Edith Penrose

Theory of the Growth of the Firm (foundation of RBV)

Edith Penrose (1914–1996) was an economist who held posts at Johns Hopkins, the London School of Economics, and INSEAD. Her 1959 book argued that firms grow by deploying bundles of productive resources and services, not merely by responding to markets. That insight became the cornerstone of the resource-based view, shaping decades of strategy research.