Assessing the Relative Importance of Tangible and Intangible Resources: Empirical Results from the Forest Industry

Authors: Lähtinen, Katja; Haara, Arto; Leskinen, Pekka; Toppinen, Anne

Source: Forest Science, Volume 54, Number 6, December 2008 , pp. 607-616(10)

Publisher: Society of American Foresters

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Abstract:

The importance of a diverse resource base to competitiveness of firms has been emphasized in resource-based view (RBV) literature and empirical studies done on various industries. Despite this emphasis, resource assessment methodologies within the RBV framework have been seldom approached, and the relative importance of different resources for business operations is not well understood. The data of the study were collected among large- and medium-sized sawmills within the Finnish forest industry. The objective of this study was to assess within the RBV framework the importance of tangible and intangible resources in business operations of sawmills. This was accomplished by introducing a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) method suitable for practical resource assessment. According to the results, personnel, managerial, raw material, and financial resources were the most crucial for sawmills. In the future, applying the MCDA to resource assessments could be combined, e.g., with a financial statement analysis to evaluate the effects of resource usage decisions on business performance.

Keywords: resource-based view; resource assessments; sawmills; multicriteria decision analysis

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2008-12-01

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