Editors: Heike Proff, Christoph Burmann and Jörg Freiling

The yearbook Strategic Competence-Management, Volume 3, 2009 was originally published by Rainer Hampp Verlag.

The third volume of the periodical „Competence-based Strategic Management” is devoted to the question of whether and to what extent the competence-based approach can contribute to a „theory of the firm”. Initial studies were conducted in the 1990s which encouraged further research. More recently, however, many leads have not been followed up because questions relating to the principles of sustainable competitive advantage appeared more important in the context of strategic management. An important
area for research therefore still remains here alongside explanations of sustainable competitive advantage and associated performance differences. This volume features six academic studies which have all passed through a double blind review process and which focus on research into the nature of the firm from different perspectives. They concentrate in the context of competence research on five core questions of the theory of the firm: why and how are firms formed? Why and how do firms change over time? How do the boundaries of firms change? What are the organizational structures of firms? How can the decline of firms be explained?