A Strategic Resource-Based View of Higher Education Institutions’ Resources
Scott David Williams

Abstract
Strategic management of organizations such as institutions of higher education involves leveraging resources to achieve objectives. The strategic role of organizational resources has received increased attention in empirical research in recent years. Nevertheless, the literature on higher education lacks reviews of the diverse measures of institutional resources researchers have employed. This article reviews the measures of organizational resources reported in a decade of published empirical studies. Ten representative articles reporting sufficient data on the measurement of institutional resources were included. The reviewed studies commonly drew data from government databases (especially the U.S. Department of Education) and other secondary data sources. Some resource variables were qualitative, but the majority captured size or quantity of resources. Aside from resource amounts, future research should attempt to explicate the ways in which valuable, rare, inimitable and nonsubstitutable resources can be leveraged for competitive advantage, and address how resources are integrated to form organizational capabilities.

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