An empirical test of the resource-based theory: Strategic regulation in the Dutch audit industry

The resource-based view of the firm is a recent strategic management theory that seeks to identify the resources that may provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage. This paper has two purposes. First, the paper relates strategic management arguments to parallel lines of reasoning in industrial organization theory and argues that strategic regulation is a major source of sustainable competitive advantage. The second purpose of the paper is to report the results of an empirical test of the resource-based theory on she basis of a longitudinal data set on the postwar history of the Dutch audit industry. A key determinant of this history proves to be strategic regulation, which stimulates demand for audit services and protects rentproducing resources.