查看文章

Business groups are a common type of enterprise in lat‐developing countries, yet their existence appears to be at odds with extant theory in strategic management. Drawing on Schumpeter, we suggest that entrepreneurs in late development build a business group by engaging in a distinct type of innovation. Instead of creating new products they leverage local and foreign contacts to combine foreign technology and local markets. The capability to leverage contacts is broadly applicable to diverse industries, creating incentives for unrelated diversification. We make two main arguments. First, the main (initial) cause for the creation of business groups can be traced to the selection environment at the beginning of economic development in late-industrializing countries, when the ability to use contacts outweighs other capabilities in importance. Expanding businesses based on this core capability (which is different …