Talk:Competitive advantage/Archives/2012

Major Revision

I would like to submit a major revision to this article on "Competitive Advantage." As noted on the article page, there are a number of issues associated with the current text (expand, rewrite, cleanup). In the first revision, I will include the following sections: "Competitive Advantage Defined," "Financial Implications of Competitive Advantage," "Forms of Competitive Advantage," and "Sustaining Competitive Advantage." I will also include several diagrams to illustrate key concepts. For references, I plan to cite work by M.E. Porter, A.M. Brandenburger, P. Ghemawat, and J.W. Rivkin. I also plan to reference one, and perhaps two, of my own articles on the topic: a blog post titled "Do You Have a Competitive Advantage" and a short article titled "A Primer on Competitive Advantage." Before I start with the revision, I wanted to check with the Wikipedia community about this revision. I am not sure if this is relevant, but I have a PhD in strategic management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and I have worked as a professor of strategy for the past five years in Canada and the United States. Thank you! Michaeljfern (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

You should probably not cite your own blog posts. Thanks. - MrOllie (talk) 13:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. Per your suggestion, I will not cite the blog post. However, is it okay if I cite my article (a working paper) on competitive advantage? The revision will draw on several key ideas from my article (as well as work by Porter, Ghemawat, Rivkin, etc). Thanks. Michaeljfern (talk) 18:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

So long as it has been published and fact checked and/or peer reviewed somewhere, that would be great. Just try to balance citations to your own work with that of others, to make sure that you don't run afoul of the guideline on conflict of interest or the policy on original research. Looking forward to seeing the revision. - MrOllie (talk) 18:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks MrOllie! I plan to work on the revision over the next several days, and I hope everyone finds value in the changes/edits. Michaeljfern (talk) 21:11, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Concept of 'being stuck in the middle'?

The article on competitive advantage outlines the strategies of differentiation and cost effectiveness, as postulated by Porter. It would be helpful to stress that a company will have to focus on one of these strategies, and not both, if it is to attain competitive advantage. Porter in fact argued that firms focusing on both will get 'stuck in the middle', failing to reap above average economic rents. What do you think? (Michael (talk) 10:28, 9 January 2009 (UTC)).

Promotion in the article?

Jaynie L. Smith is not a distinctive author in the field of management sciences. The concept of competitive advantage goes way back in time and to different authors. Thus, that part about her/his book feels like promotion... H0ff3r (talk) 02:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't promotion, that was one of the first times I edited wikipedia and her book happened to the first result on amazon or google books. no harm intended.--Profitoftruth85 (talk) 14:45, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Different types of competitive advantage?

It seems like this redirect to "sustainable competitive advantage" focuses on competitive advantage in the business world and ignores the the usage of "competitive advantage" amongst nations. Thus it might be useful to have a disambiguation article of sorts. Goodralph 04:59, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

oops

oops, I was thinking about Comparative advantage. nevermind. Goodralph 05:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

me too! lol

Will someone please rate this amended article appropriately?! I have added some new " see also" items and provided a new definition, as well as an external link that's necessary. this should improve overall quality of page etc...§ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gekko1 (talk • contribs) 16:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Wait, what? What about individuals?

I got linked to this page from the page for battle cries, which described battle cries as a means for achieving competitive advantage in warfare through morale-boosting for the side making the battle cry and intimidating the hostile side. This makes it sound not only like a tactic for competition between nations, but also the individuals that belong to said nations. In other words, battle cries have an evolutionary purpose. I'm not sure how to feasibly work that into the main article, though... --Luigifan (talk) 19:39, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Alternative Definition

I disagree with Porter's definition because it really is the definition of positioning (mapping product benefits or company attributes relative to the alternatives). Also, the sentence about A firm possesses a sustainable competitive advantage when it has value-creating ........... is the definition of the terms core competency (AKA distinctive competency). I therefore introduced an alternative definition that is more clear and consistent with modern marketing an business terminology.Spinacia (talk) 13:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• All content must be accompanied by sources. Removed own copyrighted material with citations. Do not undo.Spinacia (talk) 03:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know (and sorry if I'm breaching etiquette by editing this) Michael Porter is credited with creating the theory, so his perspective deserves mention in the entry. I just added on the top paragraph after seeing this article needed substantial work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SineFlux (talk • contribs) 03:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Investopedia

It is not appropriate to conduct an edit war over the link to the brief Investopedia article:

• http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/competitive_advantage.asp

Please discuss the link on its merits here.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The book vs the concept

I landed on this article about what the term "competitive advantage" means when I clicked on a link in "Works" section of the article on Michael Porter that I took to be a link for an article on Michael Porter's book. I think that is an error. The link I clicked on was styled in italics, which is the convention for a book title. The link had a capital A as opposed to the lower case a in the title of this article, so a redirect must have been involved. Cardiffman (talk) 17:01, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I edited the link in the Michael Porter article. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 17:57, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank-you! It is an improvement, even though the article doesn't exist. --Cardiffman (talk) 20:00, 16 June 2011 (UTC)