Guidelines for developing a k-strategy Kurt A. April Introduction The resource-based view of the firm initially came from the works of Chamberlin (1933), Selznick (1957) and Penrose (1959) who contended that firm heterogeneity can represent an important source of competitive advantage for a company. As early as 1933, Chamberlin argued that a firm’s competitive advantage is achieved from the firm’s unique assets and capabilities, i.e. technical know- how, reputation, brand awareness, and the ability of managers to work together. According to Chamberlin (1933), heterogeneous characteristics of companies create imperfect competition that allows them to enjoy monopolistic competition. This monopolistic competition enables a company to gain competitive advantage, which leads to superior financial performance for a certain period of time (Barney, 1986a). Thus, in order to achieve the objective of the strategy, which is competitive advantage, a company should have a strategy to develop its idiosyncratic resources – in which know-how, learning, knowledge and experience are critical differentiating elements. With the appearance of the concepts of ’’distinctive competence’’ (Ansoff, 1976; Hofer and Schendel, 1978; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980; Hitt and Ireland, 1986, 1985), ’’core competence’’ (Hamel and Prahalad, 1990) and ’’competing on capabilities’’ (Teece et al., 1991), the focus of attention changed from outside to inside the company. As described by Hamel and Prahalad, core competence was a capability that provided the thread running through a company’s businesses, weaving them together into a coherent whole. Ulrich and Lake (1990) re-emphasised the strategic importance of identifying, managing, and leveraging core competencies rather than focusing only on products and markets in business planning (the focus of industrial organisation economics). Some writers have equated the activities the company performs better than its competitors (and which are critical to its end products or services) with its ’’core competencies’’. However, according to Long and Vickers- Koch (1995, p. 15), ’’by drawing attention to activities, activity-based management keeps us focused on the present. We end up rearranging the portfolio of current activities, instead of examining the potential the The author Kurt A. April is Senior Lecturer and Sainsbury Fellow, The Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. Keywords Resources, Strategy, Competitive advantage, Sustainability, Core competences Abstract As companies start to engage with the knowledge economy, they have to shift their mindsets to understanding knowledge management more holistically and, more importantly, understand the role of knowledge management as it pertains to sustainable competitive advantage. It requires companies to think of age-old concepts in new ways, and necessarily requires deep insight into the enablers of business success within the company, and then creative insight is required to reveal the new possibilities. This paper, drawing on resource- based theory, provides some guidelines for companies to develop business strategies, critically dependent on knowledge management initiatives. A chain of sustainability is introduced and three insightful concepts are highlighted (complementary resource combinations, strategic architecture and pool of resources); however, they do not tell companies specifically what to do, but robustly explain what the requirements of a knowledge strategy are, if they want to attain, and sustain, competitive advantage. Electronic access The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1367-3270.htm 445 Journal of Knowledge Management Volume 6 . Number 5 . 2002 . pp. 445±456 # MCB UP Limited . ISSN 1367-3270 DOI 10.1108/13673270210450405