IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/06-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A General Inter-Industry Relatedness Index

Author

Listed:
  • David Bryce
  • Sidney Winter

Abstract

Firm growth and expansion is widely believed to be guided by the desire to leverage existing resources. But which resources? The answer depends largely on context.the peculiarities of industries, firms, technologies, production, customers, and a host of other dimensions. This fact makes pointing to any particular set of resources as the source of expansion decisions potentially problematic and makes more difficult tests of theories such as the resource-based view of the firm. This paper tackles the problem by developing a general inter-industry relatedness index that can be usefully applied across industry and firm contexts. The index harnesses the relatedness information embedded in the multi-product organization and diversification decisions of every firm in the US manufacturing economy. The index is general in that it implicitly varies the underlying resources upon which expansion proceeds with the industries in question and provides a percentile relatedness rank for every possible pair of fourdigit SIC manufacturing industries. The general index is tested for predictive validity and found to perform as expected. Applications of the index in strategy research are suggested.

Suggested Citation

  • David Bryce & Sidney Winter, 2006. "A General Inter-Industry Relatedness Index," Working Papers 06-31, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:06-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2006/CES-WP-06-31.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2006
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald H. Coase, 2025. "The Institutional Structure of Production," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edition 0, chapter 3, pages 37-46, Springer.
    2. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1992. "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 383-397, August.
    3. James A. Robins & Margarethe F. Wiersema, 2003. "The measurement of corporate portfolio strategy: analysis of the content validity of related diversification indexes," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 39-59, January.
    4. Jacquemin, Alexis P & Berry, Charles H, 1979. "Entropy Measure of Diversification and Corporate Growth," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 359-369, June.
    5. Gollop, Frank M & Monahan, James L, 1991. "A Generalized Index of Diversification: Trends in U.S. Manufacturing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 73(2), pages 318-330, May.
    6. Takayama,Akira, 1985. "Mathematical Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521314985, September.
    7. Moshe Farjoun, 1994. "Beyond Industry Boundaries: Human Expertise, Diversification and Resource-Related Industry Groups," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 185-199, May.
    8. Michael Gort, 1962. "Diversification and Integration in American Industry," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gort62-1, October.
    9. Berry, Charles H, 1971. "Corporate Growth and Diversification," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(2), pages 371-384, October.
    10. Winter, Sidney G, 1988. "On Coase, Competence, and the Corporation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 163-180, Spring.
    11. C. K. Prahalad & Richard A. Bettis, 1986. "The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(6), pages 485-501, November.
    12. Arora, Ashish & Fosfuri, Andrea & Gambardella, Alfonso, 2001. "Specialized technology suppliers, international spillovers and investment: evidence from the chemical industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 31-54, June.
    13. David J. Teece & Gary Pisano & Amy Shuen, 1997. "Dynamic capabilities and strategic management," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(7), pages 509-533, August.
    14. David J. Teece, 2003. "Towards an Economic Theory of the Multiproduct Firm," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Essays In Technology Management And Policy Selected Papers of David J Teece, chapter 15, pages 419-446, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Sidney G. Winter & Gabriel Szulanski, 2001. "Replication as Strategy," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(6), pages 730-743, December.
    16. Constance E. Helfat, 2000. "Guest editor's introduction to the special issue: the evolution of firm capabilities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(10‐11), pages 955-959, October.
    17. Wenpin Tsai, 2000. "Social capital, strategic relatedness and the formation of intraorganizational linkages," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(9), pages 925-939, September.
    18. Helfat, C.E. & Raubitschek, R.S., 2000. "Product Sequencing: Co-Evolution of Knowledge, Capabilities and Products," Papers 00-1, U.S. Department of Justice - Antitrust Division.
    19. Constance E. Helfat & Marvin B. Lieberman, 2002. "The birth of capabilities: market entry and the importance of pre-history," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 11(4), pages 725-760, August.
    20. Teece, David J., 1980. "Economies of scope and the scope of the enterprise," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 223-247, September.
    21. Cynthia A. Montgomery & Birger Wernerfelt, 1988. "Diversification, Ricardian Rents, and Tobin's q," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(4), pages 623-632, Winter.
    22. Vasudevan Ramanujam & P. Varadarajan, 1989. "Research on corporate diversification: A synthesis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(6), pages 523-551, November.
    23. Richardson, G B, 1972. "The Organisation of Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(327), pages 883-896, September.
    24. Montgomery, Cynthia A. & Hariharan, S., 1991. "Diversified expansion by large established firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 71-89, January.
    25. Sidney G. Winter, 2003. "Understanding dynamic capabilities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(10), pages 991-995, October.
    26. Panzar, John C & Willig, Robert D, 1981. "Economies of Scope," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 268-272, May.
    27. Krishna Palepu, 1985. "Diversification strategy, profit performance and the entropy measure," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(3), pages 239-255, July.
    28. Brian S. Silverman, 1999. "Technological Resources and the Direction of Corporate Diversification: Toward an Integration of the Resource-Based View and Transaction Cost Economics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(8), pages 1109-1124, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Hyunmin, 2023. "Converging technology to improve firm innovation competencies and business performance: Evidence from smart manufacturing technologies," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    2. Adrian Lüthge, 2020. "The concept of relatedness in diversification research: review and synthesis," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 1-35, February.
    3. Nicola Cetorelli & Michael G. Jacobides & Samuel Stern, 2021. "Mapping a sector's scope transformation and the value of following the evolving core," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(12), pages 2294-2327, December.
    4. Manral, Lalit & Harrigan, Kathryn R., 2018. "The logic of demand-side diversification: Evidence from the US telecommunications sector, 1990–1996," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 127-141.
    5. Guerras-Martín, Luis Ángel & Ronda-Pupo, Guillermo Armando & Zúñiga-Vicente, José Ángel & Benito-Osorio, Diana, 2020. "Half a century of research on corporate diversification: A new comprehensive framework," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 124-141.
    6. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    7. Pettus, Michael L. & Kor, Yasemin Y. & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2007. "A Theory of Change in Turbulent Environments: The Sequencing of Dynamic Capabilities Following Industry Deregulation," Working Papers 07-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    8. Lihong Qian & Rajshree Agarwal & Glenn Hoetker, 2012. "Configuration of Value Chain Activities: The Effect of Pre-Entry Capabilities, Transaction Hazards, and Industry Evolution on Decisions to Internalize," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1330-1349, October.
    9. Alonso-Borrego, César & Forcadell, Francisco Javier, 2010. "Related diversification and R&D intensity dynamics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 537-548, May.
    10. Tyson B. Mackey & Jay B. Barney & Jeffrey P. Dotson, 2017. "Corporate diversification and the value of individual firms: A Bayesian approach," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 322-341, February.
    11. Abdulrahman Al–Aali & David J. Teece, 2014. "International Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the (Long–Lived) International Firm: A Capabilities Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(1), pages 95-116, January.
    12. Jaideep Anand & Raffaele Oriani & Roberto S. Vassolo, 2010. "Alliance Activity as a Dynamic Capability in the Face of a Discontinuous Technological Change," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(6), pages 1213-1232, December.
    13. Alfredo Jiménez & Diana Benito-Osorio & Carmen Palmero-Cámara, 2015. "Learning from Risky Environments: Global Diversification Strategies of Spanish MNEs," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 485-509, August.
    14. Iman Seoudi & Matthias Huehn & Bo Carlsson, 2008. "Penrose Revisited: A Re-Appraisal of the Resource Perspective," Working Papers 14, The German University in Cairo, Faculty of Management Technology.
    15. Villalonga, Belen, 2000. "Does Diversification Cause the “Diversification Discount”?," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt40v212gm, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    16. Giovanni. Gavetti & Daniel A. Levinthal, 2004. "50th Anniversay Article: The Strategy Field from the Perspective of Management Science: Divergent Strands and Possible Integration," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(10), pages 1309-1318, October.
    17. Ding, Yang, 2021. "Antecedents and implications of legacy divestitures," Other publications TiSEM f4d5766f-6a5b-43a3-94df-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Adrian Lüthge & Ulrich Pidun & Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß, 2021. "Approximating relatedness from a business model perspective: towards a taxonomic approach," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 813-846, April.
    19. Cynthia A. Montgomery, 1994. "Corporate Diversificaton," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 163-178, Summer.
    20. Kim, Jungho & Lee, Chang-Yang & Cho, Yunok, 2016. "Technological diversification, core-technology competence, and firm growth," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 113-124.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:06-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.