I have recently been encouraged to share my personal reflections on the emergence of resource-based theory. In many ways, I have been reluctant to do so, at least in print, since any such effort would necessarily reflect my idiosyncratic view of this history. A complete discussion of both the people involved in the development of resource-based theory and the context within which this theory developed in the field of management would, I suspect, require the objective eye of a third party. In this way, I certainly do not qualify to write such a history. However, when the 30th anniversary of the publication of the Special Theory Forum on Resource-Based Theory in the Journal of Management came around, I thought it might be time to put down on paper—a quaintly old-fashioned phrase—my own recollections of this history. In doing so, I decided to make no pretense that this is an objective or rigorous historical effort. Rather, these are the reflections of a strategic management scholar, coming toward the end of his career, about a time, now over 30 years ago, when resource-based theory did not yet exist. I have not tried to verify my reflections by appeal to historical documents, except for any papers I and others have published. I did pass this essay by many of the people mentioned in it—to see if my memories were consistent with their memories—but that is as far as I have gone in verifying the “facts” I share in this essay.

最近，我受到鼓舞，就基于资源的理论的出现分享我的个人看法。在很多方面，我一直不愿意这样做，至少是在印刷本上，因为任何这样的努力都必然反映出我对这段历史的特质看法。我怀疑，对基于资源的理论的发展所涉及的人们以及该理论在管理领域的发展所处的环境的完整讨论，都需要第三方的客观观察。这样，我当然没有资格撰写这样的历史。但是，当《管理学杂志》上的资源基础理论特别理论论坛出版30周年时来了，我想可能是时候把我自己对这段历史的回忆记在纸上了-这是一个古朴的词组。在这样做时，我决定不假装这是客观的或严格的历史努力。相反，这些是战略管理学者在其职业生涯即将结束时（大约30年前的一段时间）的反映，那时基于资源的理论还不存在。除了我和其他人发表的任何论文，我都没有尝试通过诉诸历史文献来核实自己的想法。我确实通过了其中提到的许多人的这篇文章-看看我的记忆是否与他们的记忆一致-但这距离我在核实我在这篇文章中分享的“事实”的程度还差得很远。