Robert Morris Grant (born in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, UK on 23 January 1948) is a scholar and teacher of strategic management. He has held faculty positions at a number of business schools in the UK,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and the US for years and is currently Professor of Strategic Management at

Bocconi University Bocconi University ( it, Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, ) is a private university in Milan, Italy. Bocconi provides education in the fields of economics, finance, law, management, political science, public administration and comput ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. He is also a visiting professor at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, where he has held a position for 15 years. Grant is best known for his work on the resource-based and knowledge-based views of the firm. His resource-based theory of

competitive advantage In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors. A competitive advantage may include access to natural resources, such as high-grade ores or a low-cost power source, highly skilled ...

identifies the characteristics of resources and capabilities that determine their capacity to establish a competitive advantage, sustain a competitive advantage, and appropriate the returns from that competitive advantage. His contributions to the knowledge-based

theory of the firm The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that explain and predict the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behaviour, structure, and relationship to the market. Firms are key drivers in ec ...

identify knowledge as the most strategically important resource of the firm, and view the firm as an institution for integrating knowledge in order to produce goods and services. This provides a rationale for the existence of the firm that is distinct from the traditional

transaction cost In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market. Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike pro ...

explanation, and offers insights into the internal structure of the firm, its coordination processes, and the role of strategic alliances. Grant's strategic management textbook, "Contemporary Strategy Analysis", is used in business schools throughout the world.R.M. Grant, ''Contemporary Strategy Analysis'', 9th edition, Wiley, 2016 It has been translated into 12 different languages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, Robert Morris 1948 births 21st-century American economists Alumni of the London School of Economics Living people