ABSTRACT
Historically, three business revolutions have had profound impacts on the global economy. The first one took place in the late 1800s and the early 1900s; the second one appeared between the 1920s and the 1950s; and the third one covered the period from the 1960s to the 1980s (Porter 1986). Driven by trade liberalisation, capital liberalisation, privatisation and the rapid development of advanced IT, the current big business revolution since the 1990s has surpassed the previous ones in many respects. However, the most striking feature lies in the changes associated with big businesses whose competitive advantages have been enhanced so tremendously that the latecomers’ catch-up task has become unprecedentedly difficult (Nolan 2001).
