| In the new 21st century, globalization becomes a non-reverse trend for world economic growth. The trend implies not only a global strategic co-operation among firms, but also a new beginning of global competitive age for all firms. Focusing on the key competitive capabilities of an enterprise, the theory of core competence shows the essence of sustainable enterprise competitive advantages. So, it has received increasing attention by people. This thesis adopts the combination of academic analysis and practical research and put the emphasis on the establishment and the evaluation of core competence for enterprise. The paper consists of five parts:In preface, the academic value and practical implications of the study of core competence were discussed. And the motivation and ideology of this paper is to make clear of the consecution of theory developing, introduce the concept definition of core competence and discuss the application and evaluation of core competence.Chapter 1 describes the background and framework of core competence theory. Three developing phrases and five different genres are introduced at first. The keystone is the phase of "modern competitive theory", whose symbol is core competence theory. In comparison with the limitations of several definitions of core competence, this paper tries to define that core competence is the special capabilities which can integrate and leverage the resources of enterprise, cultivate and explore the combinative skills, organizational knowledge, organizational IQand bring enterprise the sustainable competitive advantage. The competencies hierarchy model is described to clarify the transitory relationship among resources, general capability, core capability and core competence. Finally, the organic relationship of core competence and strategic management is discussed.Chapter 2 mainly discusses the platform establishment and operating framework of core competence. This chapter introduces a viewpoint that an enterprise should cultivate core competence initiatively. Five aspects of core competence, which determine the important factors of competence, include Leading Technology, Procedures Control, Operating Management, Marketing & Service and Corporation Culture. From the viewpoint of strategic management, an operating platform is developed to discover, cultivate, enforce and expand core competence. The base of the platform consists of four supportive factors, that is human resources, knowledge management, technology innovation and corporation culture. The establishment strategies and management principles also are discussed here. Finally, the dynamic operating model is described to show the importance of the consistency of market demands and corporation capability.In Chapter 3, the application of core competence concept is firstly discussed. The eight steps, which are developed to identify core competence, can help the decision-makers of enterprise make strategic decisions. Secondly, a guideline system for core competence evaluation is introduced with reference to IMD world competitiveness report. The evaluation system provides a weighting equation to calculate the scores of core competence. Finally, there are some issues should be paid more attention during the process of evaluation, for example, industrydifference and corporation size difference.In conclusion, core competence theory proposed a new complementary approach to strategic management. And it provides a new angle of view for studying corporation development. It also provides a new conceptual tool for corporation strength evaluation. The decision-maker of enterprise should establish a operating platform for core competence and guide the transformation of core capabilities of corporation initiatively. Some issues remains unsolved till now. For example, the concept of core competence is still not consistent completely, also there is few effective method for the evaluation and observation of core competence. These problems need further investigation and researching. |
