The procurement of external resources is an important tenet of both the strategic and tactical management of any company.
Nevertheless, a theory of the consequences of this importance was not formalized until the 1970s, with the publication of The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978).
Resource dependence theory has implications regarding the optimal divisional structure of organizations, recruitment of board members and employees, production strategies, contract structure, external organizational links, and many other aspects of organizational strategy.
Resource dependency theory aims to explain why an organisation comply to the demands of external social actors.
Pfeffer & Salancik propose that an organisation will comply to external control attempts if : Recently, resource dependence theory has been under scrutiny in several review and meta-analytic studies.
[16][17][18] Which all indicate and discuss the importance of this theory in explaining the actions of organizations, by forming interlocks, alliances, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions, in striving to overcome dependencies and improve an organizational autonomy and legitimacy.
Scholars have argued that Resource dependence theory is one of the main reasons nonprofit organizations have become more commercialized in recent times.
With less government grants and resources being used for social services, contract competition between private and nonprofit sector has increased and led to nonprofit organizations using marketization techniques used mainly in the private sector to compete for resources to maintain their organizations livelihood.
[19] Resource dependence concerns more than the external organizations that provide, distribute, finance, and compete with a firm.
Although this seems obvious in terms of revenue, it is actually organizational incentives that make management see customers as a resource.