Strategy Dynamics and the Theory of the Firm: Homage to Richard Rumelt

Richard Rumelt helped pioneer many key ideas in the field of strategic management, including how the ownership of unique bundles of resources determines competitive outcomes, how isolating mechanisms protect rent streams, and how entrepreneurship drives the firm’s choices of markets and resources. He chose not to build these insights into an integrated framework. However, his perspective on strategy and his emphasis on coherent actions for the firm is both complementary to and connected with the concept of organizational capabilities. The dynamic capabilities framework builds on Rumelt’s work and can serve as a basis for advancing the strategic theory of the firm on which Rumelt began work in the 1980s.