Finally, firms are able to retain control over their designs and hence, make it a basis for a sustainable competitive advantage only when the design is positioned as an obligatory passage point.
This article addresses the question: How do some designs and technologies attain dominance, even when they are considered 'inferior' in many respects, and become the basis for a sustainable competitive advantage for their proponents?
Porter (1985) identified the central importance for a firm of managing what he called its supply chain as a basis for creating competitive advantages.
The co-CEOs have successfully completed the cultural, structural integration of Daum Kakao post merger, and have established a competitive basis for a new mobile life platform," the company said in a statement.
"We are convinced that the program provides the basis for a more sustainable and competitive economy and is the right means to boost growth and jobs," he said.
Most significantly, the SCIN binding site sterically occludes the binding sites of both factor H and factor B. Our results give insight into SCIN binding to activated derivatives of C3, explain how SCIN can recognize C3b in the absence of other complement components, and provide a structural basis for the competitive C3b-binding properties of SCIN.
These six marketing capabilities considered in this study capture both the importance and the effectiveness aspect, because a capability that is important and effective can serve as a basis for competitive advantage (Vorhies and Harker 2000).
While building capabilities is hard, there is a silver lining; if well-built, they can be difficult for others to imitate and provide a basis for competitive advantage.
There is a great deal of business management literature on the benefits of the smooth transfer of knowledge and skills into and within organisations where 'knowledge embedded in the interactions of people, and tasks provides a basis for competitive advantage in firms' (Argote and Ingram 2000:150).
