Research on the Competitive Advantage of the Firm

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter introduces the notion of competitive advantage in multiple research perspectives of the dominant strategic management schools, and references the academic discourse on the fundamental issue of the locus of competitive advantage. Its first section briefly presents exemplary attempts to organize the body of knowledge on the theory of the firm, including strategic management as an associated theory, and argues why the notion of competitive advantage lies at the heart of this book’s research agenda. In the second section, the dispute between the proponents of Industrial Organization Economics and the Resource-Based View is recounted. Following this, the relationship approach is introduced as a concept that facilitates market coordination based on cooperation.