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In this paper the concept of the value of resources is operationalized. It is argued that the resource value is determined in dyads, instead of within one firm. The purchasing model of Kraljic (1983) is used to operationalize “value” from a supply chain perspective. The value of the resource of a firm is determined by the value of the resource as perceived by its customer(s). The presented model can be used by organizations to build and develop their resource base, and thus create better relations with their customers.

Part I of this chapter applies the principles of the philosophy of science and the derived scientific method to analyze the foundational concepts and core proposition of the Resource-Base View (RBV) as popularized by Barney (1986, 1991, 1997). This analysis identifies seven fundamental conceptual deficiencies and logic problems in Barney's conceptualization of “strategically valuable resources” and in Barney's VRIO framework for identifying strategically valuable resources that can be sources of sustained competitive advantage. Three problems – the Value Conundrum, the Tautology Problem in the Identification of Resources, and the Absence of a Chain of Causality – relate to the RBV's and VRIO's failure to provide an adequate conceptual basis for identifying strategically valuable resources. The Uniqueness Dilemma, the Cognitive Impossibility Dilemma, and an Asymmetry in Assumptions about Resource Factor Markets result in an inability of the VRIO framework to support identification of resources that can be sources of sustained competitive advantage. More fundamentally, the core proposition of the RBV – that resources that are strategically valuable, rare, inimitable, and organizationally embedded are sources of sustainable competitive advantage – is argued to result directly in the Epistemological Impossibility Problem that precludes use of the scientific method in RBV research. This chapter argues that until these conceptual deficiencies and logic problems are recognized and remedied, the RBV – in spite of its current popularity – is and will remain theoretically sterile and incapable of contributing in any systematic way to the development of strategy theory.

Part II of this chapter then suggests how foundational concepts developed within the competence perspective on strategy provide essential remedies for the identified deficiencies and problems in the RBV – and thereby provide a more conceptually adequate basis for representing the nature of firms in the scientific study of their interactions and competitive outcomes.

The provision of value, as a marketing issue, is receiving increasing attention from managers and scholars. This attention, in combination with strong calls for better quantification and stronger measures in marketing, has lead to increased interest in the assessment, quantified where possible, of the provision of value through buyer–seller relationships. This paper identifies dimensions of value provision through relationships in business markets with specific emphasis on the intangible aspects of value, which are important to long-term competitive advantage. The provision of value to the seller is the prime focus in this paper. The paper discusses the meaning of both tangible and intangible relationship value and the interplay between them and notes the importance of assessing the intangible part of the value, particularly the part which derives from the human aspects of the relationship. Despite their importance, the human aspects of relationships and their contribution to value is a sparse topic among researchers. The paper compares and evaluates potentially useful relationship and value conceptualizations. The paper discusses studies of relationship value and then outlines the results of a recent line of empirical research into the provision of value by a buyer to a seller that utilizes a framework synthesized from the intellectual capital literature. This recent research conceptualizes the potential for a seller's relationship with a buyer to provide intangible value to the seller in terms of, first, the resources available in the buyer and second, the capabilities of the buyer's boundary personnel to aid in facilitating the flow of those resources to the seller. The paper also includes the softer human aspects in the dimensions of value. These latter aspects are important to a full assessment of value. The paper concludes with a discussion of aspects of intangible relationship value that need further elucidation and will thus provide opportunities for future research.

We argue that resource-based view (RBV) researchers must take into account three interdependencies, (i) intrafirm resource complementarity, (ii) interfirm resource complementarity or rivalry, and (iii) compatibility or incompatibility of firm resources to broader socio-economic institutions, when attempting to empirically verify the RBV. However, these interdependencies lead to three potential causes of statistical bias, which can reduce the interpretability of such empirical examinations. First, omitted variable bias results from a researcher's inability to find and include in empirical analyses appropriate operationalizations of constructs. Second, selection bias can arise when a researcher samples only from one subset of the population, and not others. Bias in estimates can occur if a correlation between unobserved determinants of the outcome and factors affecting the selection process exist. Finally, joint dependence, where two explanatory variables are themselves mutual determinants, can lead to biased estimation.

Notwithstanding that there has been increasing attention on factors that enhance SME performance in developing economies, there is a dearth of studies explicitly investigating the roles of government support systems and inter-firm collaboration. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and institutional theories, this study aims to model and examine how government support, inter-firm collaboration and managerial ties affect SME performance and further explores how firm specific resources mediate the relationships.

A quantitative research design was used. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 438 SMEs operating in Zambia, a developing Sub-Saharan African country. Hierarchical linear regression and SPSS PROCESS macro were used to test the hypotheses.

Findings indicate that managerial ties have both a direct and indirect effect, through firm resources, on financial performance. Also, the relationship between inter-firm collaboration and financial performance is fully mediated by firm resources. Surprisingly, results reveal that government support does not have a significant effect on SME financial performance.

The study has important implications for SME managers and policy makers. It demonstrates that inter-firm collaborations and managerial ties enhance a firm’s financial performance. It also highlights the view that SMEs need to have firm specific resources to transform external resources, accessed from inter-firm relationships, into superior performance. SME policy makers are advised to focus more on policies and support mechanisms that promote inter-firm relationships at firm and managerial levels.

This study is one of the few studies to empirically show that the differential effects of inter-firm collaboration and managerial ties on SME performance are channeled through firm resources, in an under-researched developing Sub-Saharan African economy context. The study is also one of the few studies to reveal that government support is not significantly related to SME performance. Therefore, it provides valuable insights which could be applied to other developing countries with characteristics similar to Zambia.

Resource‐based view (RBV) has been a very well‐known theory to explain performance over the past decades. The purpose of this paper is to apply RBV's concept to investigate the resources of firms in Lao PDR that influence its business performance.

Secondary data that are collected by Enterprises Baseline Survey in 2005 from Germany Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) is used. For this purpose, samples of 388 firms in three sectors: manufacturing, trading, and service are used. The resources of firms include human resources (developed through education and training); intangible resources (reputation among customers obtained by investment in marketing and advertising); and tangible resources (physical resources with technology and business finance). By the regression methodology, this paper examines how the resources of the firm affect firm performance in the case of Lao PDR. The ranking of the important critical firm resources and firm performance is also identified. The firm size, firm age, and industry sectors are controlled.

The findings suggest that human, intangible, and tangible resources selected in this paper have a positive impact on firm performance. The interesting finding is that physical resources for the manufacturing sector is insignificant to firm performance in the Lao context, which seems to be consistent with the economic development stage of the country.

This paper uses secondary data with limitations in selecting theoretical meaningful variables, obtaining the comprehensive performance indicators and controlling other variables. Future studies should conduct the survey and include other internal and external factors that affect firm performance.

This paper can provide the policy implications for both policymakers and implementers to emphasize on the key resources of the firms, which underline firm success.

The unique contribution of this study is twofold: first, it takes initiative to examine the importance of firm resources in the following subsectors: manufacturing, trading and service, so that the industry can emphasize on their priority resources to achieve better performance. Second, to date, a considerable amount of studies are mainly in the developed context. The dearth of study in this area has made it interesting to explore more the least developed countries (LDC) context.

Anchored mainly on the institutional theory and resource-based view, this study endeavors to investigate the interplay between home country institutional environment (economic, regulatory and socio-cultural environment), export market orientation and export performance. Besides, this study also aims to examine the moderating role of firm resources (knowledge-based and managerial resources) in the associations between home country institutions and export market orientation.

Drawing on data from a sample of 221 exporting firms in Turkey, the conceptual model is empirically examined by structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that regulatory environment is conducive to the improvement of export market orientation, which is instrumental in cultivating export performance. Importantly, empirical evidence also proves that higher levels of knowledge-based and managerial resources strengthen the linkage between home country institutions and export market orientation.

Integrating institutional theory with the resource-based view, this research considerably contributes to the current understanding of the export market orientation phenomenon by filling the knowledge gap on the differential impacts of home country’s economic, regulatory and socio-cultural environment on export market orientation. Moreover, this study provides worthwhile insights into the moderating effect of knowledge-based and managerial resources on home country institutions and export market orientation and the interrelationship between export market orientation and export performance in an emerging economy.

Many networks take a small-world structure, with a high degree of clustering and shortcut ties that reduce the path-length between the clusters. It can be argued that small-world networks have benefits that are simultaneously related to network closures and the spanning of structural holes, but research on the network members’ performance is nonetheless inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the concept of resource idiosyncrasy can explain the mixed findings. Firm idiosyncratic resources are not easily generalizable across enterprises.

Industries may vary in terms of resource idiosyncrasy, and the paper elaborates how this can moderate shortcut ties’ effect on performance in an inter-firm network.

If resource idiosyncrasy predominates in an industry, the paper proposes that inter-firm shortcut ties may increase performance, whereas shortcut ties may decrease performance if non-idiosyncratic resources predominate.

Applying the concept of resource idiosyncrasy as a moderating variable, the paper aims to explain shortcut ties’ effect on performance in an inter-firm network. The theory advanced here can have practical implications and also motivate future empirical studies to gain further knowledge about small-world networks’ effect on performance.

This paper aims to analyse the potential contribution of cluster-generated resources to the competitive advantage of firms located in it and proposes a typology for wine cluster resources. The basic premise is that the process of competitive advantage creation and sustaining by clustered firms cannot be adequately analyzed in isolation from their local or regional agglomeration effects.

Potentially strategic cluster resources were identified from the extant cluster literature, adapted to the specificities of the wine industry through in-depth interviews with experts, and finally classified in five categories. The resulting typology was then tested with institutional actors of the Serra Gaúcha (Brazil) wine cluster.

Besides proposing a typology of cluster resources, the paper provides a means for resource value assessment through the mediating role of a value creation system.

Since validation testing of the typology was limited to one cluster, empirical validation in different wine clusters/regions is necessary for assessing its inter-cluster robustness. Additionally, the firm-level process of value creation and the role played therein by cluster resources require further theoretical refinement. An important research implication of the paper, however, is that it sets the conceptual basis for the development of various types of cluster-level performance indicators, such as collective efficiency, effectiveness and resilience.

The proposed typology allows for the mapping, from different stakeholders' perspective, of a cluster's resources profile, a diagnostic tool for cluster strategic analysis, benchmarking and upgrading efforts.

The paper contributes to recent efforts towards the use of the resource-based perspective at the cluster level, seeking to link cluster resources to firm value creation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the unique resources that Indian apparel exporting firms claim to have and the key resources that help provide competitive advantage to these firms.

A web-based content analysis of texts available on “About Us” or related sections of the Indian export firms was conducted. Text data were coded and interpreted.

Physical resources seemed to be one of the most critical resources for their competitive advantages for the study samples. The ability to provide affordable and competitive prices for their products and experience in exporting were recognized as important firm resource described by the study samples.

The study results supported the resource-based theory of the firm by showing additional key firm resources, such as ability to maintain domestic operations and to provide competitive prices that Indian apparel exporters claimed to have. Generalizability of the results is cautioned due to the content and analysis mode of the study data.

The results indicate that design capabilities, flexible production systems, and skilled labor are the key resources that provide Indian apparel industry the competitive advantage over its competitors. Therefore, Indian apparel exporters may want to continue to strengthen and emphasize these abilities to foreign buyers to complete in the global marketplace.

Given the importance of Indian apparel industry in the global market place, this study builds a knowledge base of the key resources possessed by the Indian apparel export firms.