This paper aims to produce a justified, generic, pictorial architecture of the relationships between resources and competences within firms. It begins by providing definitions of the nature, scope and relationships between resources, capabilities and competences from the resource and competence literatures. In so doing, theory is refined and a linked resource and competence architecture is developed. The architecture distinguishes between high‐level competences that customers recognize, for example fast product delivery, and competences that support high‐level competences but are less visible customers, like competences in rapid knowledge acquisition and deployment. An empirical example is then used to illustrate how the architecture enables the construction of structured pictures of connected competences and co‐ordinated resources within a manufacturing business. Finally, the architecture is critiqued and its value for managers in structuring competence performance improvement activities is discussed.
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