Organizational core competencies and their influence on strategic partnering in registered social landlords (rsls)

The paper presents some findings of a preliminary investigation into the influence of organisational core competencies on strategic partnering in Registered Social Landlords (RSLs). 'Registered Social Landlords' was a term introduced in 1996 by the then Conservative Government to reflect all those that are associated with the provision of social housing in the UK (e.g. Housing Associations, Housing Trust and other providers of social housing) and registered and regulated by the Housing Corporation. The public sector housing expenditure for RSLs (through the Housing Corporation) represented £633m in 1997/98, which is equivalent to 37,000 dwellings. Of the £58bn output of the UK construction industry, about 10% of the GDP, RSLs social housing represents 1.2% of this output. Social housing is therefore a relatively large sector of public procurement in building work with a major opportunity for diffusing innovation. The last 3 years have also seen much emphasis levelled at strategic partnering from many quarters, including the DETR and the Egan Report, as yielding improvements and adding value in the provision of social housing. There is also an increasing acceptance that organisational core competencies are intangible assets that can create market leverage. They refer to the ability of an organisation to have resources that are utilised and integrated in such a way that is rare and difficult to copy. This study adopted a combination of research strategies, which included, inter alia, semi-structured interviews with 11 Directors from different RSLs, analysis of 30 usable postal questionnaires, analysis of company data and statistics and reports relating to the activities of the RSLs in the last 3 years. The paper examines the nature of organisational core competencies within RSLs and the extent to which they influence strategic partnering. The findings of the study reveal that, like many organisations in different industrial settings, many RSLs have a range of core competencies, which provides them with competitive advantage. This supports the works of Prahalad and Hamel (1990), Teece and Pisano (1994) and Woodall and Winstanley (1998) on "core competencies" and the 'dynamic capabilities' of firms. In relation to strategic partnering within RSLs, the 'Delivery of teamwork training' and the "Delivery of procurement advice on housing provision' were perceived to be the two most important core competencies which influence successful strategic partnering. In addition, the building and maintaining of core competencies are important to how an RSL may position itself in the social housing sector for the long term.