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Title: Is Sustainable Competitive Advantage an Achievable Holy Grail: The Relevance Gap between Academia and Business

Authors: Chiquan Guo

Addresses: Author address listing can be found in the "About the Authors" section at the end of the article.

Abstract: Competitive advantage, especially sustainable competitive advantage, is one of the most celebrated concepts in business research and strategic management fields in particular. It is a common belief that competitive advantage leads to superior performance, and sustainable competitive advantage leads to prolonged superior performance. To survive and prosper in an ever-competitive marketplace where firms operate on a global scale, businesspeople are in dire need of critical information and knowledge that will lend them a competitive edge over their rivals in search for regional, national, international, or global dominance. In fighting for their relevance, business scholars churn out volumes of research, trying their very best to discover, develop, and accumulate knowledge that may be useful for practitioners. This paper takes a close look at the relevance issue between management research and practice, pointing out that researchers must be realistic about their research agenda and practitioners must have reasonable expectations in order for both parties to foster a better and mutually beneficial relationship.

Keywords: Competitive advantage; sustainable competitive advantage; strategic management; business research; relevance gap.

DOI: 10.1504/JBM.2007.141153

Journal of Business and Management, 2007 Vol.13 No.2, pp.115 - 126

Published online: 05 Sep 2024 *