Southwest Airlines has a complex interrelationship between its culture and staff that adds value in ways that other airlines cannot, such as jokes on flights or the cooperation between gate personnel and pilots. These examples illustrate which of the following criteria for sustainable competitive advantage?

Answer: Costly to imitate

Explanation: For a firm trying to obtain, develop, or duplicate a particular resource or capability, if there is a significant cost disadvantage to the firm, then that resource or capability is costly to imitate. Firms with costly to imitate resources (valuable and rare) can often gain the first-in-the-market advantages resulting gains in competitive advantage. While imitation comes either by direct imitation or substitution, some reasons why resources and capabilities are costly to imitate ranges from three reasons why resources and capabilities are hard to imitate include historical conditions, causal ambiguity wherein the elements that lead to the cause of competitive advantage are difficult to identify and social complexity where the firm's culture or interpersonal relationships are the reason for the rarity of their resources and capabilities.

Costly to imitate

Explanation:

For a resource to be costly to imitate then other organizations that do not have it or cannot imitate, buy or substitute it at a reasonable price. Imitation can occur either by directly duplicating the resource or substituting. If the cost to imitate is high, the competitive advantage will be sustained. If not, the competitive advantage will be temporary. This will cause an imitating firm to attempt a substitute in order to gain similar competitive advantage.

Eg - Unique historical conditions can make duplication of capabilities costly.