Competitive Advantage: The Courage in Formulating Objectives and Expansiveness of a Strategy

AbstractCompetition, innovation and globalization are buzzwords, which for a few decades have been present in almost every aspect of social or economic activity. In particular, the growing interest in issues associated with the competitiveness has contributed to the development of theories and studies in the scope of the competition analysis and the competition strategies. Publications related to the subject of strategic management put a considerable emphasis on the issues concerning the competitive advantage as a factor determining the success or failure of organizations or nations. An emphasis is put on the necessity to stand out against competitors or to build a long-term sustainable competitive advantage. The latest studies, in response to the increasing variability or even chaos in the environment, indicate the need to stray away from the term “sustainable”, and use the term “flexible” or “variable” in relation to the competitive advantage. The combination of sustainability, temporariness and otherness as the features characterizing an ideal competitive advantage seems to be one of the major challenges to be faced both by organizations implementing the strategic management process and theoreticians studying this area.The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between the competitive advantage and courage when formulating objectives. Bearing in mind the aforementioned goal, there have been analysed the assumptions concerning the sources and evaluation of the company's competitive advantage in relation to the courage in formulating key objectives. In particular, the analysis concerned the issues related to the evaluation of the competitive advantage against the background of competitors, the main sources of the competitive advantage, and the relationship between the choice of a competitive advantage and the courage in formulating the key objectives, which manifests itself in the strategy expansiveness level