Extending resource-based logic: applying the resource-investment concept to the firm from a payments perspective

Abstract

This article argues that resource-based logic can be extended by conceptualizing the firm in resource-investment terms. It establishes that investing in resources is essentially a bilateral process involving managers and the owners of capital and that all resource-investments are necessarily made within an institutional superstructure. As a result, the capital invested into the firm is necessarily highly structured. These ideas are developed in this article from a payments perspective because this perspective allows scholars to explore the ex ante investment decisions that allow firms to grow, and to focus on firms’ resource payments, which can be considered a proxy for firms’ ex post resource-investments. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these ideas, including the implications for performance, theory of the firm, and endogenous growth research.