Competitive advantage and internal organizational assessment

Executive Overview It is generally agreed in the strategic management literature that internal organizational assessment is less developed theoretically and practically than other areas of situation analysis. This paper presents a four stage approach to analyzing a firm's internal strengths and weaknesses and illustrates how the technique can facilitate strategy formulation through the integration of value chain concepts and the incorporation of the most recent findings on internal resources and capabilities. A case example is used to illustrate how the approach can be applied by strategic decision makers as a tool for exploring the potential of their companies for sustained competitive advantage.