This article continues to operationally define and test the resource-hased view of the firm in a study of the major U.S. film studios from 1936 to 1965. We found that property-hased resources in the form of exclusive long-term contracts with stars and theaters helped financial performance in the stable, predictable environment of 1936-50. In con-trast, knowledge-based resources in the form of production and coordi-native talent and budgets boosted financial performance in the more uncertain (changing and unpredictable) post-television environment of 1951-65. The resource-based view of the firm provides a useful complement to Porters (1980) well-known structural perspective of strategy. This view shifts the emphasis from the competitive environment of firms to the resources that firms have developed to compete in that environment. Unfortunately, although it has generated a great deal of conceptualizing (see reviews by Black and Boal 1994 and Peteraf 1993), the resource-based view is just
Miller et al. (Sat,) studied this question.