Talk:Resource-based view/Archives/2018

Edith Penrose and RBV

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In relation to a recent edit to the article on Resource-based view, which was reverted please note the following:

(1) The prose in the original must be paraphrased (written in your own words) rather than copied directly or closely framed as in the original, lest it be considered a copyright violation;

(2) Blogs, even blogs maintained by academics, are not generally considered to be quality/reliable sources. The main problem with blogs is that the content does not undergo any peer review. In the absence of any gatekeeping role, blogs, have a tendency, to represent minority viewpoints, alternative perspectives or ocassionally extreme veiws, that for whatever reason, cannot get published in reputable books or articles where rigorous review processes are in place. Although Wikipedia has no general ban on blogs, they must be treated carefully and the context is important.

(3) Edith Penrose's contribution to RBV has been the subject of several scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed journals where the conclusion is that she was indirectly influential in theories of comparative advantage, but does "NOT make direct contributions to modern resource-based thinking."

BronHiggs (talk) 00:37, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Recent revisions to the article suggest that scholars generally hold that Edith Penrose's contributions to RBV, were pioneering and substantive. I think that using the term, generally is drawing too long a bow, and here's why.

As I understand the literature in this area:

* In 2004, two US scholars, Yasemin Y. Kor and Joseph T. Mahoney, published a paper in which they argued that Edith Penrose both directly and indirectly influenced the modern resource-based view of strategic management.

* In their paper, Kor and Mahoney expressly challenge the more conventional view that Penrose's influence was largely indirect. These authors particularly take issue with papers published by Rugman and Verbeke (2002, 2004).

* Since then, other scholars have revisited the contributions of Edith Penrose, arguing that she was a precursor or antecedent to RBV or as a building block for the theories of RBV that followed some 40 years later.

So, in summary, we have two scholars casting Penrose as a neglected pioneer of RBV. Only a handful of papers have been published on this subject, some aligning with Kor and Mahoney (in favour of giving Penrose a larger role as founder of RBV ); some supporting Rugman and Verbeke that Penrose's contribution was largely indirect; and yet others adopting some sort of middle ground by acknowledging Penrose's important contributions to the field of strategy, but without giving her a role as a pioneer of the RBV literature. The fact that there are only a handful of papers on this subject, already suggests that the subject is not considered worthy of investigation and the fact that within those papers there are a diverse range of views, does not add up to a consensus view.

I just can't see how any review of this body of literature can result in a sweeping statement to the effect that scholars generally hold that.... To make such a claim based on a dozen or so articles with very mixed views, is a gross misinterpretation of the state of play.

I also question whether an article about Resource-based view is an appropriate place to carry out a discussion concerning a continuing and unresolved debate about one theorist's contributions to the broader field of strategy and value creation. None of this is to suggest that Penrose did not make important contributions to the field of strategic management. Indeed, she was already mentioned in the history section of the article. However, I question the need for one entire paragraph, out of a total of five paragraphs in the history section to be devoted to this minority viewpoint. BronHiggs (talk) 22:29, 2 July 2018 (UTC)