The objective of this work was to explore the theoretical premise that companies are able to obtain extraordinary profit levels by exploiting market imperfections. To this end, market imperfections are treated as causal variables in order to identify organizational configurations of high-performing companies listed on the Brazilian BM&FBovespa securities, commodities and futures exchange between 2005 and 2009. The research methodology combines (a) MDSO (Most Different Similar Outcome) approach of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to find organizational configurations with (b) Semantic and Categorical Content Analysis for exploring reports produced by stock broking firms about the companies of interest. This approach allows for analysis of complex causality even with a small number of cases. Nineteen variables responsible for the high performance of fifteen companies were able to be attributed to only a few common causalities. Results show three alternative configurations of market imperfections for attaining high performance. The first configuration combines few market imperfections exploited by government regulated companies. The second configuration is composed of exclusive companies producing differentiated, heterogeneous products for high demand markets. The third configuration contains oversize companies producing commodities characterized by their almost inelastic demand. Their low obsolescence rate of assets generates powerful local monopolies and global oligopolies.
organizational configurations; market imperfections; superior firm performance; Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
