The Relevance of the Sources of Competitive Advantage of a Firm Based on the Knowledge-based School

Abstract

In the paper we discuss the knowledge- based school as one of four approaches to explaining the development of competitive advantage on a firm level. The research based on the sample of 225 Slovenian firms reveals that the firms see the most relevant sources of their competitive advantage in structural capital, tacit knowledge and in imperfect imitability of knowledge. The more relevant knowledge a firm possesses and the better its management is, the greater firm performance and competitiveness is, which means our empirical support of the knowledge-based school on the sources of a firm’s competitive advantage is quite unequivocal. Among the studied sources of competitive advantage performing knowledge management tasks and imperfect imitability of knowledge seem to be the most relevant factors of firm performance and competitiveness. Key words: firm, knowledge, competitive advantage, performance, empirical research