Resource-based View - Key Points

Key Points

The key points of the theory are:

1. Identify the firm’s potential key resources.
2. Evaluate whether these resources fulfill the following criteria (referred to as VRIN):
   • Valuable – A resource must enable a firm to employ a value-creating strategy, by either outperforming its competitors or reduce its own weaknesses (: p99;: p36). Relevant in this perspective is that the transaction costs associated with the investment in the resource cannot be higher than the discounted future rents that flow out of the value-creating strategy (Mahoney and Prahalad, 1992, p370; Conner, 1992, p131).
   • Rare – To be of value, a resource must be rare by definition. In a perfectly competitive strategic factor market for a resource, the price of the resource will be a reflection of the expected discounted future above-average returns (Barney, 1986a, p1232-1233; Dierickx and Cool, 1989, p1504;: p100).
   • In-imitable – If a valuable resource is controlled by only one firm it could be a source of a competitive advantage (: p107). This advantage could be sustainable if competitors are not able to duplicate this strategic asset perfectly (Peteraf, 1993, p183; Barney, 1986b, p658). The term isolating mechanism was introduced by Rumelt (1984, p567) to explain why firms might not be able to imitate a resource to the degree that they are able to compete with the firm having the valuable resource (Peteraf, 1993, p182-183; Mahoney and Pandian, 1992, p371). An important underlying factor of inimitability is causal ambiguity, which occurs if the source from which a firm’s competitive advantage stems is unknown (Peteraf, 1993, p182; Lippman and Rumelt, 1982, p420). If the resource in question is knowledge-based or socially complex, causal ambiguity is more likely to occur as these types of resources are more likely to be idiosyncratic to the firm in which it resides (Peteraf, 1993, p183; Mahoney and Pandian, 1992, p365;: p110). Conner and Prahalad go so far as to say knowledge-based resources are “…the essence of the resource-based perspective” (1996, p477).
   • Non-substitutable – Even if a resource is rare, potentially value-creating and imperfectly imitable, an equally important aspect is lack of substitutability (Dierickx and Cool, 1989, p1509;: p111). If competitors are able to counter the firm’s value-creating strategy with a substitute, prices are driven down to the point that the price equals the discounted future rents (Barney, 1986a, p1233; sheikh, 1991, p137), resulting in zero economic profits.
3. Care for and protect resources that possess these evaluations, because doing so can improve organizational performance (Crook, Ketchen, Combs, and Todd, 2008).

The VRIN characteristics mentioned are individually necessary, but not sufficient conditions for a sustained competitive advantage (Dierickx and Cool, 1989, p1506; Priem and Butler, 2001a, p25). Within the framework of the resource-based view, the chain is as strong as its weakest link and therefore requires the resource to display each of the four characteristics to be a possible source of a sustainable competitive advantage (: 105-107).