S is concerned with sustained interfirm profitability differences. Observations of such sustained differences are often attributed to unobserved systematic a priori differences in firm characteristics. This paper shows that sustained interfirm profitability differences may be very likely even if there are no a priori differences among firms. As a result of the phenomenon of long leads in random...

What motivates firms to develop Internet-enabled interfirm communication? We draw upon the work of Alavi et al. (2005–2006) and propose that the use of the Internet in interfirm communication is influenced by a firm’s firm orientation and its internal communities of practice. Based on data collected from 307 international trade firms in the Beijing area, we find that Internet-enabled interfirm ...

With growing use of interorganizational systems, the scope of interfirm collaboration has increased considerably, particularly in the supply chain context. An important prerequisite of interfirm collaboration is information sharing. Extant research suggests clear advantages of information sharing. The research at hand addresses antecedents of interorganizational information sharing. Based on fi...

The central premise of this paper is that firm level characteristics or behavioral traits, referred to as predispositions, influence how the firm behaves and interacts in its interfirm relationships (IFRs). This augments traditional approaches that focus on the intra-relationship perspective and/or on environmental influences on the relationship. Firm predispositions of strategic intent and rel...

More thoroughly understanding how interorganizational governance value can be created by information technology and other governance mechanisms is critical for supply chain management. Based primarily on transaction-cost economics and supplemented by the resource-based view, this study investigates how interorganizational governance (i.e., relational governance and virtual integration) can crea...

Alliance raises many knowledge transfer and interfirm learning issues that have implications for how the alliance partners manage their cooperative learning activities in the alliance system. Many of these implications are grounded in the assumption that partners in the alliances have routines for transferring knowledge, learning, gaining management efficiencies. Thus organisations can support ...

Embeddedness of interfirm relationships in the social structure resulting from prior partnerships engenders order in new tie formation. However, competitive incentives make firms likely to undermine the order that they achieve through the formation of interfirm relationships. We focus empirically on unplanned dissolution of joint ventures between firms competing in the same industry and examine...

I use data on the hiring practices and spatial location of firms in four cities to model the process of interfirm racial segregation. When I control for the spatial location of the firm, the use of employee referrals reduced the probability of hiring a black worker by 75% in firms that are less than 10% black. Among all firms, the results suggest that employee referrals are just as important as...