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The objective of this work was to explore the theoretical premise that companies are able to obtain extraordinary profit levels by exploiting market imperfections. To this end, market imperfections are treated as causal variables in order to identify organizational configurations of high-performing companies listed on the Brazilian BM&FBovespa securities, commodities and futures exchange between 2005 and 2009. The research methodology combines (a) MDSO (Most Different Similar Outcome) approach of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to find organizational configurations with (b) Semantic and Categorical Content Analysis for exploring reports produced by stock broking firms about the companies of interest. This approach allows for analysis of complex causality even with a small number of cases. Nineteen variables responsible for the high performance of fifteen companies were able to be attributed to only a few common causalities. Results show three alternative configurations of market imperfections for attaining high performance. The first configuration combines few market imperfections exploited by government regulated companies. The second configuration is composed of exclusive companies producing differentiated, heterogeneous products for high demand markets. The third configuration contains oversize companies producing commodities characterized by their almost inelastic demand. Their low obsolescence rate of assets generates powerful local monopolies and global oligopolies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Are sources of economic rent, as defined by the prevalent business strategy paradigm, sufficient to attain and maintain superior returns? The perspective developed within the conceptual framework of the Institutional Theory may offer managers a contribution towards understanding the strategy process and its potentialities, particularly by stressing the leading role played by legitimacy, the influence of many institutional spheres, the isomorphic pressures, ceremonial behavior and decoupling, among other elements, that mainstream business strategy fails to address directly, but which may have a significant effect on firm performance. We advance that these elements must be accounted for in the pursuit and acquisition of economic rents, even if the ability to articulate them purposefully is constrained by rationality, agency conditions and the manager's social embeddedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to build bridges between three theoretical fields: Organizational Strategy, Social Networks, and Social Identifies. By analyzing the networks of Brazilian musicians (interpreters and composers), we monitor the emergence of new styles, along with the structural changes in the network. Within the period in analysis, from 1958 to 1969, four musical styles emerge and consolidate: Bossa Nova, Jovem Guarda, MPB and Tropicalia. We utilized Social Networks Analysis in order to grasp three dimensions of the field evolution: network evolution, creation of structural holes and transformation of actors' centrality. Internal conflicts in a field generate brokerage opportunities among groups separated by structural holes. These holes might be gradually bridged through incremental transformations in the artists' networks. As the emerging artists' influence increases, there is higher potential for the introduction of a new style and change of the field's classificatory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]