Abstract
Three attributes that a firm's culture must have to generate sustained competitive advantages are isolated. Previous findings suggest that the cultures of some firms have these attributes; thus, these cultures are a source of such advantages. The normative implications of the analysis are discussed. Firms that do not have the required cultures cannot engage in activities that will modify their cultures and generate sustained superior financial performance because their modified cultures typically will be neither rare nor imperfectly imitable. Firms that have cultures with the required attributes can obtain sustained superior financial performance from their cultures.
Keywords
Competitive advantageOrganizational cultureBusinessOrganizational behaviorKnowledge managementOrganizational effectivenessIndustrial organizationManagementMarketingEconomicsComputer science
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Strategic Factor Markets: Expectations, Luck, and Business Strategy
Much of the current thinking about competitive strategy focuses on ways that firms can create imperfectly competitive product markets in order to obtain greater than normal econ...
Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage
Understanding sources of sustained competitive advantage has become a major area of research in strategic management. Building on the assumptions that strategic resources are he...
Does Governance Matter? <i>Keiretsu</i> Alliances and Asset Specificity as Sources of Japanese Competitive Advantage
This empirical study suggests that Japanese competitive advantage in complex-product industries is at least partly due to differences in value chain governance and interfirm ass...
The cornerstones of competitive advantage: A resource‐based view
Abstract This paper elucidates the underlying economics of the resource‐based view of competitive advantage and integrates existing perspectives into a parsimonious model of res...
Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness
This paper develops a model of organizational culture and effectiveness based on four traits of organizational cultures; involvement, consistency, adaptability, and mission. The...
Publication Info
- Year
- 1986
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 656-665
- Citations
- 3146
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
3146
OpenAlex
Cite This
Jay B. Barney
(1986).
Organizational Culture: Can It Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage?.
Academy of Management Review
, 11
(3)
, 656-665.
https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1986.4306261
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.5465/amr.1986.4306261