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Rethinking Rouse and Daellenbach's rethinking: isolating vs. testing for sources of sustainable competitive advantage
Author(s) -
Levitas Edward,
Chi Tailan
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
strategic management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 11.035
H-Index - 286
eISSN - 1097-0266
pISSN - 0143-2095
DOI - 10.1002/smj.255
Subject(s) - competitive advantage , resource (disambiguation) , computer science , sampling (signal processing) , economics , management science , positive economics , management , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , computer network
In a recent paper, Rouse and Daellenbach (1999) provide a five‐step methodological approach which they feel will cure alleged inadequacies in empirical resource‐based research. We suggest, however, that their methodology can provide only a useful aid for expanding our understanding of potential sustainable competitive advantages but will not allow researchers to effectively verify those hypothesized advantages. Specifically, we argue that Rouse and Daellenbach's methodology is plagued by three major shortcomings: (1) it confuses the important distinction between knowing‐how and knowing‐what; (2) it fails to recognize the importance of observable variables in verifying the sources of sustainable competitive advantage; and (3) it calls for sampling on the dependent variable. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.