Recent strategy research suggests that resource cognition is central in explaining a firm’s ability to survive during periods of environmental change. Resource cognition, which according to Danneels (2011:21) can be defined as the identification of resources and the understanding of their fungibility, shapes firm reorientation through its effect on managerial action. In this way, resource cognition is a crucial microfoundation of dynamic capabilities, because it mediates change of the resource-base of the firm (e.g. Helfat & Peteraf, 2014; Laamanen, & Wallin, 2009).

Thus, firms with poor capabilities of resource cognition find it difficult to respond to changes in their environments. However, to survive, a firm alters between different reorientation processes while changing its resource-base (Agarwal & Helfat, 2009; Baden-Fuller & Volberda, 1997; Normann, 1971). Therefore, resource cognition may exist through different mechanisms (cf. Helfat & Peteraf, 2003; Laamanen & Wallin, 2009; Lavie, 2006). Yet, the nature and effect of such a multi-level mechanism remain unclear.

How then does resource cognition unfold through different renewal processes? To answer this question we study Höganäs AB, a firm whose origins can be traced back to 1571. While the ancestry of this case provides a solid base to identify the beginning of reorientations, we concentrated our historical case analysis to detailed archival data, including board documents, letters, diaries, reports and logs, covering two hundred years of processes that depict resource cognition and renewal up to 2001.

Preliminary results demonstrate that resource cognition was primarily shaped through external events, including customer input, product reviews, legislation, inspections and corresponding activities resulting in identification of new functional characteristics of existing resources. Regardless whether resources are physical (Schriber & Löwstedt, 2014), immaterial (Danneels, 2011), or complementary (Helfat, 1997), capabilities of resource cognition evolved enacted. By uncovering the theoretical mechanism behind enactment in different renewal processes, we aim at contributing to recent calls for multi-level research about dynamic capabilities (Felin et al. 2015; Salvato & Rerup, 2011).