Abstract:

Companies compete against each other in a complex struggle for customers, capital, and organisational resources. The ultimate objective is to achieve and maintain the coveted status of "industry leader". The basic goal is survival. In this continuous contest, a host of environmental forces interact to influence the competitive outcome - technological innovation, social change, political regulation, economic goals, and financial markets, to name the more prominent. But none of these affects a company's standing more directly than the actions and inactions of competitors - its organisational rivals. Today the competition is getting leaner, hungrier, and tougher. Moreover, an increasing number are powerful, foreign-based firms driven by unusual strategic assumptions and often playing by different rules.