Competitive Advantage as an Outcome of Strategic Intent: A Review of Literature

Abstract

Organizations throughout the world are confronted with issues coming from a high degree of competitiveness and pressure to fulfill strategic objectives in accordance with their mission and vision statements, yet they lack the capacity to reach their full potential over time. The global marketplace is characterized with reduced trade barrier, intensified competition, shortened product life cycle, and deepening industrial segmentation. In this fast-paced business environment, companies fiercely seek to secure core competence to obtain and sustain their competitive advantages. The attribute of strategic intent will help the firm to achieve performance in terms of growth since organizations know themselves and will operate with direction. Strategic intent help in determining resource allocation and competency in an organization, as organizations' resources and capabilities are necessary for a future position. Identifying the desire for the company to succeed and stay ahead of the competition as the primary incentive for strategic thinking is one of the fundamental drivers of strategic intent. Although empirical data supports the existence of performance difficulties in organizations, little efforts have been made to study how the execution of strategy intent influences the competitiveness of organizations. Consequently, the study has systematically reviewed extant literature in the field of strategic intent to develop an encompassing definition of the construct, identify the processes of strategic intent, the perspectives and measures of these perspectives. Ultimately, the review of literature has led to the development of a theoretical and empirical literature that can be used in future empirical studies. This study sought to review the development existing literature to underline the knowledge gaps appropriate to form a basis for future research work. A conceptual model was developed consisting of two constructs: strategic intent and competitive advantage as a guide for future research work in the field of strategic management.