scholarly journals The Management Challenge of Sustaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation in Nigerian Business Environment

Author(s):  
Ann Ogbo ◽  
Jesse Ezeobi ◽  
Charles Ugbam ◽  
Obinna Okeke ◽  
Kalu Ebere Ume

Organizational learning refers to the sum total of individual and collective learning through training programs, experience, experimentation and work interactions within the organization. Thus, sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to offer superior customer value on an enduring or consistent basis, a situation in which competitors are unable to easily imitate the firm's capacity for value creation. It is worrisome that most literary works have not clearly linked organizational learning with sustainable competitive advantages, as is the case with intellectual capacity (knowledge-based resources) using the resource-based view of the firm. A survey approach was the research design used with particular reference to the South East Zone of Nigeria. Findings revealed that organizational innovation leads to sustained competitive advantage. The Z-statistic value with the corresponding probability value confirms that the organization to a large extent draws its competitive strength jointly from the following factors: creation of new products, changes in way of production, changes in architecture of production, improved ways of sourcing supplies, opening new market opportunities, providing goods and services that others are not yet offering or are not able to copy, being able to offer products of comparable quality at a lower price, maintaining a configuration of resources and capabilities that cannot easily be imitated by competitors, being able to attract customers from competitors due to a positive corporate image and encouraging employees to improve their personal skills. The results total Z-scores in absolute term shows that the listed factors pose challenges to the organization in the process of achieving sustainable competitive advantage through innovation.  For further justification, we proceed to their joint significant analysis adopting the one sample Z-test. The proxies employed in this study for the measurement of sustainability agreed with resource-based view strategies on sustainability of competitive advantage in an unstable business environment.

2020 ◽  
pp. 014920632096773
Author(s):  
Henrich R. Greve

The resource-based view and learning theory have developed independently but still have important areas of theoretical overlap, especially in central assumptions, such as how organizational differences, path dependence, and complex social technologies shape strategy. In addition, they have divergent and complementary theory, with major differences stemming from organizational learning focusing on behaviors rather than resources and organizing its research based on the sources of learning and the triggers of learning. Two research streams in organizational learning with particular implications for the resource-based view are the work on problemistic search and the work on interorganizational imitation. Both are expected to develop quickly as a result of the necessary interaction between research based on organizational theory and strategic management. They are promising areas of investigation for the resource-based view of the firm that can help distinguish the sources of sustainable competitive advantage and the importance of enduring competitive advantage.


Author(s):  
هشام عليان ◽  
محمد الجميلي

In the contemporary business environment, many new concepts have emerged among academic researchers and practitioners in the field of organizations. Perhaps organizational learning was one of the most important concepts that received increasing attention in the last two decades of the last century and the beginning of the current century, especially after the impressive success achieved by many organizations after adopting the organizational learning approach as a process of interaction, extrapolation, exploration and continuous confrontation with environmental challenges, which enables the organization to create Solutions and choosing alternatives that achieve continuous improvement or radical change of their behavior to ensure their survival and competitive advantage, as these concerns coincided with the radical transformations that the world witnessed towards the age of knowledge and information that focuses on investing intellectual assets and tacit knowledge and how to benefit from them and transform them into work contexts and models of behavior that support and modernize discrimination Organizational identifying on an ongoing basis through the process of organizational learning. In line with these transformations, the competitiveness precedence retreated according to the logic of cost and efficiency economics and the achievement of discrimination in front of the new logic of competition represented by possessing the strategic ability to excel and excel and maximizing the value of the customer and stakeholders, which made the view of organizational success shifting from mere financial return or market share targeted to own The strategic capacity of the knowledge that achieves the organization's sustainable competitive advantage, especially through its management of its human and knowledge resources in a way that is difficult for competitors to emulate. These challenges require business organizations to abandon the traditional frameworks and models and to adopt and activate the process of organizational learning as, according to most researchers, the most important source of competitive advantage. If many productive and service organizations in developed countries realize this fact and have achieved high levels of learning to enhance the chances of success, then where are the Iraqi organizations in this, especially since such new concepts are still limited in the cultural vocabulary of these organizations despite their possession of a lot of knowledge and learning applications and They were in unintended ways and methods as learning strategie The research followed the descriptive and analytical approach by designing a questionnaire form prepared for this purpose, and distributed to the research sample (40) of administrative leaders at the University of Kirkuk, and using the statistical program (Spss 19) in data analysis. The research reached a set of conclusions, the most important of which were: that there is a strong and moral correlation between the organizational learning variables and the organizational discrimination variable, and these results coincide with the hypotheses, and the research presented a set of proposals, including the necessity of defining the university administration's goals of organized learning accurately and its future directions in a way that contributes to achieving organizational distinction. to her..


foresight ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Kui Hu ◽  
Daisy Mui Hung Kee

Purpose This paper aims to deliberate the significant impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It also discusses SMEs’ practical approaches to capitalise on the renewed opportunity in the new normal by expanding their businesses regionally and globally. This paper also discusses the tactical and strategic interventions SMEs need to take to charge forward. Design/methodology/approach The resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991) is used to explain how SMEs develop a sustainable competitive advantage in the new normal. The resource-based view focuses on the link between strategy and firm internal resources. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm, internal analysis of the resources that are regarded as sources of competitive advantage controlled by the SMEs is imperative in today’s business environment. Based on the resource-based view theory, this paper focuses on reinventing SME’s strategies in the new normal to foster sustainability. Findings Post-COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs must essentially be dynamic, forward-looking and transformational in capturing the regional and global markets’ opportunities. They need to sharpen their internal competencies and realign their effective business strategy in seizing the vast opportunities in the international markets. Practical implications How SMEs respond to COVID-19 has important implications for subsequent performance in the new normal. This study focuses on the different potential SMEs’ reactions to COVID-19 and how their strategy affects SMEs performance and fosters sustainability in the new normal. Social implications The sustainability of SMEs is critical for the nation’s socio-economy. This study offers a holistic view of how SMEs respond to their challenges and help them choose the right business options. Originality/value This paper’s contents are solidly based on accumulated evidence, observation and critical arguments on the impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that caused numerous challenges faced by the SMEs, with a specific focus on SMEs operating in Malaysia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 48
Author(s):  
Paweł Cegliński

This article deals with the relationship between dynamic capabilities and core competencies of companies. Both categories extend the resource-based view of the firm. They are difficult to work out, but thanks to their durability and universality they enable to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Due to intensive changes in the business environment and increasing difficulty in forecasting them, the importance of adaptability based on both categories increases. The presented results of the research of two leading Polish companies—Panek S.A. and Cukiernia Sowa—are practical examples of the impact of dynamic capabilities on the creation of core competencies and indirectly core and end products and services. The analysis is the basis for improvement of future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Jorge Gomes ◽  
Mário Romão

Competitive advantage (CA) arises from a firm's attributes that allow one firm to create better customer value than others. Organizations of all sectors of the economy believe that sustainability is a way to achieve a differential advantage. CA is recognised as being the major cause for explaining top organizational performance and is a fundamental goal of academic management studies. There are two main views about obtaining a stable competitive position in the marketplace; The theory of industrial organization, re-introduced by Porter in the 1980s arguing that competitive advantage is caused by environmental opportunities. The resource-based view, which argues that every company creates its own competencies and capabilities can result in competitive advantages. The article shows how the balanced scorecard (BSC) can assist organizations in obtaining sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). The BSC development is a response to the criticism of traditional forms of accounting assessment. Academics and practitioners recognize the benefits of adopting the BSC concept.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-152
Author(s):  
Akwesi Assensoh-Kodua

The increasing turmoil in the external organizational setting or business environment has focused attention on capabilities and resources as the primary source of competitive advantage. Obviously, this statement points to the application of the resource-based view (RBV) of organizational management. Nevertheless, what constitutes RBV remains an illusion in many quarters of organizational management, as scholars have managed to put up their personal ideas, and managed to converge on phenomenon-driven theories, in addition to RBV. This paper reviews the concepts of RBV in light of knowledge management to highlight some critical pitfalls that might have eluded the research community on the subject matter of RBV. To this end, this paper’s educational value lies in the fact that it simplifies the concept of RBV to the new researcher in a fashion that is capable of appealing to his or her level. A cross-sectional qualitative research approach was employed in an effort aimed at understanding the role of RBV in creating a sustainable competitive advantage and key competencies. A total of 20 relevant articles were searched from different databases and search engines, including Scopus, EBSCO, ABI Inform, IEEE, PubMed, Science Direct, SABINET, IEEE, Bing, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The findings indicate that RBV plays an important role and assists organizations not only create, nurture, and maintain competitive advantage, but also understand the collective resources needed to compete favorably in a globalized and highly competitive market. With expert knowledge workers at its core to provide support for knowledge creation, sharing, and utilization, the RBV principles discussed in this paper promise to guarantee a methodological step geared towards the achievement of competitive advantage. It, therefore, makes an incremental contribution to the RBV to attain modest improvement in organizational settings.


Author(s):  
Ricarda B. Bouncken ◽  
Felix Schuessler ◽  
Sascha Kraus

This article examines the embedding of the phenomenon of Born Globals into three existing theories of the firm. The model of Born Globals deals with young companies that begin shortly after their foundation to internationalize. The Uppsala Internationalization Model helps to delimit the concept of Born Globals from existing internationalization models and to highlight their special features. The resource-based view takes up the integration of knowledge as the key resource of Born Globals and explains the underlying mechanism with which a company achieves a sustainable competitive advantage from a bundle of resources. The knowledge-based view is concerned with the generation of knowledge and explains the learning processes that are performed by the entrepreneur. A recurring theme could be identified and contains the following elements which interconnect the three theories of the firm with the concept of Born Globals - knowledge as a key resource, learning, and integration of knowledge into organizations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Xi Liu ◽  
Shuai Yang

In order to explore how the core technological capabilities of the high-tech industry affect the sustainable competitive advantage of an enterprise, by consulting a large number of literature studies on sustainable competition, the characteristics of high-tech enterprises were summarized through analysis and sorting and a sustainable competition model was proposed based on market, management, marketing, strategy, and organizational innovation. Through factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equations of 266 survey data of related companies, the effectiveness of the model based on the impact of core capabilities of high-tech companies on sustainable competitive advantage was confirmed. The results show that the core competencies of high-tech enterprises’ market recognition, strategic planning, management and operation, full-person marketing, and dynamic marketing directly affect the company’s sustainable competitive advantage. The most important influence on a company’s sustainable competitive advantage is market awareness, and the organizational innovation of the company can also influence the sustainable competitive advantage indirectly, while dynamic marketing can increase the other four capabilities to improve the sustainable competitive advantage of the enterprise. The theoretical model is established to identify the core technological capabilities of high-tech enterprises that can help enterprises effectively identify the core technological capabilities that can form a sustainable competitive advantage and then provide ideas for enterprises to build theoretical research on core technological capabilities.


2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
L. Le Roux ◽  
H. Oosthuizen

In a business environment of continuous change and in light of a defined need to fast track skills improvement and development in South Africa and Africa, training strategies and practices are under increasing pressure to develop a more productive and skilled workforce. Demands on training and the practices it employs increasingly focus on the alignment with strategic imperatives of organisations and the country.This research presented an instructional design (ID) model positioned in intersection between the positioning-based and resource-based theories and used a multi-disciplinary approach to extend the literature on ID models with the aim to offer measurable improvements in job-specific knowledge and productive behaviour as proxies for sustainable competitive advantage. The research confirmed the contribution of the ID model in this regard and described and substantiated the pivotal link between training and ID models and the application thereof in practice to aid organisations and, by extension, countries, in the achievement and sustainability of competitive advantage. This, the first of two articles, presents not only the theoretical and practical context of the research, but also the development of a revised and advanced ID model. In the second article the ID model will be subjected to empirical investigation and evaluated through the application thereof in a case organisation and a grounded conclusion provided.This is the first in a series of two articles.


Author(s):  
Ivan Arana-Solares ◽  
Jose Machuca ◽  
Rafaela Alfalla-Luque

In the rapidly changing global business environment, it can be seen that supply chain designs based solely on efficiency and speed do not necessarily lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. According to Lee (2004), this can only be done if supply chains are designed to incorporate the Triple A: Agility, Adaptability and Alignment. Although Lee provided some examples, to date his claim has not been empirically tested, which is essential. A number of studies have looked at the three component parts of the Triple A separately, but as yet no studies have focused on all three Triple A components concurrently, or on the impact they have on business performance. The main aim of this chapter is to determine the dimensions and factors that characterize these variables, in order to empirically test the accuracy of Lee’s claim.


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