Section One
A focus solely on investment in physical resources, as
opposed to human resources, is short-sighted. Strategists have
found that having superior production facilities or a superior
product are usually not enough to sustain an advantage over
competitors. Physical facilities can be duplicated, cloned, or
reverse-engineered and no longer provide a sustainable
advantage.^2 Strategists James Quinn, Thomas Doorley, and
Penny Paquette have argued that “maintainable advantage
usually derives from outstanding depth in selected human skills,
logistics capabilities, knowledge bases, or other service
strengths that competitors cannot reproduce.. .”.^3 Thus, with
their perspective, there is recognition of the importance of
having superior human resources. There is little doubt that
organizations will need to invest heavily in their human
resources in order to be competitive during the twenty-first
century. Management scholar Edward Lawler has described
these investment requirements as follows:
To be competitive, organizations in many
industries must have highly skilled, knowl-
edgeable workers. They must also have a
relatively stable labor force since employee
turnover works directly against obtaining the kind
of coordination and organizational learning that
leads to fast response and high-quality products
and services.^4