Resources and Capabilities for Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Cross‐Functional Perspective

This paper examines the sources of competitive advantage from a cross‐functional perspective and presents a dynamic, general model of the tangible and intangible factors that lead to superior firm performance.We argue that superior performance results from the development of a complex, interrelated stock of organizational capabilities. We define capabilities as the result of managerial skill applied strategically to a firms’ resources and processes in a manner that integrates and leverages these resources across functional areas. Furthermore,capabilities are not bought and sold, but built by skilled managers, who foster their growth by developing interconnected resource stocks. A process model is presented and implications for both managers and researchers are discussed.