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1. Introduction
The idea that the resources firms have play a major role in explaining firm performance is greatly acknowledged in entrepreneurship and strategic management. Several influential theories are grounded on the idea that the access firms have to resources, the way firms acquire, combine and leverage these resources are essential pieces of our understanding of firms’ survival, growth and profitability (McKelvie and Wiklund, 2010; Sirmon et al., 2007). The Penrosean theory of growth (hereafter PTG, Penrose, 1959) is probably the oldest of these theories. According to the PTG, managers have a profit maximization goal that leads them to identify new business opportunities and invest to acquire new resources that fuel growth. The PTG view of growth is that of a process where firms acquire new resources that allow the realization of business opportunities, leading to additional revenues and profits. Most importantly, the accumulation of resources is an endogenous factor that leads to growth as managers learn to use available slack resources into different ways (Nason and Wiklund, 2018).
The strong influence of the PTG in strategy research led scholars to focus on the characteristics of the strategic assets firms have and on the nature and quantity of the strategic resources firms hold. This, however, only tells “half of the story” as strategic assets also have costs that are often neglected in empirical studies and may become weaknesses depending on the context in which firms operate (Arend, 2004, 2006). Penrose (1959) initially argued that growth through diversification is motivated by the willingness to redeploy assets to more productive uses, which represent a clear acknowledgment of the existence of opportunity costs associated with the presence of assets.
Redeploying resource is, however, complex. Some resources are stickier than others, not only because of intrinsic characteristics but also because of the way they are acquired (Anderson et al., 2003; Mishina et al., 2004). Resources are indeed harder to redeploy when they correspond to sticky costs, while resources easily redeployed can be seen as more variable costs. The extent to which costs are sticky is thus a measure of internal rigidity, because sticky costs correspond to resources that are more difficult to reallocate. Therefore, cost stickiness is likely associated with opportunity costs and correspond to the...