Representing VRIN How Empirical Research Makes Strategic Resources Evaluable

The resource-based view (RBV) explains firm heterogeneity through resources and capabilities that are valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (VRIN). While VRIN was originally introduced as a strategic criterion for evaluating resources, empirical RBV research increasingly represents these attributes through observable indicators derived from secondary data, including R&D intensity, patents, advertising expenditure, governance structures, and textual signals. Despite the widespread use of such indicators, little attention has been paid to how these empirical proxies function as representations of VRIN and what conceptual implications follow from this representational practice.This paper develops a theoretical review of how VRIN has been represented in empirical RBV research. Examining prior studies that operationalise VRIN through secondary data, the analysis identifies several representational logics through which researchers translate strategic attributes into observable indicators. These logics connect VRIN to patterns of investment, organisational characteristics, informational signals, and market outcomes, thereby enabling empirical evaluation of strategic resources.Building on this synthesis, the paper clarifies the conceptual status of VRIN in empirical research. Rather than functioning as a causal variable or a directly measurable attribute, VRIN operates as an evaluative category that becomes instantiated through representational devices embedded in empirical designs. Recognising this representational role helps explain how RBV concepts become empirically evaluable without being reduced to simple measurement.By theorising the representational practices through which VRIN is translated into empirical indicators, the paper contributes to RBV research in two ways. First, it clarifies how strategic attributes are made observable in empirical studies. Second, it highlights the conceptual conditions under which VRIN can be represented without collapsing the distinction between strategic evaluation and empirical measurement. In doing so, the study repositions empirical RBV research as a representational practice through which strategic concepts become evaluable under conditions of uncertainty.