Get The Competitive Advantage Of Backwardness

Latecomer firms(LCF) are referred to those in developing countries,which are lack of resources and technology, pursue follower strategy as itsmain one, and try to surpass leading firm. China is a developing country,where there are many LCFs in many industries. Hence, it is especiallyimportant for China to explore the issue on how LCFs can achievecompetitive advantage. While there have been a large amount of research onhow firm with achieved advantage can sustain and obtain competitiveadvantage in strategic management theory, it is less successful in explaininghow LCFs whose resource are initially deficient can obtain competitiveadvantage.After assessing dominant perspective in strategy managementtheory-RBV, we point out it has two weaknesses:(1) neglecting research onthe competitive advantage of LCFs;(2)strategy content research and strategyprocess research are lack of integration. The two weaknesses provide uswith the base for the research on how latecomer firm can obtain competitiveadvantage.We finish the research by dividing the process of LCF's obtainingcompetitive advantage into two steps: obtaining common resource;obtaining strategic resource. At the same time, we integrate strategy contentresearch and strategy process research into each of the steps. By doing so,we expect to make up for the weaknesses of RBV and provide guideline forthe LCFs in China.