The main purpose of the paper is to assess the level of EU countries’ ability to compete in a sustainable manner and to compare these results with achievements in the area of sustainable competitive ...position. In the paper, the definition of the new economic category – sustainable competitiveness and its main components: sustainable competitive capacity and sustainable competitive position, as well as these new terms’ measurement proposal were presented. The study is also an attempt to the exploration of relationship existing between those categories. For this purpose, the selected statistical methods were applied. The taxonomic measure of development as well as the correlation coefficients, were used to measure the multilevel relationship between those considered areas. Until now, those categories were presented only in the context of examining the countries’ ability to compete sustainably. However, the aspects of sustainable competitive position have been completely ignored. That’s why it should be emphasized that this kind of investigation is a novelty in the area of sustainable competitiveness. The research results confirmed the existence of relationship between the various areas that consist to the holistic concept of sustainable competitiveness. These relationships are not always strong though and this is the crucial fact for further research in this area.
PurposeThe research is aimed at elaborating a model in which dynamic capabilities affect sustainable competitiveness via organisational sustainability practices and the mediating role of ...organisational ambidexterity.Design/methodology/approachEmphasising the need for business sustainability in the face of technological breakthroughs, resource depletion and increasing expectations of stakeholders, it is necessary to reflect on a long-term organisational resilience that would enable sustainable competitiveness through dynamic capabilities. Hence, the paper provides insights on how an organisation can sustain its competitiveness by constantly balancing between the need for continuous improvement due to the pressure in economic, social and ecological environment, and the pursuit of continuous improvement of performance. The authors used structural equation modelling on data collected via a survey of 455 organisations from the Baltic region.FindingsThe results confirm the relationships between sensing and reconfiguring capabilities and sustainability practices, but reject them for scanning capabilities. They also confirm the impact of sustainability practices on some of the pillars of sustainable competitiveness. The research disclosed that ambidexterity was a mediator between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitiveness.Originality/valueThe paper discloses the link between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitive advantage by identifying the main characteristics of the constructs and revealing the linkage between them.
The levels of competitiveness of the countries of Latin America are in a process of slow development to reach those companies located in more modern economies, because they have difficulties in some ...fundamental pillars of competitiveness such as the levels of technological innovation based on intelligent infrastructure investments, intellectual capital, that have a major impact on multifactor productivity. The objective of this research was to analyze the competitive situation of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the city of Trujillo, evaluating the key factors for productivity that will have an association with sustainable competitiveness. For this, the first step was to develop review of the fundamental literature for the hypotheses and the empirical study applied to 152 entrepreneurs in various sectors of the city of Trujillo, compiling the opinion of qualitative and quantitative type and statistical processing. The results obtained were that 70% of the companies in the footwear sector are prepared to respond to the five competitive forces of Porter, for the mechanical metal sector 89% of the companies, 70% of the textile companies are competitive. Through linear regressions, we identify that quality, human capital, finance, strategic plan, marketing and strategic alliances have a positive relationship with competitiveness, however when integrated with ICTs, the synergy of the business is not appreciated. The findings are useful to improve knowledge in the strategic decisions of SME Managers to respond to Globalization and the intensive process of digitalization.
The recent transformation of the national economies has raised numerous theoretical and practical aspects in measuring economic growth, welfare, environmental performance, and competitiveness, ...representing a challenging research topic within the context of economic paradigm transformation. Despite its importance, a fully operational model to be used in any context has not yet been designed. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate and analyze the macroeconomic dimension of the three determinants of sustainable competitiveness: the economic environment, the social environment, and the natural environment, at both the European and Romanian levels. This paper used the Hierarchical Clustering methodology, aiming at evaluating the global competitiveness in terms of a sustainable development model, using four indices: Human Development Index, Environmental Performance Index, Global Competitiveness Index, and GDP per capita. The clusters were designed on the basis of the role of the indices in assessment of the sustainable performances of the countries and also of the possible convergences between them. The results could sustain the conclusion that these indices are not able to offer an exhaustive image of the sustainable performances assessment. A new complex indicator could be considered in order to design a convergence model for the EU member states.
In the context of global competition, enterprises are increasingly adopting technology mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as a strategic approach to enhance their sustainable competitiveness. This study ...investigates the impact of technology M&As on the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises, focusing on Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2021. Employing a staggered difference-in-difference (DID) model for empirical analysis, the findings reveal that technology M&As significantly boost the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises by 6.2% compared to non-technology M&A firms. Moreover, the study employs a mediation effect model to demonstrate that technology M&As contribute to improved enterprise productivity levels and market power. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the positive effects are more pronounced in firms with a strong ESG performance and those with lower levels of digital development. The study offers valuable insights for corporate strategic planning and policy-making, emphasizing the role of technology M&As in fostering enterprise sustainability and competitiveness.
There has been limited research on integrating sustainability factors into indicators of global competitiveness among nations. Extant measures of macroeconomic competitiveness focus inadequate ...attention on the relative importance and interdependences among economic, social, and environmental factors and often their aggregation method. The primary objectives of this study were to explore the interrelations of economic competitiveness and sustainability while integrating the economic and sustainability performance indicators of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index (GSCI) to create more accurate rankings of countries in both dimensions. Deep Ranking Analysis by Power Eigenvectors (DRAPE) with Variable Clustering (VARCLUS) was applied to associate multiple and conflicting economic and sustainable competitiveness criteria. Consequently, economic competitiveness and mainly institutional environment and innovation capabilities tend to couple with a higher degree of sustainability. However, improving and refining sustainable competitiveness may be vulnerable to environmental issues and resource scarcity, but further socio-economic dimensions must also be considered. The outcomes demonstrate the leadership of the Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, which are all competitive as well as sustainable. This research may extend and inspire further studies and government interventions that adopt more comprehensive approaches to assessing global competitiveness.
The research under discussion remains whether higher competitiveness of a country brings higher economic performance and sustainable growth, e.g., in the V4 region. The objective of the paper is to ...provide the results of extensive research based on verified Eurostat data to explore this research challenge in the V4 countries during the period of 2007-2019. Simultaneously, the objective is to link the country’s economic performance (GDP) to urgent challenges of the contemporary world in the form of sustainability and life quality. In the paper, linear regression, multiple linear regression, and ANOVA were used. A significant impact of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) on the level of GDP, and the subsequent positive effect of GDP level on sustainability and life quality indicators has been demonstrated. Our research findings propose an unconventional sustainable competitiveness mechanism. The conclusion outlines the direction from improved competitiveness through higher economic performance reinforcing R&D expenditure and high-tech employment to better sustainability and well-being. Moreover, the research results bring initial empirical evidence of the functionality of the proposed mechanism in the V4 countries. Based on this, we can offer policymakers the key research findings pointing at the sustained economic growth accompanied by higher ecology, including life quality. At the same time, the drivers of this development are presented in more detail in our paper.
Innovation has become one of the most important sources of a company’s sustainable competitiveness. Therefore, every company strives continuously to improve its innovation capability. A company’s ...innovation capability is largely determined by various factors originating from its tangible and intangible resources. A lot of research related to increasing innovation capability with assessment factors originating from tangible resources has been carried out, whereas the use of assessment factors originating from intangible capital, such as intellectual capital, is still relatively limited. This study aims to identify and screen the key assessment factors for innovation capability, based on the intellectual capital of Indonesia’s manufacturing sectors. This study used a systematic literature review and focus group discussions to establish 18 initial assessment factors, after which 14 final factors were screened out by industry practitioners and academic experts using the Fuzzy Delphi Method. Four factors had the highest de-fuzzy value (0.89), namely adaptation, innovation behavior, organization culture, climate, and forward linkages. The results also showed that three factors of the aspects of human capital (adaptation, innovation behavior, and high motivation and commitment) are considered important determinants for the assessment of innovation capabilities, based on intellectual capital.
The tourism industry, which is exposed to a turbulent environment, is one of the sectors that are the most vulnerable to any change (such as political, economic, environmental, or social). This makes ...it necessary to study firm resilience in this industry in order to identify the factors that can enhance companies’ capacity for resilience in turbulent environments. Moreover, the strategies pursued by tourism companies to become more resilient and more competitive are closely related to tourism sustainability. Among the factors that can affect resilience, we analyze the roles of the degree of internationalization and network ties. Moreover, we explore the influence of resilience on the sustainable competitiveness of hotel firms. For this purpose, we propose a variance-based structural equation modeling analysis where resilience acts as a mediating variable between the degree of internationalization and sustainable competitiveness. Our results allow us to draw important theoretical implications, which shed light on a field of study that is currently much debated, and practical implications, which will help hotel entrepreneurs to make timely decisions in dynamic environments.
Urban sustainable competitiveness (USC) is one of the important indexes to measure the high-quality development of cities in China. Meanwhile, foreign direct investment (FDI) plays the prominent role ...in improving urban sustainable competitiveness. Therefore, this analysis aimed to test the impact of FDI on the USC and its mechanism using the intermediary effect model with a sample of 282 cities in China during the period 2012–2018. The influencing mechanism includes the scale effect, the technological effect, and the structural effects. The results show that: first, FDI is significantly and positively related to the USC of China, and the scale, technological and structure effects all play a mediating role, with the scale effects being the most significant. Moreover, population size shows negative effect on the USC. Second, the impact of FDI on the USC is regionally heterogeneous. FDI can significantly improve the USC in the eastern region, but has no significant effects on the northeastern, central and western regions. Third, FDI in the eastern region affects USC through structural effects, while the scale and technological effects do not play a mediating role but both effects can directly affect USC. FDI in the northeast region still has the structural effect, but this structural effect does not indirectly affect USC, while FDI in the western region has both scale and structural effects. In addition, the technological and structural effects in the central region have a direct impact on USC, while the scale effect in the western region has a direct impact on USC. Therefore, the findings suggest that utilizing FDI should take into account regional characteristics in China.
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