Resource-based view and sustainable advantage: a framework for SMEs

As firms struggle to regroup their business efforts after Covid-19, significant focus turns to strategically using their resources to competitively outmanoeuvre their rivals through utilizing their human capital, social capital, and brand reputations in their performance. This research scrutinizes the relationship between the intangible resources of human resources practices, brand reputation and sustainable competitive advantage of SMEs through the lens of the RBV as a tool for strategic marketing management – an underexplored area in marketing research – using SEM model. The analysis of primary data collected from 128 SMEs operating in Lebanon reveals the existence of a positive impact of social capital on competitive advantage and shows that competent human capital has a positive impact on both competitive advantage and reputation of Lebanese SMEs. In addition, findings indicate that reputation leads to enhancing both competitive advantage and performance. Finally, the results show that the competitive advantage has a positive impact on SMEs performance during uncertain periods. These findings provide valuable insights into RBV, supporting the belief that human and social capital resources are key success factors for SMEs during uncertain periods, which can be of great significance for strategic marketing managers to help them strengthen the position of their SMEs in emerging markets during difficult times.