loasby B.J., (1983), Knowledge, learning and the enterprise, in Wiseman J. (ed), Beyond Positive Economics, McMillan, London. McKelvey M. (1998): "Evolutionary Innovations: learning, entrepreuneurship and the dynamics of the firm", Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol. 8, pp. 157-175. Marengo L., Knowledge distribution and coordination in organizations: on some social aspects of the exploration vs exploitation trade-off. Revue Internationale de Systémique, 7, 1994. Marengo L., (1996), Structure, competence and learning in an adaptive model of the firm, in Dosi G., Malerba F., (eds) Organization and Strategy in the Evolution of the Enterprise, McMillan, London. Mahoney J.T., Pandian J.R., The Resource-based view within the conversation of strategic management, Strategic Management Journal, vol 13, 1992 26 Meyer M.H., Utterback J.M., The Product Family and the Dynamics of Core Capability, Sloan Management Review, Spring 1993. Meyer-Krahmer F. & U. Schmoch (1998) : "Science-based technologies: university- industry interactions in four fields", Research Policy, Vol. 27, pp. 835-851. Nelson R., (1991), How do firms differ, and how does it matter? Strategic Management Journal, 12. Nonaka I., Takeuchi H., (1995) The Knowledge-creating Company, Oxford Un. Press, Oxford. Nonaka I., Konno N., (1998) The Concept of Ba: Building for Knowledge Creation, California Management Review, vol. 40. Nooteboom B. (1999): "Innovation and Inter-firm linkages: new implications for policy", Research Policy, Vol. 28, pp. 793-805. Nooteboom B. (2000) "Transformation: puzzels, perspectives and proposals", Inaugural lecture, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 31 p. Pavitt K., (1984), Sectoral Patterns of Technological Change: Towards a Taxonomy and a Theory, Research Policy, 13. Porter M.E., Competitive Advantage: Creating and sustaining Superior Performance, Harvard Business School Press, 1985 Porter M.E., Toward a Dynamic Theory of Strategy, in Fundamental Issues in Strategy, edited by Rumelt, R.P., Schendel, D.E., Teece D.J., Harvard Business School Press, 1994 Porter M.E., What is Strategy, Harvard Business Review, nov-dec. 1996 Prahalad, C.,K., Hamel G., The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review, 68 (3), 1990. Priem R.L., Butler J.E., Is the resource-based "view" a useful perspective for strategic management research? Academy of Management review, vol 26, no 1., January 2001 Probst G., Büchel, B., Raub S., (1998)" Knowledge as a strategic resource", in von Krogh G., Ross J., Kleine D., (eds) Knowing in firms, Sage, London. Purvis R., V. Sambamurthy & R. Zmud (2001): "The assimilation of Knowledge Platforms in organizations: An Empirical Investigation", Organization Science, Vol. 12, N° 2, pp. 117-135. Sanchez R., A. Heene (1997): "Reinventing Strategic Management: New Theory and Practice for Competence-based Competition", European Management Journal, Vol. 13, N° 3, pp. 303-317. Simon H., Models of Bounded Rationality. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1982 Spanos Y.E., Lioukas S., An examination into the causal logic of rent generation: contrasting Porter"s competitive strategy framework and the resource-based perspective, Strategic Management Journal, vol, 22, 2001 Spender J.C., (1996) Making knowledge the basis of a dynamic theory of the firm Strategic Management Journal, vol.17. Stalk G., Evans P., Schulman L.E., (1992) Competing on capabilities: the new rules of corporate strategy, Harvard Business Review, vol.70, no.2 Teece D.J., Pisano G., (1994), The dynamic capabilities of firms : an introduction, Industrial and Corporate Change, 3 (3) Tidd J., Bessant J., Pavitt K., (2001) Managing Innovation, (second Edition), John Wiley & Sons, New York. 27 Van De Ven A. (1993): "The emergence of an industrial Infrastructure for Technological Innovation", Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 17, pp. 338-365. Von Hippel (2001) "Perspective : User toolkits for innovation", The Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 18, pp. 247-257 Von Hippel (1987): "Cooperation between rivals: Informal know-how trading", Research Policy, Vol. 16, pp. 291-302. Von Hippel (2001) "Innovation by User Communities: Learning from Open Source Software", Sloan Management Review Wernerfelt B., A Resource-based View of the Firm, Strategic Management Journal, vol 5 (2), 1984. Wernerfelt B., The Resource-based View of the Firm: Ten years after. Strategic Management Journal, vol. 16, 1995 Williamson O.E., (1985), The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, Free Press, New York. Williamson O.E., Strategy Research: Governance and Competence Perspectives, Strategic Management Journal, 20, 1999 Williamson O.E., Strategizing, Economizing, and Economic organization, Strategic Management Journal, vol. 12, 1991. 28
Pages to are hidden for
"RESOURCE-BASED VIEW_ CORE COMPETENCIES"Please download to view full document


text:
It was once the home of the Parrot Jungle, Many trails left to walk and often a day festival here and there. Explosion of beauty as the orchids or air plants are in bloom year round in the trees. The trees can cool a summer day for your walk. I lived nearby and just loved the place.
If you own or manage Pinecrest Gardens, register now for free tools to enhance your listing, attract new reviews, and respond to reviewers.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
on most orders over $49*
Get 3% Back
with AllModern rewards
Abu Dhabi Evelyn Euro Silk Pillow
by Blissliving Home
Samsara Pillow
Abu Dhabi Lucca Silk Euro Pillow
Site Feedback
x Clear All
Copyright 2002 - 2015 by AllModern, a division of Wayfair LLC. All rights reserved.
Wayfair LLC,
4 Copley Place, Floor 7,
MA 02116 | Terms of Use
| Site Map


text:
OP Junior Member
Thanks Meter: 0
3 posts
Join Date:Joined: Sep 2013
After I updated safestrap, I was able to install the CM 11 and the 4.3.0 Gapps, because the KitKat 4.4 Gapps version did not install when I tried it. But ever since I'm using CM 11, I've been having problems with baterry level (it doesn't appear to update unless I reboot my phone) and and SD card (SD card is blank or has unsupported filesystem) considering I can still save stuff on it.
Did I do something wrong? What should I do to solve it?


text:
Live: SOAK – Parlour Skate Shop, Hackney
by Laura Eley
This Tuesday evening consisted mostly of sprinting through the streets of Hackney after being denied onto a bus due to lack of funds on both Oyster and debit card, then sauntering straight past the gig venue because, well, it's not a venue its a skate shop. In any case, not your ideal start to the week. But when we finally squished our way into the packed-out back room of Parlour skate shop, where around 50 lucky people gathered to catch […]
Categories: New to me, knew to you? • Tags: B A Nobody, Blud, Bridie Monds-Watson, Derry, Hackney Road, Parlour Skate shop, Sea Creatures, SOAK


text:
At 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 19, ITS is making a change to the default color scheme of the USC Outlook Web App (OWA). We are changing the color scheme from Microsoft blue, shown here: To a Cardinal and Gold Trojan theme, shown here: You will need to restart your browser for this change to […]
News and Announcements
Connectivity Issues with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client for VPN
The Microsoft 8.1 February patch causes a performance issue when using Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client application. Users are not able to establish a virtual private network (VPN) after applying the February 2015 patch in Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012. The following error appears: Failed to Initialize connection subsystem. The link below is to […]
Notice regarding Expired USC Accounts
Following an audit of USC accounts, ITS disabled a number of expired USC accounts on February 13, 2015. Users who believe their accounts were mistakenly disabled should contact the iVIP administrator responsible for their department. See http://itservices.usc.edu/iam/ivip/administrators/ for a list of administrators.
New Browser Requirements for Microsoft Office 365
After December 1, 2014, you will need to make certain you are using an up-to-date web browser in order to access your Microsoft Office 365 account using the Outlook Web App (OWA). See itservices.usc.edu/owabrowsersupport/ for information on currently supported browsers.
Google Drive Storage Is Now Unlimited
Google Drive accounts for Faculty and Staff and Google Apps at USC accounts for students now include unlimited storage for all of your files in Google Drive. Microsoft has also announced that it will be rolling out unlimited storage to their OneDrive for Business accounts, which all USC faculty and staff have access to via […]
Phishing Attempts Targeting Direct Deposits
Various universities have reported a recent increase in fraudulent email, which specifically targets the higher education community and aims to steal the direct deposit information of university employees. Read the latest post on the ITS Security blog for more information.
Important Changes to USC Wireless Services
Information Technology Services (ITS) is making some important changes to USC's wireless services, designed to promote wireless security across the Trojan community.
Introducing a New ITS website
As part of an ongoing project to update the ITS website, we have launched a redesigned and more service-oriented version.
Gmail for all USC Students
On June 30, 2014, USC's Information Technology Services (ITS) completed the move of all student email accounts from the central email service (email.usc.edu) to the Google Apps at USC for Students Gmail service. All students should now access their USC email by logging into my.usc.edu and clicking the Gmail link under Google Apps at USC. […]
Introducing eduroam
Information Technology Services has launched eduroam, a service that allows USC faculty, staff, students, and sponsored affiliates to use their USC NetIDs (usernames) and passwords to connect to secure wireless networks at participating universities around the world. Available in more than 60 countries, eduroam is an ideal solution for members of the USC community traveling […]


text:
New Beauty ProductsThe world of botanicals is a constant source of renewal and discovery. Continuously seeking to improve our products, Yves Rocher takes advantage of the possibilities nature offers to augment and maintain beauty. That's why there are always new thigns to discover at yvesrocherusa.com
products per page: all
5 product review(s)
Exceptional Youth Dark Spot Corrector
Reduces the appearance of dark spots!
instead of $32.00
products per page: all


text:
The keyboard seems to be jacked up and I can't sign in to google because the keyboard is small and the buttons are hard to find......
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2
For people having keyboard problems set DPI in AOKP settings to whatever you like and then reboot. It worked for me.
XDA Developers was founded by developers, for developers. It is now a valuable resource for people who want to make the most of their mobile devices, from customizing the look and feel to adding new functionality.
Are you a developer?
Copyright © xda-developers. Hosted by Leaseweb