Is the Resource-Based View a Practical Organizational Theory?

Richard J. Arend () and Moren Lévesque ()
Additional contact information
Richard J. Arend: College of Business, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154
Moren Lévesque: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada

Organization Science, 2010, vol. 21, issue 4, 913-930

Abstract: We explore the question of whether the resource-based view (RBV) is a practical theory for managers. We test the ability of the RBV to provide two pieces of practical information: (1) the identification of the very few strategic assets from a large set of assets, and (2) the estimation of the functional form of how such strategic assets' critical VRIO characteristic levels relate to firm performance. We do so by modeling the tenets of the RBV and adjusting them in a simulation. We place ourselves in the shoes of the managers by using standard empirical methods on the simulated data to determine whether the RBV does provide practical information. We then discuss what can be done for academics and managers given that determination.

Keywords: resource-based view; simulation; operational validity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0484 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:21:y:2010:i:4:p:913-930

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().