Suchergebnisse

Abstract
While business strategy has become synonymous with the search for competitive advantage, the concept of competitive advantage is surprisingly confused.
Often the term is nothing more than a tautology. Successful firms are successful because they have competitive advantage, which in turn cannot be defined in any other way than as a quality that brings about success.
There is also ambiguity as to the locus of competition: whether competitive advantage is a property of firms or of products. This ambiguity creates confusion over the processes by which competition occurs.
Greater distinction and definitional clarity should be made between competition and strategy. Better strategies will result from more accurate pinpointing of the processes of competition, something that is unlikely while competition is simply seen in terms of competitive advantage.
Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mason,Michael: ; Jordan's mining industry is one of the main contributors to economic growth and a principal generator of national income. The government of Jordan paid special attention to this sector and gave the Natural Resources Authority (NRA) the responsibility of supervising the exploring, prospecting and mining activities in Jordan. Investment in the mining sector in 2000 was 1.12 billion US dollar. The extractive industries share of this investment is (67.8%), while the remaining (32.2%) are investments in manufacturing industries, which depend on mining products. The contribution of exports of the mining sector to national export for the years (1995-2001) ranges from 37-45% (NRA 2003). Large-scale industries in Jordan consist mainly of phosphate and potash mining. Exports of phosphate, potash and cement represented 90% of the mining sector's export in 1999 (JIB 2003). Today the Jordanian stone industry experienced a significant growth due to the recent trade agreements with the US and the EU. Since then, the stone industry has received a lot of attention, and is expanding. Figure (1.4) shows the continuous growth of the natural stone from 1997 till 2003. Large investments, using the state of the art technology, are being deployed to achieve such goals (JMOP 2003). The processing equipment utilized by the Jordanian companies had a positive trend over the past 10 years with a (250%) increase during the years 2000-2002 (JMOP 2003).

With globalization and spread of Internet the world is becoming a big mart with consumers shopping for best value of money across political boundaries. This is opening a global customer base for the product and service providers. Developing countries too are using this opportunity to create their own competitive advantages. Information Technology sector is already witnessing the power of competitive and differential advantage of developing nations and healthcare is emerging as another potential area. The health services at reasonable prices - at least in comparison to the developed countries, are attracting large number of people from across the globe to a few select destinations. Globally this market is estimated to be to the tune of US$ 40 billion growing at the rate of 15 per cent per annum. India is the new entrant in the field that has seen an upward trend in attracting the foreign tourists for medical purposes in the recent years and is counted among potential frontrunners. While on the one hand its medical tourism is lauded for its revenue generation and service excellence capabilities, on the other hand doubts are also being raised about a number of related issues pertaining to real advantages to patients as well as service providers. This paper makes an assessment of the existing trends, infrastructure required for medical tourism and evaluation of the advantages that India possesses besides taking stock of the trends in medical tourism at the global level.

Voluntary government programs such as ENERGY STAR have been created to promote energy efficiency within different organizations and businesses, and this study is dedicated to discovering whether or not businesses that become certified building partners with ENERGY STAR obtain a competitive advantage. Through two different methods of analysis, an observational analysis and a test of means, data on profitability ratios from twenty-five ENERGY STAR partners are examined to determine if partnering with ENERGY STAR results in a competitive advantage.