To observe that competitive advantages (sustained or otherwise) only accrue to firms that have valuable and rare resources is not to dismiss common (i.e, not rare) firm resources as unimportant Instead, these valuable but common firm resources can help ensure a firm's survival when they are exploited to create competitive parity in an industry (Barney, 1989a). Under conditions of competitive parity, though no one firm obtains a competitive advantage, firms do increase their prob- ability of economic survival (McKelvey, 1980; Porter, 1980).