Slack resources and the rent-generating potential of firm-specific knowledge

• Autores: Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi, Guoguang Wan, John Qi Dong
• Localización: Journal of Management, ISSN-e 1557-1211, Vol. 42, Nº. 2, 2016, págs. 500-523
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We examine how two types of slack resources relevant to knowledge employees—human resource slack and financial slack at the R&D functional level—influence the rent-generating potential of firm-specific knowledge resources. According to the resource- and knowledge-based views of the firm, firm-specific knowledge resources are critical for generating economic rents for a firm. However, without motivated knowledge employees investing in the corresponding specialized human capital in the process of absorbing and deploying firm-specific knowledge resources, the resource potential for rent generation would be greatly discounted. We argue that human resource slack among knowledge employees and financial slack available for R&D activities affect the rent-generating potential of firm-specific knowledge resources by influencing knowledge employees’ incentives to invest in specialized human capital. In particular, while financial slack facilitates rent generation of firm-specific knowledge resources by increasing employee incentives to invest in specialized human capital, human resource slack hinders it by reducing such incentives. Empirical results based on longitudinal R&D employment data, U.S. patent data, and Compustat support these arguments.