Strategy beyond the firm: interorganizational capability and industry development

This paper reaches over boundaries, extending the thinking of CK Prahalad into new areas, focusing on the ways in which dynamic capability is fostered in inter-organizational spaces, and how inter-organizational exchanges lead to industry level competitiveness. We begin by offering an examination of the potential for resource and capabilities based theorising to contribute to our understanding of inter-organisational and industrial strategy. Then we suggest ways in which a rules-based perspective might enrich and complement resource based thinking and we propose a rudimentary research framework based on a selective combination of the two. We conclude by reporting on the early stages of an project in which these are ideas are being tested and refined in relation to the development of the renewable energy industry in Scotland.