Contributed by economics and engineering specialists from Europe, Australia, and Singapore, the six articles in this volume discuss mid-range theory in Competence-Based Management, and how the theory’s foundational concepts, key causal relationships, and resulting explanations and predictions address specific types or categories of management contexts. They explain mid-range theory and illustrate mid-range theory research approaches applied to issues in dynamic capabilities and modularity. They address the differences between grand theory and mid-range theory building processes; managerial behaviors that may create path dependency and lock-in in competence building and competence leveraging processes in organizations and how to overcome them; competences and their sources in nonprofit organizations; a model for researching how a board of directors may influence an organization’s ability to build new social and environmental sustainability competence; how ongoing processes for systematic identification and analysis of strategic gaps in a firm’s current competences can lead to identification of new capabilities it needs; and the use of closed-system proprietary product architectures vs. open-system modular product architectures to influence development and growth in new product markets.

Building Theory for Management Science and Practice: An Epistemological Perspective from Competence-Based Management Theory