Beyond competitive advantage

Abstract While business strategy has become synonymous with the search for competitive advantage, the concept of competitive advantage is surprisingly confused. Often the term is nothing more than a tautology. Successful firms are successful because they have competitive advantage, which in turn cannot be defined in any other way than as a quality that brings about success. There is also ambiguity as to the locus of competition: whether competitive advantage is a property of firms or of products. This ambiguity creates confusion over the processes by which competition occurs. Greater distinction and definitional clarity should be made between competition and strategy. Better strategies will result from more accurate pinpointing of the processes of competition, something that is unlikely while competition is simply seen in terms of competitive advantage. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.