The Contributions of Specific Resources from the Firm in its Competitive Performance: A Resource-Based View Approach in the Software Sector

Abstract

In accordance with the RBV (Resource Based View) approach, the main cause of the variety of performance of firms in the market resides in the specific nature of their resources and accumulated competences. Nevertheless, the tacit nature and, at the same time, the qualitative nature of the explicative variables hinders the parameterization and quantification of the degree of correlation between the competitive performance and the resources of the company. Through research performed in 1999, the French economist Rodolphe Durand developed his own methodology, building latent variables (proxys) that permit a highly satisfactory evaluation of the relationship between performance and specific resources of the firm. With a basis on this methodology we evaluated, in the specific case of the Brazilian software sector, the degree of influence of the productive assets of companies on its competitive performance The theory establishes that the higher the inimitability and immobility of assets, the greater their profitability, margin and market performance. In inimitability we can find a relevant positive association only with the market performance. In relation to immobility we find a positive association with profitability and a negative association with margin.