competitive advantage is based on the possession of distinctive competencies. By definition, distinctive competencies are:
a. resources available to all firms operating in a given industry and easily shared and copied by rivals.
b. differences between companies in how they structure their companies and compensate their employees.
c. characteristics, skills, or knowledge that cannot be written down and must be understood through experience or intuition.
d. firm-specific strengths that allow a company to differentiate its products from rivals or achieve lower costs than rivals.