The age of temporary advantage

Abstract

The creation and management of temporary competitive advantages has emerged as an alternative to sustainable models of competitive advantage in the strategy literature. We review the literature and discuss questions related to the antecedents, consequences and the management temporary advantage in the introduction of this special issue. The overall goal is to ask: What would the field of strategic management look like if sustainable advantages did not exist? We summarize the papers published in this special issue and highlight directions for future research.

Assembling Frameworks for Strategic Innovation Enactment: Enhancing Transformational Agility through Situational Scanning

“…), or other influences (Doz and Kosonen 2008). Competitive advantage comes from obtaining valuable industry foresight (Hamel and Prahalad 1994); however, environmental hostility, in the form of intense competition, overwhelming climates, market commonality, resource similarity, and a lack of exploitable opportunities, threatens an organization's ability to achieve their desired business outcomes (Covin and Slevin 1989;D'Aveni et al 2010). An organization's competitive attitude and capability within its environments should be understood (Alvesson and Lindkvist 1993;Brown and Starkey 1994;Deming 1986;Peters and Waterman 1982;Rousseau 1990;Senge 1990).…”

“…Because it does not produce meaningful results. Concurrently, a perception of diminishing returns from scanning efforts in a stable environment may lull an organization into catatonic complacency (Hough and White 2004) or entropy (D'Aveni et al 2010;De Pree 2004). In this way, the organization foregoes an aggressive competitive stance.…”

“…Effective information synthesis is driven by environmental dynamism, the rate of innovation, munificence, (Castrogiovanni 1991;Duncan 1972), technology, globalization, industry convergence, aggressive competitor behavior, an increased frequency of temporary advantages, fleeting equilibrium, and general uncertainty. This then promotes the need for the organization to synchronize with relevant environments (Aldrich 1979;Bluedorn 1993;Freel 2006;D'Aveni et al 2010;Richard 2003).…”

“…For example, the hospitality industry may be more tuned to variables such as competitor market share, market saturation, sales stagnation, margin erosion rate, rate of consolidation, and failure rates (Tse and Olsen 1999). Additionally, directly and indirectly, variables have endogenous and exogenous characteristics (D'Aveni et al 2010;Thoumrungroje and Tansuhaj 2005). A measuring system needs to accommodate these attributes and accurately represent the variables chosen.…”

“…This theoretical study compares the existing theoretical posture of two theories, ES and strategic enactment, and connects them, thereby enhancing the existing theory. In fact, research shows that strategic plans for achieving innovation in global value chains (GVCs) usually does not live up to expectations, because environmental scanning, and, therefore, strategic planning, is in a state of disarray characterized by conflicting definitions, blurred boundaries, confused measurement methods, and conflicted findings (Brackertz and Kenley 2002;D'Aveni et al 2010;Jogaratnam 2005;Kono and Barnes 2010;Love 2011). Studies have also shown that an ability to sustain a competitive advantage continues to diminish over time (Ruefli and Wiggins 2003).…”