Rethinking Rouse and Daellenbach's rethinking: isolating vs. testing for sources of sustainable competitive advantage

In a recent paper, Rouse and Daellenbach (1999) provide a five-step methodological approach which they feel will cure alleged inadequacies in empirical resource-based research. We suggest, however, that their methodology can provide only a useful aid for expanding our understanding of potential sustainable competitive advantages but will not allow researchers to effectively verify those hypothesized advantages. Specifically, we argue that Rouse and Daellenbach's methodology is plagued by three major shortcomings: (1) it confuses the important distinction between knowing-how and knowing-what; (2) it fails to recognize the importance of observable variables in verifying the sources of sustainable competitive advantage; and (3) it calls for sampling on the dependent variable.