Abstract for: Strategic Resource Management under Causal Ambiguity - The Dynamic Resource-based view approach

The Resource-based view (RBV) of a firm is a stream in the field of strategic management, which sees a firm as a bundle of resources. System Dynamics scholars, under the name of the Dynamic RBV, have employed system’s perspective towards the RBV; that is, the firm is viewed as a resource system rather than a bundle of resources. This paper mainly discusses the notion of causal ambiguity, which is one of the theoretical cornerstones of the RBV. The traditional RBV sees causal ambiguity to have a paradoxical effect towards firm performance; a positive effect through providing protection to the firm’s strategic resources, and a negative effect which undermines decision makers’ decision quality. This paper attempts to disentangle the paradox by using the system’s perspective; I identify causal ambiguity as a factor that hinders managers in understanding their resource system, and in turn their resource-developing decisions. The paper postulates that adopting system’s perspective towards the resource system can help managers to manage causally ambiguous resource system. Finally five theoretical propositions that discuss potential resource management behaviors under causal ambiguity are presented.