Interconnected firms’ relationships as a source of a competitive advantage

The mainstream economy poses the opinion that a competitive advantage lies in resources, and,consequently - in competences as well - being a share of a single company and remaining underits sole control. Recently, some researchers (e.g. Castaldo, 2007; Lavie, 2006) have revised thatapproach and tend to emphasise the role of other sources of competitive advantage in businessstrategy, which embrace new, intangible assets. Such assets are being born and developed onlywithin the inter-firm relationships built in network environment. Thus, the presented paperfocuses on relational-based approach towards gaining relational rent. It aims at discussing thesources of an appropriated relational rent and, presenting - after Lavie, a new types of rentextracted from alliance networks. Next, the author presents some empirical evidence fromhealthcare market in Poland. Inter-organizational relations represent the central level of analysisof the achievement of relational competitive advantage. Empirical results indicate the crucial roleof trust and commitment in the market relationships. They are the key success factors whichenable the service providers to build a differentiated market position. The researchedorganizations pose effective communication between the parties of the relationship and thesatisfaction resulting from the mutual respect and recognition as the components of valueofferings.