capabilities, business strongprocessesstrong, and competitive advantage.pdfVIP

Strategic Management Journal Strat. Mgmt. J., 25: 23–37 (2004) Published online in Wiley InterScience (). DOI: 10.1002/smj.366 CAPABILITIES, BUSINESS PROCESSES, AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: CHOOSING THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE IN EMPIRICAL TESTS OF THE RESOURCE-BASED VIEW 1 2 2 GAUTAM RAY, JAY B. BARNEY * and WALEED A. MUHANNA 1 Graduate School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 2 Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. A growing body of empirical literature supports key assertions of the resource-based view. However, most of this work examines the impact of firm-specific resources on the overall performance of a firm. In this paper it is argued that, in some circumstances, adopting the effectiveness of business processes as a dependent variable may be more appropriate than adopting overall firm performance as a dependent variable. This idea is tested by examining the determinants of the effectiveness of the customer service business process in a sample of North American insurance companies. Results are consistent with resource-based expectations, and they show that distinctive advantages observable at the