A resource-based view of firm boundaries

The current paper explores the use of the Resource-Based View in the analysis of the firm boundary decision. It is proposed that resources that are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable are those that have the least likelihood of being outsourced. This proposition is tested through the analysis of the characteristics of 71 processes, from 42 firms in order to determine the distinguishing features between in-sourced and outsourced processes. The results provide empirical evidence for the resource-based view, and for its explicatory power in the context of the boundary decision.