“…Within most of the RBV literature on firms' governance choice, the concept of "core competence" has been used interchangeably with asset specificity (Cox, 1996;Espino-Rodrı ´guez and Padr on-Robaina, 2006;De Vita et al, 2011). Instead of stressing transaction costs, RBV focuses on value gains from the outsourced activities (Zajac and Olsen, 1993;Moon and Yin, 2020). However, as firms' competitive advantages and performance depend on their core competence, firms should internalize such highly asset-specific activities within the firm rather than outsource the core competency (Barney, 1991;Conner, 1991;Poppo and Zenger, 1998;Quinn, 2000).…”