Resource- and Knowledge-Based Views of the Firm
The resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991) argues that heterogeneity and immobility of firm resources can provide a basis for superior competitive performance. Firm resources that are strategically valuable and heterogeneously distributed enable firms to outperform the competition. However, such a competitive advantage cannot be sustained if competitors can acquire strategically equivalent resources to implement the same valuable strategy. Therefore, for a firm to sustain its competitive advantage, its valuable and rare resources should not be open to imitation or substitution.
The knowledge-based view of the firm (Grant, 1996; Kogut & Zander, 1996; Nonaka, 1991) extends the resource-based view by defining organizational knowledge as a valuable subset of firm resources. The knowledge-based view perceives a firm as a knowledge-creating entity; it argues that the capability to create and utilize knowledge is the most valuable source of the firm's sustainable competitive advantage (Nonaka, Toyama, & Nagata, 2000). Specialized, firm-specific knowledge resources are those that are valuable, scarce, and difficult to imitate, transfer, or substitute. By using such resources, a firm could gain an advantage in its markets that competitors would find difficult to overcome.
Applying Grant's (1996) view of coordination mechanisms, e-collaboration is conceptualized here as a group coordination mechanism. Kock, Davison, Wazlawick, and Ocker (2001) define e-collaboration as “collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task using electronic technologies” (p. 1). This definition encompasses different types of systems, ranging from computer-mediated communication (CMC), through group decision support systems (GDSS), to Web-based collaboration tools (Kock & Nosek, 2005). Nonetheless, researchers agree that e-collaboration tools are vehicles for information and knowledge sharing that transcends traditional limitations of time and space. Therefore, compared with traditional coordination mechanisms, e-collaboration is a group coordination mechanism with wider capabilities because it enables and facilitates the work of virtual groups, giving firms extra degrees of freedom in establishing and managing knowledge-sharing mechanisms.