Although managers cite human resources as a firm's most important asset, many organizational decisions do not reflect this belief. This paper uses the VRIO (value, rareness, imitability, and organization) framework to examine the role that the Human Resource (HR) function plays in developing a sustainable competitive advantage. We discuss why some popularly cited sources of sustainable competit...

Sustainable competitive advantage (CA) is a necessary requirement of a rational economic business organisation. Without this CA a business does not have a rational source for appropriating added value in the form of retained profit. Various management research papers have identified numerous factors that may create a source of competitive advantage. Other researchers have shown how industries h...

One of the prevailing views is that technology-based IT assets do not have the potential for sustainable competitive advantage because they are usually not rare and can be easily acquired by competitors. However, previous RBV-based research on the competitive potential of IT has paid inadequate attention to IT applications, which are a combination of application software and (digital) informati...

Abstract In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, manufacturing firms face more competitive environments, rapidly changing information and communication technologies (ICTs), customers’ preferences than ever before. This paper analyzes relevant literature proposes a systemic customer-centric knowledge-based production value chain (KPVC) to leverage distinctive core competencies (DCCs) create su...