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In this Masterclass Prof Leavy considers some game changing advice about how to manage the fundamental challenges of the spread of hyper-competition and speed at which knowledge advantages now typically erode. His intent is to advance the dialogue among the corporate strategy, innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship functions.

The concepts and tools of three new books are studied closely: in The End of Competitive Advantage, strategy and innovation guru Rita Gunther McGrath offers a strategy playbook for what she calls the new “transient advantage economy; in Accelerate, change leadership researcher, John Kotter, makes the case for developing a new “strategy operating system” to run in tandem with the traditional “performance operating system,” so that renewal can become continuous rather than episodic; and in The Good Struggle, leadership and ethics expert, Joseph Badarraco turns to five enduring questions of responsible leadership and looks for the emerging answers that might offer the most valuable guidance to leaders now having to operate in today’s recombinant environment.

The perspectives provided can help leaders raise the odds of working successfully and responsibly in the exciting, uncertain, recombinant, market-driven world that now surrounds us all.

Clearly, not only do companies have to be become ever more adaptable, but ever more innovative. Lessons in how to do so are offered and exemplars are examined.

The article looks at three management compentencies-strategy making, organization building and enlightened leadership – in the context of the disruptive, hypercompetitive environment of transient advantage.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

If they are to have any chance of thriving in today's turbulent and increasingly‐competitive world, businesses need competitive advantage and how they get it is a crucial component of managements' approach. Apologies if that sounds like stating the obvious, but it's important enough to bear repetition. Less obvious is how to answer the question: “What is competitive advantage?”

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Matching Porter's (1980) three generic strategies appropriately in each of the four arenas of hypercompetition is proposed to offer temporary competitive advantages. The longer‐term sustainability of these competitive advantages is argued to depend on matching the firm's resources/capabilities with the provision of customer value and needs, as well as the presence of isolating mechanisms in the industry/market environment. Stringing together a series of such ephemeral advantages can enhance the firm's competitiveness in the long‐run.

Our study proposes a resource environment view (REV) of competitive advantage by unpacking the environmental origins of a firm’s competitive advantage. The key tenet of the REV is that the heterogeneity and imperfect mobility of strategic factor markets and institutions across countries explain how firms based in different countries would likely both create and sustain a competitive advantage. In particular, our study introduces the notion of “the paradox of environmental embeddedness.” The paradox lies in the fact that the same environmental conditions – in terms of strategic factor markets and institutions – that enable firms to create a competitive advantage can paradoxically also create a situation in which it is more difficult for these firms to sustain an advantage. Another important aspect of our study is that, to enhance our understanding of how firms manage the paradox of environmental embeddedness, our study specifies the resource environmental conditions under which firms’ internal and external resource-oriented strategies – that is, the development of dynamic capabilities and interventions in the country resource environment – are more beneficial when managing the environmental paradox. Overall, our theorizing has important implications for strategic management theory and practice.

Dissolving industry boundaries, coupled with an increasing need for collaboration and mutual adaptation, necessitates the adoption of diverse innovation concepts and flexible management practices. While organizations are striving to be agile and receptive, prioritizing flexibility over meticulous planning, the strategies required to achieve these outcomes remain underdeveloped.

Between 2019 and 2022, 100 peer-reviewed papers were reviewed to identify 68 agile practices, forming the basis for the classification. A conceptual-to-empirical approach led to the framework's development, involving 40 expert interviews and nine focus groups with participants from different countries from 2020 to 2023. These interactions validated the framework's dimensions and real-world applicability.

The study revealed that inter-organizational agility serves as a catalyst, effectively harmonizing open and frugal innovation to address market and customer constraints. This framework offers managers a valuable tool for navigating uncertainties and ambiguities and creating and capturing value within open innovation ecosystems that go beyond transient competitive advantages.

The case study suggests co-innovation and bricolage as novel managerial capabilities that foster innovation, mainly when supported by inter-organizational agility. It provides insights into distinguishing between various forms of agility through a multidimensional framework.

The study provided crucial insights into the necessity for agility in complex and uncertain environments. Through the integration of frugal and open innovation approaches in co-innovation, inter-organizational agility is presented as a framework for achieving both transient competitive advantage and sustainable innovation power.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a framework that helps to identify strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies. A holistic approach to strategic management in real estate management has enjoyed popularity in corporate real estate research, while similar research has been lacking from the investor-based real estate management.

The research design consists of two main parts: 1) formulating propositions based on existing literature and 2) attempting to validate the propositions through a qualitative interview study with major real estate owners in Finland.

The main finding is that the current real estate investors reflect the transient nature of competitive advantages and assess their strategies accordingly. The companies consider the traditional profitability and revenue growth aspects of their business but also a more long-term future growth dimension. As an outcome, the investors base their strategies on eight strategic themes which are “Innovation”, “ESG”, “Marketing and sales”, “Financial management”, “Leasing management and tenant satisfaction”, “Competitive environment and portfolio management”, “Outsourcing and strategic partnerships” and “Cost and operation optimization”.

This paper opens opportunities for future research concerning different strategies in real estate investment business and their impacts.

The presented framework provides support for real estate investors to create real estate management strategy or to evaluate their current strategy and to recognize operational actions and decisions that are relevant for their strategy.

This paper provides an extension to corporate real estate (CRE) literature by showing that the CRE theories are adaptable to real estate investment and provide value for their strategic management. This paper also contributes to real estate investment literature by providing a well-founded and empirically contested strategic management framework, the IREM framework, for identifying strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies.

Two recent books will be of considerable value to company leaders and strategists seeking to deepen their understanding of the major trends driving this current wave of global transformation: “No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All the Trends” and “China’s Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent and Other Companies are Changing the Rules of Business.”

The author considers what dynamic capabilities that will be needed to compete in a world of “transient advantage,” like modern China, with its “complicated and quickly changing demand pattern,” hyper-competition, shifting industry boundaries, and “discontinuities in the regulatory context.” He believes that China is the business management laboratory within which these skills are already being honed.

By the turn of the millennium, the total revenue generated by private [Chinese] companies had already risen to parity with those of the state-enterprise sector, and since then it has grown more than six times faster.

The rise of China’s reform era entrepreneurs has come in three waves to date, each representing a significant progression in the collective capabilities and sophistication of the country’s ever-expanding entrepreneurial cadre.

Foreign multi-nationals would be wise to consider “what capabilities will have to be developed in China, for China,” learn from their Chinese rivals and ask where it might be possible to use these new “China’ capabilities ” to enhance performance globally.

The purpose of this paper is to blend a resource-based view of the firm with the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes to offer a new Strategic Identity Management Framework to help organizations uncover, analyze and optimize their identity as a resource for creating sustainable competitive advantage.

This conceptual paper relied upon an examination of literature about sustainable competitive advantage, the resource-based view of the firm and the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes.

Synergies were found between the VRIO model and the 5R Model of Organizational Identity Processes. A new Strategic Identity Management Framework was created and a case study was used to illustrate its application.

Research is needed to validate, confirm and extend the use and application of the new framework within organizations.

The framework is anticipated to be particularly useful for middle managers because they are tasked with translating high-level strategies into action and leading lower level employees toward enacting the new or adapted identity claims.

Although ample organizational identity research exists, a framework for assessing identity claims for the purpose of achieving competitive advantage was lacking.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the value in developing a portfolio of capabilities to fuel innovation. The author's experience suggests that a disciplined focus developing a portfolio of innovation capabilities is critical in the global competitive landscape. Traditionally, the business world has always been focussed on developing sustainable competitive advantage. This is optimal, but we find more and more situations where this notion of building a sustainable competitive advantage is no longer possible. In 2013 it is rare for a company to maintain a truly lasting advantage. Many times, the very success of the initiative drives competition, which in turn weakens the advantage. Innovation as a portfolio of capabilities that can continuously morph based on the traditional forces of the market can prove much more powerful. This paper discusses what is needed in developing a strategy for developing a portfolio of capabilities and the challenges that companies face in undertaking this goal.

General viewpoint based upon over 20 years of consulting work experience by an expert in the field of innovation, new product development, and research and development.

The relevance and importance of a novel approach to thinking about innovation is very creative and valuable to companies that are constantly struggling with the development of new products.

This is a novel approach to thinking about developing new products, capabilities, or services within an organization.

The paper is extremely valuable in that it highlights a new way to think about developing innovation and new product capabilities, new product features, in a competitive global environment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how firms can enhance their innovative capabilities and become more resilient. The current business environment requires a specific type of management for companies to remain competitive and innovation plays a key role in this respect. However, this means that a particular kind of corporate culture must promote innovation in the firm. This innovation culture is likely to be present in innovative companies that have survived in the long term (at least 50 years) and be the source of an adaptive advantage.

Using innovative Spanish firms, which were established at least 50 years ago, an exploratory factorial analysis was conducted to verify the existence of an innovation culture. Thereafter, a cluster analysis was undertaken to study differences in performance to be able to detect and identify their adaptive advantage.

The findings offer a detailed profile of old and innovative firms created in Spain. Results show that most of the studied firms (88 per cent) have an innovation culture. Furthermore, two separate groups were identified, in which one showed higher profitability and a lower adjustment to an innovation culture, while the other showed the reverse results. This suggests that innovation culture helps companies be more resilient but does not necessarily lead to higher returns.

Corporate culture is identified as a useful management tool in the search for more resilient enterprises. Specific cultural traits are recommended and a benchmarking tool is applied and made available upon request.

Although there are a number of studies which consider the concept of adaptive advantage and resilience on the one side, and on corporate innovation culture on the other, this paper seems to be the first to empirically explore the relationship of both these concepts.