An Integrated Model for Strategic Management in Dynamic Industries: Qualitative Research from Taiwan's Passive-Component Industry

For the past few decades, strategic management theoristsand practitioners alike have been absorbed with the pursuitof answers to a single question: Why do some firms performbetter than others? Until the late 1980s, the search for answers to this question was centered on research that revolved around two major strategic thinking paradigms: an industrial organizational per-spective (IO school), and a resource-based view (RBV school). Essen-tially, the IO school of thought emphasizes strategy formulation based on policies directed at controlling the market (Porter, 1980, 1991). On the other hand, the RBV school of thought is fundamentally concerned with improving corporate performance through efficiency (Wenerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991). In short, one school is outwardly focused and one school is inwardly focused. During the 1990s, in the face of increasing market uncertainty and rapid market change fueled by globalization and the rapid evolution of technology, concerns proliferated over the ineffectiveness of both the IO and RBV schools for guiding strategy in dynamically evolving industries. In response to this, stirrings of a new perspective on strategic thinking