Redefining Competitiveness

Talking about competitiveness of firms and the interesting enterprising phenomenon in the twenty-first century, Ma Yuan recently made this statement:1 In this world nobody is happy, the rich is unhappy while the poor is unhappy. People who have business to do are not happy and people who do not have business to do are not happy either. The world has greatly changed since 2012, which marked the real internet era. In the 20th century, large sized enterprises were pre-ferred while small, featured firms with value-added are favoured in the 21st century. Thing that was the right might be wrong today if we re-examine it. Are you ready for this changing world?” (Wu, 2013). In terms of competitiveness study, management scholars have pointed out that people concentrated more on “resources” or “raw material”, referred to as “R”, in the nineteenth century, while they focused more on “energy”, referred to as “E”, in the twentieth century. However, R and E continue to be the major determinants of competitiveness in the twenty-first century. What is competitiveness? Why is competitiveness so important? What are the major concerns of competitiveness in the twenty-first century? What exactly is under-pinning competitiveness? How can a firm become a fully fledged competitor?