Abstract
In this study, we determine why one home-based resource can be exploited as a firm-specific advantage (FSA) in the host emerging market, whereas another resource cannot be utilized as a source of competitive advantage in the same location. Previous studies on FSAs assumed that all non-location-bound FSAs automatically become a source of competitive advantage in every host market; however, studies on the dynamic capabilities and multinationalization of firms indicate that firms must take time to identify the resources that are most suitable for dealing with the competition in each country’s market and then reconfigure them. In this paper, we proposed the resource repositioning framework (RRP framework), which is designed to explain the phenomena in which the market position for a home resource may be different from that of the host emerging markets because the degree of customer preference and rareness of resource may differ from country to country, along with varying market conditions.
By understanding the resource repositioning mechanism, the firm can easily predict which home-based FSAs will achieve the expected value in a host market ex ante. The resource repositioning activities may provide the firm with a basis for entrepreneurship activities and organizational learning routines relative to its dynamic strategic resource management and long-term investment forecast to develop a source of competitive advantages in the global arena.
