A Problem Waits : Is it True that Resource-Based Theory ( RBT ) is an Empty Tautology ?

Resource-based theory (RBT) has gained its maturity as a theory, and it has heavily shaped the path of research in the organization and management field. However, RBT has been criticized due to its quality and deemed to be a theory that is tautological. This study explores the evolution of resource-based theory (RBT) using the Thomas Kuhn cycle. Employing a critical literature review approach, this study identifies all articles related to RBT in the organization and management field from 1959 to 2021 and finds 141 articles. The findings have demonstrated that RBT has evolved, and it has become a better ‘puzzle solver’ as it provides a more comprehensive theoretical lens to analyze broader phenomenon of organization, particularly concerning its competitive advantage. Nonetheless, the study also sheds some light on the potential weaknesses of RBT. Inclusiveness of RBT is suggested to be a sign of tautology as the theory has a very broad definition of resources hence can embrace all phenomena in the field of organization’s strategic management. In addition to that, scholars find difficulty to define or operationalize several key concepts in RBT leading to obstruction in its ability to be tested empirically. And the vagueness of concepts creates a tautology problem in RBT that the theory cannot be verified or falsified. Thomas Kuhn suggests that theories can be developed, thus, despite its current weakness, RBT can still be improved by increasing accuracy of its key concepts. From the analysis, this study develops a theoretical recommendation regarding the use of RBT theory particularly in public administration research.


Introduction
Resource based theory (RBT) can be said to be one of the most eminent and powerful theories for understanding organization, organizational relationships, and its strategic behavior (Zhang et al., 2021 mirrors its maturity as a theory. RBT has its ability to be an obtrusive spin-off of other perspectives, such as, natural-resource-based view of the firm (Hart 1995), knowledge-based view (Grant, 1996), dynamic capabilities (Teece, Pisano et al. 1997), and absorptive capacity Levinthal 1990, Zahra andGeorge 2002). RBT also has been paired or unified with other viewpoints, namely, institutional theory (Oliver 1997), and organizational economics (Combs and Ketchen 1999). RBT also has assessed retrospectively using various systematic literature review approaches, such as meta-analysis and bibliometric analysis (Crook, Ketchen et al. 2008;Zhang et al., 2021).
Several scholars also executed critical evaluation of methodologies that have been used in RBT (Armstrong and Shimizu 2007). Lastly, RBT has obtained critiques that question its quality as a theory (Bhandari et al., 2020;Braganza et al., 2017;Kraaijenbrink, Spender et al., 2010;Priem and Butler, 2001). These have explained that RBT has arrived at a point where it is already developed and mature as a theory. This study aims to analyze RBT evolution using the Kuhn cycle. Kuhn cycle offers an insightful tool of analysis for examining the theory as the model discerns the indirect or nonlinear nature of the development of scientific knowledge (Shapere, 1964). Kuhn argues that scientific knowledge is shaped by the explosion of new ideas or knowledge and such "revolution" is determined by the paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1962(Kuhn, , 2012. I argue this model that embodies historical developmental perspective is fitting for analyzing the RBT theory as the occurrence of new paradigms underpin its development. This study contributes to organization literature by clearly identifying the development of RBT, and how it determines the path of discussion in the organization field. Therefore, the discussion about RBT based on the Kuhn cycle platform theory is worth doing.

Resource-based theory
Earlier work written by Penrose (1959) constructed the basis of resource-based theory (RBT) development. Wernerfelt (1984) argued that Penrose was the first person to draw the idea that firm's resources are the drivers for firm growth; and the firm ability to balance both the exploitation of existing resources and creation of new resources is the tool to build sustained firm's competitive advantage. Penrose's work was aimed to analyze the antecedents or the ex-ante of the firm growth, and she believed that a firm's bundle of resources and firm capabilities to utilize the resources serve as such antecedents. Thus, in that sense, the growth of a firm will be constrained if the firm has insufficient or inadequate resources capabilities, and vice versa. However, there has been a debate about to what extent the contribution of Penrose to the RBT beginning or creation. One group of scholars (Barney 2000, Rugman andVerbeke 2002) argued that Penrose only contributed minor to RBT, in a way that she only proposed the basic premise in firm growth explanation -that a bundles of distinct resources and capabilities lead to firm growth-which provides inadequate explanation to describe the phenomenon nor decent guidance to develop scientific research in organizational and strategic management field. This stem of the group even argued that minor contribution of Penrose to RBT can be seen from the way Penrose had different viewpoints about profits, rather than exert the profit to the resource investment to increase firm growth, as RBT theory suggests, Penrose treats profits as merely high dividends to shareholders.
On the other side, some scholars (Cockburn, Henderson et al. 2000, Kor andMahoney 2004)  explanations that serve as direction for the RBT development in the next decades. The latter argument is worth explaining, Darroch (2005) argued that Penrose explained that firm growth is a result of a combination of resources and activities to utilize the resources, a description of a phenomenon that was highly elaborated in the 1990s. In addition to that, Darroch (2005) also argued Penrose had realized that the recognition of what resources should be used is indeed the prior stage before the utilization of resources itself -this idea is basically became one of the main foundations in dynamic capabilities which in 1990s upheld the position of RBT as a relevant organizational theory to be used nowadays, and marked the development of RBT Levinthal 1989, Cohen andLevinthal 1990 (Nelson 1991, Sautet 2000.

Methods
This study employs a qualitative approach using library search and literature review on the subject of resource-based theory (RBT) and its use in different organization and management Literature from fields outside of social science are also excluded. In the final phase, this study selected 141 articles, which formed the analytical database. Therefore, limitation from this study is due to constraint number of the database because of the presence of inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Normal Science
Normal science took place when several scholars robustly developed the resource-based theory (RBT) in the 1980s; as at that time RBT was able to provide the field's paradigm as a tool for the scientific community in studying firm growth and competitive advantage empirically and solving the problem in its field. At that time competitive advantage that became a primary goal in RBT had been defined, and several features of resources (valuable and rare resources) that contribute to competitive advantage also had been explained.
The main research questions that occurred in this era were about finding profound explanations on why there is different performance amongst firms, or on why a firm performs better than their competitors.
In 1980, Porter (1980) emphasized on the capability of management to create strategy on resource allocation that determines its firm performance. There are three successful generic strategies to create firm performance; a) overall cost leadership that underlines low cost relative to its competitors; b) differentiation strategy that differentiate one firm to other firms, in terms of the capability to create something new either for product or service that is recognized rare or special in market so it will give leverage for firm to apply higher than average price; c) focus strategy in which the firm focuses on certain market, customer, geographic market, or product segment.
These strategies can place a firm to achieve its competitive advantage and can outperform its competitors.
In 1982, Teece (1982) argued that diversification of activities in a firm can drive the firm growth. Particularly, in his paper, Teece described that human capital in a firm is not utterly specialized, because it can be repositioned and redeployed to give the flexibility for a firm to diversify its new products and services. Teece also described how the excess resources of a firm can be utilized for diversification purposes, which this description is in alignment with Penrose's argument.
In the same year, Lippman and Rumelt (1982) created the concept of causal ambiguity that relates to the decision of a firm in allocating the resources to attain competitive advantage.
They explained that the process of allocating the resources is not a simple decision, rather complex, and related to human decision. The allocation of resources is related to the capability of seeing or recognizing the value of resources in the future.
The capability of allocating the resources on investment that has a certain level of uncertainty may result either to failure or success is called causal ambiguity. The increased uncertainty also derives from the incapability of a firm -for not to say impossible-to list all the factors that may not work or not work out for the success of such a firm.
Thus, factors of production cannot be recognized, mobile or utilized, unless they are identified.
Further, discussing the term uniqueness is not only carried out in a narrow perspective, in a way that unique resources can be conducted into two levels. The first level, the uniqueness refers to the distinctive resources that a firm has compared to other firms' resources. The second level, uniqueness, refers to the power of a firm to secure its resources by exerting a variety of powers, such as the exclusive use for a firm with enforceable rights, such as patent on an invention or innovation or the ownership of specific tangible resources.
In 1984, Rumelt (1984) stated the importance of a firm to renew and redeploy its resources as a basis for competitive advantage.
Rumelt claimed that a firm's competitive advantage is driven by the bundle of unique or rare resources, and the ability of management to renew the resources as the value of resources will be changed, altered, eroded within periods,

Model Drift
Model drift in RBT happened when the previous literature in RBT could not handle the phenomenon that occurred in the organizational and strategic management field. A series of significant papers offer different insights to perceive resources and firm competitive advantage building in a firm, by providing a different approach to explore RBT phenomenon, which in turn enhances RBT as a firm theory, such as organizational culture. Literature in these years also began to discuss other features of resources, besides valuable and rare resourcesthat contribute to competitive advantage, such as, non-substitutable or non-tradable resources, and inimitable resources. Barney (1986) expands the ability of RBT to explain the phenomenon of firm growth by grasping the cultural context into organizational discussion. Barney concurred that organizational culture can be considered as a resource as it can improve the ability of firms to recognize and utilize the resources in a way that competing firms cannot. Culture can be valuable if it enables firms to conduct business that can lead to high firm financial value performance. Culture also needs to be rare, meaning that culture must have attributes and characteristics that are distinct to other firms.
Culture also needs to be inimitable to prevent other firms from imitating or copying their culture because it poses some disadvantages, such as, putting their reputation at stake and exerting high cost for the investment as they have lack of experience to copy that culture. Not only does organizational culture define who are relevant employees, suppliers, customers, competitors, and other stakeholders for a firm; but it also defines how a firm interacts and collaborates with these focal stakeholders. This emerging discussion integrated the field of study of organizational culture to the firm's structure and strategy. Dierickx and Cool (1989) developed the argument that resources principally can be useful if effective substitutes are not available or present.
The ability of a firm to imply a bundle of resources to create a product, which succeeds occupying a privileged market position, is not the guarantee that a firm achieves its competitive advantage, as the resources can be freely tradeable. Thus, in the discussion of factor inputs production, a firm needs to give attention to resources that are not traded in the open markets, for example firm reputation, and customer loyalty.

Model Crisis
In the 1990s, the RBT had developed again as the previous development was less able to answer the phenomenon about firm growth in a more dynamic way, in a sense that there is a broader literature that began to perceive a firm as a complex phenomenon and represents diverse cognitive processes that are By presenting these differences, Conner (1991) argued that RBT had reached its legitimation as a theory of the firm that secured its position by creating its distinction over other firm theories.
Just one year after the seminal publication of Fiol (1991), Barney (1991), Kogut and Zander (1992)  in this case, one the resources that is related to those VRIN features is knowledge. Imitators find difficulty to copy and diffuse knowledge from its rivals; further, the acquisition of new knowledge of imitators does not ensure that they will have ability to successfully assimilate the knowledge to its organization members; therefore, knowledge can become a critical resource that helps a firm secure its competitive advantage. Later, the most interesting thing is, the efficacy of knowledge to In 1996, Grant (1996) criticized previous scholars that only emphasized on how knowledge transferred to its organizational members, but they ignored the knowledge creation process as the later stage after the knowledge is assimilated.
Grant argued that coordination becomes necessary in knowledge transformation and knowledge creation process, and the primary task by management is ensuring that they establish effective coordination to make the knowledge is integrated and exploited effectively in a firm. One aspect that Grant underlined was the different kind of coordination need to be designed and established as different knowledge has its own characteristics and difficulty to be absorbed, transformed, and created by organizational members; and such designs will impact the structure of the firm, the hierarchy, the autonomy or the extent to which its decision-making authority given to its members.
In 1997, Oliver (1997) analyzed the context and process of resource selection, which he argued became a critical factor to guarantee a firm's sustained competitive advantage. However, despite its importance, Oliver concluded that previous literature did not study "social context within which resource selection decisions are embedded (e.g firm traditions, network ties, regulatory pressures) and how this context might affect sustainable firm differences" (Oliver, 1997, p. 697-698). Oliver disputed that the ability of a firm to manage its institutional context regarding resource decisions determines firm performance.
Institutional context was treated in a broader way by Oliver, as he included internal culture as well as influences from external environment or entities, such as, state, society, and inter- and income limits, which neoclassical models hold on to, but also rely on social context. It means that motives behind every human behavior oftentimes go beyond economic optimization to social obligation and social justification. Having followed the argument, thus, organizational members and its organization "are assumed to be approval seeking, susceptible to social influence, and relatively intractable creatures of habit and tradition" (Oliver, 1997, p. 699). Conformity to social expectations also becomes the factor that determines firm success and survival. According to institutional perspective, a) firm will create strategy that inappropriate due to the constrained environment in which they reside in; b) cultural support in resource investment may play as critical driver for firm success; c) firm may decide not to copy or imitate the resources, not because they cannot do that, but simply because they do not want to do that particularly due to lack of legitimacy and social approval; d) social influence to firm may reduce the potential of firm in building heterogeneity. In his study, Oliver conducted the analysis at the individual, firm, and inter-firm level of analysis.
In the same year, Teece, Pisano et al. (1997), They exerted dynamic capabilities as critical factors in firm competitive advantage building, by describing dynamic capabilities as firm's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, build, re-configure internal and external competences to cope with uncertainties. Dynamic capabilities determine a firm's ability to innovate that helps the firm to sustain its competitive advantage.

Model Revolution
In 2000s The motivation is based on hedonic manners, particularly on how to improve their particular situation (e,g improving self-esteem, looking for excitement). The ability of firms to increase the level of normative goal-frame motivation through various HR practices will boost the sustainability of firm competitive advantage. This paper revolutionized RBT theory by making the RBT broadened, so it could grasp wider organizational phenomena.

Discussion
According to Kuhn (2012), science is a puzzle-solving tool that derives from the framework of a set of dogmatically held theories.
Theory constructs and specifies the puzzles to be solved; at the same time, theory also provides methodology to solve those puzzles. An old theory that cannot solve the puzzles will be replaced by a new theory as it is demonstrated to be a better puzzles-solver. From the findings above, it has shown how the RBT theory has evolved.
In the first cycle of Kuhn's, the seminal paper of Penrose in which introduced and coined the term RBT has been largely cited and discussed in the organization and management research.
In the 1980s, the scholars began to answer the call for a more micro or operational level of this seemingly all catch theory by identifying Aside from the development of RBT and its reputation to provide the guide for the researchers to study the phenomenon in strategic management in organization, RBT contains serious problems due to its inclusiveness. Barney However, such inclusiveness may backfire on RBT, because it creates the theory to be tautology, and tautological statements cannot be verified empirically. Priem and Butler (2001) argued that tautological allegation that is targeted to RBT is caused by the wide definition of resource, and resource itself becomes a focal concept in RBT. In RBT, every attributes that can provide value is considered to be resource ranging from culture, trust, leadership, normative motivation, economies of scale, human capital diversity, firm network diversity, to learning curve economies; thus, if we accept all these inclusive definitions, then a firm can find every reasoning to create sustain competitive advantage, up to the point that sustained competitive advantage itself can be perceived as resource as well (Priem and Butler 2001;Quaye & Mensah, 2019). In this case, the theory will not be false, because everything that contributes to firm competitive advantage can be perceived as a resource, thus RBT is not falsifiable or the theory is utterly true, so it does not need to be investigated. Popper concurred that the term scientific only refers to the statement that is falsifiable, meaning that empirical hypothesis, proposition, and theory can be perceived scientific if it accepts the possibility of a contrary case or reality. Conner (1991)  However, discussing the operationalization and parameterization of concepts in RBT is also problematic. The problem of tautology in RBT also roots from its incapability to define or parameterize several key concepts; unless the key concepts are adequately parameterized then those can be tested empirically. Priem and Butler (2001) mentioned about the incapability of RBT to parameterize the concepts about rarity and inimitability. The vagueness of concept creates a problem because even where predictions or propositions are made within the framework provided by RBT, those predictions or propositions are difficult to be verified or falsified correctly. Barney (2001) argued that tautological problems can be disentangled, by specifying the concept of rarity and inimitability, and operationalizing or parameterizing such concepts will make RBT can be tested empirically. For example, rarity can refer to a lesser number of firms that possess valuable resources than the number of firms needed to produce perfect competition dynamics in an industry, thus this condition can create competitive advantage. If only one competing firm possesses that particular valuable resource, it also still can be tested, to see to what extent that firm can utilize the resource to improve its efficiency and effectiveness to achieve competitive advantage.
Both these assertions can be tested empirically, thus eliminating tautological problems (Barney 2001). Inimitability also can be parameterized by stating that inimitability can refer to the difficulty of resources to be imitated because it is costly to copy, or it is complex to copy because it contains historical story, stock of knowledge and experience, and social integration. By specifying the definition of inimitability, a researcher can test whether the resource, such as technological knowhow or organizational routines that represent organizational culture can be imitated easily by a firm. These explanations, according to Barney (2001) can restrain the RBT to be tautological.

Conclusion
From 1959 to 2021, RBT has been evolving, and proves itself to be a better puzzle-solver because it can add to the scope and precision with which the paradigm can be applied, and it also provides methodology to analyze the broader phenomenon in competitive advantage and firm growth issues.
What lesson can be learned from analyzing the evolution of RBT by Using Kuhn Cycle? Global phenomenon that is particularly related to RBT is so large, complex, novel, and urgent, thus the solution is needed to solve the problem and to give the meaning of this global organizational phenomenon. Thus, in this view, scientific RBT theory is created so we can interpret the facts carefully and rationally; as it offers valid explanation of organizational phenomenon, and serves as problem-solving strategy that can be applied to a wide range of organizational circumstances. But why do human beings do that? In general, human beings constantly explore scientific knowledge to get closer to the truth, to find the meaning of life, or simply for making a practical use of theory; because by employing the theory to the practical world in order to solve the problems, then the knowledge gains its worth.
Previously, there was a little understanding that the environment in which a phenomenon takes place cannot be tamed and controlled, that the environment is dynamic and human stands in the way of progress. Therefore, Kuhn thought that a scientific theory is not the end result of the scientific method; theories can be improved, revised, or improved as more information is collected so that our understanding of the phenomenon is developed, hence the accuracy of the assumption/prediction becomes stronger over time. In other words, theory has better explanatory power in explaining the phenomenon.
In the Kuhn cycle, Kuhn thought theories might only be replaced when the old theory does not have the ability to explain prevailing phenomena and a newly developed theory replaces them; that is how normal science evolves to model revolution, as previous theory was less able to answer the phenomenon.
Based on the findings and analysis, this study offers the following recommendations. In terms of research direction, RBT can be a useful theory to analyze current public administration phenomena, such as, open government data (Zhao & Fan, 2018), and big data analysis (Shan et al., 2019). It is interesting to investigate the relationship between organizational resources either tangible and intangible resources, and how there is a need to use multiple approaches to measure different resources in an organization (Barney, Ketchen Jr, Wright, 2011). Bhandari et al. (2020) also criticize RBT to be an inadequate theoretical lens to explain necessary conditions needed by organizations to have sustainable performance. It even further emphasizes the need to integrate RBT with other theories or concepts as it cannot stand alone in explaining dynamics of organization particularly its competitive advantage.