Examination of the Concept of ‘Key Factor for Success’ from A Systems Thinking Perspective

Abstract

As the resources in a company are limited, the company should concentrate on reinforcing some particular aspects of its activities if it wishes to succeed in the industry. One concern of the theories of competitive strategy is to establish a suitable idea for identifying with certainty what aspects should be strengthened. The concept of ‘Key Factor for Success(KFS)’ is an attempt to achieve this, but the concept seems to me to be vague or rough. The aim of this paper is to clarify the problems of the existing description of KFS and try to refine the concept from a systems thinking perspective. The next section will briefly describe the literature and the problems. Then, we discuss supplementary ideas which should be considered. In conclusion, a new description of KFS will be presented.