Fields of strategy, competitiveness, and international business research are evolving steadily as more vexing challenges emerge and demand innovation. Key objective of this study is to longitudinally review literature on competitiveness and innovation to identify future sustainable directions. We adapt a systematic literature review approach to discern patterns in individual fields and at the intersection. This, complemented by review of patterns of trends in contributions by select countries and longitudinal experiential view of more than a quarter century of journey of author across select countries, provided new insights. We use the insights to evolve high-potential future topics for research, clustered by contexts, theory, and practices. This review-at the interfaces of theory and practice, and fields across disciplines-will help readers understand the gaps and explore opportunities for research projects in new directions. Synthesis of findings at the interface would facilitate pathways to further research and practice to enhance competitiveness across levels and sustainability.

In recent years, the importance of competitiveness has been increasingly recognized. In this article⁄ Momaya discusses different levels of competitiveness and reviews its significance at the industry level. To enhance the understanding of the dynamics of competitiveness, it is divided into three facets: assets, processes, and performance. A methodology to evaluate the relative competitiveness at the industry level is developed and listed in the context of the construction indus try in Canada, Japan, and the United States. While presenting the findings of the international project, Momaya confirms the important role strategic management processes play in enhancing competitiveness and stresses on the need to evaluate international competitiveness of crucial Indian industries.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore a cooperation‐driven stage in the traditional framework of country competitiveness development and also suggest an approach to address pragmatic issues related to cooperation in the context, particularly, competitiveness evaluation and choice of partner country.Design/methodology/approachThe objectives of the research were achieved by a research design that leveraged quantitative tools with strength of case study research. Quantitative data for benchmarking were obtained from a carefully selected Country Competitiveness Report. For identifying criteria of competitiveness for success of a country (aka critical success factors CSF), content analysis of strategic reports from competitive countries was employed.FindingsCooperative strategies and flagship firms emerged to be CSFs that can drive investment needed for innovation and technology development, the later stages in country competitiveness development framework. Evaluation of competitiveness can be quite difficult and resource‐intensive process, but can be improved with innovative mix of different approaches and tools. With quite consistent and effective results in one more international context and a new industry, the assets‐processes‐performance (APP) framework of competitiveness can provide a simple, yet valuable approach with flexibility to adapt across levels and contexts, a vital need.Practical implicationsCompetitiveness leaders should review cooperation processes and performance. They should evolve strategies to leverage cooperation on relevant dimensions.Originality/valueA key contribution of this paper is proposing a vital cooperation‐driven stage for country competitiveness and operationlizing it using three major frameworks of competitiveness in a practical and useful context of nanotechnology, when many countries are evolving their strategies for such industries. An approach is tested to simplify evaluation of competitiveness in a difficult context of emerging industries. It can help leadership take more informed critical decisions about competitiveness and assess their impact for enhancing desired impacts of the decisions. For the purpose, comparing three alternatives, the author extends the APP framework with strategy concept of CSF to enhance its flexibility, thus contributing to needs of effectiveness and simplicity of emerging country context.

Competitiveness can be a useful indicator of the long-term health of an industry. Whereas competitiveness has been studied at the corporate and national levels, its usefulness at the industry level has not been explored. The research objective is to develop a model to evaluate competitiveness at the industry level. Motivated by persistent problems of the Canadian construction industry, an attempt is made to quantify its international competitiveness. The industry is compared with its counterparts in Japan and the United States. Competitiveness is defined, the different dimensions of competitiveness are illustrated, and the need to quantify competitiveness is discussed. A multicriteria hierarchical model was developed and tested using both statistical and survey data. Salient findings of the research and conclusions are presented.Key words: international competitiveness, industry performance, strategic management, Canadian construction industry, Canada, Japan, United States.

With the liberalization and internationalization in telecommunication, service quality has become an important means of differentiation and path to achieve business success. Such differentiation based on service quality can be a key source of competitiveness for many Indian firms and hence have implications for leadership in such organizations. For the past few years, cellular mobile service sector in India has been experiencing the highest growth rate in terms of subscribers and revenues. With the increasing demands of the customer, cellular mobile sector has become competitive. Despite this, most of the cellular mobile service providers in India are primarily focusing on expanding their customer base and tend to overlook investing in service quality. A thorough review of literature revealed that most of the studies reported on service quality focused on the service delivery aspects, ignoring the role of technical quality. The present study strives to develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure customer perceived service quality incorporating both service delivery as well as technical quality aspects. Through a survey of 225 regular users of cellular mobile services, a seven dimensional service quality instrument is revealed, which is empirically tested for unidimensionality, reliability, and construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis. The resulting validated instrument comprised of dimensions including reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles, convenience, and customer perceived network quality. Further, the results of the regression analysis highlighted the priority areas of service improvement. The study indicated that among the various dimensions, responsiveness is the best predictor, followed by reliability, customer perceived network quality, assurance, convenience, empathy, and tangibles. Thus, superior performance on the most important dimension, responsiveness may be helpful in providing enhanced quality of service. The major managerial implications of study include the following: The service quality instrument so developed can be used by managers for periodic monitoring of service quality as perceived by customers. The study also provides directions to service providers as to which particular dimension require attention in terms of their importance. This would enable the service providers to focus resources in accordance with the importance of these dimensions. Further, the service quality index derived by aggregating the scores on these dimensions can also be developed, which can be used for benchmarking their performance against competitors. The instrument is developed and validated by collecting data from customers in India. There may be a possibility of cultural differences playing a role in the outcome of the study. Thus, there is a need to explore these results for other developing and developed economies. The future studies may also take into account the factors that influence service quality for corporate customers.