Capabilities, business processes, and competitive advantage: choosing the dependent variable in empirical tests of the resource‐based view

Abstract 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 process…