ABSTRACT
Prahalad and Hamel (1990) made the observation that ‘the survivors of the first wave of global competition…are all converging on similar and formidable standards for product cost and quality-minimum hurdles for continued competition, but less and less important as sources of differential advantage.’ This implies that few competitive advantages are really sustainable todayeventually every current advantage will be matched, imitated or superseded, and with increasing rapidity. In contemplating the rate at which global competitors are reducing the time to match any firm’s offerings in the market, a number of authors conclude that continuous innovation is the primary mechanism through which firms will secure and maintain a place in the competitive world of the future (Itami 1987; Senge 1990) and that continuous innovation is the principal mechanism by which firms will survive.
