The Understanding of the Core Competence Concept : A Swedish Professional Service Firms perspective

During the last twenty-five years, the core competence concept has grown to become has become one of the best-known management concept in strategic management. Despite the attention the core competence concept has received in scholars and its importance in creating a sustainable competitive advantage, limited empirical research exist when applied to professional service firms (PSFs). This despite the fact that a competitive advantage of a service firm is obtained on the same conditions as manufacturing firms, the possession of rare and unique resources and capabilities. The purpose of this thesis was to explore a gap in the literature by investigating the level of understanding of the core competence concept among PSFs. This study presents the findings of an explorative research conducted on 35 management consulting firms in Sweden during the spring of 2014. The surveyed firms had heard about the core competence prior to the study and considered them as important to their firms. A major conclusion that emanates from this study is that it appears to exist a lack of connectedness between the research on core competencies and the understanding of the concept among the surveyed management consulting firms. The findings further indicates that it differs between what is suggested in the research when managing the firm to compete with core competencies and how senior manager manage their firms.Validerat; 20140619 (global_studentproject_submitter