Abstract
The concept of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) as the fundamental basis for
the long-term success of an organisation is embedded in management practice.
However, the underlying assumptions of SCA: stability, imperfect imitability, and
imperfect mobility are challenged in the interconnected 4IR business environment.
This exploratory research applied constructivist grounded theory to probe the
contemporary relevance of SCA and its assumptions in strategic management and four
themes emerged.
Theme 1: No single uniformed understanding of the SCA concept, emerged because
the researcher started the interviews by asking participants to describe their
understanding of sustainable competitive advantage and its meaning for organisations.
The consequence of this abundant description is that a rich variety of views were
received that enhanced the consequent exploration and theme descriptions. Theme 2:
SCA is mostly obsolete, a fact that emerged from exploring the first research question
on the impact of the exponentially interconnected world on the SCA concept and on
the organisation’s business model. The overwhelming majority of the participants
concluded that the SCA concept is no longer relevant because of the disruptive
changes that have an impact beyond the organisation’s business model including
strategy, culture and skills. After giving consideration to the views of participants,
supplemented by a literature review, the three core assumptions of SCA – stability,
imperfect imitability and imperfect mobility – were analysed against the impact of the
disruptive change drivers on the business organisation, the result of which indicated
that the underlying assumptions of sustainable competitive advantage are challenged.
Theme 3: SCA is still pursued for an assortment of reasons, a fact that emerged from
exploring the second research question in respect to the reasons for organisations to
still pursue SCA. Upon analysis relational connections were deduced among the
reasons offered, starting with capitalist thought which influences creators (suppliers)
of management thought. These suppliers develop either fads and fashions or
evidentiary research. These fads and fashions and evidentiary research are translated
into tools, frameworks and/or theories that are used by organisations and maintained
through an engrained model, managerialism, and risk aversion. The reasons why
‘organisations still pursue SCA’ were further explored through the four approaches of
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strategy as ideology, strategy as discourse, strategy as political economy and strategy
as practice. All four approaches indicated that these strategies contribute to the
continued use of SCA despite it being seen as obsolete. Due to the fact that SCA is
mostly obsolete in the complex 4IR world as per Theme 2, it needs to be replaced with
alternatives that can better translate and navigate the complex business environment.
Theme 4: Reaching beyond the established SCA construct emerged from exploring
the third research question with regard to alternatives that do not rely on SCA. A wide
variety of concepts, reasoning principles, and disciplines that were identified as
alternatives to SCA were shared. These alternatives were grouped into focus of the
organisation (collaboration, cooperation, purpose), its definitions of success (common
good, relevance, value creation, significant impact) and the reasoning principles (agility
logic, complexity logic). Many and varied alternative disciplines, including additional
branches of the social sciences, natural science, formal sciences, arts and spirituality,
were offered to supplement economic theory in business management. From these
disparate suggestions one can deduce that the contemporary business management
discipline with its accompanying frameworks and tools is not, by itself, adequately
addressing the complex business environment in which the study participants teach
and practice.
Through integration of the four themes, the core category/theme emerged: ‘A
contemporary strategy framework rooted in complexity theory is needed to fill the SCA
vacuum’. The core category/theme in turn resulted in the grounded theory proposed in
this research: In a complex, interconnected business world, sustainable competitive
advantage (SCA) is obsolete, which demands an organisation to adapt its strategy,
business model and culture to create value, be relevant, have significant (positive)
impact and contribute to the common good. This grounded theory was further clarified
through an interpretive framework that determines the level of complexity in which an
organisation operates, weaves its strategy, business model and culture for the right
balance to adapt to the level of complexity, and calibrates for success – an aspect that
is not defined by a SCA.
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KEY WORDS:
business ecosystem, business school training, collaboration, common good,
complexity theory, critical management studies, digitalisation, disruptive change,
managerialism, relevance, stagility™ strategic frameworks, sustainable competitive
advantage, temporary competitive advantage.