A Literature Review on the Mechanisms of Creating Positional Advantage: Comparison Between Strategic Approaches

In the age of COVID-19, companies are seeking to survive through devolving strategies that can give them new positional advantages in the markets that can sustain their performance. Thus, a firm needs a suitable mechanism to reconfigure a positional advantage. This paper evaluates how different strategic approaches conceptualise positional advantage, the mechanisms through which positional advantages are created, and the sources of positional advantages. The review includes three strategic approaches: the position stream (I/O), the resource-based view (RBV), and the dynamic approach (DC). The comparisons include how different approaches identify positional advantage, the mechanism through which positional advantage is achieved, the source of advantage, and the limitations of approaches. This evaluation provides managers with a basis for formulating (or reformulating) strategies necessary for achieving a competitive position: choosing suitable sources of advantage and suitable approaches to achieve that advantage. Moreover, this paper allows academics to identify knowledge gaps in the theory of positional advantage.