Creation of competitive advantage in a cluster from the perspective of the resource based view: a study in ceramics companies of Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

The search for new markets, and the need to find new strategic and structural formulas, of competitive advantage promotion has made appearing in the business environment a form of competitive arrangement, the local productive arrangements (APL). Thus, it can be say that the diagnosis of the effectiveness of APLs has become crucial for the success of businesses. In this perspective, this article is configured in an empirical study whose aimed is identifying the transformations undergone by the structure and resources of the organizations involved in the interorganizational network of the APL type. To this end, one analyzes the reconfiguration of the organizational resources through the formation of the APL supported by SEBRAE-RN, composed by ceramics companies in the metropolitan area of Natal-RN. Through research supported the assumptions developed by Barney (1991) and some other authors based on the Resource Based View (RBV), which searched to identify a structure of resource as source of competitive advantage. As a result, one has the proved effectiveness of the framework developed, as well as significant results on the investigated APL, which allow the construction of a wide range of hypotheses concerning the strategic issues associated with the restructuring of the structure and organizational resources.