This paper has two objectives. First, the author describes an empirical approach to the assessment of intra-firm capabilities. Firms can acquire and configure resources. These are key building-blocks of firms' strategy as assumed in the emerging resource or capability-based view of strategic behaviour and performance analysis. However, the way resources are utilised are die principal causes of firms' success in attaining economic outcomes. While the process of resource utilisation is invisible, the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA) highlights firms'