Exam 7: The Sources and Dimensions of Competitive Advantage

The fact that a firm's "activity system" comprises closely linked, complementary activities simplifies the task of imitating a competitor's strategy.

Sustainable competitive advantage can be established in all types of market-including those financial markets deemed to be "efficient."

In order to discover a "blue ocean" of uncontested market space, a firm must use technological innovation to create a new product market

The usefulness of the strategy canvas in developing blue ocean strategies rests on its ability to:

Most of the innovative business models deployed by e-commerce firms:

A contrarian strategy-doing the opposite to what the majority of other market participants are doing-is likely to generate superior returns in markets subject to systematic behavioral trends.

Achieving productivity gains from process innovation usually requires that new production processes are matched by other management changes-including changes in human resource management.

In retailing, the cost advantages of large retail chains (such as Wal-Mart in the US, Tesco in Britain, Metro in Germany, and Carrefour in France) is primarily the result of:

Product integrity refers to the consistency of a firm's differentiation across all differentiated features - it is the balance of the overall impression left on most customers' minds

"Experience goods" are those which:

Pre-emption strategies can help sustain a firm's competitive advantage through:

In strategic management, the expression "blue oceans" refers to:

The main challenge of business model innovations is conceiving of novel business models, not implementing them.

The predominance of large companies in most manufacturing industries is mainly the result of economies of scale.