The Co-Evolution of Organizational Value Capture, Value Creation and Sustainable Advantage

Abstract

Despite recent emphasis on intra-organizational issues, scholarship on organizations, management and strategy remains unduly reliant on economic models, such as the industrial organization (IO) market structure-based analysis. The focus of such models is on price-output determination by firms and the economy-wide efficient allocation of scarce resources under conditions of full knowledge and certainty. This limits their usefulness for students of organizations who have concerns that are simultaneously wider and also focused on organizations, as opposed to just markets. In this paper, we aim to provide an answer and framework for analysing the most fundamental, indeed existential, issue of organization studies and strategic management scholarship. This is whether and how the pursuit of value capture from economic agents who perceive that they possess appropriable value creating advantages, capabilities and action potential, can motivate the emergence of organizations and their strategies and actions intended to capture socially co-created value in conditions of real life . To do so, we explore (the co-evolution of) value capture and creation and (their relationship to) organizational sustainable advantage (SA). In particular, we delve into the nature, determinants and relationship between organizational value capture and creation and explore causal pathways, trade-offs and their co-evolution, as well as vehicles through which SA can be effected in an evolving and uncertain environment. We also discuss implications for managerial practice, limitations and future research opportunities.