THE VRIO FRAMEWORK
We are now in a position to evaluate a firm’s resource endowments and answer the question
of what resource attributes underpin competitive advantage. In the resource-based
model, certain types of resources are seen as key to superior firm performance. 17 For a
resource to be the basis of a competitive advantage, it must be valuable (V), rare (R), and
costly to imitate (I), and the firm must organize (O) to capture the value of the resource.
Following the lead of Jay Barney, one of the pioneers of the resource-based view of the
firm, we call this model the VRIO framework . 18 According to this model, a firm can gain