Creating value offerings via operant resource-based capabilities

There is growing recognition that leveraging firm resources appears to be an essential precondition for securing a competitive position in the marketplace and also for creating value for the customer. In moving forward within the new dominant logic as espoused by Vargo and Lusch, with its focus on operant resources, this research empirically examines the role of operant resource-based capabilities as antecedents to a firm's value offering. The findings show that firms seeking to create a superior value offering for customers should invest in and nurture operant resources-based capabilities. The heterogeneity of operant resource-based capabilities helps explain value offering differentials in which firms that emphasize strongly innovation-based capability as a dominant operant resource-based capability appear to create a superior value offering compared to those emphasizing marketing-based capability, while firms that focus strongly on production-based capability create little for the customer in value offering. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.