TIME AND STRATEGY: TOWARDS A MULTITEMPORAL VIEW OF THE FIRM

Abstract

This paper takes into consideration the main views underlying the theory of the resource based firm within strategy studies, underscoring their fundamental monotemporal nature and proposing a way to elaborate a multi-temporal view of the firm. By analyzing the link between the time concepts used as bases for the formulation of studies within the strategy field and the types of actor behavior implicitly (or explicitly) entailed by such time concepts, the paper shows the inadequacy of any one of the two monotemporal views of the resource-based firm to encompass all of the main actor behaviors on which the firm’s survival and success increasingly rests. The paper draws on the Austrian process view in economic studies to formulate a methodological framework which consents the elaboration of a multi-temporal view of the resource based firm, in which different time concepts are bridged and in which all main actor behaviors crucial for prolonged firm success are encompassed. Finally, the paper shows how the multi-temporal view of the firm consents with the re-interpretation and maintenance of both the static and the dynamic concepts elaborated within the strategy literature and, eventually, also expands the causal relationships between strategic management and a number of other areas of inquiry in the management field, such as time-space relationships, the relationship between strategy and entrepreneurship, and the relationship between the former and the evolutionary perspective.