Competitive advantage: the known unknown concept

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate empirically managers’ awareness regarding the concept of competitive advantage, the most taken-for-granted concept in the field of strategic management.

Design/methodology/approach

Managers’ awareness regarding the concept of competitive advantage was explored by applying a cross-sectional, self-administered, e-mail survey.

Findings

The results of quantitative and qualitative data analyses provide empirical evidence that senior managers, who are heavily involved in the strategic management process of their firms, seem to confuse the concept of competitive advantage with the concept of sources of competitive advantage, especially those pertaining to resource-based theory.

Research limitations/implications

The findings establish the hypothesis that senior managers are not aware of the concept of competitive advantage. At the same time, future researchers are encouraged to continue testing the above hypothesis.

Practical implications

The findings as well as the provision of a conceptually clear stipulating definition of competitive advantage from literature could increase practicing managers’ awareness relating to the conceptual nature as well as the latent expressions of competitive advantage.

Originality/value

Since little research, to date, has been carried out in order to investigate empirically the awareness of managers regarding competitive advantage, this study fills an important gap in the empirical literature of strategic management.

Citation

Sigalas, C. (2015), "Competitive advantage: the known unknown concept", Management Decision, Vol. 53 No. 9, pp. 2004-2016. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-05-2015-0185