Message from the Dean: November 2022

November 28, 2022

My last note focused on the market and the power it has over the success, or the lack thereof, of an organization. I suppose you could summarize that perspective as the external view of strategic management. From this external perspective, strategy is all about anticipating and satisfying the demands of the marketplace. But there is also an internal view, which holds that success is driven by an organization’s unique and valuable resources and capabilities. From this perspective, organizations that perform well do so because they have some capability, or possess some asset or property, that allows them to succeed over their rivals.

At the risk of sounding a bit academic, this internal perspective is what scholars call the resource-based view (RBV) of competitive advantage. The RBV grew out of the work of economists like Edith Penrose (1959) and David Teece (1980) but came fully to life with the work of Jay Barney (1991), who argued that competitive advantage and superior performance were a function of uniquely valuable resources or capabilities that were difficult to imitate or substitute. To illustrate, think of a great location for a convenience store, a more powerful battery in a cell phone, a popular logo on a sneaker, or a superior technology for canning and preserving food. Companies that own such assets can leverage them to create strong competitive advantage, and that strong advantage can lead to strong earnings. From this internal perspective, strategy is less about the market and more about developing distinctive and valuable capabilities and then translating those capabilities into products and services the market wants and needs. Let me illustrate using an example we will all understand. The Parker College has a strong faculty, experts in their disciplines who are also committed and strong teachers. We are a part of Georgia Southern University, a unique and respected brand in Georgia and across the southeast. We have good facilities, a relevant and current curriculum, and a strong network of alumni, partners, and support staff. On top of all that, we have a strong work ethic and a can-do and assertive culture; as the old saying goes, we pregame harder than your team plays. For Parker College graduates, that means we plan and expect to work harder, faster, and smarter than the competition. Now, most every school has some of these things. But few schools have them all. And, so, it is the combination of these assets and capabilities that gives us competitive advantage by providing the market with value that it cannot get elsewhere.

So, how do we make sense of these two perspectives, the internal and the external, and how do we blend them together into a strategy? Well, just as I explained above, we believe the market wants talented, well-trained, and hardworking graduates who are capable and willing to roll up their sleeves and get busy on Day 1. We believe we have the faculty, the facilities, the raw materials, and the work ethic to produce that sort of talent and to do it better than any of our competitors. And, so, we focus every day on doing just that, one graduate, one class, one semester at a time, over and over again. Then, we let the results speak for themselves. It is a slow, steady build, and we are committed to the long game. But it is the right strategy, leveraging both the internal and the external, for the sake of creating superior value for all the constituents of the Parker College!