Commitment versus Flexibility?

Abstract

This article unbundles the relation between commitment and flexibility by distinguishing between firm-specific and usage-specific resources. This distinction turns out to be valuable because firm-specificity does not always imply (nor is it always implied by) usage-specificity. Firm-specific resources are more strategic than usagespecific resources. More broadly, the distinction between these two kinds of specificity helps explain why the tension between commitment and flexibility can easily be overdone: the two aren't always negative measures of each other.