"This study partitions the total variance in rate of return among FTC Line of Business reporting units into industry factors , time factors, factors associated with the corporate parent, and business-specific factors. Whereas Schmalensee reported that industry factors were the strongest, corporate and market share effects being extremely weak, this study distinguishes between stable and fluctuating effects and reaches markedly different conclusions. The data reveal negligible corporate effects, small stable industry effects, and very large stable business-unit effects. These results imply that the most important sources of economic rents are business-specific; industry membership is a much less important source and corporate parentage is quite unimportant."

“It is commonly accepted that successful performance of a firm hinges on restricting activities to cultivating a related and familiar range rather than 'bold moves into uncharted'.”

“A leader’s most important job is creating and constantly adjusting this strategic bridge between goals and objectives.”

“common skill, market or resource applies to each.”

“The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.”

“Given that background, I was interested in what Steve Jobs might say about the future of Apple. His survival strategy for Apple, for all its skill and drama, was not going to propel Apple into the future. At that moment in time, Apple had less than 4 percent of the personal computer market. The de facto standard was Windows-Intel and there seemed to be no way for Apple to do more than just hang on to a tiny niche.”

“A major advancement in the strategy field is the development of models where firm heterogeneity is an endogenous creation of economic actors.”