Teoretické aspekty konkurenčnej výhody a konkurencie[Theoretical aspects of competitive advantage and competition]

The concept of competitive advantage is well-known for many of us and a number of literary resources focused on entrepreneurship and functioning of economies deal with it, either directly or indirectly. The understanding of the term competitive advantage though sometimes varies. One can only perceive it when looking at it as a whole, a live organism that is constantly developing in a complex dynamic entrepreneurial environment, the individual parts of which do not function when separated from each other. They are mutually integrated and they influence each other in all aspects and their feedback. A competitive environment forces businesses to fight each other so as to gain status in such complex and dynamic environment, i.e. they make an effort to win the competitors‘ profit, respectively their market share. The above scenario reminds of a war. The aim of this contribution is to describe and define the terms „competitive advantage“ and „competition“ on theoretical grounds since opinions vary on definition of the above terms. There exist many theoretical conceptions that determine the term competitive advantage in various conditions of its origination, starting with company environment, through its inter-branch level up to understanding competitive advantage in particular segments of economy, and the results can vary. Nevertheless, one thing is sure - competitive advantage is becoming a phenomenon that is multicomponent, multi-layer, dynamic and complementary.