Most of the authors who adopted a resource-based view of IT contribution to firm
performance focused on the relationships between IT resources themselves and business
performance. Some researchers have argued that a limitation of this view is that “it
assumes that resources are always applied to their best uses, saying little about how this
is done” (Melville et al., 2004). For instance, Clemons and Row (1991) argue that
“benefits resulting from an innovative application of information technology can be
more readily defended if the system exploits unique resources of the firm” (p.289).
This argument, referred to as the strategic necessity hypothesis, was supported by
Powell and Dent-Micallef (1997) who found that IT resources alone do not provide
competitive advantages; rather, firms can gain competitive advantage by leveraging
complementarity between business and human resources. The same argument was
espoused by Ravichandran and Lertwongsatien (2002) who found support for the
relationship between IS support for core competencies and firm performance.