Software development strategic management: A resource-based view approach

Business strategies vary from market analysis to resource capability positioning. In this context, the resource-based view approach analyses organizations as a group of resources in order to continually enhance their business results. Software development is a knowledge-intensive activity, demanding specific human resources. So, software organizations would have to intensify their strategic forces in order to preserve and improve their capabilities. Aiming to verify how the relationship between resources and competitive advantage occurs, this paper presents the outcomes of a research that was applied at Brazilian software companies, repeating a similar study performed in Europe in 2004. The variables used in both researches are: (a) value of the resource to organization, (b) rarity to obtain it, (c) imitation by competitors and (d) substitution of resources. Results have been statistically evaluated using contingency tables and chi-square tests and they had shown the same tendency of the previous European study: value and rarity practically exercise the same influence over the competitiveness, while substitution and imitation act in an inverse way. However, this Brazilian research also verified that companies should have their own core competences to obtain competitive advantages and would transform them in the main and most visible competition elements: schedule, cost and quality.