The document outlines the concept of strategy in strategic human resource management, emphasizing the importance of distinctive capabilities as characteristics that provide a competitive advantage. Distinctive capabilities are defined by criteria including value creation, rarity, non-imitability, and non-substitutability, which ensure their uniqueness compared to competitors. The material originates from a presentation by Manu Melwin Joy, an assistant professor at Ilahia School of Management Studies in Kerala, India.

1. Distinctive capabilities
Strategic Human Resource Management

2. Prepared By
Kindly restrict the use of slides for personal purpose.
Please seek permission to reproduce the same in public forms and presentations.
Manu Melwin Joy
Assistant Professor
Ilahia School of Management Studies
Kerala, India.
Phone – 9744551114
Mail – manu_melwinjoy@yahoo.com

3. The concept of Strategy
• The concept of strategy is
based on three subsidiary
concepts:
– Competitive advantage.
– Distinctive capabilities and
– Strategic fit.

4. Distinctive capabilities
• A distinctive capability or
competence can be
described as an
important feature that in
Quinn’s (1980) phrase
‘confers superiority on
the organization’.

5. Distinctive capabilities
• Distinctive capabilities
are those characteristics
that cannot be replicated
by competitors, or can
only be imitated with
great difficulty.

6. Distinctive capabilities
• Four criteria have been proposed
by Barney (1991) for deciding
whether a resource can be
regarded as a distinctive capability
or competency:
– Value creation for the
customer;
– Rarity compared to the
competition;
– Non-imitability;
– Non-substitutability.