Redefining Competitiveness

Abstract

Talking about competitiveness of firms and the interesting enterprising phenomenon in the twenty-first century, Ma Yuan recently made this statement:¹

In this world nobody is happy, the rich is unhappy while the poor is unhappy. People who have business to do are not happy and people who do not have business to do are not happy either.

The world has greatly changed since 2012, which marked the real internet era. In the 20th century, large sized enterprises were pre-ferred while small, featured firms with value-added are favoured in the 21st century. Thing that was the right might be wrong today if we re-examine it. Are you ready for this changing world?” (Wu, 2013).

In terms of competitiveness study, management scholars have pointed out that people concentrated more on “resources” or “raw material”, referred to as “R”, in the nineteenth century, while they focused more on “energy”, referred to as “E”, in the twentieth century. However, R and E continue to be the major determinants of competitiveness in the twenty-first century. What is competitiveness? Why is competitiveness so important? What are the major concerns of competitiveness in the twenty-first century? What exactly is under-pinning competitiveness? How can a firm become a fully fledged competitor?

The great ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, “Wherever three persons come together, one of them will surely be able to teach me some-thing. I will pick up his good points and emulate them; his bad points I will reform”.

Confucius meant by this that we should always be ready to learn from others. This maxim encapsulates the principle the Chinese people have always followed in their dealing with other peoples, not only on the individual base but also at the level of state-of-state relations.

Despite the ups and downs in the fortunes, the Chinese people have always been idealistic, and have never ceased to forge ahead and learn from others, eager to strengthen ties of peace and friend-ship.