VRIO Framework Assessment

Resources in the resource based view are defined as the tangible and intangible assets that a firm controls, which it can use to conceive and implement its strategies.

• True

• False

Which of the following is not one of the four question areas Barney proposes in his VRIO

framework used to evaluate a firm's key resources?

• organization

• durability

• rareness

• valuable

• imitability

To the extent that a firm's resources and capabilities enhance a firm's competitive position by enabling a firm to exploit its opportunities or neutralize its threats, these resources and capabilities are valuable and are known as

• temporary competitive advantages

• sustainable competitive advantages

• core competencies

• strengths

If a firm's resources and capabilities are costly to imitate because imitating firms may not understand the relationship between the resources and capabilities controlled by a firm and that firm's competitive advantage, this competitive advantage is said to be protected from imitation by

• causal ambiguity

• unique historical conditions

• social complexity

LaserTech is a manufacturer of industrial lasers and has developed a new, patented technology that allows its customers to manufacture their products more precisely with a higher level of consistency and at a lower cost than they could previously. LaserTech's executives believe that no rivals have a similar technology and that it would be very difficult for rivals to copy this technology since the benefits of the new technology can only be realized within LaserTech's system, which includes processes that are protected by trade secrets, making it difficult for rivals to understand the relationship between the company's new technology and its competitive advantage. LaserTech's new technology appears to be

• valuable and rare but not costly to imitate.

• valuable and either rare or costly to imitate.

• valuable but neither rare nor costly to imitate.

• valuable, rare and costly to imitate.