Application of The Relational Concept of Strategic Management

Application of The Relational Concept of Strategic Management

¹Lukas Kopac*., ²Benjamin Kern., ²Giada Lucchese., ³Marc Weber

¹Slovak University of Technology, Vazovova 5, 812 43 Bratislava, Slovakia

²Danubius University, Richterova 1171, 925 21 Sladkovicovo, Slovakia

³Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynske luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.909000341

Received: 01 September 2025; Accepted: 09 September 2025; Published: 10 October 2025

ABSTRACT

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the principal approaches to strategic management, with a particular emphasis on the relational perspective. At the outset, it examines traditional theoretical frameworks that have shaped the field. The industry-based view, as developed by Michael Porter, focuses on structural conditions and the model of five competitive forces, which collectively determine the attractiveness and profitability of industries. Alongside this, the resource-based view (RBV) is introduced, emphasising how firms gain competitive advantage through the accumulation and protection of valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources. The discussion then shifts to the relational approach proposed by Dyer and Singh (1998). This framework highlights that many strategic resources and capabilities extend beyond the boundaries of individual firms and reside within inter-organisational networks, alliances, and clusters. Central to this approach is the concept of relational rents, above-average returns created through mechanisms such as relation-specific assets, effective knowledge-sharing routines, complementary resources and capabilities, and efficient governance structures that safeguard cooperation. To illustrate these theoretical insights, the article explores the case of the Portuguese cluster Vitrocristal. This example illustrates how small and medium-sized enterprises can enhance their international competitiveness by establishing collaborative structures and implementing joint branding and marketing strategies. At the same time, the eventual inactivity of the cluster underscores the challenges and limitations of sustaining cooperative advantages over time. Overall, the article emphasises that in today’s globalised and interconnected economy, the capacity of firms to develop, nurture, and manage mutually beneficial partnerships is a crucial foundation for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage.

Keywords: strategic management, competitive advantage, relational approach, clusters, alliances

INTRODUCTION

The benefits of cooperation between companies and other entities within various inter-company networks, such as clusters and export alliances, cannot be theoretically described within the industry-based approach to strategic management, whose leading representative is Michael Porter. When companies cooperate, relational rents emerge, which are addressed through the relational approach to strategic management.

One of the leading proponents of this approach is Michael Porter (Porter, 1985), who argues that a company’s competitive advantage and above-average profits are based on how the company understands and utilises the structural conditions of the industry in which it operates. This means that Porter sees the industry as the basic unit of analysis on which the company’s competitive strategy is based (Antoldi et al., 2011).

Antoldi et al. (2011) state that Porter’s (1985) approach to strategic management is known as the industry-based view (or industry structure view), i.e., a view encompassing the entire industry.

According to Porter (1985), the attractiveness of an industry is the first fundamental determinant of a company’s profitability. A company’s competitive strategy must therefore be based on an understanding of the competitive conditions that determine the attractiveness of a given industry. The ultimate goal of a company’s competitive strategy is to match or change these conditions to its advantage. Porter (1985) further specifies that the conditions of competition in any industry are comprised of five competitive forces: the entry of new competitors, the threat of substitutes, the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers, and rivalry among existing competitors.

The total strength of these five competitive forces determines the company’s ability to achieve a rate of return on investment that exceeds the cost of capital. The strength of the five competitive forces varies from industry to industry and may change with the development of the given industry. As a result, all industries are not the same in terms of intrinsic profitability. There are industries in which high pressure from one or more forces exists, and few firms achieve satisfactory profits despite management’s efforts. The profitability of an industry does not depend on what the product looks like or whether it is a high-tech or low-tech product, but on the structure of the industry.

Porter (1985) continues that five competitive forces determine the profitability of an industry because they affect prices, costs, and the required investments of firms in the industry – that is, the elements of return on investment. Buyer power affects the prices that a firm can charge, as does the threat of substitutes. Buyer power can also affect costs and investments because powerful buyers often require more expensive services. The bargaining power of suppliers determines the costs of raw materials and other inputs. The intensity of rivalry between competitors determines prices, as well as the costs of production, product development, marketing, and distribution. The threat of new competitors entering the market sets an upper limit on prices and determines investments to discourage new competitors from entering the industry.

Regarding the competitive strategy of a company, Porter (1985) states that if the five competitive forces and their determinants depend solely on the internal characteristics of the industry, then the company’s competitive strategy would primarily depend on selecting the right industry and understanding the five forces better than the competition. Although these are essential tasks of any company and are the essence of competitive strategy in some industries, the company is usually not a prisoner of the structure of the sector in which it operates. Companies can influence the five forces through their strategic decisions. When a company can affect the structure of an industry, it can change its attractiveness for better or worse.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Competitive advantage and competitive strategy follow the so-called resource-based view, i.e. a view of strategic management through resources, which assumes that differences in profits between companies are more likely to arise from the heterogeneity of companies than from the structure of the industry. This is because only companies that manage to accumulate rare, valuable, and difficult-to-imitate and replicate resources and capabilities will be able to create a particular competitive advantage. This approach therefore, perceives the company as the basic unit of analysis for developing a competitive strategy. (Antoldi et al., 2011).

The main author of the view of strategic management through resources is Barney (1991), who states that the view of strategic management through resources is based on two assumptions:

1. Resources are distributed heterogeneously (unequally) between companies.
2. These resources cannot be transferred from one company to another at zero cost.

These two statements are axioms of the resource-based view of strategic management. Barney (1991) makes two basic arguments based on these two assumptions. The first is that resources that are both scarce (i.e., their ownership is not widespread) and valuable (i.e., they contribute to the efficiency or effectiveness of the firm) can create a competitive advantage. The second is that such resources are also simultaneously inimitable (i.e., they cannot be easily copied by competitors), non-substitutable (i.e., other resources cannot perform the same function), and non-transferable (i.e., they cannot be acquired in the resource market; Dierickx & Cool, 1989), so such resources can create sustainable competitive advantage. In his 1991 article, Barney (1991) cites other authors’ definitions of the term enterprise resources as “all assets, capabilities, organisational processes, enterprise attributes, information, knowledge, etc. controlled by an enterprise that enable it to design and implement strategies to improve its efficiency and effectiveness (Daft, 1983)” and as “attributes of enterprises that enable them to implement value-creating strategies (Hitt & Ireland, 1986; Thompson & Strickland, 1983)”. Barney (1991) defines valuable resources as those resources that “enable the enterprise to “take advantage of opportunities or to “neutralise threats” from the enterprise’s environment”.

Regarding competitive advantage, Barney (1991) defines it as an enterprise “implementing a value-creating strategy that any existing or potential competitor is not implementing”. He further argues that competitive advantage cannot exist in identical firms, since “all of these firms implement the same strategies, improve their efficiency and effectiveness in the same way and to the same extent”. He does not explicitly define scarcity. (Priem & Butler, 2001).

We observe that the perspective on strategic management, whether through resources or industry, does not adequately address the issue of cooperation between firms and the potential benefits that arise from it. This issue is addressed by the relational approach, also known as the relational view of strategic management, as authored by Dyer and Singh (1998). The main contribution of their article is that it emphasised the theory of dyads and corporate networks as the basic unit of analysis in explaining the high performance of individual firms (August 2008 – Author Commentaries: Jeff Dyer & Harbir Singh, 2008).

The relational approach was developed in response to the increasing number of alliances between firms and the question of whether a strategy of cooperation between firms can lead to the emergence of a competitive advantage for the cooperating firms (Antoldi et al., 2011).

The contribution of the author pair Dyer & Singh (1998) answered this question positively by stating that critical resources of a firm can also lie beyond its boundaries and can be found in interfirm resources, and that individual interfirm connections (idiosyncratic interfirm linkages) can be a source of relational rents and competitive advantage. The primary purpose of the contribution was to examine how relational rents are created and how they are maintained. The authors identified four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage:

• relationship-specific assets,
• knowledge-sharing routines,
• complementary resources/capabilities,
• efficient governance.

Recommendations for corporate competitive strategies based on the relational approach may differ from those based on the resource approach. According to the resource approach, a company should instead try to protect its own know-how rather than share it, to prevent knowledge spillover, which could lead to the erosion or elimination of its competitive advantage. From a relational perspective, however, we see an effective competitive strategy as a systematic sharing of its own know-how (proprietary know-how) with alliance partners, while accepting some penetration of this know-how to competitors in return for access to valuable knowledge found in alliance partners. This strategy is, of course, relevant if the expected value of the joint inflow of knowledge from partners exceeds the expected loss/reduction of benefits due to knowledge penetration by competitors. When comparing the relational approach with the industry approach in relation to competitive strategies, we will also encounter differences. For example, in the industry approach, firms should seek to increase the number of suppliers they have, thereby maximising their bargaining power and profits. This strategy is in direct contrast to the relational approach, according to which firms can increase profits by increasing their dependence on a few suppliers, thereby increasing the suppliers’ incentives to share knowledge and invest in relationship-specific assets, which leads to improved performance. By cooperating with fewer suppliers, a firm provides them with greater ex post bargaining power and thus a greater ex ante incentive to invest in innovation and share information: the firm ultimately gains benefits despite having a smaller slice of the pie (August 2008 – Author Commentaries: Jeff Dyer & Harbir Singh, 2008).

The relational approach to strategic management was also identified by Dyer & Singh (1998), based on the fact that a typical manufacturing company in the United States purchases up to 55% of the value of each of its products (in Japan, this share reaches up to 69%). A high proportion of these inputs are manufactured according to the specific requirements of the customer (Ministry of International Trade and Industry, 1987). The authors further explain that, according to some studies, productivity increases in the value chain occur when trading partners are willing to make investments and combine resources for the benefit of their mutual relationships within it (Asanuma, 1989; Dyer, 1996).

Relational rent, as defined by Dyer & Singh (1998), is profit exceeding normal profit, which is created jointly in a mutual relationship and cannot be created independently. It can only be achieved through the collective efforts of specific alliance partners. Thus, we can expect the emergence of relational rent in cases where alliance partners combine, exchange with each other or invest in individual assets, knowledge and resources/capabilities and/or use effective management mechanisms that reduce transaction costs or enable the generation of rent through the synergistic combination of assets, knowledge or abilities.

As mentioned above, Dyer and Singh defined four potential sources of interorganizational competitive advantage. Here we will discuss each source in more detail. By assets specific to the connection of enterprises, we refer to assets that are specialised in connection with the assets of the alliance partner (Klein, Crawford, & Alchian, 1978; Teece, 1987). This may, for example, be the physical proximity of the supplier’s production plants to those of the customer. Furthermore, it may involve specific capital investments related to a particular transaction, such as machinery and tools tailored to the customer’s needs. Finally, it can also be specific know-how that is the result of cooperation between partners, for example, the supplier’s engineers who, over time, master the customer’s systems and procedures.

By ‘practical knowledge sharing practices,’ we mean the extensive exchange of knowledge that leads to joint learning among alliance partners. The result is shared specialised knowledge, know-how and experience. The opposite of knowledge sharing and know-how is a situation where the only information partners provide to each other is prices. They serve as a coordination tool signalling all relevant information between suppliers and customers. In this regard, the authors Dyer & Singh (1998) cite the production networks of Toyota and General Motors (GM) as an example. Toyota has developed several practical procedures that simplify the transfer of knowledge to and between suppliers. Toyota oversees the process of knowledge transfer to suppliers through a designated organisational unit, whose employees spend several days, weeks or even months at the suppliers’ facilities to ensure that the knowledge transfer is going well. Toyota also sends its employees, either temporarily or permanently, to suppliers so that they can properly acquire and apply new knowledge. The result is that Toyota employees know which knowledge will be helpful to suppliers, and who to contact at the supplier.

The situation is different at GM, where innovations have always been the property of either GM or its suppliers. This situation can be explained by the fact that GM has not developed a stable network of suppliers that would have shared knowledge databases among themselves. GM does not send its employees to its suppliers to facilitate inter-company knowledge sharing. As a result, suppliers refuse to participate in high-cost knowledge sharing because they do not expect to benefit from it, for example, in the form of knowledge. It is not surprising, then, that there is a higher level of knowledge sharing between Toyota and its suppliers than between GM and its suppliers (Dyer, 1997).

As for complementary resources/capabilities, Dyer & Singh (1998) state that it is the combination of complementary yet scarce resources or capabilities, usually across multiple functional interfaces, that leads to the joint creation of new products, services, or technologies. Complementary resources/capabilities can be defined as the individual resources of alliance partners that, when combined, generate higher rents than the sum of the rents obtained from them by individual partners. The condition for the creation of rents within the alliance is that none of the alliance partners can get these resources on the secondary market. These resources must also be indivisible, which leads companies to become members of the alliance and gain access to these complementary resources. As an example, Dyer & Singh (1998) cite the cooperation between Coca-Cola and Nestlé, the subject of which is the distribution of hot drinks in cans through vending machines. This alliance combines the Nescafé and Nestea brands, along with the skills acquired in the development and production of instant coffee and tea, with Coca-Cola’s extensive distribution and vending machine network (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994).

The last source of interorganizational competitive advantage, according to Dyer & Singh (1998), is the so-called efficient governance, or the existence of protective mechanisms that ensure compliance with mutual commitments.

When alliance partners decide to invest in specific assets to link businesses, their willingness to make specialised investments depends on the fact that the more specialised the asset, the lower its value for alternative uses. Thus, both parties involved in the transaction should choose an appropriate hedging mechanism, such as efficient governance, which minimises transaction costs (North, 1990; Williamson, 1985).

The goal is for alliance partners to choose protection mechanisms that minimise transaction costs and maximise value. This approach increases the potential for relational rents. We distinguish two types of protection mechanisms: the first mechanism is based on the principle that a third party ensures compliance with contractual obligations. This first mechanism incurs transaction costs associated with the intervention of a third party (whether the judiciary or another legitimate organisational authority). The second mechanism does not consider the intervention of a third party in resolving potential violations of mutual agreements between alliance partners. These are so-called self-enforcing agreements. They can, for example, take the form of financial security – an ownership stake in property or symmetrical investments in specialised or mutually specialised assets. The point of self-enforcing security mechanisms is that transaction costs are lower compared to cases where the contracting parties have to draft and implement elaborate contracts that are costly in terms of drafting, monitoring and enforcement.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

While the case of the Portuguese Vitrocristal cluster provides valuable insights into the relational approach, it is essential to acknowledge its limitations. Vitrocristal represents a dated case, and the lack of current empirical validation constrains the generalisability of its findings to today’s strategic management practices. More recent cluster initiatives, such as Italian industrial districts or digital ecosystems within the European Union, highlight how relational strategies evolve in response to technological change and global market dynamics. Comparative studies suggest that contemporary alliances face distinct challenges, such as knowledge leakage on digital platforms, governance risks in global supply chains, and dependency on a few strategic partners in increasingly volatile markets. These considerations expand our understanding of how relational rents can be created and sustained in modern contexts.

Although relational approaches yield significant advantages, they are not without risks. Dependency on a limited number of partners can increase vulnerability to opportunism or sudden market shifts. Governance failures, such as weak enforcement of agreements or a lack of trust-building mechanisms, may undermine cooperation. Furthermore, knowledge-sharing routines, while valuable, may lead to unintended spillovers of proprietary information, weakening a firm’s competitive position. Managers must therefore carefully design governance structures and balance openness with safeguards to mitigate these risks.

The Portuguese Vitrocristal cluster exemplifies a relational approach to strategic management. The Portuguese Vitrocristal is not a purely export-oriented alliance, as it also brings together small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) alongside private institutions, including a trade union and a technology centre. It is a cluster. The member SMEs aim to pool their efforts and resources to assert themselves in foreign markets. The impetus for its establishment was the unfavourable situation in the Portuguese glass industry in the early nineties. This was a weakening of the competitiveness of the Portuguese glass industry in international markets, characterised by increased competition from Eastern European manufacturers, a strong presence of unions, and dependence on a few customers with significant bargaining power.

Many manufacturers were characterised by insufficient productivity and a lack of focus on their marketing support. The result was a loss of control over distribution channels, the absence of a strong brand, inadequate product design and difficulties in creating an integrated communication strategy. Most of the member companies are located in the Maríhna Grande area, 50 km from Lisbon. This area has long been a focus of glass production, accounting for approximately 80% of Portugal’s glass production, with the glass industry employing up to one-third of the active workforce (Brito & Costa e Silva, 2011).

The relational perspective offers several lessons for practitioners. First, managers should adopt a balanced approach to knowledge sharing, ensuring mechanisms are in place to prevent excessive knowledge leakage while still enabling joint learning. Second, building efficient governance systems – such as self-enforcing agreements, symmetrical investments, or trust-based mechanisms – is essential to safeguard long-term cooperation. Third, selecting alliance partners requires careful evaluation of their resources, trustworthiness, and long-term strategic alignment. Finally, managers must recognise the dynamic nature of clusters and alliances, adapting strategies continuously to respond to digitalisation, global supply chain disruptions, and evolving governance challenges. By addressing these aspects, firms can strengthen the sustainability and applicability of relational strategies in contemporary competitive environments.

Several producers, along with external entities and government institutions, conducted an in-depth analysis of the sector’s value chain, which revealed the need to enhance the technical and commercial performance of the companies. In 1994, Vitrocristal was born with fourteen member companies. Each member company held a 4.5% share in the cluster’s capital. The glass industry union AIC also had the same share. The next member was the Technological Centre for Glass and Ceramics CTCV. The last member was the public institution IAPMEI, focused on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, with a 28% share in the capital. In addition to its members, external consulting companies such as Roland Berger and its partners, which have extensive experience in the glass and crystal industries worldwide, as well as the design company NellyRodi and the important Portuguese consulting company Augusto Mateus, participated in the operation of Vitrocristal. The cluster members focused on product differentiation, design, branding and the search for new outlets. The implementation also required the creation of the Crisform training centre, which acted as an external consulting institution in relation to the cluster. Another external consulting institution was the CRC – Comissão Regional de Cristalaria, whose goal is to support the region and its products. Additionally, its task was to verify whether member companies adhered to the established standards (Brito & Costa e Silva, 2009).

The main contribution of the cluster in the field of marketing was the creation of a familiar brand, MGlass, which member companies could use, provided that quality and design standards were met. Compliance with these standards was subject to regular checks. Thanks to the familiar brand, the member companies were able to offer a wide and differentiated product mix, something that would have been unattainable if each company had developed its export activities independently (Brito & Costa e Silva, 2011).

After defining the familiar brand, an analysis of the attractiveness of the main foreign markets followed, based on which Vitrocristal determined the target markets for its MGlass brand. These were the markets of Spain, France, Germany and Sweden. For some of the mentioned countries, Vitrocristal decided to use export as a method of market entry, even though some member companies were already exporting to these markets. Among the non-European markets, the United States was chosen as the primary market, where Vitrocristal set an ambitious goal of achieving a 1% share within five years. Given the size of this market, this was indeed a very ambitious goal, the fulfilment of which could not be achieved without significant investments in marketing efforts. NellyRodi helped to identify marketing trends in the market. Subsequently, the services of the consulting company Roland Berger and partners were used, and as a result, a showroom was opened on Fifth Avenue in New York. From an organisational point of view, Vitrocristal carried out its activities in the United States market through a subsidiary focused on sales. This was a practical solution that addressed the need to establish relationships with local customers.

Additionally, the creation of a subsidiary enabled better control over distribution channels and ensured the effectiveness of marketing investments. To address the specific needs of the American market, Vitrocristal managers determined that local advertising agencies would be utilised to promote the MGlass brand in the American market (Brito & Costa e Silva, 2009). The Vitrocristal cluster is currently inactive, and the reasons for this are unknown to us.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The relational approach to strategic management represents a significant shift from traditional industry-based or resource-based paradigms. While Porter’s Five Forces model emphasises industry structure as the primary determinant of profitability and the RBV emphasises internal resources and capabilities of firms, the relational approach emphasises the value of relationships between firms and the synergistic effects resulting from cooperation. Dyer and Singh’s (1998) concept suggests that competitive advantage may not arise solely within an individual firm, but also at the level of alliances, clusters, and other forms of inter-firm networks.

The empirical example of the Portuguese Vitrocristal cluster illustrates how a familiar brand, resource sharing, coordinated investments and joint access to foreign markets can increase the competitiveness of SMEs. Although this particular cluster has since ceased operations, experience from its operation confirms that effectively managed partnerships can provide firms with access to resources and capabilities that they would not have had on their own.

The relational approach, therefore, complements and extends traditional theories of strategic management by incorporating the dimensions of cooperation and relationships. At the same time, it provides a framework for understanding how companies can achieve above-average returns by building trust, creating specific assets, sharing knowledge, and leveraging the complementarity of resources. In the context of a globalised economy, where the importance of innovation ecosystems and strategic alliances is increasing, this approach is highly relevant, and its application can represent a path to sustainable competitive advantage.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical Approval: This article is based on theoretical and secondary source analysis and did not involve human participants or animals. Therefore, ethical approval was not required.

Conflict of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.

Data Availability

No new data were created or analysed in this study. Data sharing is therefore not applicable.

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